If we think, then we are not in the moment, and each moment is all that is. So if i am thinking i missed it all. Im not playing devils advocate here either. Just thinking, and maybe thats my problem lol
A typical problem for any forum user - hard to get around really. Posting a stream of consciousness could help, but generally, we all have this problem if we wish to engage one another. Sometimes it seems in order to go further one would have to let go of that which thinks entirely so to speak. Might explain why some end up living alone on the mountain top. But for the rest of us, without regular solitude and silence, and not switching from external thought revelations to internal thought chatter, we experience more and more the thoughtless state. Without thought there is only what is happening, not what we think what is happening. It's amazing what is there, what can be seen, felt, realised, when the mind has stepped back. When the self, the ego, the story, is not. What is left in such a moment? I am.
Process: Take the Time Create the Space Invite the Energy - for it Matters These are the building blocks 4 Consciousness 2 Experience 1'ness ________________________________ Here's another poem from my series of meditations on Enlightenment. In particular, this one emphasizes the importance of processing through our issues, the experiences we have, and the practices we work with. In the Lam Rim traditions one important facet of practice is to recall/recollect the energy, insights, and experiences of our meditations and rituals. By doing this we, in a very real way, condition ourselves to have these experiences more and more in our daily lives. Those peak moments, while not as intense, do arise in my experience when we consciously invite them into our lives. We only need to give time for it, open the space, invite the energy, and experience matters as they are right here and now. Harder said than done. But that is the point of recollecting. We are literally trying to re-invite the energy into the daily grind of our lives. Doesn't that sound nice? I personally like the idea of the mundane blah moments of life to sparkle and shine. The idea of finding tranquility and insight even in those moments of pain and loss sounds much better than wallowing and suffering through 'em. Experiencing the depth and connection in life is a lot more appealing than walking around lost and separate. Anyhow, enough of my preaching. Just thought I would share a cool little poem... Be Blessed Everyone Suba
I do to. Circumstances don't matter - only state of being does. With that in mind, nothing should mess with our tranquility. The trick is not to let it. Easier said than done.
[SIZE=medium]I have been compiling my pithy poems and sayings from my 8 day meditation on Enlightenment, and after organizing them into groups, i found myself with many more questions. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]For the next five days i will be talking about some of those questions. I would be grateful for any thoughts regarding these questions as i genuinely do seek Enlightenment and any help or different perspective you can offer is appreciated. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]One question i had was what leads us towards searching?[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]What stone,[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]What pebble [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Stubbed our toe[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Shifting, [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]But for a second -[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]The direction we go?[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]I look back at my life and see many different moments that could have led down a completely different road than the one i am on. While there were many defining moments in my life, one that stands out is when i was locked up in Ventura Schools Youth Authority.[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]During this time of incarceration i had two cellmates that not only directed me towards the magical wonders of life, but also pointed me to the road which brought me here. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Leading up to this i consumed an unimaginable amount of drugs, LSD, and anything else that would shift my thinking, creating the mental and emotional conditions for my cellmates to impact me. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]As i look back into my history i remember the peak moments, not the factors leading up to them. It's those factors we seek to remember in order to invite more peak moments into our lives – moments of clarity, great joy, and understanding. We have all had those moments of complete awareness, a taste of oneness, we just need to recall them, see into their essence, and then invite them to arise as often as possible – continuously even [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]That would be awesome! [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]What things do you feel trigger our search for Enlightenment?[/SIZE]
My second meditation focused on the obstacles we face. Obstacles can be anything from the very mundane to the highest spiritual aspirations. One of my many obstacles is waiting: waiting to reach a goal to finish a book find the right person the right moment get the best tools the best practices – right practice and so on... The right moment being the most insidious. Don't get me wrong, i practice a lot. Even on the worst day i still study an hour or two and meditate at least once. It's not practice necessarily, but this weird underlining resistance towards fully committing myself because i am waiting for the right conditions/moment to arise. It use to be an undisturbed three year stretch to study and solidify my work. Then it was just one year. Now I just want enough stability and security so that i can practice without anxiety of financial troubles. To have some consistency. Another aspect of waiting is to be ready. I am just not ready to wake up. I am waiting to be ready. Is that weird? I am not waiting to wake up, i am waiting to be ready to wake up. That is a strange aspect of my personality. Like telling children they have five minutes left to play, i prepare myself for change by setting in my mind that change is coming. I like the idea that on December 18<sup>th</sup>, 2015 I will Wake Up! That would be cool. I remember the first time i heard someone say, "My baby will be born on this day." "What do you mean" i asked, "is that around the time the baby is likely to be born?" "No" they respond, "I am having a cesarean. My baby will be born at 11:34 AM." Anyhow, recognizing that i am waiting has helped me to let go and be open to what is. The underlining resistance, while not gone, has definitely soften.
Waiting is an interesting state to be in. It is a state of future, that what is here, now, is not enough. So to wait seems to me to miss the point, for if we're always looking over there, keeping a look out for it to arrive, we never notice that perhaps it already did. As you say, realising you are waiting lets you let go of the need to wait, and of course, what you were waiting for may still not be here now you have, but you are less likely to miss it arriving.
Thanks Esseff, It is definitely an interesting state. Having read your post i decided to give another night to focus on this issue, this obstacle that swims ahead of the current: reaching and grasping, all the while, waiting, waiting for that thing we mentally hold onto to come so that we can finally be with the flow. I can see it in my own practice. The moment is just never good enough, never right. Something is missing, some key ingredient that will make everything perfect. I know that the practice is right now, but i wait for it to be the right time, place, space, moment to practice. It is as if i am setting the intention rather than fulfilling it. I am so busy setting intentions i forget to implement them, to practice. Of course, i am practicing. But at the same time, i allow a lot of distractions, a lot of things to eat away at my practice. For the longest time i have told the Universe that i want six to eight hours a day to practice, the same amount of time to be with family and friends, and the rest for rest and replenishment. I am waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Only, just yesterday i calculated out everything – i have exactly what i sought for. At least right now. And still, i am waiting. It is not good enough. It is only for a moment. I am just not utilizing it right. And so on... Waiting. Waiting. Waiting to Wake Up. I wonder what that is like?
To wake up, to no longer be waiting? Your desire to control every aspect to such detail is what stops you. Of course we need to be disciplined, to practice, to make what becomes important more and more relevant, and at first this feels exactly what needs to be, and it is. The routine is all, and we need it to make progress lest we slip back into the undisciplined and wander aimlessly. We make progress because of our intention. These are all aspects of the path. Yet, when we have done this a while, have travelled a way down the road, it has become a habit, it has become what you decide your life to be, and even though you say, everything seems as if it is exactly as it ought to be, just as you have imagined it, all in place, and yet . . . . it is still not it. You are still in the future. Your idea of what IT is gets in the way of it. Your need to control, to expect, to make it what you have decided it needs to be, which was once true, but no longer is. The need to be in control is the thing you must release. It is your own mental aspect that makes YOU define how it should go rather than allow it to take you where it needs you to go.
People want to want more than they want to have...it's a habit of the ego. Realize that you already are what you desire (enlightenment/self-realization) and that there's nothing to attain (from awareness's point of view). You are the attention or the seeing of objects arising in your field of vision (same goes with all senses). Your attention usually goes onto the object your recognizing, however, instead of focusing so intently on the objects arising, put more attention on what's noticing them or giving light/rise to them. ...this might help a bit to nudge you in the right direction. As Esself has so eloquently said, we must get dual to explain what is non-dual or else nothing would ever be said. "Light and shade, long and short, black and white, can only be experienced in relation to each other; light is not independent of shade, nor black of white. There are no opposites, only relationships." –from The Lankavatara Sutra
^ I like that last bit of the Sutra you quoted - There are no opposites, only relationships. Everything is relationship; working in harmony, dancing together, nothing stands alone. We need relationships that work for us, and just because they once seemed to work, doesn't mean they will always do so the same way. I cannot know how anyone practices, each path is unique and tailored to what feels right. Yet I do see how, like a religion, the routine, rites and rituals, once important to create the state of mind, can become the very things that keep us where we are . . . waiting. Waiting for more or being as you are? Is it good enough as it is? What if this is all there is? Can you accept that?
[SIZE=medium]Some Signs of Enlightenment[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Knowing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Flowing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]Growing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]There's a sense of knowing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]themselves[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]others[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]reality[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]There's a sense of flowing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]seamless movement[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]still[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]powerful[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]eternal[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]empty, yet whole[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]There's a sense of growing[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]for everything around them [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]breathes[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]expands[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]comes into focus[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]widens[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]deepens[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]rises[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]opens...[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]________________________[/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]This comes from a group of poems/sayings investigating the different signs, characteristics, traits, and qualities of an Enlightened person. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]I hear and read time and time again that there are no qualifiers for Enlightenment, that we cannot say what it is, or for that matter, even ascribe qualities and states to it because to do so only takes us away from it. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]At the same time, there does seem to be a lot of finger pointing. It is not this or that. It can't be spoken of, and yet, why do so many great teachers give thought and words to it. Why are there so many similarities between their stories, experiences, and embodied qualities. [/SIZE] [SIZE=medium]I do not pretend to know what Enlightenment is, nor do pretend to know what giving birth is like, being a man and all, but i am trying to understand, to open myself to these many qualities, that if not a manifestation of Enlightenment proper, they at least invite more peace, understanding, wisdom, joy and other such things into my life: and i do want these blessed things. If the desire for these things shows me to be a fool, that is okay with me. At the very least i know what i truly want...[/SIZE]
I write in notebooks, all my thoughts understandings problems excuses successes and failures et cetera… I had a thought an idea - insight into the nature of being. "I need to record this," crosses the mind's screen of consciousness. Looking for a pen – none to be seen. "I gotta capture this." I get up, stumble to the kitchen, and get 1. Going back to capture the moment, much like a photographer, only so very much more. On the journey back my little girl needs her hair combed. I get the comb, call her over. We brush talk share and open to each-other: The Moment is Won/One. I get back sit down open the book – and there B a Pen/Pin. Pulling it out, the moment/tapestry unravels. I Laugh ______________________________________ This is a spontaneous poem arising from/within the moment...
For the last three days I have been meditating on Sri Ramana's 40 Verses on Reality and the following is one of the poems that arose from those meditations: I guess the real question is not, "Are we these bodies." The Real QUEST-I-ON is, "What R we not?" for what would consciousness be without substance and essence? if space time matter and energy did not exist - would consciousness? what would even trigger its knowing - its being?
I enjoyed reading this . I feel enlightenment is always a wanted feeling and experience my last time having it I was in deep meditation with soothing sounds around me and I slowly drifted to sleep in this positive vibe I felt all over my body just tingles and good vibes . *Follow your heart , load the bong , spread the joy because life is short . Don't judge just love*
Blessings Everyone, I'm unplugging from social media for a while. Before going I wanted to thank everyone in this forum for the opportunity I've had to share, learn, grow, and get to know some of you. My life has been chaotic lately, so I have decided to go inside myself for a while to find some ground. If you're interested in what I'm working on, please feel free to visit my diary page on my website. You can get there via my profile page. Thanks again. May wealth, health, happiness, longevity, and wisdom arise within your lives. Be Blessed, suba
Ive Been Enlightened when i was in a Mental Hospital...all the whole world was covered in Gold..and inside the Secret Seal I Met the Buddha..He told me about my 8Fold Wisdom..and that the Heredities of our Genes..are the very Makers of Our Karma..then I was Filled up in the Belly with Eggs...and went of to die..in my bedroom..
Everyone is already enlightened, they're just not paying close enough attention. It's simple, you are the verb-ing which gives rise to all nouns. Thoughts don't think themselves into existence, they need your conscious knowing to be realized. You are the intimate conscious knowing of your existence, all of it. The constant "is"-ness. "Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen appear only when there is seeing. They are attributes of seeing. When you say "I am seeing this", "I am" and "this" come with the seeing, nor before. You cannot have an unseen "this" nor an unseeing "I am". Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and loving. The knower and the known are added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is none."-Nisargadatta Maharaj