Morning Meditation
 
Thoughts barking brazenly in consciousness transform suddenly into the cawing of crows outside the window.  Then circle back again into cawing thoughts,
signifying nothing.

I'm reading a book on the Heart Sutra called An Arrow to the Heart by Ken McLeod.

It's a treasure of a book, full of little gems like these, each one helping me to find new perspective...or to find NO perspective.

You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.

Leonard Cohen, A Thousand Kisses Deep

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And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated.  And why not?  Subhuti, a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a being cannot be called a "bodhisattva". 

Buddha, The Diamond Sutra

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"I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe--if there is one--for granted...I only decide about my Universe...My Universe is my eyes and ears.  Anything else is hearsay."

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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"Everything that comes together ends by falling apart.  Work out your own freedom."

(according to tradition, the Buddha's last words.)

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Forget about looking
That's just how you keep your distance.

To see
You have to
Step into the jaws of experience.

Chew and be chewed,
Until nothing is left.

Ken McLeod, An Arrow to the Heart

Truths that I Know:

Nothing is Necessary (so do what you love)

Everything naturally moves towards resolution when you abide in the Self. (striving is never necessary unless you enjoy it.)

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What is it that I hope to obtain from whatever it is I think I want? (firm body, skillfull action, no waste, full appreciation, mergence, sex, acknowledgment from the world, health, money, whatever?)  What is always wanted is that feeling of fulfillment, satisfaction, happiness, brilliancy, glow. That can come in any moment!  Just by Abiding in the Self, that can come now, and now, and now! I already have access to that state of being...why reach outside of self to "get it" after something happens...like, after I get the acknowlegdment, then I'll be happy--when I can just be happy already.  Already fulfilled.  Already complete.  Already whole!  It's just a game to do it the other way...wholeness already is.  And the rest is just the game, just the experiences--Lila (God playing games), the display of Rigpa. It is not necessary to go anywhere or do anything to have that wholeness.   If that's what you are really wanting (when you say you want those other things), why not just be in that wholeness right now?  

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My Ramana quote for this day was:
Maharshi: Yes.  Practice is necessary too.  Practice means removal of predispositions.  Practice is not for fresh gain; it is to kill the predispositions.
D. Abhyasa (practice) should give me that power.
M. Practice is power.  If thoughts are reduced to a single thought, the mind is said to have grown strong.  When practice remains unshaken, it becomes sahaja (natural.)
D. What is such practice?
M. Inquiring into the self.  That is all.  Atmanyeva vasam nayet...fix the mind on the Self.
p. 209, Talks with Ramana Maharshi

(julie says...Fix the mind on the Self and all goodness naturally unfolds from that.  The only practice is to perfect the awareness of the Self in each now.  The Self untangles all the knots and removes all obstacles and fulfills all wishes in Time.)

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Actually, with this sort of Awareness, with mind firmly in the Self--as well as everything being set straight...all sorts of interesting and new experiences begin coming around.  It doesn't happen all at once.  It happens "in Time", in Timing.  Loving encounters with friends and family and world are much more likely to happen in this "space"--because Love is our natural state of being. 

Fresh Awareness, every New, ever Now.

The truth that I'm currently exploring over and over again is that nothing external brings happiness...happiness comes from inside and is a state of being.  I'm not pointing this AT you, just sharing about my current expressions.  Time after time when I get what I thought I wanted, it's no big deal!  It's the inner state that matters and nothing feels better than that.  If I won the lottery today, I wouldn't feel better than I have already been feeling...In fact I know that I would probably feel a little worse.  Because winning the lottery would be stressful for me.  It's not an expression of my genuine self.
Sure, I had a nice time in my voice class 2 days ago.  I had a fabulous experience.  And it felt absolutely normal and no different than the best state of being that I have already experienced many many times in meditation and contemplation.  The only difference is that others were showering me with praise (and that doesn't happen in meditation.)  But, even the praise didn't feel any better than the state of being that I was already in. 
So, that's my current lesson.  No matter how wonderful something sounds, it's really the inner state of being that matters to me. 

What is the best feeling you ever experienced?  Can you describe it?
I would love to hear about it.  I might describe some of mine in the comments of this post.

There is no way to happiness.  Happiness is the way. (That might be the name of a book or a famous quote...don't know...)
There is no way to peace.  Peace is the way.
There is no way to abundance.  Abundance NOW is the way.  (notice all of the abundance in life NOW.)
You already know everything you need to know.  There is nothing to get.  Nowhere to go.

BuddhaMind is in this very moment now and never anywhere else.

I attended Hannibal Means' "Sing Open Your Heart" workshop last night.  There were eight participants in the class.  The teacher, Hannibal Means, is a Viennese opera singer and voice teacher.  I was initially attracted to Hannibal when I heard him perform at the Crimson Circle meeting on Saturday.  Here was this big guy dressed in colorful African garb, with a jewel in the center of his forehead.  His eyes spoke volumes...I could not get over how much his eyes expressed constantly!  (Last night I told him that his eyes are like jewels in his face.)  There is a constant sparkle and a constant energy projection through them.  His singing voice evoked deep emotion in me.  So, when I heard he was giving a workshop, I wanted to go.  I had never had a voice lesson or even been attracted to going to a singing workshop until that moment.
 
At the beginning of the workshop Hannibal asked each of us what we wanted from the workshop.  I said that I wanted to have fun and wanted to discover something new and passionate about my voice.  Hannibal looked at me and said "You are filled with rage.  When was the last time that you expressed rage?"  I was somewhat mystified by this, but stayed open to anything that might happen in the workshop.  I was currently feeling nervous and shy about being in a group of people I didn't know, and not knowing what might happen later. This was an opportunity to apply my meditation practice to a new and unknown experience.  Here I am, required to sing out in front of a group--something I have never done before--and I could sound really bad too, and I could even express rage or cry or feel tense and closed...but I had already told myself going into it that I would accept whatever came.  I would allow myself to be however I was going to be and just be the observer of that.  I would have no expectations about my performance.  For sure--energy would move in me.  If nothing else came of it--I would discover myself in this new situation.
 
In the beginning of class Hannibal spoke of his own rage as a teenager.  He said that he was so angry that so many people were lying with their voices, that he stopped speaking for a few years and only spoke with his eyes.  He spoke with his eyes and he played his flute.  Aha! That's why so much energy is pouring through his eyes!  Later I shared with him and the group that I want to do that also--express through my eyes with that intensity.
 
So,first  we began the breathing exercises.  The main thing that I learned is to "Sing from Jerusalem" or "sing from your pussy" as he also described it.  Hannibal quoted Caruso as saying that when he sang, he could hold a dime in his butt cheeks.  This is the correct way to pump the energy up from the lower body and out through the voice--on the outbreath, contracting the pelvic muscles.  I practiced this all evening.

Then we began singing tones and tunes and numbers, one at a time. A different note for each number.  At this point I was feeling nervous and a little anxious, and I remembered my meditation practice of opening to the emptiness/Awareness in the very NOW moment, which immediately helped.   I sensed the tension and nervousness in my body as a solid energy overlay, but as soon as I went into the Now, that solid energy broke up into little chunks like rocks that were permeating my energy field.  Okay...rocks of unexamined material...but I accepted myself where I was, rocks and all.  I allowed my awareness to fill the whole space of the room and I stayed in the now moment when it wasn't my turn to sing...not focusing on how the others might perceive me when it was my turn.  So, when it WAS my turn each time, I just sang out without regard for anything not pertinent to the singing.  My voice cracked but I didn't care.  I sang loudly and let my body feel natural and do what it wanted to do.  I was so much "the singing" that I really don't know how I sounded but it sure felt great!  I was the singing...not the singer, not the "product" of the song, but The Singing.
 
Hannibal began an exercise in which we each were required to sing Silent Night with the expression of Rage.  As I sat listening to the others in the group, my energy body was activated--I felt little explosions, vibrations, and pulsations moving through my whole body.  Instead of focusing on my own upcoming turn and what I would do, how I would perform, I again tuned in to the Now, into the Silent empty openness of the Self, and allowed my awareness to fill the whole room (and not focus exclusively on the person who was currently singing and projecting rageful emotions, or stuckness, or whatever they were feeling.)  I wondered how I might muster up some of my own rage, but immediately it came to me.  The feeling of being a Jewish mother and having my children ripped away from me in the concentration camps...the FEELING of being having my babies stomped on the ground by soldiers and being driven from my home (as a Native American).  Rage came easily and when it was my turn to sing, my fists were clenching and my feet were stomping those soldiers into the ground, my face expressing the hatred that I felt, and my voice automatically singing Silent Night.  I can't even remember it now--I was so intensely in the expression of that moment.  Mind was elsewhere.  When I was done, Hannibal said "That is your power! I Am That I Am!"  He also said something else about me singing the song of the dolphins and the whales.  (He had instructed me to sing in a high voice in the beginning--something I have never done, bringing my voice higher and higher to the highest notes...)  And I vaguely remember doing that.  Later in the workshop he helped me to do it again by saying "Sing to the stars!" and I just sort of began experimenting with my voice, loudly and with really high notes.  The feedback from the Hannibal and Jean (a participant) after I sang again, is that these really high and pure tones were the song of the stars, the sounds of the dolphins and whales, and tones that evoke higher consciousness, pure consciousness, "I Am."  I was amazed by this feedback because I had been so much "the singing" that I hadn't really heard myself until I was told what I did.  Still, it didn't feel amazing to me.  It felt like Being natural in the moment that I was doing it.  Ah, so that's what natural action always feels like.  Just that.  No pretense, no trying, no performance. Just Being in the moment however that moment is going to come out and however I'm going to be within it.

The last piece that I'll share is that we had each chosen a power animal for the evening--just picking the first animal that came into our awareness.  Everyone else had a predator--hawks and eagles and bears and raven.  I had a deer.  When I told Hannibal my animal at the end, he sang "Home on the Range" to me, emphasizing the deer and the antelope playing...key word being play.  He later said that my natural expression is innocence and purity and play.  (He saw this in me as I hadn't said any of this to him.  How could he know?  And yet he DID know.)
 
All in all, I'm very content and happy that I allowed myself to take the risk of showing up at that workshop, and also just Being me however I was going to be in that situation.  I discovered something new about my voice (the dolphin sounds), I had a lot of fun, and I felt "seen" for who I am by Hannibal and others in the group...and I experienced the power of Presence/Awareness in the Now moment to deepen my experience of physical expressions like singing...Being the singing, being the action.   Instead of expressing the Power of Self-Awareness in the Now only while sitting in meditation, it now begins to express it's aliveness in Action.

Lying in bed this morning, somewhat aware of body lying in bed, sun shining through window, fresh morning air permeating the space.

Aware of "Just This" as the Ultimate Self.

Aware of the Glow of the interaction as Consciousness moves back and forth In Between forms such as body, room, and air and the Clarity of  bright empty lucid Awareness.

The Holy Trinity of Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
The Sacred Trinity of the Nirmanakaya, Dharmakaya, and Sambhogakaya.

As Lama Surya Das put it:

"Awareness is the Subject.
Awareness is the Object.
and
Awareness is the Interaction."

The All is in One.  The One is in All.

Question all that you know and all that you think you know! In this way, you will free yourself from the mass dream known as "The Real World".

Excerpt From Buddhahood Without Meditation
A Visionary Account Known as Refining One's Own Perception
by Dudjom Lingpa
p. 41

Having come to such a definitive conclusion, I understood all sensory appearances to be empty in their own context. Yet regarding the sensory appearances of the outer world as a container, the animate beings contained therein, and the objects manifesting in between as the five kinds of sensory stimuli, I was still thinking in terms of these being left behind when one departs to another realm, and of all beings actually existing, each with an individual mindstream.


In actuality there is no cat sitting here cleaning it's paws...that is merely the label given to the sensory appearances of light and darkness in space, movement, and sound. All "things" are merely labeled sensory appearances, sensory phenomena with a labeled perceiver and perceived thing. All perceived things are created from labels and definitions, with a projected (imagined) past and future. Observing this perceived (labeled) cat in this instant...WHERE is the past? How do you know that this "cat", this perception of darkness, a colored shape in empty space, is an object that existed even one moment ago? All there is is this NOW, this silence, this appearance of a shape in space NOW. Any "cat" that existed in a past or will exist in the future is completely imagined. If it is otherwise, WHERE is that past in your perception right now? Where is that Future? Point to it! There is only this naked sensory perception in this now instant. The whole story of a universe in which things exist is really only imagined...as there are ONLY sensory appearances appearing freshly in this very NOW.
The perception of an outer world as a container which contains this body, this "I", is completely created by labels, definitions, and an identification with sensory appearances. If there is a world, point to it now! It doesn't exist except in imagined constructs!
Here is the appearance of a being that I call my daughter sitting in front of a being that I label as myself. There is a definition in operation, a label that this "daughter" is an individual with her own mindstream. Point to that mindstream! Is that perceivable? There is the sensation of sight--colorations in a background of space. If I'm not actually perceiving a solid pressure from touching that...how do "I" know that it is even solid? That is also a labeled assumption! If there is the perception of "daughter speaking"...in actuality there is only sound with a background of silence. All perceived meanings coming from those sounds are definitions filled in by imagination (a memory) from past with a projection into the future. Otherwise, to observe the actual perception of this now, all of the sound is only pure sound exploding into a background of silence, meaningless, empty of meaning on it's own side. These sensory appearances exist in this moment and no other--all past and future moments are only imagined and labeled to be real. If that is not so, please point to them!

In a dream during this period, I met with my guru Longchenpa Drimed Odzer, who instructed me with a direct introduction in the form of questions and answers.
He said, "Ah, son of spiritual heritage, when you go to sleep, the outer sensory appearances of the inanimate universe as a container, the animate beings contained therein, and the objects manifesting in between as the five kinds of sensory stimuli dissolve into the space of the unconscious blankness of the ground of all ordinary experience, just like the artifices of a magical illusion collapsing in basic space. Eventually, through the creative force of the subtle energy of karma stirring, the sense of a self and the sensory appearance of a body manifest. A dream state--an entire sensory universe--unfolds from this manifestation. Confusion occurs through overt fixation on this. Finally, that world of appearances and possibilities dissolves into the unconscious blankness of the ground of all ordinary experience, like a rainbow fading into the sky, and the sensory appearances of waking consciousness unfold as before." p. 41, BWM

What is sleep? Can anyone prove that anything exists when one is asleep? What is the actual sensory perception during sleep? All dissolves into an unconscious blankness. If there is dreaming--what can be perceived of that? Merely sensory appearances! And what is the difference between so-called waking and so-called dreaming?

What is "karma"? It is nothing but the playing out of attachments to thoughtforms, identifications, labels! Attachment to thought-forms, labels, and definitions drive the whole apparent world, the world as you know it. If you do not think this is true, remove all labels for a day and just see if there is anything to be done. Remove all of the imagined past and future and what is left to do? What is left? All that is left are merely sensory appearances arising and subsiding in space. The five sensory appearances of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Even everything that is known about this body is also merely sensory appearance arising and subsiding in space.

To see this directly is immediate freedom from the illusion of what is labeled as "The World" and all that happens within that World. In actuality, nothing ever happened but that it was dreamed to be so and labeled to be so. This can be seen right now in this instant. This is Freedom.

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday and we discussed how motivations have seemed to disappear and the question came up "What's the point of being here after we discover that it's all created by mind...all being created by mind as a dream reality?"

I want to share this one thing with her now...after that discovery that mind/thought is creating it all (the discovery which comes from Presence), a NEW dimension of experience opens up. One way to describe it is a deepening of feeling...a deepening of love, appreciation and joy. Previously I seemed to be a separate self that was motivated to do things in order to have what I wanted...and I thought that I gave and received with and to "others". Now I know this isn't true anymore--I do not give or receive with others...yet there is a deepening sense of love, awareness, and appreciation of these exact same people. This began growing the moment that my attention shifted from the separate self and into the One Self. Suddenly the same physical imagery took on a very different meaning. That "person over there" suddenly is not separate from me any longer...but instead is my rich experience. The depth of appreciation for what I previously took for granted has been growing. I see beauty and depth anywhere and everywhere that I look.

I wonder if everyone who makes the inner shift into Presence/Awareness has the same sort of experience?

I have read and heard from others who have discovered the Nondual Self. Some of them say that it doesn't do a bit of good...that life may actually fall apart...that there will always be a balance of good/evil, sickness/health, wealth and poverty, joy and suffering in this reality, and a nondual awareness will not change that. But, I wonder...is that true? I have not experienced the same extent of suffering that I did before the awakening to Presence/Awareness six years ago--and fears and fearful behaviors have steadily been falling away while joy and appreciation have steadily been growing. This does not mean that the separate fearful self has not re-asserted itself, because it has...but the knowing that comes from Presence-Awareness has never left, and the fearful expression has always dissolved again after a short while.

I'm curious to see what's next! I'm curious to see what a world full of "people" who are also present and aware will be like.

It's 4:50 a.m.  This past night my "dream teaching-experience" was about how the elements of the moment culminate into a sense of self...The elements and the energy of the moment reaches a peak of intensity which forms into a SELF, and then they splash apart again into nothing, only to reform into that self again in next moment.  This is the second time of having had this particular dream- experience, recently.  I was sleeping on the couch (although partially awake). Michael came out to get ready to go to the gym as I was experiencing the arising and subsiding of self.  He was moving around in the kitchen.  When he turned on the blender and left it on for a minute (as usual), it was very loud and grating...but with the experience that I was having--the culmination into a self-that-experiences and then the splashing apart of that self, each moment of the loud grating noise was it's own moment.  There was no build-up of moments, no annoyance, no "holding on" to that loud, grating sound.  Soon enough there was no sound and no light from the kitchen--only sweet darkness.  And then I was beginning to move out of that moment to moment forming/de-forming of the self, and the sense of a do-er self was beginning to solidify once again.

 

It takes a "self" to live out the idea of "doing" anything.  It takes a self to have memories, to have a personality.  Yet, this sense of not having a solid self was so free...actually there is no way to describe it at all, yet it is the way I want to be--and even to SAY that "I want to be that" is only a solidifying of "self".  And why would that be a desire?  Why would anyone want to not have a solid sense of self?  Well...this is a mystery...yet the FEELING and experiencing of that freedom was different...it's as if the self that I know every day is "solidified suffering" compared to THAT.  And, it's not as if my life is unhappy.  I have a happy life!  Yet that "happy life" is also a form of suffering when shown against the backdrop of that "freedom" to move in and out of form, not HOLDING to form for more than a moment.