Also, I will be starting up another Tuesday inquiry group with my friend and collaborator, Dena Evans, that will run for 8 weeks, from December 1st to January 19th. If interested in participating, drop me an email: john@johnastin.com

THE QUESTIONS ARE MADE OF THE ANSWER

At any moment when you feel as if, “Oh my God, I’ve lost touch with this. I’m not abiding as this,” or whatever you might be thinking, however you might be describing that. Just look and see.

Has reality been lost? Has being been lost? Pick your favorite word. Presence?

Isn’t that moment of seeming lack actually the movement of the fullness of life? Isn’t it?

Don’t take my word for it. Just look. Feel what’s here. Here is the unmissable. It’s funny that we can miss it (and it sometimes doesn’t feel so funny), right, that we seem like, “where did the aliveness go?”

And there’s the opportunity to look and see: did it go anywhere? Or is it right here, as the moment?

All of our questions, all of the ideas and thoughts and beliefs and wonderings underlying all the questions are made of the answer, the answer being This, this unspeakable, unfathomable aliveness. That’s what everything is made of…

So the questions themselves are made of the answer, if that makes sense.

We can ask questions as we do and then try to answer those questions conceptually. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s also the movement of this fullness. But we can really see that the ultimate answer to all the questions is This.

This that can never be lost.

I don’t have enough words to say how astonishing that is.

And subtle as well, even though, strangely, it’s also just so obvious. It’s not subtle at all. In other words, it’s just this, right?

It’s not subtle in the sense of hiding in some kind of subtlety.

But what it is, the feeling of the moment, the being of the moment is…

You feel into what that is.

What is it? What’s the substance of reality? What’s the substance of life?

Well, you could never say.

Subtle beyond subtle beyond subtle as to what that is.

Here. Present. But inconceivable.

Travel down the well of Being to determine what it is,

to get to the bottom of what it is.

There is no bottom. There is no final conclusion.

“Ah, I know what it is, it’s this!”

And, it’s not something that we’re merely noticing and observing from a distance.

It’s not really like that because whatever is noticing, whatever the perceiving function is [call it whatever you want, awareness…]

Whatever that is, is made of this mysterious Being.

The substance of everything.

That is what we are.

Not really something that we’re separate from

and observing and noticing.

Just life, gazing at life.

Life, drinking life.

Life, reveling in life…

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Feel the being, the presence of the moment, right? It’s unmistakable, the sense of here-ness, the sense of something being here, and notice that sense of being, as much as we may imagine it’s localized, that it’s somehow contained in this bodymind, and then there’s what’s not us. Just feel that sense of being and notice the way in which it has no findable edge to it. Feel this experientially...

Even if you venture out spatially speaking from the locus of you, the being of you, and you venture out spatially, like you’re moving away from this localized you, spatially, and you go ahead and do that and notice that you just don’t come to an end. You don’t come to a wall. You don’t hit some stopping point. Being is without edge. Feel that. It’s inclusive of everything.

The sense of I AM, the sense of existing, is the same as the sense that something is, that sense of being. So just feel that, that undivided flow of being, of experiencing. Feel the wholeness of it, the undivided nature of it. Every seemingly separate phenomena that may be arising—each thought, each sensation, each perception—are all the movement of This, this life, this existence, this being. And that’s the wholeness.

It’s really, we could say, using the wave metaphor, that it’s like sensing the way in which the waves of existence that we are, are fully dissolved in and as this boundless, fathomless existence, which doesn’t blot us out. It doesn’t erase the body or the mind, or the personality, or our lives or our histories. It doesn’t negate anything.

It includes everything, but it also subsumes everything in its boundless reach, its inclusive reach. It is everything, just like the ocean is all the waves.

So as you feel this wholeness, that has no edge to it, has no end to it, has no border to it, there’s no seams in this wholeness because everything is this ground of being, of experiencing, of presence (pick your favorite word).

And as you feel that, notice how there’s absolutely zero struggle in that. The ground of being that you are and everything is has no argument with anything. It has no quarrel, no issue with anything. Everything is its arising. Everything is its appearing. Do you feel that?

So for example, from the perspective of being an individual, “Oh my God, here come these crazy thoughts of mine and I don’t like them and I wish they would go away and when is the mind going to shut up, and I need to do more meditation to quiet the mind…”

That whole game that can feel quite challenging, frustrating and so on. It feels like the waves of thought are happening to me, the individual, right? We all know this perspective. But from the perspective of the whole, and I really invite you to feel this, embody this, feel the embodiment of this now, that the moment that’s here (the being of the moment) is giving rise to all the thoughts in my example. And it has absolutely no problem with the thoughts. They are its expression. There’s no struggle there with the thoughts. There’s no struggle with any emotional states. There’s no problem from that perspective. There’s just this inexplicable, mysterious, unpredictable movement of reality.

What’s it like to see life from that vantage? It’s different, isn’t it? And from my standpoint, it’s not that somehow seeing this wholeness, or feeling the truth of this wholeness is necessarily going to stop the individual experience from happening, that sense of being an individual that’s also navigating stuff. That seems to be included as a perspective.

But that other perspective is right here. You could say it’s the context, the infinite, vast context of each moment is this undivided being that again, in terms of this particular focus that I’m bringing to the fore, of struggle, of finding a kind of freedom from struggling with what is, is to notice, again, that reality has no struggle with what is.

The most powerful way to cultivate more equanimity is to see that equanimity is a good way to describe reality itself. It’s equanimous. The moment arises without any argument. This moment is here right now. No matter what it looks like, in all of the different ways it can look, it arises without argument. And what’s the evidence for that claim I’m making, that it arises with no argument? The fact that it’s here! It’s arisen, right? The moment is already here. It’s already (in the language of acceptance) already allowed. Already accepted. Already welcomed without struggle as evidenced by the fact that it’s here.

This constant springing forth, this creative force of reality, of arising as each instant, do you feel that? How there’s just complete non-struggle and equanimity in reality itself?

I mean, for just a moment, just as we bring this little inquiry to a close, this is a really simple kind of meditative practice of sorts. Just sit for however long you want, 20 seconds or 20 minutes or however long, and feel the way in which everything that’s arising, each moment that’s arising is literally the movement of life itself.

All of it is the wholeness, which is why we don’t have to have a different experience to realize the whole because all of it is the whole. And baked into it in a sense is no struggle. And that’s what we are. That’s what we really are because there’s just the wholeness.

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ALWAYS BEING, ALWAYS BECOMING

These two primal qualities of reality—it’s ever existing nature. It always is. It’s Being. That’s its constancy. And at the same time, this constancy of being is absolutely inconstant.

But it’s not two different things. It’s one thing that has these seeming qualities of absolute stability, absolute constancy of its ever-present nature. And yet that ever-present nature has, the sense of it is one of no stability at all, no constancy.

Just let yourself notice the fact of this. Feel your experience (which you can’t feel anything but). But notice this flow of experience, notice its flowing nature, flowing in the sense of its not remaining a particular way.

As far as how it’s presenting, we could say it’s always remaining as being. Its existence always remains. But the particular flavors of it? Shapeshifting, right? Can you feel that, how it’s never actually landing? It’s never actually assuming a form that remains that form although it appears to, hence, all of our language and all of our concepts and all the ways of mapping and modeling this, seemingly being able to pull that off. But if you look and feel this dynamism that’s impossible to not feel, I mean, this is us. This is being, ever-becoming, ever-transforming, and yet, always being…

And in its always becoming, it’s impossible to determine what it is. It’s really impossible to identify it, even though we imagine that we can and that’s how we have all the categories that we place what’s arising into, as if we know what it is. “Oh, yeah, I’ve determined what this is. It’s this.”

In other words, we’ve set the limit of it. We’ve defined it. “It’s this. This is how it is.” Whether we’re defining ourselves, another person, a phenomena that seems to be appearing, a mental-emotional state. The very instant we think that we’ve arrived at a conclusion about what is arising, like, “Oh, I kind of recognize that, it looks like this,” it’s already looking like something else, you see?

Notice how you’re feeling this right now. It’s an absolute free-fall in that sense, a free-fall. Never landing. That turns out to be the actual ground that we’re looking for.

We want that ground. Something in us as humans wants that sense of stability. But as I say often, we keep looking for it in the wrong place. We keep looking for it in specific or particular experiences and circumstances. “Oh, yeah, if I could just hold this in place, I would be okay,” whatever the state is or the circumstance or the situation.

But we know, unmistakably, if we just look, that you can’t hold it in place, hence our human frustration with being unable to obtain what we think we want or need and hold it in place and keep at bay the things that we don’t want, right?

It just doesn’t work very well. But we’re missing this always being, always becoming. That’s just the nature of every moment. And this is, again, where the real ground lies, the groundless ground. Never becoming something identifiable, but always being. No matter what you’re thinking or not thinking, whatever you’re feeling or not feeling, sensing or not sensing, experiencing or not experiencing, This IS. What it is, we can’t really say. That it is? You can’t really argue with that. I mean, you can try, but that very argument that, “well, maybe this isn’t it,” is evidence of its existence. There’s the argument, right?

You don’t have to have a particular state or be in a seeming state to notice this. This is what’s always being noticed. This always being, always becoming. That’s the home. Never goes anywhere. Can never be taken away. And it’s really not something we’re gaining. It’s already the case,

But it can feel as if it’s something that’s being gained because there can be this, the appearance of noticing it and recognizing it and appreciating it and dare I say, reveling in it and just enjoying the shit out of it because it’s the miracle of miracles.

This being. It’s what we are. It’s what everything is…

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ONLY EXPERIENCE (from the book, In Every Wave, the Entirety of the Sea)

When you look out at the world that you typically think of as existing outside of you, notice how what you’re calling “outside” is actually showing up as experience. The blue of the sky, the trees blowing in the wind, the bird that just landed in the tree outside your window… all of it appears as experience, doesn’t it?

When we see a person or place or object visually, those things are showing up as experience. When we hear the sound of something, it’s showing up as experience. When we touch the thing, it’s experience. When we think about it, its experience.

Feel that, the way in which the entire world we conceive of as separate from us and existing outside of experience, is actually showing up as experience.

Feel the bubble of your experience, the bubble of whatever seems to be present experientially. We typically think that there’s a whole world existing outside of this subjective bubble. But try right now to get outside of experience. Are you actually able to leave the bubble of your experience to find something outside of it?

Even if you were to discover something existing outside of what’s being experienced, you would only know that thing you discovered as experience. In other words, the minute you think you’ve identified something outside the bubble of experience, that thing is now inside your experience! Feel this, the way in which it’s impossible to ever leave the realm of experience.

From this vantage, nothing is separate from anything else or from me for everything that is present is present as experience. For example, I see what I think of as a computer bag that’s sitting next to the table where my computer lies. I typically think of these objects—the table, the bag, my computer—as separate from me. But whether I touch those things or view them, whether I put something in them—all of that is being known as experience.

Now ask yourself, “What is having this experience right now? What is seeing through these eyes of mine, hearing through these ears? What’s knowing and perceiving this moment?” Conventionally, we think, “Well, I’m perceiving the moment.” But who or what exactly is this “I” we think as the one perceiving?

Take a moment and just feel whatever you imagine is perceiving the moment. What’s peering through your eyes right now? Even if you were to say, “I’m looking through these eyes,” you could only ever know that “I” as experience, right? While we think of ourselves as subjects, existing separate from whatever objects are being perceived, feel how both the perceiver and the perceived are made of experience and in that sense, are inseparable.

Perceptually, we can look up at the blue sky, see it as an object and then notice this other object, a cloud, floating through it. But experientially, what we’re calling sky and cloud are showing up as experience. And as experience, no lines of separation between the two supposed objects can be found. What may be appearing from one vantage as two separate things is at the same time, single, seamless flow of experiencing.

To be sure, we’re constantly encountering all these different perceptual objects as well as subjective flavors. But feel again how from this other perspective we’re exploring, all these different phenomena are made of one thing—experience—much as the different colors of the rainbow are all made of a single light.

We have this sense of being encased in a body that exists autonomously and is distinct and separate from the environment that surrounds it. But just take a moment and feel what you’re calling body. You know that phenomenon called body as experience, right? Now venture out to the presumed edge of the body. Do you find an actual boundary there, a place where the experience of body comes to an end, or do you just keep finding more and more experience, without end?

And if you venture out, beyond the supposed boundary of the body, what do you find on the other side? You might say you find the larger world beyond you. But don’t you only know that supposed world as experience?

Notice how no matter where you might travel within or outside of yourself, the presence of experience is the only thing you’ll ever find. We may imagine there is a bounded body that is separate from a world we think of as existing outside of the body. But when we feel the presence of what’s here, we find an edgeless continuum of experiencing, a boundless continuum of life.

Feel the presence of experience and notice that you don’t find things that are separate from other things. You just find this undivided flow of experiencing. Everything you feel is this flow—every thought, the flow of experience. Every emotion, experience. Every sensation, experience, every visual object, experience, every sound, experience, every tactile sensation, experience. Everything that’s encountered is the presence of experiencing, the all-pervading miracle of life…

This undivided, seamless flow of experiencing being encountered in every instant can certainly appear as a whole world of people, places and things. No doubt, we can view ourselves as separate individuals, engaging with others and in relationship with the whole world of circumstance and event. But what appears as a multiplicity is at the same time, one thing. Call it experience, call it presence, call it whatever you like, for in the end, there is no word that could ever capture this one reality, being everything.

Best,
John

UNDIVIDED

So here’s this field of experience, this symphony of experiencing. And the question is, can you find the experiencer, the presumed one at the center, listening to the symphony?

Look and see if you can find that. Is there an experiencer that can be identified as not somehow the experiential field, that’s somehow separate from, autonomously existing apart from the field of experiencing?

Do you find that? Do you find an experiencer in the midst of all this experience? Look. Do you find something limited at the center of this vast field, this boundless, edgeless field?

There’s this thought of being this bounded creature that’s localized, right? Bounded, encased in, you know, typically the body, that represents a kind of barrier between us and what’s not us. The skin suit…

Even if you imagine that to be the case, that there is an experiencer, how do you know the experiencer? You feel the experiencer, you sense the experiencer, you perceive the experiencer, you can think about the experiencer. But all of that is experience, isn’t it?

So just feel that, how the presumed experiencer at the center of all of this symphonic experience is just more experience, isn’t it? That’s what’s here. Experience inside of experience inside of experience. There’s just experience…

When you sense and notice the presumed experiencer that’s perceiving all of this symphony of sounds and sights and colors and textures and flavors, you feel that as another perception, another experience, right? And as you feel that, notice that sense of unboundedness, that sense of no division anywhere to be found. Where is the division? In the field of experience, there’s nothing but experience. That’s what I mean by no division. Right now, it is that way, isn’t it? Undivided…

If you look up in a blue sky and you kind of can imagine a point there. There’s a point there and a point there and a point there… All these little pixels in the sky. But they’re all made of sky, ultimately, aren’t they?

So what we sense as being here, this personal, localized being, is at the same time not localized anywhere. Feel, again, the presence of reality, the presence of experiencing, and notice this, that it’s both here, but you can’t really say where here is, because here doesn’t have an edge. At least not one that can be found. In this sense, everything is you. But not like everything is (and again, this wouldn’t even make logical sense), that everything is John in the case of me. That’s not what I really mean. What I mean is the real you, the true you, is everything. In that sense, it’s not personal.

But again, it’s completely personal because it’s you! You see? I mean, what can be more personal than what’s looking through your eyes? What is looking through your eyes? What is your eye? What are your eyes made of? Whatever is looking through your eyes, what is that made of? It’s made of experience. It’s made of whatever everything’s made of. Who can say? Aliveness. Boundless aliveness.

We tend to identify as ourselves, that which seems to be closer, right? Like this is closer, like the body’s close and you’re further away. So you’re not me and the trees out there are not me. They’re further away, right? And the body’s closer and the thoughts and the feelings and the sensations that I think of as “my” sensations and feelings, those are closer, spatially speaking, or so we kind of conventionally think. So that’s me and then there’s all the stuff that’s further away and that’s not me, right?

But as experience, all of it is close, closer than close. It’s such a beautiful paradox, that everything is intimately your experience. The farthest vistas. You know, you go visit the Grand Canyon, the vast, spacious Grand Canyon, which is just so immense and bigger than us, right, as these bodyminds. But we know that experience of the vastness of the Grand Canyon as our experience. Nobody else’s experience. It’s our experience. It’s just that it’s paradoxically small and personal in that sense, like it’s all my experience. But “just my experience” doesn’t have any boundaries or edges to it.

So my experience again is life’s experience. The vastness of life, perceiving itself. There’s nothing else to perceive but Itself because there’s only Itself. When you look, do you find an experiencer apart from the vastness of life? Do you actually find in experience a little you? Or when you look at that presumed little you, do you find indescribable vastness?

That’s the funny thing. You know, we look at anything seemingly small and limited and finite. And yes, the world appears that way. It appears as small, finite, limited things, right? Like this body that, relative to the universe, materially speaking, is very small, and limited and fragile and mortal and subject to all sorts of things that could go wrong, break down. But what all of that is, at the same time as it seems small and limited and finite, is vast and limitless and indescribably infinite, boundless, fathomless.

Impossible to ever find the bottom, the resolution.

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THE NOURISHMENT OF THIS

Just feel the sheer existence of everything (the being of everything), and how effortless that is. It just is. The isness doesn’t require any work. It’s being felt without needing to do something to feel it, isn’t it? Just notice that…

Really let yourself enjoy this presence of being that’s here. That’s what you are, what’s fundamental to each moment. It’s like a current of being, isn’t it? It feels like a current in its flow, its dynamism, its aliveness, right? Nothing about it feels static. It feels dynamic.

You could say it’s still and unmoving in the sense of it always being being. Being remains being. In that sense, nothing is happening. There’s just being. And it’s very still in one sense, absolutely still in that way because it’s not really going from one place to another. It’s always just being. But it appears as all this dynamism, this vitality, this springing forth as the manifest world. All the things, all the waves. That’s its movement, its dynamism. So just feel that…

And as you feel this simple sense of the being of the moment, I really invite you to feel, to me, a kind of primal aspect of it in one way, a quality you could say of its nourishing, its absolute nourishment.

You know, you’re out hiking and you’re thirsty and you need fluids, the body needs fluids, you can feel that. You find this beautiful, clear stream, and there’s the water, and you drink from those waters, and you feel rejuvenated and nourished by that life-giving water, right?

And so, this nourishing force of being that we are made of, that everything is made of, whatever makes the moment alive, whatever that is, it’s pure mystery, isn’t it? Just feel the vitality of it, the richness of this being, of this nourishing flow of life that is never absent. Just see that, that it is never absent. It is each of the moments that are arising that you think of as your life. You don’t have to go anywhere to feel this. You don’t have to do anything to feel this. You don’t have to change anything to feel this. This is what we are feeling all the time.

Drink it in. Or, just feel the way in which it is being drunk. Life imbibing itself. I mean, it’s crazy, right, because the very thing that we might think of as experiencing the moment and drinking in the moment (this aliveness) is itself alive as everything is made fundamentally of this life, this being.

Feel that like. It’s aliveness, tasting aliveness. It’s that intimate, it’s that undivided. Not two things, just life drinking itself, nourished by itself, supported by itself, enlivened by itself. Incredible…

At the level of how this water (of life) seems to be moving, it can sometimes seem like the nourishing force that I’m pointing to is somehow absent because, let’s say, the being or the life has configured itself in such a way that seems quite challenging and difficult, right? And it can seem as if we’ve lost touch with what I’m pointing to right now, this ever-present, nourishing flow of being that is basically everything.

But, just play with this in your life. At any moment, you can just stop and notice (if you’re not already noticing) that the moment is. The moment is this flow, this nourishing flow of being always. See that, that it is never absent. When is it absent? It isn’t.

As you feel this nourishing flow that’s impossible to miss, right, because it’s the presence of the moment. You can’t miss that. Here it is! There’s no missing it. It’s not hiding. As is sometimes said, it’s hiding in plain sight. Here it is. It’s not hiding.

And as you feel that, let yourself notice how inclusive it is of everything. Its reach is endless. Its reach is boundless. It’s got no limits to it. It holds everything. It is everything. That’s the what I mean by holding. It’s being everything. That’s its ultimate inclusivity.

This inexplicable flow of existence… the miracle of miracles of miracles, the fact that anything is. Isn’t that the miracle of miracles? I mean, any other miracles rely on this primal miracle, don’t they? “Something fantastical happened. Oh my God! It was just like such a miracle.” Well, first you had to have This for some downstream miracle to occur. This is the miracle. And This is never absent…

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WHAT’S DOING EVERYTHING? (Ch. 28 in Everything is the Doorway)

What is doing all of this? What’s putting what we call the moment here?

There is this sense of being conscious. What’s doing that? What’s giving rise to this thing we call awareness? If we take a materialistic view of things, we might say, “Oh, it’s the firing of neurons in the brain that’s creating the sense of being conscious.” But that explanation doesn’t really explain anything, for it begs so many other questions like: What’s putting the brain and its neurons here? What’s generating the subatomic particles that make up the brain cells? How are those particles even here? What is energizing the particles that make up the material world—not just the brain but any of the body’s organs? What’s beating the heart? What’s fueling this intelligence that’s moving nutrients in and out of the cells?

What’s putting the force of gravity here? What’s putting the light here? Where is it coming from? We could say the light is coming from the sun, but what’s putting the sun here? Maybe we say there’s an energy or life force that’s giving rise to all that we see and experience. But again, such explanations beg the question, “What’s putting that energy here? What’s putting the laws of physics here?”

What’s writing these words, thinking these thoughts, moving these fingers on the keyboard? Conventionally, we say that “we” are doing these things. I might imagine that I’m doing all of this that’s being done as I sit here writing, but can I say with a straight face that I am creating the energy underlying all this doing, all this action?

The capacity to even utter a word, to say anything, to create anything, to understand anything, to do anything—what is the fuel behind such capacities?

Without the sea, the wave has no capacity to do anything. The waves are not creating anything themselves but are being moved by the sea, right? It’s a great metaphor for our situation. This sense we have of being an individual that’s putting into action, through our own effort, all the things that we do in life—the creative things we take on, the relationships we have, the ideas that spring forth—all of that is being done by reality.

It’s so clear, isn’t it? It’s so obvious that you, as a seemingly separate individual, personality, body-mind organism, isn’t actually doing any of this. It’s strange, though, because what we are fundamentally is the absolute reality doing everything because there’s only the absolute reality. And in that sense, we are, in the deepest, truest sense, This that’s putting everything here.

Just notice the streaming forth of the moment—this constant unfolding and transformation, all the seeming complexity and subtlety and unpredictability of it. What’s putting all of this here? There is no answer to that question. It’s like the questions, “Who am I?” “What is this?” “What is experience?” Such questions are really designed to take you into the mystery that you already are, the mystery that everything is. They’re not meant for us to come up with some actual conceptual answer to them because what kind of answer could we possibly come up with? What’s putting reality here? I guess we could say that reality is putting itself here, but that doesn’t really answer the question. Yet here it is, and it’s here spontaneously, inexplicably.

Feel the effortlessness of this arising, the effortlessness of this springing forth of the moment, which encompasses everything, including us, as one singular upwelling, one singular apparition, like the dreaming consciousness that dreams an entire world into existence each night.

Just see that, the presence and potency of reality that is already here, magically appearing as everything, this inconceivable mystery and intelligence that is somehow giving rise to each moment, the engine underlying all activity, all doing, all effort.

Imagine yourself trying to do something physically, say using all your strength to lift something up, or using all your inner strength to meet some challenge, relying on all of your coping mechanisms to deal with some difficult situation. It can very much feel like “you” are the one making all that effort, and as a result of applying all that effort, being the one who is able to meet whatever challenge or obstacle seems to be present. This is how we tend to think, right? But ask yourself, “What’s underlying all that capacity we seem to have as humans? What’s fueling this ability to think, to act, to exercise our capacities, including the use of these bodies?”

Exactly where is all that energy coming from? What is this energy that is enabling all that we think of as “our” effort? We’re not creating that energy, and, in that sense, what we call our effort is actually effortless because we’re not doing it. It’s being done somehow, done by whatever’s doing all of this, whatever is putting all the color here, all the shapes and forms and patterns, all this incredible structure and functionality of reality. It’s mind boggling, isn’t it? Absolutely mind boggling. All of it.

This is why, in all that’s being perceived, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant it appears to be, we are seeing the absolute wonder of reality in action. In the tiniest little particle, the smallest flicker, the most seemingly insignificant moments, we are always looking at the absolute wonder of reality because there is nothing else to look at!

Every experience, everything we call a thought, everything we call a feeling, everything we call a sensation, every memory, just sitting here right now writing or reading or listening to these words—everything is the streaming forth of this creative energy of life, springing forth from we know not where.

No matter what’s being noticed (including the act of noticing itself), it is the very substance and activity of reality that’s being perceived. From this standpoint, what seems to be showing up experientially or circumstantially is not more or less relevant than anything else, for no matter what’s being noticed, it is all this ground of being—the mysterious force that fuels everything.

There’s no need to find some greener grass, no need to cultivate some presumably better, more awakened state that is somehow closer to this mystery that’s doing everything, for there is only this mystery.

PS If you’ve read Everything is the Doorway and felt moved to write a review on Amazon, that would be much appreciated it as it apparently helps broaden the reach of the book. Click here to review (please note Amazon will ask you to log-in to your account in order to verify the review).

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EVERY PERCEPTION IS AWAKE (from In Every Wave, the Entirety of the Sea)

I was recently asked, “What do you think it means when spiritual traditions talk about ‘resting’ or ‘coming to rest?’” My response was this: “To rest is to no longer seek for some other perception.”

The human search, in all the forms it can take, is essentially about finding some other experience. This is why I suggest that to rest is to no longer look for some other perception, but to simply rest in the current perception and realize this perception, right now, is completely awake. That’s it.

This perception, the one that’s occurring right now, is the only perception we can ever have. And this perception, like all perceptions, is intrinsically awake. The knowing/awareness of the moment is inseparable from the moment. That’s the wakefulness that’s inherent in everything that appears.

Much as the sky is inseparable from the color blue, the moment is inseparable from this wakefulness that is always present—but not because we’re doing something to make it present. It’s not like that, and this is precisely why we can rest. We don’t have to find a more awake perception through any sort of effort. We can just rest right where we are and notice, in the most effortless, natural way, that there’s just this flow of wakefulness, appearing as all these different perceptions.

Feel the restfulness of that, the deep rest of not having to look for some other moment in order to be awake, because wakefulness is already here, shining forth, as this very moment, the one that’s already here, being known! This momentary perception is the evidence of wakefulness, which is why it doesn’t matter what’s being perceived nor how it’s being rendered descriptively.

You don’t need to seek out a supposedly better, more wakeful moment or perception, for every perception is pure, unadulterated, blazing wakefulness. Each perception, so alive, so awake, shimmering, pulsating. Not just certain perceptions, but every perception is awake, which is why we can rest from having to seek some other moment.

Rather than needing to find it, we could say that the wakefulness is finding us in every moment. Here it is, appearing as all these different perceptions, every little flicker of thought, every memory, every visual image, every emotion, every sensation, all of them the magnificent display of luminous awareness.

This is the easy path, the recognition that “being awake” is already here, appearing as each perception. From this standpoint, no perception is ever out of place, no perception ever in error, because every perception is the shine of wakefulness.

Everything is equal in that sense, equal in its wakefulness. Even those moments we might describe as distressing or agitating or worrisome are fully illuminated—all of them awake, not because we’re doing something to make them awake but because the moment is, by its very nature, awake. The light of wakefulness is on. We didn’t turn the light on. It’s self-shining.

Mind you, we’re not over here, looking at the light of wakefulness. No, we are that light. Everything about us is that light of wakefulness, no matter who we are or how we might be defining ourselves. None of that really matters when it comes to this awake presence, the very basis of each perception. We can just rest right here, here in the heart of every perception, never needing to find another.

Even when we’re being visited by perceptions that feel unsettling, right there, right in the heart of those difficult moments, is the indestructible, awake presence that is the basis of and inseparable from every perception.

Feel the naturalness, the effortlessness, of being awake—the deep rest of this wakefulness that is already here, reality completely relaxed within itself as this naturally occurring wakefulness.

Of course, there can arise those moments where we imagine the wakefulness has somehow left us. “Where has that sense of being awake gone?” we wonder. “How did it disappear?” And right there, right in the heart of that question, is the light of wakefulness shining forth as that perception.

Contrary to what we often believe, no perception is evidence of having lost touch with the wakefulness. In fact, every moment, no matter its description, is the evidence of this light of awake that is always on.

There is only ever awake—this never-ending miracle of perceiving.

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Also, there are still a few spots remaining for the October 3-4 retreat in Santa Cruz, California. For further information, just email me: john@johnastin.com.

And as always, feel free to join my weekly Sunday Zoom. Here’s the link.

THE POURING FORTH OF REALITY

Following a lecture I had given in which I was highlighting the ever-changing nature of experience, one of my graduate students wrote me, asking about a study she’d read suggesting that our human emotions last for only 90 seconds. I responded, letting her know that while I wasn’t familiar with the specific research she was citing, if we simply feel what’s present, it becomes quite apparent that our experiences—including those we label as emotions—are here not for only 90 seconds, but actually for no time at all.

We talk about different emotions, like joy or fear, as if we’ve been able to identify something that’s present and then describe what that is. In one sense, it really does seem as if we can pull this off—that we can know what a given experience is and render it descriptively.

But if we feel what’s here and, for a moment, forget about all the categories and ways of apparently encapsulating whatever seems to be here, it becomes apparent that it’s simply not possible to identify what’s appearing because before consciousness can say, “This is the way the moment is,” that supposed way has turned into some other way.

Feel the constant flow of what appears, noticing how in its ever-unfolding dynamism, it’s simply not possible to render or evaluate it, even if we imagine that we can. Feel how in a very real sense, we can’t say anything about what’s appearing. That’s how fast it transforms!

Based on the ability we seem to have to identify and determine what things are, we imagine that it’s also possible to know whether or not what we’ve identified represents a possible threat to our well-being. But true as that perspective may be from within its own frame of reference, it’s not the whole story—from another perspective, reality itself is fundamentally unresolvable in so far as our not being able to determine what it is. And in its inherent indeterminacy, it can be discovered to be free of any problem, lack, or limit.

Mind you, when I speak about the discovery of unresolvability, I am not talking about getting ourselves into some particular state of mind. I’m speaking about the inherent basis of every momentary state. Not being resolvable is simply the way reality is. Its very nature is transcendental in that it lies beyond the reach of any and all conceptual frameworks.

We have an opportunity to notice this, to see that the essence of everything that appears, including the perceiving subject we imagine ourselves to be, is without any final essence or identity, owing to its unrelentingly fluid, dynamic nature.

The discovery that there aren’t really fixed, identifiable phenomena is profoundly relaxing. Why? Because it’s seen that there’s nothing that has to be sorted out, nothing that has to be rectified or resolved, manipulated or understood. Of course, believing that reality consists of a bunch of separate things that I (another of those supposedly resolvable things!) have to navigate, make sense of, and protect myself from is clearly one of the ways reality can appear.

But that’s not the whole story. By feeling into the felt sense or texture of experience, we can discover that it is, by nature, free of all ideas, all notions, all ideologies, all frames, all interpretations, all philosophies. It might sound like I’m describing some unusual, altered state, but what I am talking about is actually your so-called normalcy and the discovery that whatever we think is going on completely fails to capture what it actually is—pure transcendence.

Reality is not what we think it is because it’s inherently unthinkable—the very flash instant we seem to have conceived of what it is, that “it” we’ve conceived of has literally transformed into something else. To be sure, our reality can look like we are an embodied creature existing in a complex material world. I can characterize this moment as sitting in my living room, on my couch, in my home, writing these words. But all that I just characterized is literally no longer here. Something is appearing, yet it is not a fixed, static thing but an ever-shifting unfolding of… well, we can’t really say what it is an unfolding of.

Feel the truth of this—that what’s appearing experientially is an absolute shapeshifter. What’s here really has no findable shape since its apparent patterning is ever on the move. In that sense, what’s here is fundamentally un-patterned and unstructured since any fixed, stable pattern or structure can only be imagined into existence.

Notice this—the way in which everything that’s appearing, including whatever you might think of as “you,” is absolutely beyond all definitions and descriptions. You may imagine that there is some essence that makes you you, but just look and you will never find such a thing, never locate the essence of what you are or anything is. All you will ever find is bottomless infinity.

When it comes to what we think of as physical objects, like the computer I’m typing these words on, it can feel like what I’m saying doesn’t make any sense. We imagine that what we perceive and think of as physical objects (like computers) have a kind of stability and object permanence to them. Our tendency is to think that the material objects we’re looking at right now are the same objects we were looking at a moment ago.

We have this idea that these phenomena we think of as objective/physical are essentially unchanging. But if you tune into the experience of the supposedly stable, unchanging objects, it becomes quite clear that there’s absolutely zero stability to what’s being seen. We imagine the “objects” being perceived are essentially holding still, but feel the perceiving of those supposedly unmoving things, and you will find nothing holding still. You will find an ever-changing aliveness, the fact that what appears is never actually the same from moment-to-moment.

When we feel the unstoppable dynamism of everything, what’s revealed is that there are no findable things to navigate or fix or defend against, nor is there someone on the receiving end of such things. Why? Because what we think of as identifiable phenomena have no enduring nature.

Reality shines forth as something. It looks like a bunch of identifiable things. It looks like me navigating a complex world. Yet the shining never actually concretizes. When you pour concrete, eventually the concrete sets and becomes a fixed object—the liquid becomes something hard. But the pouring forth of reality never becomes hard. It never actually becomes something solid and concrete, even though it appears to. It just keeps pouring forth, this liquid life.

There’s an ease to this flow—one moment, opening into the next, opening into the next unstoppably. Notice how impossible it is to halt the flow. We are inseparable from this dynamism—this magical, mysterious, ungraspable flow.

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There are also a few spots remaining for the retreat I’ll be doing October 3-4 with Dena Evans (location: Santa Cruz, CA; cost: $100). For info or to register: john@johnastin.com.

NOTHING REQUIRED

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably imagined (or maybe at times still imagine) that it takes some sort of work or effort to realize what you’re aspiring to realize.

But what’s amazing to see—and I just invite you to see this right now—is that you don’t have to lift a single finger to make reality present. Before we take one step toward it, before we engage in any activity to somehow bring it forward into consciousness, to make it more known, more recognized, it’s here.

The presence of the moment is already here. Just see that. Let it be that simple.

It’s the simplest thing, but it’s the most profound thing because it’s the miracle of miracles—the fact that anything is even here. Call it life. Call it reality. Call it the mystery. Call it what you will. But whatever this is, it’s clearly here.

See that no special focus of attention is required to make this miracle of reality appear. There’s no activity that’s required to make it present. No doing on our part, no coming up with some strategy to get ourselves into it. Again, simply see that this inexplicable flow of experiencing is already here.

We have it all backwards. We think we have to do something in order to see this. And yet, we are already seeing it, already perceiving the one thing because the one thing is the only thing we can perceive! We’re not doing something to turn the light of reality on. It’s simply on, shining forth as everything.

It can seem as if we are somehow standing apart from and noticing this ever-present reality, discovering its effortlessly present nature. But we’re not actually observing it from afar for we are that presence—the presence of life itself, this miracle appearing as us and everything.

The miracle that’s already here, shining brightly, doesn’t require a certain type of experience or special way of perceiving for it to be. It’s simply here, flowing forth, regardless of what we may be doing or not doing. Whatever it looks like, right there is the creative force of the universe, showing up as that.

So as you’re sitting here right now, reading these words, rather than trying to arrive somewhere else, trying to locate some other place or state you imagine is somehow more special than what’s presently appearing, just feel how everything is it—everything that’s showing up, an expression of this wholeness. No matter what the moment looks like. No matter what seems to be happening, all of it, the absolute, inexplicable miracle of what is.

No rituals are required. Of course, we’re free to engage in different rituals if we’re so inclined. We’re free to engage in whatever activities we’re inspired to engage in. There’s nothing wrong with that, because all of it is the movement of this.

But the key thing to realize is that no matter what’s happening—rituals, no rituals, practices, no practices—the wholeness of life is here. It’s not conditioned by what it looks like because it looks like everything! To discover this is the greatest freedom, the freedom from the moment needing to be other than it is.

This that’s already here is what we’re searching for. Those qualities that we aspire to realize and imagine can only be brought about through some sort of effort—presence, wakefulness, openness, ease—these are woven into the very fabric of life itself, this wholeness that we are and everything is.

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There are still some spots available for the two-day retreat I’ll be doing (together w/ Dena Evans) in Santa Cruz, California, October 3-4. If interested, just drop me an email.

from the chapter, “Already Dissolved…”

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root, “yuj” which means to yoke or join together, to reunite the individual with the absolute reality. But here’s a question: Has separation ever actually occurred? Let’s look at that assumption and see if we can actually find any support for it.

Typically, we imagine that we’re somehow circumscribed—we’re here and there’s a whole world over there, a world that’s on the other side of us. But feel the presence of experiencing, right now, the presence of being or aliveness, and ask yourself: Do you find anything other than this feeling of aliveness?

If you venture out to whatever you imagine exists outside of the circumscribed you, what do you find? Don’t you find more aliveness? As you travel through the space of the world you think of as existing outside of you, don’t you always find this sense of being, of aliveness?

For a moment, just feel how the being of you is already completely, 100% dissolved in the sea of life itself. Feel the way in which there is only life here—the miracle of existence. Notice how whether you’re feeling what you think of as yourself, or you’re feeling what you think of as not yourself, you’re always feeling life, the one taste of everything, the taste of aliveness.

Notice that as far as consciousness can go, it just keeps finding life, the life that’s looking through our eyes and the life these eyes are beholding. What’s looking and what’s being looked at—one thing. A single aliveness.

This inseparability is what we’re always feeling. Each thought that arises, each sensation that appears, each emotion that occurs, every memory we might happen upon—all of it the movement of this one life.

We’ve never been extracted out from the totality to become something other than the totality. Nothing’s ever flown out of the whole to exist autonomously and separately, because there’s only the whole, this totality that is everything.

Nothing can escape it…

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Warmly,
John

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Hi Folks,
I’m happy to announce that my latest book, Everything is the Doorway, is now available in both paperback and Kindle. I’ve completed the audiobook version as well and it should be available in the next week or so.

I’m sharing here, one of the chapters from the book, both in audio and written form.

Warm regards,
John

THE BASIS OF EVERYTHING

The wholeness, the completeness, the fullness that we’re searching for is found not in some other perception, but in this perception, this explosion of life.

Here it is. It’s not hiding. It’s alive as each instant, alive as all that seems to be occurring in every flash moment. That’s what we’re searching for—this aliveness that’s already here.

It’s unmissable, present as the felt sense of every moment, the simple feeling of being. It doesn’t matter how the moment is being characterized or described because it’s all life, shining vividly as each experience that arises. Every thought, emotion, sensation, memory, circumstance, relationship—all of it life. None of it ever escapes life to become something other than life.

There’s just this aliveness moving as everything. It’s never split off into anything but itself. It appears split, for sure. It shows up as differentiated, appearing as the unimaginable array of flavors and qualities being encountered. But from the greatest highs and joys to the lowest lows—the heartbreak, the grief, the confusion—all of it life, which is why it can never actually be lost.

We might think it has disappeared when certain versions of it are showing up. But it has never left, for even those moments we think of as lacking in some way are just the particular way life is shaping itself and being interpreted in that instant. Life never departs from itself, never becomes anything other than the boundless, fathomless mystery that it is.

You don’t have to try to feel this singular life—you are already feeling it, already experiencing the one aliveness as every moment that appears. That’s what I mean by it can’t be missed.

We imagine ourselves to be these seemingly separate waves of existence that were, at some point in time, born into the world and will one day leave the world. And yet, that separation never actually occurred. There never was a departure. The individual never, ever became something other than this boundless life that is everything. In that sense, we were never born and will never pass away because there’s only ever this one existence, the very one being experienced right now.

There’s never been any distance between us and life because life is what we are. We are this single reality, this miracle that’s hiding in plain view, shining forth as everything.

And because it is here as each arising, what’s happening experientially doesn’t need to be micromanaged or avoided or transformed into something else that we imagine is closer to whatever it is we’re aspiring to realize. The moment, as it is, is exactly what we’re looking for.

The miracle of existence is already here, without our having to twist reality into something else to make it so. What’s appearing right now is already the perfect, inexplicable, miraculous movement of life.

Seeing this is freedom—freedom from the moment needing to be other than it

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Also, there are still spots available for the Tuesday inquiry group I’ll be doing with Dena Evans (July 7th-28th, 10-11:30 am Pacific). Just email me if interested: john@johnastin.com.

My new book, Everything is the Doorway is now available in Kindle form. It will probably be another week or two before the paperback and audiobook versions become available on Amazon but I’ll let you all know once that happens.

Finally, here’s a clip from one of my Sunday Zooms a few months back:

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Upcoming Events:

• Dena Evans and I will be offering another Tuesday Zoom inquiry group (10-11:30 am Pacific time) that will run from July 7th-28th. While we’ll be drawing as we have in previous groups from some of the wonderful work of Peter Brown, we will also be using as our inquiry jumping off point, other writings as well including our own.

Just email me (john@johnastin.com) if you’d like more info or to sign up (no cost, donations welcome).

THROW AWAY THE SCORECARD

There’s a part of us that is subtly (or maybe not so subtly) looking over our shoulders, checking to see how we’re fairing, how we’re feeling—”Am I doing okay? “Am I experiencing what I want to be experiencing or what I imagine I should be experiencing?”

We’re a bit like those judges at the Olympics, holding up our cards, rating our experiences. Maybe we see ourselves as spiritual seekers, chasing after whatever lofty states or insights or realizations we’re chasing after. Or maybe we’re just seeking to feel a little better or suffer a little less in our lives. In either case, we’re poised at the ready, scorecards in hand, assessing how we’re doing according to whatever evaluative metric we may be using.

Particularly if we’re spiritual seekers, our scorecards might look something like this: “How aware am I? How mindful am I being? How in touch with presence am I? Have I gotten caught up in some web of thinking or imagining again? Am I fully open and receptive to what is, or am I in resistance to what’s arising? Am I awake to the here-and-now or am I lost in some time-traveling daydream…?”

But here’s a thought—how about we just throw the whole damn scorecard away? Imagine that! Imagine not always checking in on yourself to see how you are faring? What if you relaxed all the cataloguing, all the evaluating, all the self-assessment and self-measurement, even if for an instant? What if you threw away all the assumptions about what you should be experiencing, and instead, simply experienced whatever you were experiencing which you can’t stop doing anyway!

Try it right now, try to stop the flow of experience. It’s not possible, is it? What’s here is here before we can even have any say in the matter. Experience arrives unbidden, without warning. And then it departs before we can say a single thing about it. You see, the whole scorekeeping thing—it’s always late to the party, this assessment of experience always a fraction behind reality for the second we give some thought, feeling or sensation a score, that experience is no longer present, passing away in the very instant of its arising.

So, throw away the scorecards, just for a moment, and see what that’s like. Can you feel the relief of not having to make this experience other than it is, which as it turns out, you can’t even do anyway?

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Best,
John

CATEGORIES (from This Extraordinary Moment)

Essentially, categories don’t exist, at least not as actualities; they are conceptual abstractions. For example, take the category “flowers.” Flowers represent a class of things which share certain characteristics. However, in order to place the obviously unique objects we call a rose, a marigold, and a tulip in the same conceptual category, we must overlook those distinctive features such as shape, color, and texture we consider to be nonessential elements of the category. This perceptual censorship enables us to create the myriad abstract, conceptual categories we are all quite familiar with.

Let’s look at another category of phenomena, a rose. If you were to take any two objects conventionally labeled as “roses,” they’d undoubtedly share certain features that allow us to group them together conceptually. However, if we look carefully, it can be seen that even if the roses are very similar in terms of size, shape, color, petal formation, and so on, no rose is ever precisely the same as another.

And so, that beautiful red object you see growing in your garden—even if you might have a conventional word to describe it, a closer look reveals that you can’t say precisely what it is owing to its distinctive nature; it’s literally in a class by itself. Even if there exist other objects that appear to resemble it, there is nothing quite like this one. Given that this thing we call a rose is uniquely itself, to place it in some general category of things is to oversimplify the unthinkable complexity that it actually exhibits. When we look at what we conventionally call a rose, the reality is that we’re not really looking at a rose; we are looking at something we’ve never actually seen before. For no matter how closely it may appear to resemble other things, that which we’re viewing is an utterly unique configuration of shape, color, and texture. And so only by censoring out or overlooking its uniquely distinctive features are we able to categorize anything.

As you sit here, try to characterize, in a word or two, your predominant state of mind at this moment. Whatever your word is (calmness, agitation, elation, confusion, fatigue, joy), just note it silently to yourself.

Now, let’s say your word is “fatigue.” Like every other description, fatigue represents our attempt to characterize what is ultimately an inconceivably complex pattern of perceptual phenomena. An experience appears, which we then recognize in some way as having arisen before: “Oh, I know what that is, it’s fatigue (or whatever your word was).” But actually, while the pattern we’re experiencing is certainly reminiscent of something we’ve encountered before, it is not the same as any previous perceptual moment. At least not exactly…

With that notion in mind, just feel your present experience, however you may be labeling it.

Sure, it may seem as if you can place it in some category as I suggested. But can you sense how complex and multidimensional, how ultimately uncharacterizable and utterly unique this experience actually is?

Can you feel how, even if it has certain familiar features and characteristics that remind you of other moments like it, the experience is unlike anything you’ve ever felt or encountered before?

The reality is that each experience is unique. It belongs to no category, owing to its completely original nature.

So what does this all mean? Well, it points to the fact that because no two moments are exactly alike, there is no actual reference point to know what anything or any experience is. This flash instant that’s appearing has, quite literally, never come into existence before, at least not exactly like this. Every moment is a complete original! And so experiences cannot be known, cannot be named, cannot be conceptualized or categorized without overlooking so much of the depth and detail that makes each instant the utterly unique expression of life that it is.

Yes, we can name and categorize things in order to make sense of ourselves and the world and communicate with each other. But even as we continue to do this, which we likely will until our final breath, we can appreciate that experience cannot fit neatly into any of our categories or concepts. It’s simply too big, too complex, too multifaceted for that.

And just as objects (such as roses) and experiences (such as fatigue) are too vast and multidimensional to be held by our categories and names, so too are we. We are not what we were a year, a month, or even a second ago; we are, like every other phenomenon, ever-changing from moment to moment, even if in barely perceptible ways. And because of this, defining or categorizing ourselves is not actually possible without overlooking our inherently dynamic nature.

Who we are is literally not who we were even a nanosecond ago. Any definitions of who and what we are could only ever be based on memory, on some image or idea of ourselves. But that is simply not what we are now. Because reality is inherently unstable and impermanent, we are, quite literally, beyond definition, beyond any possibility of being categorized according to any set of seemingly stable qualities or characteristics. What we are is this actuality, this reality arising right now in a way it has never before arisen.

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THE FLOW OF EXPERIENCING

For a moment, just feel the flow of experiencing and as you do, notice that this is what you are always feeling, the ceaseless, ever-changing flow of reality.

Notice the effortlessness of it, how the flow of experiencing is simply here, inexplicably, without our having to do anything to bring it forth.

Now, as we’ve been exploring throughout the book, notice once more how experience has zero stability. Feel the way it moves, undulates, shifts, changes, how it never actually lands anywhere, never assumes any definite shape but is forever shape-shifting.

See how in its constant morphing, the flow never actually becomes any fixed or identifiable thing, despite what language keeps suggesting.

Notice how even though there are no findable things separate from other findable things, something is still here—a presence, an aliveness, a vitality, impossible to define yet clearly, undeniably here.

In the absence of there being any fixed things, feel the way in which there are no boundaries, no walls, no edges or borders that can be found.

Feel the wide-openness of the flow, the limitless expanse that it is.

See how there is no one standing apart from the flow, watching or feeling its presence for whatever’s noticing the flow is simply more of the flow, right?

Notice how in the flow’s undivided nature, there is no self or other that can be found. There are not a multitude of different things in relationship with other things but only this singular, ever-present flow.

Feel the absolute invulnerability of the flow, how there is no separate person on the receiving end of whatever is appearing. There is only what’s appearing, without form, yet presenting as all these seemingly tangible forms.

In the absence of there being concrete things, feel how there is no friction, no separate “things” imposing themselves on other separate “things.”

Because the flow never becomes a “thing,” see how there are also no things to navigate, to overcome, to fix or resolve.

Notice how unconditioned the flow is, how it depends upon nothing because it is everything that appears.

Feel again, the vital, alive nature of the flow, the endless nourishment of it. It is literally life-giving for it is life itself, the only thing there is.

Feel the impossibility of ever being cast out of the flow, how it can never be lost because there is nothing but the flow, appearing as everything, even as it never becomes anything.

Feel the boundlessness of the flow, the complete absence of any edge or end or limit. This is what you are, this fathomless fullness that is no “thing” yet every seeming thing.

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• May 10th (10-11:30 am Pacific time) - Weekly Sunday Zoom (link here)

• May 17th (4-6pm) - Concert in North San Juan, CA (tickets still available here)

• June 13/14 - Weekend retreat in London (for details, john@johnastin.com)

THE EFFORTLESS FLOW OF NOW

We often conceive of meditation or inquiry as a means toward some desired end. The different goals we hope our practice will help bring about are described in different ways—freedom, enlightenment, peace, equanimity, and that goal we’ve undoubtedly heard about many times, “being in the now.”

Our tendency is to think that if we practice enough, sit enough retreats and so on, we’ll eventually reach the desired goal. However, I’d like to invite you to explore a different way to approach inquiry, one that you may find quite illuminating, and that is to see your practice not as a means towards some desired end, like being in the now, but as an actual expression of that end.

As you listen to these words, I invite you to see the way in which everything that’s occurring is simply an expression of life, an expression of reality. See this time of sitting here, not as a means to get yourself into some state you might think of as the present moment, but rather as a manifestation or expression of the moment which it clearly is.

Feel the way in which every single flickering of perception, every experience we might describe as the wandering or focusing of attention, every rumbling of emotion or feeling, every sight, every sound, every flash of sensation, all of it simply the expression of now.

See the way in which each momentary perception is none other than the shining forth of reality. Every experience, no matter how it’s being described, no matter its seeming flavor or quality or texture, all of it the display of now.

It’s impossible to get this wrong, impossible to do this practice incorrectly for everything that you may be doing or not doing is simply the moment’s expression, every instant, the unpredictable, uncontrollable flowering of life.

Feel this, the ease of it, the effortlessness of it, the very practice you’re doing, and the “you” you think is doing it, all of it, reality’s display, all of it the emanation of now.

Enjoy the spontaneous unfolding of life, no effort, no manipulation, no control needed in order to get ourselves into the now for what we call the moment is already here, every experience, every perception, the ceaseless, effortless flow of now.

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