Darkness is Your Candle

"What hurts you, blesses you...  Darkness is your candle"  ~Rumi

We find ourselves wanting to be left alone.  And the more we want to be left alone, the more intrusion there seems to be.  We want life to just be smooth, and clean, and easy for once.  But the more we keep waiting and hoping and wanting that, the further away it seems to appear. 
We also find ourselves in a perpetual game of seeking, capturing, and holding pleasurable situations, looking for a final end to the painful ones.  This also is met with a huge struggle, and lots of heartbreaking disillusionment. 
There is another way.  It is Rumi's way, or rather, the way of all those who dared to wake up and live with the fire of true life.  Only this way honors the brokenness, the darkness, the terror as the greatest  ally to living in truth. 
If you truly are an adventurer of the soul than you are severely interested in what hurts you.  This means that 'real waking up'  is not a fairly tale, nor is it a grim story with a happy ending.  It is the end of the end of the end. 
Here, where all you have is your pain, and sadness, and anger as truth....here is where you can use your pain as a bucket of cold water on your sleeping self.  Here is where you can be startled from your sleep by the alarm of your own discontent.  This is the most reliable information we have for waking us up.  These are truly our most supportive friends on the path of being real.
Everybody celebrates joy and pleasure.  If one were to take just the smallest fraction of that gratitude and apply it to your pain, your whole life would up-end itself.  You'd find yourself on the floor, with sleep in your eyes, but damn it---you'd be awake.

Seeing What Is, A Poem

You've seen all there is to see,
Now you may see what Is.
Here behind a mask
there is your naked Face.

A flower is not what you think it is.
Nor is your self.
Drink from the flask of Reality,
and be quenched.

To see This,
open your eyes.
You are not in the dark.
Sing a song with me,
a song with no words.

Stop moving for a moment so you can see,
before you miss everything.
See This.
You've wasted enough time,
now the snake bites.

Time is running out,
open your eyes.
The flower bends over, the petals begin to weep.
Here.

Before it's too late!
Look.

Using Disappointment

If we are paying attention, disappointment is one of the best things that can happen to us.  Normally, we spend tremendous energy avoiding, dispelling, and overcoming disappointment...only to be revisited by it in some other way.  To use disappointment is to welcome an intense humiliation that burns us all the way through to what's true.  Disappointment as a feeling is only the surface experience, that's usually as far as people go. 
But, to allow yourself to be be fully dis-appointed is to fall from the place that you thought you were, and to discover your true appointment as Nothingness.  You are appointed to that which is always your Self, and all self-appointing leads to disappointment.  To see this as a gift rather than something to be feared, we begin to see things in their true form.  We begin to see that our pain is the doorway in. 
To be fully and completely disappointed, without dwelling on the thoughts and emotions of disappointment, is to reveal yourself as you are in wholeness.

The Perfect Teaching

This moment is the perfect teacher.  Whatever you need most for you to be awake and free  is provided as a teaching in this very instant.  We are often looking for teachings that help us to feel better about ourselves, all the while neglecting the obvious teaching that is right in front of our face.  As we begin to see that every moment is a profound teaching, we come into accord with things as they are.  Life begins to make sense because we are actually interested in what's here, rather than fantasizing or resisting what is. 
It may seem that this moment is painful, it may seem less than fulfilling, but if we look honestly it is not this moment that is disappointing.  It is the fantasizing and resistance that make this moment seem less than enough.  The perfect teaching visits you as you need it.  If you need a hit of bliss, you'll get it.  If you need some pain, you'll get it.  Trouble is, you aren't in control of the teaching that you need.  We think we know what we need---we have no idea about what we actually need!  Only Life knows~
Can you hand over the reigns of imaginary control and allow life to teach you finally?  Can you let go of what you think you want to find out what Life wants for you? 
We are very accustomed to believing that we should have some say, that it should feel fair, that life should move on our terms.  Is it true?
To be humbled and shocked by seeing our insistence that life teach us in a certain way, and to open to what Life is actually teaching right now, is a sublime insane joy.  It is an end to fantasy and resistance.
The perfect teaching is in your midst,  let it have you. 

The Trap of Seeking Approval

Recently I saw the question, "Why do we seek others' approval?" 
There are many answers that we could posit to this question, including the fact that we are social animals, that seek to be enjoined with our culture, society or the tribe that we see ourselves as belonging to.  We could also say that approval allows us a certain degree of well-being and sense of belonging, a sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves.  Also, we may say that without the approval of others, or society, we would not be able to meet our basic needs such as clothing, shelter, etc.  If we are cast out of our tribe, our chances of survival may be limited.
As we come into the vicinity of seeking what is true and real and lasting in ourselves, there comes a time when we see that the attempt to secure approval and shun disapproval has been at least only slightly successful, most likely though it has ended up a disaster.
The disaster that has arisen from seeking approval and shunning disapproval is that we have spent our energy and attention on protecting and defending and improving our 'selves' in the name of survival, or in the name of what needed to be done.  But the drive to protect oneself, or to seek approval is the by-product of egoic consciousness, the consciousness of ourselves as these limited bodies with their personalities,  etc.  The seeking of approval has been based on a sense of unworthiness, and a sense that, "if I am just loved enough, I'll be ok"  But we have to look deeply to honestly admit to ourselves how successful this effort really has been.  In all the attempts to secure approval and avoid disapproval, has it actually worked?
The trap of seeking approval is the  trap of trying to maintain and secure a 'somebody' that is purely a mental creation...an image, a version of one's self.  The trap is so subtle that we may not even be aware that it has happened, but if we look closely there is a very strong conditioning that seeks to gain approval, and avoid disapproval.  To consciously root out this conditioning is to stop directing attention at gaining approval for this 'somebody' that you are, and to stop avoiding disapproval of that 'somebody' that you think you are.  This is an invitation to die to the image you've created of yourself and to discover the silent spaciousness in your being that can never be approved of or disapproved of...it is eternally whole and complete.  That death can feel painful, it can burn, but it is the pain and the burn of liberation.

This Moment is Eternity

True fulfillment can only be discovered right now.  Fulfillment never exists in the past or future, and can never be recreated or imagined.  If we look very deeply, the attempt to secure a permanent and lasting fulfillment in the future is a subtle trap of the mind, as is trying to recreate a wonderful moment from the past.  No matter what our experience is, whether pleasurable or painful, it is always happening now.  We have lots of subtle ways of convincing ourselves that the past is real, or that the future is real....but it is only the present that is actually real and true. 
The paradox that we find ourselves in is that we must give up our delusions of the past and imaginations of the future to discover  the eternal nature of this moment now.  This means that we give up depending on memories of what was, and fantasies about what will be so that this moment can be seen as it really is--sublime.
The fantasies are alluring, attempting to recreate a past feeling or experience is very tempting, but if we are willing to not move to the past or future, we find that what was wanted by looking to the past or to the future is actually here right now.  The bliss, the clarity, the love is here now.  Even in the past when the blissful experience happened, it happened in the now. 
The trick of the mind is to look behind or to look ahead.  To stop looking for a moment is to find what it is you're really looking for.  It's not an experience, it's not a feeling, it's not an idea....it is simply This, Here, Now.  It is your very own Self. 
This moment is eternally satisfying until it becomes clouded by some want, some imagination, some fantasy.  Eternity is the simplest discovery of all, for it is the only thing that is always here.  It appears difficult because it so immaculately simple.  Just don't go anywhere, and you see that this eternal moment is more than you could ever want.

Identifying with Truth

As we begin to identify with the Truth of our Being, rather than our thoughts and conceptions of ourselves, a great wellspring of magic begins to flow out from the source within our very own Heart.  So long as we are busy identifying with our thoughts, and opinions, and perceptions,  that wellspring of wisdom and love remains hidden from the world. 
We seem to have such a deep distrust of our own Heart, that the idea of not relying on a conception or persona of ourselves feels like insanity.  The real insanity is that we overlook the joy and lightness of what we are, because we are so intent on maintaining ourselves.  To let go into Life is to identify complete with the Truth, the teachings, and perhaps the teacher.  This identification is not based on idea, not based on preference, or emotionality...and we know that because that identification comes with great tests, moments of burning, and great loss.  There is no way we will maintain that identification with the Truth in an authentic way when those challenges come unless it is completely real and authentic.
As you truly truly identify with the Truth of your being you lose yourself, but you gain what it is that you didn't even know you wanted. 

Reality Beyond Concept

When I use the word reality I often have people qualify my statement by adding 'your reality' to what I've said.  This is the very disease of the mind that I am seeking to illuminate in our time together.  Our minds tend to look at reality as 'your reality' and 'my reality'.  While I readily agree that you have your experience and I have mine, reality is not derived from your experience or mine at all.  Reality is what is constant for both you and I.  It is what our beliefs, ideas, opinions, and experiences exist within.  That is the Reality I'm talking about when I use the word.  Our discriminating mind wants to qualify that reality with characteristics, qualities, descriptions...but all these fall short of truly conveying the one living Reality from which all other realities manifest.  Trouble is, you can't conceptualize it, prove it, disprove it, own it, or even validate it in any way.  It is what needs no validation for Its existence, It is because it is. It is because without It there could be nothing.  It is. It is.

No Place to Land

Being skillful in the world means being empty of 'self' and giving confusion no place to land.  Only when we become solidified within ourselves can confusion and stupidity have a place to land, and once it's landed it begins to grow.  It grows until we can't stand our own skin, and then it blisters into such grossness that we finally begin to seek sanity. 
If we are skillful, we don't provide a warm climate for our confusion to grow, which means we see confusion for what it is, and give it no place within us to take root.  If we are suddenly insulted by somebody our normal, unskillful response is to defend ourselves...which means we first have to have a 'someone' to protect, and there has to be a ground for this insult and defensiveness to take place.
If we can realize the emptiness, the non-existence of that 'someone', we see the futility in defensiveness, and give insults, attacks, aggressions no place to land.  We are never seeing clearly when we feel insulted.  If we allow insult no place to land, we embody the nature of no-self with ease, clarity, and maybe a little fierceness.

The Image and Likeness

We are made in the image and likeness of the divine.  That does not mean that the divine is a human being with human features, and human stupidities, thank God.  It means that underneath appearances, thoughts, life situations, there is a presence within our very own being that is indeed the very image and likeness of the divine.  It's not that we have to reconfigure ourselves to fit that image and likeness model, simply we must realize that our very nature is already the image and likeness of God itself.
We do not find our God-likeness on the level of thought, emotion, or physical bodies...we find that likeness in our most essential beingness.  We are not hidden by some veil, or obstruction, or internal dilemma.  We are merely hidden by our taking ourselves to be what we are not. 
If we take ourselves to be the body, the thoughts in the head, the emotions, our persona,  then we miss our true likeness.  Our likeness is deeper than those superficial phenomena.  It is in truth what all those things arise in.  We could call it simply 'I'. 
To realize that your likeness is truly the likeness of God nature, is to utter the phrase I Am That I Am.  No other image or likeness of ourselves will ever feel complete, but we can realize our completeness by seeing what our true appearance is. 

Enlightenment Destroys Mindfulness

There is a saying from Tibetan Tantra that mindfulness must be kept always.  Until, it is said, enlightenment comes to demolish your mindfulness, one must keep watch always over the tendencies, habits, and impurities of mind. 
Mindfulness and vigilance lead to the spontaneous awakening of our true nature from its nap of self.  When the nap ends, like cold water on your face, there's no need to keep dreaming mindfulness any longer. Is that to say that mindfulness doesn't happen?  No~
It simply means an end to the identity which was being mindful, an end to the self that was watching...at that point of speaking your whole life is mindfulness, which is to say enlightenment is your life.
Does that mean everything is pleasurable? No~
It simply means you're not napping anymore, you've woken up...then the responsibility of living what you really are begins to annoy you.  It annoys you until you really can't take it anymore, then you wake up deeper.  Over and over and over....now, now, now.

Mindfulness can be fancy, can be hard, can be a pleasure, but when the monster of enlightenment comes to eat you up, you are swallowed up whole--mindful or not. 
At this point the ego has the opportunity to try to enlighten itself which is called egomania, which results in intellectual enlightenment and actual delusion.  Or, ego has the opportunity to go along with the whole thing, which can be extraordinarily painful, but completely fresh and awake.  It's really up to how much you're willing to quit indulging fear and hope.
When fear and hope are gone, enlightenment is just being natural.  With no hope and no fear you manifest mindfulness spontaneously, somewhat wildly~
When the nap of our delusion is cut, we don't really need an alarm clock anymore, just a warm cup of tea and a dreadful smile.

There is a Place We Go Together

There is a Place,
we go together.
There, we are complete before each other.
There, you disappear,
and I vanish.
All that's left of us is This~

Your petty stories,
and my ridiculous ideas
get transmuted here,
where there is only the nectar of Truth.

Come on, don't play dumb~
We've been here all along,
Now, we're just opening our eyes.