Imagined Time

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” - Seneca

Duh! This simple sentiment of the great Stoic philosopher seems like a no-brainer, until we realize how often we experience it. 

Reflect on how psychological suffering (dukkha) usually unfolds. We unconsciously depart ‘what is’ happening by allowing the mind’s myriad of imagined storylines - via the voice-in-the-head - to veil Reality without observing its mischievousness. The imagined time (past or future) highjacks the present moment, marinates in the mind, stirs a stew of discontent (worry, regret, frustration, disappointment, etc.), and boils over into our daily life.

Experience the Reality of Life, right now, has absolutely no suffering.

Forget Yourself

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” - Henry Miller

Do you see life as it really is or as you think it is or think it ought to be? 

This ‘thinking about’ life is not truly living Life or mindfully enjoying the throbbing richness of Life.The world’s treasures can only be directly experienced when you remove your mind’s karmic veiling (comparisons, expectations, preferences, resistance, duality) of the Reality of Life. 

In other words, forget yourself.

Open Mind

“Without freedom, without the open mind, there can be no understanding. Understanding does not come with knowledge.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Recognize the open mind is that which is free of attachments, memory, fixation, identification, and imagination. The open mind is the quiet space of not-knowing any conceptual knowledge of the past or future in the present moment. The open mind is the silent gap of bare Awareness between, behind, and beyond the mentations (thoughts and perceptions) of the busy mind - also known in Zen as the Original Mind.

My dharma on Sangha Sunday will delve deeper into this beautiful experience of Understanding and its mystical relevancy in our daily life.

Experience

“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.” - Leonardo da Vinci

I often repeat that only your experience is the true test of Reality - the inherent Wisdom of your impersonal Divine Self. Neither my words, nor the teachings of sages and saints, and most definitely, not the opinions of others are true in and of themselves. They are all just temporal terms, words, and symbols. However, they may have the sacred power to evoke the referent within you to which they point.

Obviously, you can become more intelligent (conceptual understanding) by listening, reading, and questioning new knowledge. Wisdom, on the other hand, is only revealed via your experiential Understanding of the proffered knowledge.

A good example is the difference between the concept of “I am” to the intimate experiencing of “I am” (aware Presence).

Wild and Precious Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

I would surmise you have occasionally realized that your life was (is) precious. However, how about wild? Or is (was) the thought of a wild life too far removed from your demure lifestyle to be even remotely considered?

As you have probably experienced, this spiritual pathless path of ours is one wild, courageous, and adventurous undertaking with a huge sense of uncertainty. And I would suggest that what you plan to do with it, simply leave to the Doer.

Celebrate

“Life should not only be lived, it should be celebrated.” - Osho

I have mentioned that our Life’s ultimate purpose is to recognize and consciously live Life as an expression of our Divine essence of joyful peace and plentitude, and to celebrate this realization in our own unique ways.

This Sunday, Meditation Hill Sangha turns seven years old. And as we step into our eighth year together - as one loving Being - let us celebrate the pings of the pathless path’s past that has permitted more illumination of our eternal Now.

Hidden Treasure

“There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy’s life when he has a raging urge to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” - Mark Twain

I am pretty sure the boy in me never truly stopped digging for the hidden treasure.

Until …

There comes a time when Grace lovingly cracks you upside the skull with the timeworn shovel (ping) and stops you on the meandering path to what you believe is the ultimate destination of somewhere. And instantly provides you with an alternative treasure map where the red ‘X marks the spot’ represents right here, right now!

Be open and available for the spiritual urge to dig within yourself to ultimately reveal the Divine’s hidden treasure of unconditional peace and plentitude.

Empty the Backpack

“The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.” - Meister Eckhart

This teaching by the 14th century Christian mystic is similar to the credo 20 centuries earlier by Taoist master Lao Tzu: “To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”

Recognize that a Truth is eternally true irrespective of the wisdom tradition, the timeframe, or the words employed to evoke the ultimate experience.

Regarding the luminous realization and establishment in the true Soul or pure Wisdom (Self, I am, Awareness, Divine) as our ultimate ever-present experience, I tend to use the pointers of excavation (subtraction, remove) rather than accumulation (addition, add) of conceptual knowledge - such as beliefs, concepts, theories, opinions. In short, empty the backpack!

Refusal to Harbor Thoughts

“All the endless arguments about the mind are produced by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and expansion. It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it.” - Nisargadatta Maharaj

This powerful pointer to Reality reminded me of my PC Reflection from two years ago when I shared my favorite teaching by Nisargadatta: “There is only one meditation - the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts.”

Recognize that the Indian guru’s steadfast refusal to consider or to harbor the mind’s manic machinations is our ever-present sadhana (practice). In short, observe without clinging.

Heaven & Hell

“Don’t search for heaven and hell in the future. Both are now present. Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell.” - Shams Tabrizi

Irrespective of whether you believe in the concept of heaven and hell in the future, where do you presently choose to exist - in heavenly joyful peace or hellish misery?

Why search for a future reward or fear a future punishment when you can bypass the mind and presently welcome the universal gift of Divine Love?

Rumi’s companion is suggesting that heaven is the direct experience of being and sharing unconditional love. I suggest we hang out here with Shams.

Observe Your Mind

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung

In my direct experience, the root of all suffering (dukkha) is the belief and feeling that you are a separate and limited body-mind, which I admit is a difficult concept to deny or let go.

So I suggest a pedagogical step to experiencing less dukkha - and the ultimate realization of your unlimited true nature (Self/I am) - by observing your mind. Not changing, controlling, or calming the mind, just observing its incessant chattering that arises from seemingly nowhere. Because until you make the voice-in-the-head something other than you or yours, it will unconsciously direct your human life’s beliefs, feelings, actions, and reactions. In other words, it will determine your fate.

Opinion

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own!” - Marcus Aurelius

In my personal experience, I am not confident about the philosopher king’s love phrase, but I am absolutely certain that I was a poster child for the opinion portion of his insight.

The transformational change occurred when I first realized that the voice-in-the-head was not me or mine. And therefore, if I don’t care what my egoic separate self’s opinion is, then why the hell would I care about what anyone else’s voice-in-the-head is spewing?

I am not implying to avoid listening or observing the opinions of others, just do not be attached to their views and beliefs as the absolute Truth.

My Totality

“It can never be an object of your observation because it is your totality.” - Jean Kline

You might wonder: What is my totality?

Investigate and see for yourself what in Reality is the totality of your Self.

Here are several reflective questions: Is your Self - that which you refer to as “I” - a temporary, limited object like an internal thought or external sense perception? Is your Self something (object) that you can observe in time and space like a body-mind? How does your direct experience of Love or Understanding unfold in an object-based Self?

Attention

“If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart.” - Pema Chodron

Ask yourself: How is it the blame I project onto the person, situation, or experience that I believe to be the cause of my suffering garner more attention than from where the psychological pain (dukkha) is presently and really arising?

Recognize that nothing can cause you dukkha without your permission. Where you readily focus your attention becomes the apparent reality of your present moment experience. And unfortunately, it tends to be much easier - due to conditioned karmic energy - to place your attention on anything other than yourself.

Single Purpose

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.” - Yamamoto Tsunetomo

One of the major themes of our Meditation Hill Sangha is the beauty, majesty, and Divinity of the moment after moment. However, we easily forget the indisputable Truth that Life only exists in the imperturbable present moment, and instead we temporarily enjoy delving into memories of the past or expectations of the future. Not such a bad thing if our mind’s meanderings did not also enhance the risk of psychological suffering (dukkha).

Follow the advice of the famous 17th century samurai/Buddhist monk and live your Life being true to the single purpose of the moment - experiencing joyful peace (ananda).

Version of Yourself

“The only person coming to save you is the version of yourself that’s tired of your current situation.” - Claire Elizabeth Black

You might be asking yourself: “What version of yourself is this referring to?”

I suggest the body-mind version who has finally tired of the self-induced psychological suffering (dukkha); and chooses to either surrender to a Higher Power (Bhakti yoga) or deeply investigate the source of the suffering self (Jnana yoga). In other words, an egoic separate self that transcends into an open, available, and allowable presence for its true Self (Awareness/I am) to shine a little light and love on the current situation.

This true version of your Self is ever-present, imperturbable, welcoming, and never tires of the present situation, because it has manifested your current situation. 

Divine Intervention

“Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” - John Flavel

You may have witnessed sorrowful situations when the difficulties seem too hard to bear, or the fragrance of desperation pervades the air, or death’s doorstep is beyond medical care, and suddenly, there is the mystical appearance of Divine intervention.

There is no answer to the “why” question. The nature of our finite mind is incapable of understanding the love of the infinite mind of God.

Sometimes life requires our feeling the fringe or extreme of our existence before we totally surrender all of our conditioned thoughts, feelings, and behavior patterns, thus allowing an opportunity for God to do Her magic - to awaken the peace that passeth all understanding.  

Quiet Observation

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal

In other words, our problems stem from the inability to simply allow the desires, distresses, doubts and delusions of the voice-in-the-head to do their dance and effortlessly let them go.

Instead of sitting (standing, walking, doing) and quietly observing, most people tend to attach to or identify with the mind’s machinations and then actively seek distractions and diversions from their bogus distressing thought patterns; thereby resulting in the problematic possibility of generating drama, disharmony, and  deficient decision making. Sound familiar?

The first spiritual secret to strengthening the ability to sit quietly is to deeply recognize that the mental noise is not you, not true, and allow it to flow through.

Prayer

“Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” - Bruce Lee

This atypical advice from my karate hero, who was the inspiration for my delving deeply into the martial arts many full moons ago (’73), reminded me of the prayer chanted by the sage Kunti from the ancient Hindu epic, the Mahabharata: “O Lord of the Universe, let those calamities happen to us again and again so that we can see You again and again; for seeing You means we will never see the cycle of birth and death again.”

While Bruce Lee wisely suggested praying for strength to better manage the surefire struggles of our human experience, the sage Kunti kicked it up a notch and explicitly prayed for the reoccurrence of difficult and calamitous situations to avoid becoming negligent or complacent in her daily adoration to the Divine.

Enlightenment

Student: “How do I become enlightened?

Master: “Drop the ‘become’ then that’s a good start.”

Realize that enlightenment is not an expanded state of mind, an exotic experience or a mystical event waiting to occur in a future moment. It is the recognition of the true nature of our infinite Self available only in the present moment. Now!

As long as you believe you will become what you already are, then this becoming becomes a never-ending obstacle. To become is to presume it is presently absent with an ensuing desire to seek or strive along some time-bound path to eventually realize its illumination. Good luck!

Drop the ‘become’ and just Be.