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.

Tantra

Tantra teaches us to relate tho things as they are.  It teaches us to relate to all of life from the awakened state.  The true view of Tantra sees that there is nothing but the Divine in all things, and the teaching is to relate to everything as Divinity.  It is relating to pleasure, and relating to pain in their most basic, real, original way.  Tantra is challenging in that includes an ever-expanding view of reality, and yet remains intimately aware of the unchanging, formless ground that is eternal reality.  It neither hides out in the transcendent realms, nor is it just a puppet to worldly existence,--it is awake, vibrantly lucid and clear and undisturbed. 
Tantra isn't a philosophy or belief system, it is to relate directly to your experience in a way that is wholehearted, complete, and total.  It doesn't solve our problems for us, if anything it gives us more to deal with in that we don't have any spiritual escape from life.  Tantra has as its basis sanity,  reality, and truth.  It seeks to annhilate spiritual misunderstanding,  it seeks to eradicate loftiness, it seeks to turn our attention toward everything. 
Tantra is simply being involved in life, not just practically, or efficiently, or cunningly, but wholly and entirely.  In Tantra, we have no place to go, nothing to achieve, nothing to realize..Life itself becomes the whole message being related all the time.  Relating to life is what most of us have not yet begun to do because we're still trying to figure out what it means to be spiritual, Tantra teaches us that being spiritual is being touched by life as it appears.  It is no escape, no comfort, no reliable philosophy.  It is the removal of any addition to the already perfect stream of life.  With nothing in the way, we have the true freedom to cry, to explode, and to dance.

Take a Look Around

Our thoughts are so often just a product of our past, or on some concern for the future, that we need to stop and take a look around for a moment.  If we just simply take a look around we would find two very interesting things going on~ On one hand, none of our thoughts are actually happening, and on the the other hand there's a lot more mystery unfolding than we might have imagined. 
To realize that none of the content of our thinking is actually taking place is a great liberation because we don't have to be conditioned and controlled by the past and fears of the future.
To realize that there's a great mystery unfolding before us is a great thrill to our system, and we see that there is a wholeness that always here... even when our thoughts are dwelling in some fearful or excited state there is a reality present in and around us that has nothing to do with our thoughts.
The challenging moment is the one where we have the willingness to stop and take a look around, when everything in our being is telling us to worry, fight, escape, hate, defend.... the willingness itself is a courage and power to transcend our tiny modes of consciousness and open to the vast experience that's happening all around us in, as Kabir writes, "in the tiniest house of time". 

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.