Hello,
Welcome back to Luminous.
Meditation Five.
Meditation is what we are.
Not what we do.
There is something in you that has never been hurt by experience.
There is something present in you now.
That is closer than your own breath.
Closer than your most cherished and intimate feelings.
That is innocent.
Pristine.
At peace.
Fulfill.
Something that has never been tarnished.
Or harmed by experience.
You do not have to earn this.
You do not have to work hard at it.
Discipline your mind.
Focus your attention.
Devote yourself to a teacher.
Subscribe to a Tradition.
Or change your lifestyle.
In order to access it.
All you need do.
Is let go of the content of your experience.
Your thoughts,
Feelings,
Sensations,
And perceptions.
Let all experience flow through you.
But don't allow it to stick to you.
Like birds and clouds that pass through the sky.
Without leaving a trace on it.
Be like the sky.
Open without resistance.
Holding on to nothing.
Seeking nothing.
Relax.
Soften the focus of your attention.
From its content.
Disentangle yourself.
From the drummer of experience.
Come back to yourself.
Not yourself a body.
Or a mind.
Yourself,
The fact of simply being.
Being aware.
Or awareness itself.
Meditation is what you are.
Not what you do.
The separate self or ego.
Is what you do.
Not what you are.
Meditation.
Is simply to be knowingly the inherently peaceful.
And unconditionally fulfilled presence of awareness.
That you always and already are.
We cannot become that.
We can overlook.
Or forget that.
And we can notice.
Or remember it.
When we get undressed at night.
We do not suddenly become our naked body.
We have always been that.
Only it was obscured by the layers of clothing we put on to cover it.
When we take a step back from the drama of experience.
We do not suddenly become our true nature of simply being.
Being aware or awareness itself.
We are always that.
Only it is obscured under layers of experience.
There is nothing you have to do to become your naked being.
You are already that.
Let all doing.
Subside in being.
Be more interested.
In the fact of simply being or being aware.
Than in what you are aware of.
That is where peace and happiness reside.
We cannot make an effort.
To be what we already are.
Any effort must be an effort from ourself towards someone or something outside of ourself.
In other words,
Any effort takes us away from ourself.
It is for this reason.
That Ashtavakra said.
Happiness belongs to that supremely lazy person.
For whom even blinking is too much trouble.
Allow your experience to be exactly as it is.
Without any attempt to change it in any way.
Be aware of yourself simply as the presence of awareness with which all experience is known.
And within which all experience arises.
If you notice yourself lost in thoughts or feelings.
Just to ask yourself the question.
But who is aware of these thoughts and feelings.
I am.
Who is this I?
Just the fact of being.
Being aware or awareness itself.
Come back to yourself.
From the drama of experience.
Instead of following your attention outwards.
Towards thoughts,
Feelings,
Sensations and perceptions.
Trace your attention inwards.
Towards the presence of awareness from which it arises.
Instead of going outwards towards your experience.
Sink inwards into your being.
Take your stand in and as the presence of awareness.
Rather than in thoughts and feelings.
If we allow experience to be as it is.
Experience will allow us to be as we are.
Let your thoughts and feelings live in you.
But don't live in them.
Rest in awareness.
As awareness.
