Do you notice the internal commentary and chatter zipping through your mind? Your head? Most of us do notice this incessant chatter and wish it to be quiet. We meditate and practice yoga or walk to lessen our stress of listening to the constant chatter. We have deep habits of internally commenting, critiquing, judging every thought stream, every moment, according to our preferences, emotions, opinions and desires. We begin to see the thought stream is …
You must have a clear understanding that all things are only a manifestation of the mind itself. Everything, everything in this world is nothing but a complex manifestation of one’s mental activities. – Lankavatara Sutra The Lankavatara Sutra figured prominently in the development of Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism. It is notably an important sutra in Chan Buddhism and Japanese Zen. This sutra teaches the primacy of consciousness and consciousness as the only reality. In …
I came across this little gem from David Bohm, (December 20, 1917–October 27, 1992), an American physicist and scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century. Below are Bohm’s words from a 1977 Berkeley lecture in which Bohm offered a poetic formulation of the interplay between our beliefs and what we experience as reality: Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to …
Excerpts from Perfect Brilliant Stillness: “The message of the sutras and the shamans is the same: the person of understanding is the one who dies before she dies, who leaves no footprints, who travels no path, because she knows that as a person, as an entity, she is not. But who can do this, what self can cease to be? None, as Wei Wu Wei would say, because none is: it can only happen. …
This life appears so real and tangible when we believe “we” are a subject, a separate self, observing or seeing what is appearing as “other” or objects. There is no separation between “what is seeing” and “what is appearing to be seen” unless you are claiming and living as an imaginary personal or separate self. You’ve never been separate, distinct, and tangible. Notice the brain/mind rise up and strongly protest these words. Of course, this …
The first time I heard that a belief in a personal self was the root cause of all suffering I could hardly breathe. That’s just blasphemy, right? How could I not be a separate person? Life to me feels tangible. My hand moves towards my face and makes contact with my skin. Am I not real? I feel real and lasting, and tangible and separate from you. Is my body, mind, and spirit lying to …
The human brain is programmed to spew all manner of beliefs, concepts, and intriguing tidbits but not to a separate or personal you. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching – all perceiving and sensating is mental in nature even if biological in truth. What is is an appearance of edgeless, seamless, uncaused, no-thing-ness appearing, reflecting, and refracting as aware presence, or consciousness as a dream of itself. This life appears so real and tangible when we believe …
