Reincarnation

As is often the case, words hold within them great truths, but it is our consciousness that must look deeply in order to see what is hidden within the words.  I find this word reincarnation particularly useful to reveal a deeper truth within our experience.  RE:  again  INCARNATION: coming into the flesh
We are all familiar with the traditional definitions of reincarnation...we die, we're reborn over and over until we reach liberation, right?
But that is all theory, very few of us have that direct knowledge.  There is though, a pointing to our actual direct experience right here, right now.  That pointing is to see how we constantly re-identify with our bodies, with our thoughts about our bodies, and the conditions that our bodies live in.  And I'm not just talking about superficial identification, "I strive to be attractive".  I am talking about the constant binding of 'I' with the body.  Our notion of our self is continually tied to the shifting changes of the body. 
In deep sleep, or even during an engaging movie, we temporarily drop the identification with the body, only to reincarnate again by re-identifying the body as 'me'.   We repeat this cycle a nearly infinite number of times until one day we stop and look, "what am I, really?"  If my body changes, and my mind changes, and my conditions change...what is it that does not change? 
To find that out is liberation...
The notion of ourselves as body, as mind, as conditions, is liberated from the bind of 'self'.
The cycle of reincarnation doesn't end in the future, it ends when we finally get interested in finding out what's True.
The Truth  reveals that there is nothing to reincarnate, and that there is only One that itself incarnates as all things... the reincarnation is not yours or mine.
That which believes itself to be in the flesh must find its non-existence to be liberated, and upon liberation realizes Itself to be that which exists infinitely and eternally.

What is Spiritual Awakening?

Spiritual awakening is the realization that this life that we believe is so real and so unchanging is but a dream.  It is the realization that one is not one's body, nor mind, nor circumstances.  It is the realization of what has always been here, and what has never left.  It is a great mystery, beyond description...there is no proof for it, no sign or pathway to it....it is found only right here, right now. 
I may stick out my finger and say there it is, but I will fail....
You may have an experience and say here it is, but you'll lose it....
Spiritual awakening is a moment to moment recognition of the impermanence of all things, the transitory nature of oneself, and the ever present aliveness in the Heart of all beings.

Spiritual awakening is a great paradox, because it happens--and yet it is Here all along.  It must be fought for, strived for....but it is already naturally one's own nature.
Waking up is not about living as any other human being has lived, not Buddha, not Christ.  It is about living as you, just ordinary, simple you.
It is the discovery of the untouched, incorruptible nature of your Self, and the death of everything that you have believed you were.  It is the death of a past and death of a future. 
It is you, It is Here, Now.
What else could you want?

Meditation

Meditation is the discovery of Self.  We sit down to meditate and what we first come in contact with is the huge momentum of everything that we think we are.  This means everything from thoughts and feeling that we had as children up to who we think we are in the present.  But, these thoughts and feelings are always shifting, changing and dying.  Our image of ourselves, and all that we imagine when we say "me" is what immediately arises when we sit down, close our eyes and do this thing called meditate.
Meditation has nothing to do with quieting the mind or stopping thinking, this is the misconception that many people have.  Meditation is about discovery what is presnt regardless of thought.  It is about finding what those thoughts and feelings occur within...what is it that experiences "my" experiences?
To become aware of thought can be very useful, just as becoming aware of emotion can be useful, but if we never stop to find out WHO these thoughts and emotions belong to then we never really get to the core of the matter.
To get to the core of the matter we must begin to be interested in finding out "what is my self"  what am I referring to when I say "I".  Is it just this bag of bones?  Is it my thoughts? Is it how I feel?
These are the questions that our meditation can be an alive investigation into.
Meditation is about discovering that there is no separate self, and to see that all the thoughts and feeling have pointed to an imagination... and in discovering your life imagining, one can find out who one truly is.
We can't talk about what you find there.
That discovery is meditation Itself.

True Support

We can really be a true support for one another when we've given up feeding each other's stories.  When we are supporting the wholeness of one another, and not the division-the division of separate me's and you's with our own life dramas. I cannot support you and at the same time try to change you.
If anything, we support each other to see our own wholeness and that of all beings.  I cannot advise you, or teach you your own wholeness but I can encourage you to discover it for yourself. In that sense we cannot help one another, because we are That which needs no help.  We are the answer before any question arises. 
So I have a very deep trust that not only is the answer within you, but that you can experience even the deepest pains, failures, and grief and remain completely unscathed.  So I will encourage you to fail, to experience your pain directly so that you can see that you are untouched by it all.
You are the indestructible Oneness of all things, what could harm you?
It is only after we have been willing to plunge into the heart of despair that we can discover the true nature of one's Self.  That is our true support to one another, the deep trust and invitation to that realization.  Forever, we expand Self into Self, all separation being seen as illusory.  True support is recognizing the wholeness of each other, not settling for the illusion.

Pleasure and Spaciousness

So many of the people I talk with really believe that they want spiritual awakening, and with a little looking find out that what they're really after is pleasure. We think we want Truth, but what we usually want is to feel better. Which is perfectly normal. However, what I often see is that as soon as one feels better, the desire for Truth (or awakening) suddenly seems unimportant.
It is important that we strive to feel better, but mistaking the desire for spiritual awakening for pleasure is like mistaking a band aid for total health.
Pleasure is great, I encourage it...but to believe that pleasure, or feeling good, will last in the long run is to invite yourself over and over into suffering.
The happiness or fulfillment of awakening is much more like spaciousness. In open space there is a sense of clarity, openness, freedom, and of non-changing.
So let's be very very clear about what it is that we're after...
Do we just want one more good feeling?
One more experience?
Real spaciousness and what is discovered in authentic spiritual awakening is really the end of all that. It is the end of seeking one more good anything. It is the end of the drive to find more, better, or different experiences. This is what the Buddha was talking about when he mentioned Nirvana. Nirvana means 'Extinction' not 'Heavenly Candy Store'.
When we get clear on that, then we can finally shift our focus away from 'me', and what will 'make me feel better' onto real spiritual awakening and real insight. This is the wilingness to bear pain, to bear hardship, to bear suffering without running for a dose of pleasure.
Then, one's life can be used...
And with that comes no greater satisfaction.

No Understanding Needed

To be who you Truly are requires that you understand nothing. All understanding is related to some object or some phenomenon. Learning and understanding can, of course, be tremendously useful, but to find out who you are understanding only gets in the way.
To understand something, there must be an understander. So, to understand one's self requires a someone to understand. This makes two. But clearly there is only one self here, right?

Silence itself reveals you to your Self. It gives a moment of rest to the endless machinations of understanding, and transmits the true power within oneself. A power that empties out all understanding, all notion, all ideas, and leaves one available to live a life filled with happiness, peace, and gratitude. Until the quest to understand is dropped, and I mean fully and completely dropped, we toil in our endeavor to find what can only be found in Silence. When we allow Silence to be the only thing present, it is quite clear that no understanding is needed at all.

Happiness Can't Be Found

How would one go about finding what is only and always already present in one's self naturally?

Practicing Emptiness

Practice, in the spiritual sense, is always one of letting go. There is no real practice of acquiring, changing, or anything like that. Growth in the spiritual realm is about loss, rather than expansion. The more we build our empire and foundation on "me" the greater the fall. On the other hand, our original pure nature requires no change at all. So the practice becomes one of emptying out all identifications, conceptions, experiences, purposes, and ideas to make room for That which is not contained within any of these. When the maturation of consciousness is in place, all things fall away easily and of their own accord. Until that ripening, there is a struggle to attain some pleasurable experience or get rid of some painful experience. To truly practice in a useful way is to just Be Still...to let the endless search for peace settle into the splendor of this Moment- right now. Here, no practice is required, Here, you just be as you already are.

You Get to Feel What You Feel

One of the most profound and profoundly simple things that my teacher said was, "you get to feel what you feel" .
You see, we spend so much energy analyzing, judging, and interpreting our emotions to determine if we should feel that way, or if we're right, or if it's spiritual to feel that way.... but the attention is so tied up in that cycle---which is suffering--- that we don't actually allow ourselves to feel what we actually feel. Instead, we come to some judgment about the feeling.
The great surprise comes when we actually allow ourselves to feel what we feel. So, in a moment of anger, sadness, hurt we directly feel the feeling... and that feeling has something very beautiful inside it. When we actually allow ourselves to feel what is already being felt then the emotion doesn't carry such a charge, it doesn't attach itself to our attention and cause us to spiral into suffering about it.
People often ask me, "what do I do with my anger, jealousy, resentment...and I always say just feel it for a moment. That's what we actually want anyway, that's where our attention is. The emotion has arisen in order to be embraced...not analyzed.
We often believe that what we're feeling must either be right or wrong, that we should feel it or should not feel it. The possibility in each moment is to not move toward any story of right or wrong, but simply allow.
And allow.
And allow.
But this is quite different than justifying the feeling. Rather than feed the story around the feeling you just feel it directly, and then it is taken care of by itself, then it is seen to be Grace.
Allowing what is here to be Here is simple Grace.

The Dharma Point

Coming upon the dharma point is an essential moment in one's awakening. In yoga it is sometimes called samadhi, in zen it's called satori. The point is, there comes a moment of reckoning so profound that it forever changes the way we operate. It's not that we try and try and try and eventually achieve this point...it's that when we finally exhaust all our efforts that this moment spontaneously implodes all of our notions of reality.
Awakening is a time bomb, setting out on the journey for it only leaves a limited amount of time before the real destruction hits. It is usually when we least expect it that this thing called Truth rises up and claims our life. This is the dharma point.
This is not to say that this moment permanently erases all traces of our conditioning or patterned ways of behaving, rather it is the first real moment of our lives, or it is our birth out of the unreal, and an acceptance of the real that has always been Here.
The Dharma Point is seen to be all there is...it is time, and timelessness...it is life regardless of birth or death.

What Never Happened

We all go through the journey of awakening so that we will one day end up "there". We believe very firmly that enlightenment will result, that happiness will be there waiting for us at the magical pot of gold.
The paradox of it all is that if we do actually awaken to our true nature, there comes with it this incredible laughter at even the idea of enlightenment. What one realizes is that enlightenment was never anywhere else, it was never missing. And what's even more of a blast is that the whole spiritual journey turns out to be a wild goose chase. Not only was there never anything to be discovered, there wasn't anyone to discover anything...it never happened!
The realization is that ignorance, delusion, suffering were never actually real because they were always based on "me". Me, too, was never there.
Coming upon the Truth isn't a matter of a "me" becoming enlightened....rather, it's a matter of the direct recognition that"me" was never lost, and never found.
A lot of what's out there in spirituality is teaching to find your true Self, the high self, the soul... but the one problem we all keep running into is that we can't find it. And when we really believe we've found it, it changes so completely that we think we've lost it. This is not the Truth. The Truth, the Self is not gained or lost, it's there in the joy and in the suffering...our true Nature is there throughout. It takes most people a very long time to realize this, and to discover that there's nowhere to arrive, nothing to know, nothing to become....nothing to happen, nothing that ever happened.
So, when we stop trying to get somehwere, and allow our efforts to dissolve into silence, we realize that Here is where one has always been. It's not even a matter of being present as much as it is Being Presence . And, in the end, all ideas contrary to this simply fall away like leaves from a non-existent tree.

What is Dharma?

Good question...

Ultimately we can never come to any satisfactory conclusion about what Dharma is. It is beyond and yet simpler than any conclusion or explanation. It is not some mysterious, esoteric thing..it is simply This, Now, Here.