Heyively Be the knowing.
We speak of meditation practice and that is an aspect of the path.
Training oneself to be mindful,
Developing the skills of balancing the mind,
Learning to make the necessary adjustments both in the mind and in life at large.
But in the end the key is to realize non-practice.
But there's nothing to gain,
Nothing to get rid of.
Because we cannot practice being what we are.
We can only practice being what we are not.
You you you So now just be this ordinary but radiant knowing.
Nothing special yet magical.
Let all the changing conditions just come and go according to their own nature.
Be the knowing in which they all arise and fall.
You you you We might spend our whole life searching for beauty,
Love,
Happiness,
Wisdom,
Safety.
And then at the end of the road we realized that we had all those things already right here inside.
Don't take these words as dogmatic statements to believe in but as suggestions to be verified for yourself.
Fundamental suffering is the pain of not realizing one's true nature.
You you Lotuses usually grow in muddy ponds.
It rises up from the dirty water but the nature of its petals is such that nothing sticks to them.
So even though it's in the muck and of the muck,
It emerges from the muck,
It rises above it leaving the dirt behind,
Standing there pure and beautiful.
This too is our potential.
We are vulnerable human beings in a troubled world filled with all sorts of difficulties.
But all that gives us the opportunity to discover the real wisdom and compassion within that has been veiled by the drama of life.
No mud,
No lotus.
You you you you At first the lotus is closed in the bud.
When the sun shines on it,
Its petals open one after the other.
When we shine the light of awareness and compassion on our own mind,
It too gradually opens.
When the lotus opens its last petal,
It reveals the jewel within it.
Space,
Emptiness,
Purity,
Love,
Light.
So too when our mind opens,
We discovered a jewel within it.
That which just is.
The fourth noble truth in Buddhism is the path of practice that leads to awakening.
This is not a path in the common sense of the word where you start out at one point,
Follow a trail and end up at a different location.
The path of meditation can be called the path to here.
Can you imagine a path to here?
A path to where you are?
It's really simple actually,
But because it's so simple,
So ordinary,
It's difficult to realize.
Imagine someone being at a point in space.
Their teacher tells them that the destination is right where they are.
That's where they'll find true peace.
They look around them but can't see peace anywhere.
It's hard to grasp that something as mundane as here and now can be the ultimate reality and the end of suffering.
So they ask all kinds of questions.
How do I find it?
How do I get there?
Where do I look?
Which direction should I go?
What should I look for?
What should I do?
How many hours should I walk every day?
And so on and so forth.
The teacher tells them that all they have to do is stop.
How do I do that?
Do I need to go to a meditation retreat?
Do I need to become a monk or a nun?
So you see the path of practice is in one sense a no path,
But at another level it is a gradual cultivation of the mind that will enable individuals to realize this simple truth.
The more calm,
Open,
Receptive,
Inquisitive,
Generous,
Trusting and compassionate the mental conditions are,
The easier it is to realize.
And each of us have to work with the conditions we've got.
During my roughly 20 years of practice I sometimes marched with vigor in this or that direction.
Sometimes sat down in resignation without recognizing the rock of peace that I was sitting on.
And after a while got up and continued striving.
My mind wasn't receptive to the truth.
When I finally looked at the moon my teachers had been pointing to in various ways for 20 years,
I was baffled that I had missed it for all that time.
But at the same time understanding why it had to be that way.
Happiness lies not in finding what is missing but in finding what is present.
You you you All along I thought I knew what mindfulness was.
Then I started realizing that I hadn't understood.
Knowing is not something cultivated or created.
It's just like this.
I've had so many teachers in my life,
Most of them I didn't recognize as teachers at the time and most likely neither did they.
When my mind opened all the seeds that had been planted over the air were given a chance to sprout.
You
