The Dark Night of Experience

There is a dark side to experience
that only the Truth can survive
It will come like Armageddon
and leave Spring in its wake
In the midst of the storm of torment and hell,
there is a most intimate peace~

Very likely we are not going to bump into our true nature and never again have a moment of suffering or delusion or struggle.  Consciousness requires the 'dark night of the soul' in order to transform our illusions by putting a great pressure on us to come into harmony with life itself.  If we can begin to see these 'dark nights' as inclusive within our awakening rather than as obstacles a shift begins to happen where we give up our fight with darkness, and darkness can begin to illuminate our experience.

Stop!

Stop!
Don't look inside,
don't look outside.
Stop all your movement for one moment
and be still.
Tell me then, who are you?
And where have all your problems gone?

The Adoration of All

If you are to truly know the fullest extent of what it means to be awake, you must yearn to adore everything.  It is only then that we begin to see with our true eyes.  The Divine has distaste for nothing, not even the most hideous situations.  Now, our adoration doesn't mean that we are passive, complacent smiling faces, if anything our adoration moves us to serve others, to serve life, to get our hands very dirty. 
The willingness to adore things just as they are is an indispensable quality of the Real.  To adore even what we dislike, even what we may hate, is to see beyond the limitations of our limited two eyes- beyond the limitations of our imperfect perceptions. 
True adoration comes from a place deeper than emotion and thought, from a place that's untainted by our biases and opinions.  This is self-transcendence, this is realizing the emptiness of phenomena, this is seeing perfection amidst imperfection. 
As we deepen in our realization of the All, adoration becomes natural and effortless.  When that adoration penetrates to the depths, we are left deeply grateful for it all.

Don't Know!

When you don't know that you don't know
     that is ignorance
When you know that you don't know
     that is enlightenment
When you know that you know
     that is delusion
When you don't know that you know
     that is gate gate paragate....

Only Stillness is Reliable

If we really want reliable answers to our spiritual questions, there is only one truly reliable answer and it is the silence at the core of our being.  All other answers come and go, apply and don't apply, work and don't work...but Stillness is the one answer than never wanes.  Thing is, it doesn't satisfy our longing to know, it simply frees up the questions, it simply relieves us of our need to know.
If we look deeply, Stillness is already present behind every question, just waiting for the question to vanish so the Silent Answer may be heard.  We obsess over questions that we think need answers, and when we come to see that all answers are at best partial, that only Silence is reliable, it is then that the true answer from the core of our own being is heard.  Not only is it heard, it resounds!

Eat the Fruit Offered to You

Most of our suffering comes from trying to eat of a fruit that has not been offered to us. More often than not our struggles come from wanting things to be other than they are.  Life has this way of reaching out its hand with an apple and saying 'here'...and in our best two year old voice we say 'no, I want an orange'.  And from our desire to have an orange we'll wage war on the apple, the hand, and the one behind the hand.  If we would just stop, open our hand, taste the apple, we'd see that what we really wanted was an apple.  Instead we spend countless hours, days, years, and spiritual practices demanding an orange until one day we get it-but its not at all what we wanted.  Life always knows better than we ourselves do, and it always gives us what we need most, whether that's a little joy or a little suffering.... Until the day comes when we may find our hands forever turned open to whatever fruit is offered.

Mind is God

After having met enough questions, and seen all the ways that our thinking tries to capture the Absolute nature of our being, I have also realized that very subtly I have seen people get the  message "mind is the enemy".   Let's put the mind at ease~ The mind is not an enemy, thoughts are no enemy, there is indeed no enemy.  If we look very deeply we will see that everything is God....mind is God, body is God, thoughts are God, good feelings are God, bad feelings are God.  If we are going to speak with any degree of clarity we must begin with ALL IS GOD. 

Mountainous Vulnerability

In our culture, vulnerability seems to mean something between weak and pathetic.  And because of our spiritual situation that is a somewhat necessary thing in that we have spent so much energy trying to be invulnerable and invincible that to experience our groundless wide open nature feels very threatening to our sense of self and its sense of security.  Most people are completely unwilling to ever be that naked, that exposed, that seen...but for those rare beings who have had the courage and wisdom to live totally naked and totally groundlessly there is a solid mountainous quality to their being.
It's like being around somebody who has no fear, no reservations, no protection, and willing to be a total fool- a total idiot.  The rich quality of warmth and absolute confidence seem to come through the pores of such a one. The irony is that that mountainous sanity comes from being so deeply intimate with your own groundlessness... if you have nowhere to position yourself, where can you be knocked down?  By having no ground, no identity there's no you...when there's no you, who is it that is going to be harmed?
What seems so vulnerable, so threatened within us is the very thing that at the core is unshakable and indestructible in us.  It simply takes the willingness and humility to have all our ego notions crushed, to have all our ground taken away in order to see that what lies deeply within that vaporous fear is solid existence, Reality itself.

The Myths about Enlightenment

The myths about enlightenment are an epidemic in spirituality.  Spirituality itself is a sort of epidemic that we are seeking to relieve ourselves from.  One of the things that we absolutely refuse to believe is that our notions of enlightenment are elaborate escape hatches from reality.  We want bliss, we want ecstasy, we want a quiet mind, we want to walk on water, but can we want what is right in front of us?  That's the rub that most people in the spiritual game are bent on ignoring~  In search of some relief from suffering we go searching for something more, better, and different than what is right in front of our faces....this is the real cause of all our anger, fear, and anxiety.  We are looking for something that doesn't exist, and we have no clue about what is right in front of us all the time. 
The myths about enlightenment are like a toy store for the mind, holding endless promise as to a better life, a better 'me'...a me that is happy all the time, nice all the time, never sad, never hurt.  This may be true of some comic book superhero, or comic book buddha, but these fantasies are addictions of our ego.  We somehow have enlightenment set up as an endless orgasm.
I have never met anybody who, when truly willing to see what is RIGHT HERE, found it to be not enough.  Right now is what we've always been looking for if we can drop all of our notions about what right now should be.  What is already so is more than enough, question is:  Can you stop fantasizing long enough to see it?  It only takes an instant.

Unconditional Love

One of the things that I have have found to be so deeply true is that whether we are speaking of romantic love or unconditional spiritual love, what we are really talking about is the willingness and courage to be unconditionally open, fiercely vulnerable, and radically tender with ourselves and others.  The great master Chogyam Trungpa spoke extensively of the 'shaky tenderness' that underlies our whole life situation, and the way to direct our lives toward that tenderness with fearlessness and confidence.  In holding ourselves with utmost vulnerability and openness, we discover that we have the capacity to be Love itself.  We discover our capacity to be 100% available to ourselves, others, and life. 
Love often sounds so sweet, so mushy...but, if we look into the depths of unconditional love we call on our warrior-ship as a way to live our lives totally uninhibited, open, and free.  Our willingness to love includes our willingness to hurt, and if we allow ourselves to find the great courage to not turn away from fear or hurt, we manifest within ourselves the capacity to be buddhas and to approach life from a standpoint of radical, fierce love. 

Awareness Behind Thought

As far as what we need to know in playing the spiritual game, there's only one piece of information needed....behind every thought is Awareness. When we have thoughts it is Awareness that observes the thought~ That is what we truly are, and every thought we think is ultimately like a movie on a screen--- even though the movie seems real, when it's over the blank screen is all that remains.

Relating to Teachers

The relationship between a student and teacher can take a vast array of forms and modes.  Everybody uses a teacher in their own unique way.  Some practice deep devotion, while others use a teacher much like asking for directions.  However a teacher is used, what is of deep importance is that the student unites with the mind of the teacher.  In this way, there is no need to be a sheep, nor is there a need to act like or live as the teacher does.  What is essential is our ability to bring our mind into connection with the vastness of the teacher's mind.  To see as the teacher sees.  It is unnecessary to have the same opinions or preferences as the teacher, but if we cannot unite with his or her essence, we cannot manifest our true nature.  So a teacher is an indispensable tool for seeing our delusion, and seeing the sanity that underlies the teachers apparent life situation.  In some traditions 'guru yoga' is a central practice for surrendering your illusions and awakening wisdom.  Guru yoga doesn't necessarily mean you dress like the teacher, or walk like the teacher, or believe what the teacher tells you to believe...all these things have been tried to no avail.  But in 'guru yoga' you become the teacher, and he or she becomes you.  You realize that underneath the chasm of differences in body, action, and superficial appearances you are exactly the same Mind.  You must be willing to give up your self in order to see what the teacher is pointing you to....and by so doing, you realize that your self was an illusion and that you and the teacher are ultimately the very same Self.