Category: Teachings

When reflecting on some life development, do you ever turn toward karma or divine will, or perhaps the configuration of the stars, as a way of accounting for things? Does the prospect of an afterlife hold significance in your orientation to existence? Do you tend to examine life developments via the framework of some spiritual or religious tradition?

Given our enduring desire to be able to account for all that occurs in life, it is natural to take refuge in such things. We can sometimes find comfort there, perhaps wisdom or guidance. It’s natural, too, to have a sense of a vast intelligence beyond the bounds of ordinary experience, perhaps a loving presence. What we have come to refer to as God, as the divine.

A person may imagine that life — perhaps a given life — has a particular purpose. At any rate, may want it to be so.

* * * * *

It’s helpful to look at the role played by such constructs as they come up in day-to-day reflections on unfolding reality. To be curious about why they come into awareness when they do. To notice how we apply them in our perspective on life events, how they inform the way we occupy our skin. These interpretations provide labels, lenses to look through. Applying the vocabulary of a given tradition gives us ways to explain ourselves (to ourselves, perhaps others), to account for why life goes the way it goes, in an effort to manage the influence of some perceived force. It might enable us subtly to let ourselves (or others) off the hook. This can soothe the mind, settle some underlying discomfort. 

The question is not whether these perceived background forces, these ways of interpreting reality, are valid, whether any of them actually account for things that happen. What’s of value, as regards consciousness and awakening, is to be aware of what we do with them (if they do feel real). What is the use, the underlying motivation, of explaining something by looking at it through the lens of karma or the horoscope, of processing it via a spiritual or religious frame of reference?

Is it possible to notice the difference between a thing itself and what it looks (perhaps feels) like once it’s given a mind-based way of accounting for it?

Hold yourself in a tender regard. For you contain an unfathomable vastness and ease.

Are you able to see that this application of an interpretive framework is the work of the mind? Perhaps there’s some emotional stirring, such as a discomfort with life-as-it-is, a reaching for the perceived comfort enabled by understanding. Maybe the impulse comes from the desire to settle a subtle ill-at-easeness — the discomfort, say, of feeling at-the-mercy-of. Or the at-sea sensation of a radical not-knowing.

We want to know the why of a significant life moment. The what-now of it. 

* * * * *

Pure consciousness is not troubled by the absence of a lens to look through; it needs no mental framework. It knows only direct encounter, unmediated. It does not stand at a scrutinizing distance from what-is. Conscious awareness is simply one with the moment. 

It is only the mind (with emotion likely stirring beneath) that’s moved to reflect on the role of some force or other, at a given moment. To declare something to be the will of God. For the egoic mind is perennially uncomfortable with not-knowing, with the absence of the “control” that understanding can seem to inject into a life development.

Consciousness knows better than to take refuge in contextualizing ideas. Anyhow, all consciousness “knows” is this moment. Nor is it troubled by whatever is happening.

There may be wonderings about free will. Is there such a thing as choice? A person may want to know whether we’re simply at the mercy of our conditioning. Even if there could be some kind of definitive answer to that, so what? It’s another one of those things for the mind to busy itself with. What can be helpful is to wonder How would it affect me if I could know the answer? How would it inform the way life is lived? Would it be somehow soothing inside the head, the psyche? 

Would it set in motion yet another way to distance self from life-as-it-is?

Then there’s the “nobody’s here” of nondual teachings, the idea that “all of this is a dream.” (Does the exquisite discomfort of a thorn abruptly entering the flesh of your fingertip feel like a dream? How about exquisite grief?) Along with the strained avoidance of the use of “I,” referring to oneself as “this body-mind,” as if that expression might dilute the otherwise lively sense of ego-saturated self. There’s the perceived value of reminding oneself of such ideas, during intervals of inquiry. It all becomes yet another mental framework of limited value (whether or not any of it happens to be true).

If in your travels you come upon one of these ideas — or some other that means to account for reality — and it rings true, deep in you, of course you will make note of that recognition. But to then take hold of it, to cling to it, to make a strained effort to remember it, to apply it to life as it carries on . . . You do not need to do this.

Remember: this is without regard for whether any of these applied systems of interpretation are in fact operating. (You might notice how the mind keeps wanting to insist they surely are relevant. Why is that so important? What subtle comfort might it introduce into the living of life that could otherwise appear random, without “purpose”?)

* * * * *

What is the point here? It is not to urge you to try to stop reaching toward some familiar soothing context. That would be in the category of Fruitless Attempts to Improve Yourself. (What seeker needs more of those?) No, this is simply a gentle invitation for you to — gently — notice when one of those familiar tendencies tugs at you. To consider the dynamic in the light of a kindly curiosity and see whether you might be able to notice anything about the why of such patterns. To see if maybe a habitual orientation to life might contain a window into some discomfort underlying the pattern.

No, it is not soothing to the mind, to the ego, to be without an interpretive framework, some familiar naming vocabulary. It can feel wildly undermining. Threatening, even. But it looks that way only to the exotic structure of who-you-seem-to-be (the very you — so poignant — that strains to remind itself that there is “nobody here”). Seeing that, observing the sensation of being without moorings, of sitting in the feel of unknowing, may gently locate you outside the dynamic. In a moment when that spacious observing is occurring, you may notice the absence of angst, of the desire for things to be different from what they are. A blessed (if fleeting) peace.

* * * * *

Perhaps you can revisit a moment in your life (courtesy of the handy recollecting mind) in which you felt all mental activity at rest. There might have been the dawning of stunning clarity about something, along with a palpable aliveness. Such inner stillness then. You were simply really here. Could feel aliveness. Immediacy. It may or may not have been conspicuously blissful, just absent torment. At such a moment were you feeling the need to “frame” what was happening? Or were you just purely alive, seeing something clearly, feeling the truth of it? Wasn’t your mind altogether quiet, not itchy to understand? (Or — as you may poignantly recall — if ideas did insist themselves into the moment, did the equanimity collapse?)

Can we account for how we know what we know, on that visceral level? We cannot. We know only that we know. The sensation is unmistakable. It isn’t necessary to mentally process such a moment. To cling to it or try to replicate it, to give it a context. The mind may want to do these things; consciousness is content to let life be, sans reflection.

What if there is something deeply wise in you, something you neither caused nor can seize hold of, that simply recognizes the truth of a thing? This capacity is real, dear heart. It is already within you. It needs no “cultivation,” no processing, no practice or discipline or understanding. You doubtless know the feel of such a moment: it is absolutely trustworthy. 

That knowing “presence” within you will make you aware of itself, when life calls for it, when you’ve gotten out of your own way. Nor is any cultivation needed. (Talk about restful.) It’s a matter of recognizing it, the heart welcoming such a moment when it comes into awareness. Nor can it be summoned. It’s a spontaneous and bodied recognition. Mary Oliver’s poem says, 

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” 

With due respect to the beloved poet, she might just as well have said Let the soft animal of your body know what it knows. When you simply allow your embodied self to recognize the truth of something within, there’s no mental framework holding it. 

* * * * *

It is not inevitable (let alone necessary) that we process experience via any interpretive mechanism. The Buddha said of this . . . It must be God’s will that I . . . Of course this is happening, given where Saturn is . . . I am getting a sense of my life’s purpose . . .

As often as necessary, remind yourself: this is not about whether such perspectives are possibly reflective of some truth. It’s got to do with what underlies our desire, our need, to apply them. It’s about seeing how we might use them to protect ourselves from radical unknowing, from the perennial absence of the ability to control. To protect ourselves from (how poignant this is!) truly living. Spontaneously, unafraid of what-is. Of what may be yet to come.

What about a possible afterlife? Isn’t that somehow relevant to how we live, to how we orient to life?

If the prospect of some form of life continuing after death has appeal to you (or feels true), gently put this question to yourself. What if you could somehow learn that there is no after? How would that sit in you? How might it alter your orientation to unfolding life-as-it-is? Do you take refuge in the idea of an afterlife? Perhaps it promises ultimate wisdom or clarity. Radical relief from suffering. Reunion with loved ones who’ve preceded you.

What would it feel like if that consoling framework were not there, in your daily awareness? Of what possible function is the assumption of immortal endurance?

* * * * *

I do not know whether there is an after. If there turns out to be one, I suppose that will become clear when the time comes. If nothing more seems to be happening, presumably no one will be “there” — aware — to notice the absence. Meanwhile, nothing about how I live today is informed, one way or the other, by the prospect of either possibility.

I surely do have the sense that a good deal more is going on than my mind is able to get hold of. Let alone has even my most ardent curiosity been able to account for that sense of a larger something. I have learned better than to try. Increasingly what happens is the head bows under the sweet weight of profound unknowing, of something like awe. In the face of the enduring mystery, gratitude to explode the heart. No need to struggle to account for anything.

It’s rather like the impossibility of fathoming the infinitude of interstellar space, the condition of the universe prior to the Big Bang, before the starting up of time. When even eminent scientists acknowledge the limits of their ability to understand quantum physics, to reconcile its apparent contradictions, why would we ask our spiritual minds to attempt to account for something that’s altogether beyond the constraints of the physical? Let alone to ponder the why of any of it, physical or spiritual reality.

* * * * *

Does it ever come to me to think God? To say to myself, What could this be, if not divinity? The sense of a vast tenderness, of all-knowing, all-loving, being palpable in my oh-so-physical human body? What else could account for such sensation, my curious mind wants to whisper? (And is there any difference between “me” and “it”?)

Oh, but in such a moment, a little smile plays around the edges of things. The recognition of the human ache to understand, to account for. I know better than to take these wonderings seriously. To suppose that any concept of the divine could contain the uncontainable.

There is nothing to do but grant the aching-open heart all the space it asks, even as I sense it cannot get big enough. At least, not in this embodied mode.

Am I asking you to “take my word” for any of what I so vividly sense about that larger-something? Can you imagine how I’ve hesitated to attempt to put words to it, knowing the possible risk? Let this be yet another invitation to gently set down any such temptation. None of us knowing anything, ever.

* * * * *

The bottom line (ever and always) is this: in a given moment, something spontaneously happens, regardless of what may have set it in motion. Things go the way they go. 

Doubtless we are subject to countless forces beyond our fathoming. Perhaps God’s will or karma or free will (or determinism) is in the picture somewhere. Given that there’s so much beyond what our earnest and curious minds can fathom, isn’t it just so much more restful to give up on all of it? 

In light of the vast gulf between present-moment experience and any understanding of it, what a surprise it is to discover that a profound peace comes from resting comfortably in that gulf, when the mind isn’t hellbent on self-protection, on distancing from reality. 

The peace that passeth understanding is, after all, within you. Even now, while you’re undergoing a dogged search, fruitlessly searching “out there,” looking through one lens after another. The human mind cannot bear that it could be this simple, this profoundly absent effort. But then, the earnest mind, a greatly overrated organ, is only doing the best it can. 

Hold yourself in a tender regard. For you — your embodied self — contain an unfathomable vastness and ease. It’s you, as you are, not some woefully inadequate mental construct. However profoundly you may have suffered, something in you was not ruined. Nor could be.

Desire is wrongly maligned in spiritual circles. Many a well-meaning seeker supposes it to be the enemy of peaceful well-being, assuming that to want is inevitably to be attached. Desire needn’t interfere with equanimity. It causes suffering only when it’s encumbered by attachment, by the belief that to achieve the wished-for outcome will solve some problem.

To dwell in the terrain where desire is granted its oh-so-human space — free of attachment (to outcome or to belief): what could be sweeter? Here is where the blessing of being both embodied and not defined by our humanness is able to find expression. Unconstrained by mental constructs, a person is able to sink, body and soul, into a sensory delight, even in (imagine!) pleasure: not as an escape from life’s difficulties; not because the experience seems to carry some meaning or purpose. But simply because of the moment’s unencumbered self. Because the experience feels fully alive, in the now.

To enable such a moment, even to make it a priority. To grant yourself the gift of visiting a place you love, spending time with someone dear to you, reading through old letters, engaging in an activity that brings delight. None of it as a means to an end, but purely for its own sake. Because you are alive. You will not always be. (What are you waiting for?)

To be able to anticipate such a pleasure (if it requires advance planning), without being attached to its actually occurring (knowing, as you do, that nothing is ever guaranteed to happen as visualized, hoped for, planned). It’s the best of all possible worlds. 

* * * * *

This is the delight of being embodied — equipped to experience — without the familiar downside of anguish in the background of desire. It’s the pleasure of wanting something while unburdened by hope or belief.

Discover what it’s like to really want a thing without being attached to whether you get it. To desire without having that interfere with the ease of letting go, if the thing doesn’t materialize. And if it does, to fully be there while the experience is under way, not needing to hold on to it, or to protect yourself against its inevitable end. Nor to be disappointed if the desired thing occurs but not the way you’ve imagined.

You cannot use the tool that built the prison to dismantle it.

Oh, but so much of what we want is more complicated than the prospect of momentary sensory or heartfelt delight. A thing typically is desired because of the hope that it will satisfy some need (to belong, be valued, find security, heal, wake up, manipulate someone, improve a situation). The association of desire with a wished-for outcome can be consciously recognized, but it can also stay underground. Sometimes there’s a deeply buried belief that if such-and-such goes well, an essential “need” will be met, an enduring problem will be solved. The more unconscious this belief, the more at its mercy a person remains.

One of the reasons equanimity eludes us all our lives is that we suppose life must be a certain way if we are to be deeply peaceful.

What if each moment were undertaken simply for its own self? Not as a means to an end. Meanwhile, if it’s otherwise, for goodness’ sake let yourself see what you’ve got fastened onto the moment that’s under way. This is rich terrain for exploration. Don’t leave it unexamined — at least, not if you want to be more peaceful than you’ve been so far.

* * * * *

As we grow up, and then live our adult lives, many of us learn to mute our desires (whether or not the spiritual orientation is in the picture). We do this to protect ourselves from the pain of dashed hope. A child (and then a teenager) learns to keep her own longings to herself, once she’s come to see they don’t align with her parents’ wishes for her. Later, a painful breakup may lead to caution about getting involved again. At some point life has shown each of us that we don’t always get what we want, and that great pain can come from being disappointed, or from disappointing others. So we lie to ourselves regularly, or actually persuade ourselves that a thing really doesn’t matter, when deep down it matters a great deal. Muted longing tends to be wrongly associated with “maturity.” Averse to perceived risk, we become numb. In effect, the walking dead.

The price is dear when the wish to protect ourselves from disappointment has become primary — has risen above the “risk” of wanting. To live without wanting, without going after what could bring delight: is that really living? Why do we need a guarantee of forever, of perfection? Nothing is perfect; nothing endures. Nor will any given experience solve all of life’s problems. Life doesn’t work that way. (Have you noticed?)

What typically causes pain if something desired doesn’t materialize is that so much meaning has been attached to getting it, to its unfolding the way you hoped. When that dynamic is no longer operating, then it is possible to want with your whole heart: to sit in a concert hall and drink in the music of your favorite musician; to arrange a visit with your long-ago dearest friend; to reach out to your estranged sibling or parent. Because now not so much is riding on how any of it goes. You do it because it matters that you try. If it doesn’t go the way you might have preferred, you don’t swell with regret. Nor is your equanimity ruffled.

As a child develops, a thing he inevitably learns from his elders is that most things are undertaken not for their own sake, but because of what they will “get” you: a good life, admiration, safety, financial well-being. It would be a miracle for any child to reach maturity without having taken on the substantial baggage of each thing as a means to an end, all life experience having some meaning fastened onto it. No wonder adults tick the way we do, given our likely upbringing. No wonder we lose sight of what it is to savor momentary experience for its own sake. To give priority to delight.

All we need do is observe a little child. Or an animal. Neither of whom knows anything of attachment to meaning. They simply live, ever in the moment.

* * * * *

Consider the value typically assigned to all things relating to food, to money, to appearance. When is a meal ever enjoyed for its delicious self? Not because it’s good for you, not because it will blunt your fleeting misery, or enable you to lose a few ounces. When is the last time money didn’t represent security or status (positive or negative), diminished or enhanced self-esteem, when it was simply — without complication — a practical means of exchange? When have you looked in the mirror and seen yourself simply as you are, not through the lens of beauty/youth/fitness — some judgment or denial, the wish for “improvement,” the lament over having changed? When has your body, your face, been simply itself, sans interpretation?

When is a love relationship ever animated by plain delight in one another’s company? Driven not by expectation or habit, by resignation or unrealistic ideas of fulfillment, but because the two of you simply love and enjoy one another. No power dynamic at play. No self-protective concealment or manipulation, no perenially unmet needs. Because no needs. (Is it any wonder most relationships are doomed to rampant dissatisfaction? They are asked to solve so many problems.) Yes, love carries risks. Death, for instance. Unforseeable developments. What is the price of “protection”?

It is rare, in adult experience, that anything is engaged in for its own uncomplicated sake — rare that no meaning is ascribed to it. Given the way we tend to be socialized, it’s a plain miracle if any trace of that childlike simplicity manages to survive adults’ attempts (however well intended) to “help” us grow up, be “successful” adults.

Just the same, it’s never too late to enter — even to dwell in — this childlike, creaturely delight, where “meaning” is . . . meaningless.

* * * * *

The landscape of spiritual inquiry holds two realms bearing open-eyed curiosity and exploration, if you want to get anywhere likely to alleviate chronic suffering. Both have to do with the assumption of one thing being inevitably attached to something else — with failing to recognize that you even carry that underlying belief.

Here is one chronic assumption: That any life experience will inevitably set in motion some mind-based interpretation (often stirring an emotion). Yet these are two discrete events. Blessed freedom comes from seeing this — not in your head (useless) but from observing it via conscious awareness, in a real and bodied way.

The other erroneous assumption is this: Desire inevitably includes attachment to outcome (hence its bad reputation, in spiritual circles, with the attendant misplaced effort to expunge self of all desire). It appears impossible to want without its being fueled by the “need” to get the thing, without the inevitability of disappointment or the wish to cling to (or repeat) the experience.

It is not inevitable that desire include attachment, nor does a given experience have to start the familiar mental-emotional machinery. In both cases, these are distinct phenomena. Part of the joy (and relief) of inner exploration is the discovery that much of what we’ve supposed to be all-of-a-piece is in fact otherwise.

How our sumptuous humanity does come alive, at such revelations!

When you consider how habitually we do assign some interpretive value to everything we (and others) do, it’s not hard to see why there’s little space for uncomplicated delight. Who has time for that, with all the need- and meaning-driven activities that consume our attention?

Meanwhile, anyone willing to be altogether honest with themselves can see that the energy animating (driving!) our daily lives seldom bears the desired fruit. Then death comes knocking at the door. What has it all gotten us? What have we missed?

* * * * *

Always the question comes: So, what do I do? How do I get rid of the attachment, the underlying belief? But no. The value of entering this terrain is not so you can “fix” yourself. Not so you can change anything at all. It’s to discover how attached you are: to see what belief underlies attachment to a given outcome. How the force of desire has to do with how much you imagine a thing will mean, accomplish, etc. (or how awful you’ll feel if it doesn’t materialize).

Least of all should you try to blunt the force of a desire (which is what many a dogged seeker does). When that happens, you’ve piled lying-to-self onto the heap of already messy attachment, meaning-giving, unconscious belief, and all the rest of what keeps a person going in endless repetitive loops. Anyhow, do observe that it’s the mind that means to “correct” the deep human impulses at play — the spiritual mind that supposes it knows what’s best. It’s almost funny, when you consider that the very same organ is what assembled all the mess in the first place.

You cannot use the tool that built the prison to dismantle it.

But you can turn on the light: simply by making all the inner space necessary to look authentically at how things are presently operating inside the prison. Truly seeing, without resistance or any sort of handling (or denial), is a potent environment in which actual change can occur, seemingly all on its own, and on its own schedule (not the mind’s). It’s the only way real and enduring change ever happens.

While you are ensnared in the persistence of desire-with-attachment, observing that dynamic at play can shine an illuminating light on the habit. Let yourself be curious, to explore without judgment, the difference between unencumbered desire and perceived need. To gently tease apart things that are not all-of-a-piece.

In and around open-eyed episodes of inner seeing (without recoiling from some uncomfortable truth), you may stumble into spontaneous moments of outward noticing: the colors of flowers along a walk, the expression on a loved one’s face, music heard playing in the distance. You might observe yourself relishing the relief of sinking exhausted into bed at the end of a long day. Welcome such a moment. You didn’t bring it into being; it just arrived, the way each moment of life does. Don’t hurry it to a conclusion. Allow yourself to linger in the pleasure. Perhaps you’ll surprise yourself by hatching a plan to arrange an encounter (on Zoom or even in person, who knows?) with a beloved friend you haven’t seen in ages.

Go for it! Grant yourself permission to set aside some of the habitual meaning-saturated nonsense for half a day. It won’t kill you. It might even feel deliciously alive.

* * * * *

You may discover, along the way, that some of your familiar desires (or perceived needs) seem to have dwindled or altogether disappeared. It’s turned out those things were only ever ached for (or resigned to) because of their perceived significance. Once you stop needing to manage the future, to accomplish a certain thing, a lot falls away. Things you’ve always done because someone would be confused or disappointed if you didn’t, or because it’s always been “your way.” When each piece of life ceases to carry the terrible burden of meaning, a lot of ease and open space enters the picture. Ordinary delight has more room to flower in, sometimes spontaneously. The tendency to cling to anything, to want it to last or recur, is able to soften to the stillness of plainly savoring. Even as you know nothing ever lasts.

Such a revelation. Such a radical relief. 

For most of my life I’ve carried an impression, an assumption, having to do with a given thought and how it has come about, and what it seems to have set in motion. There has been a sense of agency and of causality, an understanding of the seeming significance of the order of things. All of this, of course, being the fathoming of the mind.

Some years ago, for instance, I was picturing the annual mammogram I was to have the following day and feeling the familiar anxiety gathering momentum. Seeing how weary I was of the repeating torture, I noticed the arrival of a thought I hadn’t had before. Might it be possible to drive across the state to the breast experts and go through the procedure and its aftermath without being a nervous wreck? Whereupon a miracle occurred: I felt the entire thing dissolve. Just like that. Not only did my body and mind come to an utter rest; I also knew, as if the day to come had already been lived, that the entire event — including the nightmare walk down the hall to the radiologist’s office, with my illumined films most ominously on display — would occur sans crippling fear. 

And so it was, and was to remain. Nor were mammograms the end of what changed. The blessing spread everywhere in my ordinary life, not a single piece of it untransformed.

* * * * *

It appeared for all the world (as it was to look to those reading my eventual book) as though the transformation had been precipitated — caused — by the thought, just prior, that had come to me: the asking of the question, in the form of a prayer, whether such a thing might be possible. 

Where had that thought come from? Had I “caused” it? And why did it come then, and never before? Did the thought, the prayer, actually bring into being the miraculous change? But I posed none of this to myself at the time, assuming my mind’s impression of the sequence and cause of things to be accurate. Not until years after When Fear Falls Away was published would I revisit the moment in a more penetrating, curious light.

Meanwhile, a ceaseless chorus of voices — people understandably aching for a kindred relief — had poured in my direction. Here and there, a frustrated weariness bordering sometimes on anger and despair. Why hasn’t this happened for me? I’ve asked and prayed. Why you and not me? What am I doing wrong? So many having attempted the route I appeared to have taken, longing to be released from the grip of suffering, but to no obvious effect. Wanting to know “how to get there.” What “method” had I used, in the years leading up to that moment? How might they go about finding their way there?

* * * * *

What eventually dawned on me, regarding my own stumbling into the land of peace and well-being, was that I had likely misread what had happened. The more I revisited my life before, the more it began to dawn on me that things on my interior might have been a good bit farther along, by that day before the mammogram, than I’d realized at the time. I noticed one thing and another that had occurred in the years leading up to that turning-point moment — fleeting insights, subtle indicators of something having fallen away (none of which had struck me at the time as hugely significant).

And yet — although my ordinary mind had not fathomed their potential significance at the time of their occurrence — some awareness in me had registered their significance (or else they’d not have been mentally retrievable long after).

Perhaps you have had such moments, dear heart. Things that “just came to you,” without your going looking for them. A subtle shift in orientation, when something looked different from how it had appeared before. Insights perhaps not paid a lot of attention, at the time. Such moments sometimes reminding you of themselves long after, in a context where their significance has a quality of dawning, of Illumining.

Fresh perspectives (can you see this?) that you had not used your regular-thinking, desire-saturated mind to bring into being.

* * * * *

Some years prior to the mammogram turning point, a thought came to me spontaneously. It seemed to arrive from out of some mysterious blue, as I was soaking in a hot bath, colorful Christmas lights strung around the otherwise unlit room. 

There is something more important than my emotions.

Huh? The idea that something could matter more to me than my emotional life was . . . bewildering. Not something that had ever occurred to me before, since my habitually heartfelt self had always seemed essential to who-I-was. A kind of bottom line. In the moments before, I hadn’t been thinking about my emotions, or doing any sort of “spiritual” inquiry. Nor had I ever encountered this idea about the relative insignificance of emotion. I had not oriented to my inner life as a “problem” per se (even though I was certainly aware of plenty of suffering). Nor, in those days, was I intent on awakening — a condition I never imagined being available to the likes of me.

I had no idea what that “something more important” might be. That particular dawning was to be a long time in coming. It would occur (as all occurs) in its sweet time of readiness.

However that memorable thought had come, it was clear I had not “thought it up.” I was on the receiving end of it. And although I did not, at the time, register the depth of its implications, clearly it made an impression, or else it would not have stayed with me for so many years.

* * * * *

A wise man once made a helpful distinction between waking up and becoming enlightened. The two are not synonymous, he said, as they are often supposed to be. Waking up is not the arrival of all wisdom; it’s the beginning of wisdom. Awakening is a brightening of light, in which it becomes possible, gradually, to see more fully what is there to see. 

An awful lot remains to be seen and fathomed, and in its own sweet time, as a person is ready to process and incorporate it. One is on the receiving end of the unfolding wisdom. As far as I can tell, there is no end to the process of enlightenment.

* * * * *

Eventually I was led to question the long-ago assumption about the timing (and apparent cause) of the dropping away of fear. Along the way I came to question too the apparent role of thinking in such matters, my enduring impression about how a certain thought might bring a change into being. After some years of pondering it all, of noticing one development and another, I would eventually come to see what had more likely occurred — what had (perhaps) more truly set in motion my awakening.

What if the wondering about not being afraid occurred to me because (and only because) something deep within me, something not yet conscious, already realized the potential was there to stop being afraid? That fear was, in fact, optional. What if all the ducks (unbeknownst to my clunky observing mind) had already been lined up by one thing and another? Patiently waiting for the thought to take form, to shape possibility into a potent-seeming question, allowing the underlying “knowing” to become more conscious? 

What if thought was, in effect, the last thing to show up at the party — if it was, in fact, not the actual cause of the longed-for change?

It’s all turned out to be up for grabs, my enduring impression of order and causality very likely unreliable, off the mark. It’s become clear that both before and after awakening, there’s always a lot more going on than we can hope to be mentally conscious of. Nor are any impressions of the mind necessarily a reliable indicator of what’s deeply going on.

* * * * *

When a person feels stuck, spiritually speaking, almost inevitably the stuck-ness has its roots in taking thought too seriously. There tends to be an over-reliance on using the mind as a way to truth, to becoming free of torment. 

Oh, how we want to believe we can think our way out of suffering, all the way to ultimate freedom. Anyone having the insight and humility to see how suffering is at least somewhat self-inflicted will naturally long to find a method, a formula: a system of belief, a meditation practice, a clear-eyed teacher who appears to have left the world of suffering. There must surely be a series of steps that can be taken to get to radical relief. 

We tend to over-dignify thought by supposing it can have access to what we need to awaken, by imagining a series of thoughts can bring about a desired change. It’s not that thinking is altogether useless. Sometimes it’s the very arising of a thought that enables us to recognize and articulate what’s innate to us, on the level of consciousness. It’s just that we are not in charge of the arrival or timing of such a recognition. Perhaps only when we are ready to incorporate a life-altering insight do we become able to recognize its quiet presence within. 

What if the significant realization is already here, within us — if we simply haven’t seen it yet? What if dogged effort is in the way? Who knows why things happen, when they do? Who can ever fathom what makes clarity arrive when it does?

Not the mind, dear heart. Never the mind.

* * * * * 

What is the source of these insights that come all on their own? Who’s to say? Not me. But here’s one possibility. It is said that each of us is already “awake,” beneath all of the mental and emotional torment. How vivid this becomes, at awakening: the sense that this is familiar. A homecoming. Nor had it ever been so far away, as it had seemed, during all the time of earnest searching (the vast majority of which had taken place courtesy of the oh-so-useless mind).

If there were a spiritual journey, it would be only a quarter inch long.

– John O’Donohue

Eventually the long-awaited insight arrived, having to do with the significance of that bathtub revelation. In the brightening light of awakening, I came to see that reality itself — the now, just as it is, sans any mental or emotional interpretation — is independent of whatever a person might make of it. That life itself, uninterpreted, occurs prior to any “handling” of it on the interior. When the truth of this registers in a person — not just mentally but bodily — it is life-altering.

The something more important than emotions turned out to be life itself, prior to its being given meaning of some sort. All of that inevitable-seeming mental stuff being the source of emotion. And hence of suffering. 

When those words about emotion had come to me all those years before, I was simply not ready to “get” their deep significance. That part waited — as all things do — for the time to be right. It did not come because I’d gone looking for it.

I don’t know why I woke up (nor do I imagine I ever will). I did not (consciously, anyhow) bring it about. 

* * * * *

How many times, and through what multitude of means, must the lesson be driven home? We are not in control. The correlative (perhaps reassuring) lesson is this: more is going on in us, always, than we are conscious of — much more than we’ve managed to get hold of via thought.

We generally give our thoughts much more credit than is merited. We assume that a mental impression of a moment of life is accurate, mistaking it for life itself. We enjoy believing that some clever thought has the power to precipitate a significant life development (like, say, manifesting wealth, or bringing about authentic compassion, or causing an end to mind-caused suffering, imagining that we can use the tool to fix the tool itself).

What were we thinking? (Humor intended: it’s good to laugh at ourselves.) It’s all very humbling.

There is a difference between thinking and awareness. Awareness is utterly peaceful, alive-feeling. It’s a plain noticing, a receptivity, that occurs without effort any time the mind gets out of the way. All of us have the capacity of conscious awareness, whether or not we are spiritual seekers. Just like the capacity to think is part of our equipment. Only in the case of the latter (by marked contrast with awareness) there is often the absence of peace. Thinking is driven by wanting something. It is deluded into supposing it can get the desired result. While that may be true in parts of “outer” life, its usefulness on the interior dwindles to near nothing.

* * * * *

So . . . what then? Where does that leave a person?

Stop working so hard to wake up. Never delude yourself into supposing you know what you’re doing (or what “needs” doing). Simply pay attention to what comes along, “out there” and within. Be receptive. Let your eyes and your heart be open, not on a mission. Be curious about what you observe. You don’t need to do anything with (or about) any of it.

Remember that there always is more going on, relating to awakening, than the clunky mind can get hold of or fathom (never mind manage). As often as effort starts up, gently remind yourself that you do not know what you’re doing, that anything thought-based is useless. Worse than useless.

Don’t try to change anything. Just see whatever is happening inside yourself. If there is desire, notice it. Don’t try to let it go. (You may have noticed it doesn’t work.) If resistance is happening, just see it, without trying to undo it. (Sometimes simply seeing it will soften it.)

If you genuinely enjoy meditating (or whatever tends to get made into a “practice” or a method), do it. For for its own sake, not as a means to an end. Practices tend to become means to an end (like escaping torment), rather than being done for their own sweet sake. 

If you notice yourself gripped by the hideous determination to wake up, just notice it. See that this desire is born in the mind. Don’t try to get rid of it; just gently look and feel. Soon enough something else will happen. Try to remember that there is a much shorter distance between yourself and wakefulness than the mind thinks there is.

If you’re moved to pray, pray not for a particular something (which would assume your mind knows what you need). Instead consider praying to see what needs seeing.

Do not go looking for the magical “place” in you that spawns insights all on its own, where wisdom is tucked away, just waiting to be revealed. Please realize that if you make an effort of that sort, it is your mind making mischief again.

Be curious but not invested or hellbent, on a mission to heal yourself. Awareness is wonderfully equipped for curiosity. For marveling, savoring, insights.

Rather than being driven into despair by the realization that there’s “nothing you can do” to “get there,” notice that the source of all of that misery is your head. Instead, feel how good it is to let go all the dogged effort. Feel how good it is to rest in life itself, to trust yourself — not your mental and emotional self, but the Real You that underlies it all. That’s waiting patiently to allow one delicious thing and another to dawn on you.

Then watch . . . feel . . . what happens. When you get out of your own way.

One of the more compelling features of human existence is the way a person is both timeless and mortal. This is a deeply challenging “overlap” to fathom, by whatever means. It’s not to be understood by the mind, which is ill-equipped to reckon with timelessness.

Although it’s surely challenging to even a willing mind to register the profound message of mortality — that there will be a time after I have ceased to be — still, it’s possible to mentally approach such a recognition. Death being one of the few things known for certain to be on the horizon.

There is a number on every one of our lives, a certain allotment of days. A good deal of our common torment comes from not knowing what that number is. Mostly, we turn our intelligent eyes away from the fact of it all coming inevitably to an end. We live as though we have forever: to do the things that matter; to stop squandering life; to really Be Here.

This is the miracle, the vast blessing, of human existence.

All the while, the only thing we ever have (ever will) is today, one precious moment at a time. For the only piece of life that is actually experienced, ever, is the now. It is only in the immediacy of embodied life that our timelessness can be fathomed. Touched, one might say. To miss this, again and again, until it’s all come to a stop? What could be more poignant?

Meanwhile, one now after another, there is the persistent recoiling from the extreme discomfort that comes with the recognition of mortality. There is no more potent denial. Nor one with more power to cause suffering. All of it leaving us with the enduring failure to live, now. To live with the conscious awareness of brevity and uncertainty, a knowing with the ability to land a person smack-dab in the timeless moment.

* * * * *

There isn’t time. This expression embodies two meanings. It conveys “no time to waste” (no time like the present, since time is running out). It also points to the unreality of time, which (unlike the now) cannot be experienced. Time is accessible — it appears real — only via thought, which is able to remember and to visualize an imagined future, and to assemble the two into a mental picture of unfolding life as a line extending backward and forward.

The observation that both things are true only appears to be a contradiction. The limited mind cannot hope to reconcile them. Best to relax from the effort.

* * * * *

A few years ago a revelation took place on my interior. This occurred a long while after awakening, which had blessedly removed the fear of death.

Because I had ceased to dread death and the running-out-of-time it portended, I had become disinterested in my mortality. Each day, each moment, unfolded naturally, my eyes tending to be on the now. Surely all of this was a blessing, and it was experienced as such. The relief of the terrible burden of fear was so profound that nothing could be wished for beyond the delicious now, just as it was.

Even when a given moment brought sorrow, such as the death of a loved one or being in the presence of another’s suffering, there was no inclination to wish it would “hurry up and get over with,” or to anticipate a possible “better” future. Gone was the familiar refuge in some dream of what might happen a day or year distant from this one. Whatever focus there had long been on one-of-these-days simply dissolved. The only occasion for looking at something in the future was when it was practical to do so (scheduling and the like).

That is how things carried on, for a very long while, with no consideration of how life’s inevitable brevity and uncertainty might inform today. Or an envisioning of tomorrow. Then a brand new insight arrived on the scene. It made an enduring impression, one that’s significantly affected the way I live since then.

* * * * *

Who knows why these things come along, when they do? One of life’s sweetly enduring mysteries is the matter of why a certain seeing occurs when it does (and why not until then). The mind never ceases to be curious about such matters. But the heart knows better, when such a moment arrives, than to look away.

One day it dawned on me: Hey, just because you no longer fear death doesn’t mean you have forever. Wow! What might that be like, to look square in the face of brevity and uncertainty and to let that be a door — not into hideous fear but rather into a delicious “room” where I might ask questions of myself? Like these: Where is my heart’s deepest joy to be found? How do I most want my ordinary day to be? What am I willing to forgo for the sake of someone else’s wish, and (most significantly) What am I NOT?

In retrospect I can observe that asking such questions (after years of having essentially “set myself aside”) seemed to do with a movement toward being kind to myself. There was a palpable wish to grant that orientation a larger space than before. Perhaps it was something to do with the gentle dawning of my not having forever for one delight or another.

I began considering new possibilities. Is there anything I’d really love to do? Anything I’d revel in while I am alive, and reasonably healthy and fit, my cognitive and physical resources roughly intact? Is there someone I want to say thank you to, while both of us are still here for such an encounter? Some pleasure I’d like to take to myself, given that I can never know when the chance for such a thing has come and gone?

* * * * *

In short order, I made arrangements to take my newly-sober son on a celebratory trip to a place dear to me (which in fact came about, with breathtaking speed and boundless joy for us both). I ended a longstanding and much-loved work commitment, because I had ached for years to join a choir whose rehearsals occurred on the same night of the week. How I reveled in that music, that oh-so-bodied experience of song! One of my life’s purest joys. (Nor was the experience to last. Of course: nothing does. Making me all the more grateful I made the move when I did.)

I took great joy in searching for individuals who had been a blessing in my youthful life, so that — if they too were still alive — I might be able to let them know of their enduring significance. How I’d always remembered them, with such gratitude. Given that most of these individuals were my elders, I learned that some were no longer here to tell; more than one has died in the time since I reached out. (No time like the present!) Blessedly, I did manage to find a few of those I most wanted to thank. What joy, to be able to express what had long lived in my heart. Nor did it matter (at all) whether I ever heard back from any of them. In several cases, there did come about a rich exchange, with delight on both sides.

There was a man whose music I loved and had only recently discovered. I wanted with my whole heart to have the experience of sitting in a theater and drinking it in, the sight and sound of the actual Randy Newman sitting at his piano, in the very room I was in. I devoted myself to looking for upcoming concerts in the vicinity. In short order I found one that wouldn’t be too far away, at a venue I could actually get myself to. When ticket sales opened, I was first in line. I had the best seat in the house. Felt like I had died and gone to heaven. 

One thing after another. I took a clear-eyed look at my living circumstances, allowing to come front-and-center a truth I’d quietly let be in the background until then: that my heart’s desire was to make a change in the situation. It came about, before long. It was not easy. But I was clear-eyed that it wanted doing.

All of it because of this: I didn’t have forever.

* * * * *

No longer, as in my life before, was any of this fear-based, or driven by the dread of possible regret. Nor was it inspired by the fond hope that something would finally deliver “fulfillment.” The impact on day-to-day existence was profound and far-reaching, and has remained so.

With awakening, because it no longer mattered whether I satisfied my own wishes, I had naturally and gladly set aside personal considerations for the sake of others. Nor had it felt like a “sacrifice” to orient to life this way, to give priority to another’s needs, since doing so in no way diminished the experience of the sweetness of momentary reality.

So what a surprise to find myself posing these “self-centered” questions. A surprise and, as it’s turned out, the new orientation to life has brought about full-bodied joy.

* * * * *

I came to understand how things had unfolded the way they had: how the departure of the fear of dying and the eventual registering about life’s brevity had dawned as distinct revelations.

All my prior life, the two had been fused: the fear of death and the focus on a desired future. As if they were all-of-a piece. This is how the egoic mind functions. One thing gets “fastened” onto another, in a way that seems inevitable, as if one part were inherent to the other. The way a life event becomes attached to the mind’s interpretation of it, rolled into a single thing.

So it had been for me. Because for decades I had associated the terrifying prospect of death with thoughts of what-to-do (later, always later) in the days and years ahead, when the first part (fear) dissolved, it seemed to take with it any consideration of the future. Of brevity.

This was natural, in light of the experiential “knowing” that only-now-is-real.

But the mind is still a useful device, even long after it has ceased to function as the ego’s devoted slave. The mind is able to understand that no human being lives forever. That there is indeed a number on our days. And that — most significantly — there is no knowing at what point the current physical and mental endowment will change, perhaps abruptly.

* * * * *

One last thing to observe, perhaps the biggest miracle of all. As each of these inspirations has taken root in my heart, there’s been the steady awareness that even if an eagerly-anticipated thing doesn’t work out after all, it will be entirely fine. There is simply no attachment whatever. I remember being aware (for instance) on the hours-long drive to the Randy Newman concert that my car could break down and I wouldn’t make it there. There was the steady recognition of unfolding uncertainty, in the getting-from-here-to-there (whatever a given plan might have been). And — right along beside it — the awareness that if things fell apart, meanwhile, I’d be entirely fine letting the thing go.

Here’s why. No longer, as in my long-ago life, was there “meaning” assigned to anything, including something I’d anticipated with intense pleasure and made great effort to bring about. It was not going to “give my life value.” No, I simply knew I would love it. And if it turned out to be otherwise, if I didn’t love it after all, or if it never materialized, it would not matter. Talk about blessings . . .

And when a given thing did materialize? The reveling and gratitude knew no bounds. Celebration galore.

* * * * *

I don’t usually carry on so much about myself, in these meandering missives. In this case, it seemed potentially illuminating to do so. My wish is that my sharing all of this might turn you, so tenderly, toward your own interior, to explore your own orientation to time’s unreality and the way it co-exists with the awareness of your mortality. To avert your eyes from neither reality, allowing each to take its place of honor in your awareness. This is the miracle, the vast blessing, of human existence: the mingling of palpable momentary joy with the equally-bodied experience of timelessness.

There isn’t time for it to be otherwise.

The life-altering time we’re all in carries its potential blessings. The extremity and uncertainty of the pandemic may attune us at last to the matter of what it is to be kind to self. Along the way, conscious awareness may expand and soften. (Sometimes it takes an extreme situation to wake us up.)

What is it to be kind to yourself?

We need all the kindness we can get, all we can give.

It’s to rest from wishing things were otherwise. They aren’t. Relaxing into what-is brings actual relief. Since something in us already knows the truth, to cease fighting it is restful.

As you move through the ordinary day, any time you become self-aware, invite yourself to see — to feel — how much exertion is involved in the act of thinking. In addition to being largely useless (and frequently circular), thinking tires a person. Engaging the mind has a cost, maybe too dear a cost, especially in these difficult times.

Invite your dear self to ease any self-imposed pressure. Consider letting a thing go altogether, or at least for now.

Allow yourself to notice — to register, in your body — whenever you’ve reached “enough” (maybe too much) of a thing. Be conscious of the cost of pushing yourself hard, of lingering over social media/the news, of fretting. It will feel restful to take a break. Maybe even restorative.

Grant yourself permission to simply sit, or to do something you enjoy. (Never mind how much “needs” doing.) Go outdoors to hold still, walk, take in fresh air. Do something creative, nourishing to the soul. Play with the dog, the little child. Take in how good it feels to give this gift to yourself.

Be aware of the story you habitually tell yourself about a given activity’s meaning. Tune into beliefs or habits that move you to action. See that belief and meaning are mind-created, not objectively “true,” as often supposed. Contrary to the mind’s impression, the perceived value of an action is not inherent to the thing itself. Be curious about what deeply motivates you to do a thing. Some things that have “needed” doing may gently fall away.

When your heart wants to break, let it break. If tears want to come (or perhaps a flood of love or gratitude), allow that to happen. Grant your heart all the space it asks. To do so feels deliciously alive, because it locates you in what’s real in the moment.

When something lovely or fun or soothing comes across your radar (perhaps quite spontaneously), if you find yourself turning away, urging yourself on with some “important” task, reconsider. Allow yourself to linger. Feel how much good it does to do so.

Do just one thing at a time. Thinking is a kind of doing. If you’re focusing on a task, do just that thing, allowing thought to rest for the moment. (If you need to think, hold still to do it.) Notice any tendency to urge toward what’s-next, or toward getting done. Just do what you’re doing now. “Next” will take care of itself, when its time comes.

If you have a tendency to take refuge in a desired future, or in the past, see if you’re doing this as a way to escape the unwelcome present. Avoiding the now is actually taxing. Give yourself some space to allow it — simply the immediate circumstance, the sensory reality, the interior of your body. Being in the now is not about the “big” now, the larger circumstance/problem (which asks the mind to get busy — perhaps the most tiring activity of them all).

If you have a spiritual practice, notice if you go at it like a rigorous discipline. Pay attention to how you feel when doing it. Do you see your practice as a means to an end? As an alternative, consider doing it not because you “should” but when genuinely moved. Allow being-here-now to be its own sweet “practice.”

A blessing of learning to be gentle with yourself, as you move through the day, is that you may find yourself renewed, refreshed. Energy and creativity are freed up. When life asks a good deal of you, you may have more resources to bring to it than you did when overly pushing yourself, or when becoming lost in unconsciousness.

When you’re kind to yourself, it comes naturally to be kind to others. Which is a blessing to them, and also to you. It feels good to be genuinely kind (which is different from doing it as a practice). We need all the kindness we can get, all we can give.