Notes From a Fellow Traveller

This Precious Life

We are born with an expansive consciousness that is spacious and unconditioned, allowing for the unfettered expression of the multitude of human possibilities. Early in life that fullness of possibilities meets the dilemma of human existence. Confronted with the unavoidable challenges of daily life, we are compelled to develop an ego-based identity. That cherished identity progressively reduces our vast possibilities to a constricted set of beliefs, perceptual patterns, reactive behaviors, and patterned ways of living.

The psychologist William James compares the effect of human existence on consciousness to a “reducing valve.” Like a mechanical valve that is progressively closed to limit flow, so does the ‘civilization” of the young child close off the full possibilities and flow of an untamed and untrained consciousness. As a result, we adapt to the demands of culture and its definitions of success and achievement, but we are left as individuals operating with only a fraction of our innate capacities.

In Eastern traditions, the second phase of life, following the completion of household responsibilities, is dedicated to spiritual growth. This stage of life offers an opportunity to rediscover and embrace the fullness of life's possibilities—possibilities that were necessarily set aside earlier in life. The focus shifts inward rather than outward, emphasizing "being" over "doing." During this time, the inner self is progressively recognized as the true essence of who we are, transcending the surface identities we temporarily adopted to navigate the demands of adult life.

At first glance, this shift might seem straightforward and easy. While it is undoubtedly welcome, it is far from simple. Human existence is rooted in the mind and body, and early in life we form an identity closely tied to this physical and mental self. This identification becomes the framework through which we navigate the challenges of life. The surface self provides a sense of security, comfort, familiarity, and a repository of learned responses. However, this attachment comes at a significant cost. Caught in cycles of pleasure and distress, we remain unaware of the stable serenity and happiness we lack, as well as the untapped possibilities that lie beyond the boundaries of our personal identity.

How do we transition from our outward-focused self to the vast expanse of our inner self? It begins with a pivotal moment—the proverbial “crack in the egg.” Whether through fate, grace, trauma, suffering, or some other wake-up call, we must first awaken to the realization that life extends far beyond the confines of the small “I.” Recognizing this truth and committing to the devotion and discipline needed to transcend it, is what Joseph Campbell described as the “Hero’s Journey.” This journey is the adventure of a lifetime. As the poet T.S. Eliot so beautifully writes, that adventure is “the last of earth left to discover... that which was the beginning”—our primal consciousness, our inner essence, our true self.

There are many paths to turning inward, but contemplative meditation is a common thread among them. Despite their variety, all forms of meditation share two fundamental goals. The first is to quiet the overactive mind, creating an inner space that fosters a calmer, more balanced, and healthier way of living. The second, more traditional aim of meditation, is to transcend ordinary thought and experience, allowing us to discover the true nature of self and reality. This profound realization of who we truly are is the only genuine and lasting solution to life’s distress and suffering. It is the sole path to enduring happiness, serenity, wisdom, and freedom.

Years ago, I attended a teaching in a meditation hall in Nepal where the teacher spoke of the mind/body in seemingly contradictory terms, describing it at times as “dirty” and at other times as “precious.” That paradox puzzled me. The teacher explained that the distinction lies in awareness. In the first instance, an individual remains unaware of their intrinsic nature, leading to harmful actions toward themselves and others, which contaminate the mind/body. In the second instance, the individual awakens to the extraordinary potential and essence of the mind/body, cultivating a life of compassion and wholesomeness. This, he said, is what makes a human life precious—a state we can aspire to by turning inward to uncover the true nature of self and existence, which, as Plato described, reflects “the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

As the teacher unraveled the apparent contradiction that had puzzled me, it became clear that each of us faces a choice. We can either awaken to create a precious, conscious life or drift through life in a state of unawareness. The key lies in our decision to break free from the confines of our personal identity, to expand our consciousness beyond the limitations of ordinary existence, and to uncover the true essence of ourselves and reality. This is what defines a precious human life.

In modern times, we don’t need to wait until midlife to begin awakening. We are fortunate to have the freedom early in adult life to explore our inner world and gradually shift our focus inward. Today, we have abundant resources at our fingertips—books, visual media, teachers, retreats, and spiritual teachings—all of which support this journey. We can start by bringing more preciousness into our daily lives through acts of kindness, patience, compassion, generosity, and fostering healthy relationships. Adding mindfulness and contemplative practices deepens this transformation.

By doing so, we not only enrich our own lives but also contribute to creating a more compassionate and precious world. I now see that the teacher’s use of paradox was a deliberate tool to challenge us and raise our awareness. His question, though unspoken, was clear: What will you do with this one life you are given? Wf

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The Gap: Glimpses of Essence

We have spoken many times about the two selves – our natural essential self of unconditioned awareness and our acquired personal self (our ego). The former is present at birth and the latter is gradually shaped as we leave infancy and mentally construct a personal identity to meet the challenges of human life.

The personal self progressively reduces the scope of our consciousness from our inheritance of a simple, innocent, and expansive consciousness to a limited set of beliefs, patterns, habits and perceptual templates. We shift from living in a wondrous open view of reality to one that is limited and conditioned by our past.

Although obscured in adult life by the tenacious ego self, there remains a subtle continuous longing for the natural and simple presence of an open and unfettered awareness. There are moments when our essence breaks through – moments, for example, when we are absorbed in nature, music, dance, intimacy, and exuberance. In these moments our obscuring personal identity drops away, leaving a gap in which our essential self shines through, like the sun shining through a break in the clouds. We experience this as a lightness of being, a state of flow, a sense of wholeness and well-being.

Our usual self quickly takes over once again, obscuring the momentary touch of the true self. Not having a basis of understanding, we often perceive these glimpses as unexpected sweet and pleasant moments. We had the experience but missed the meaning. What we experienced was a moment of wholeness and flow, ever present but mostly obscured by our small self. What we missed is its meaning as a glimpse of our true self. Next time you have such a moment stop and abide in this glimpse of your natural essence.

The immediate question is how to hold and stabilize these moments, these glimpses of the deeper self. That, cannot be accomplished by force of the ego’s will, by effort, or wishful thinking. But there are approaches and circumstances that will point us towards these gaps in our usual consciousness.

We can increase the probability of creating a gap through the practice of meditation. As we intentionally withdraw our attention from random mental activity – thoughts, emotions, imagery, and sensory impressions – and abide in an observing awareness/presence, the mind slows and a calm stillness reveals itself. That stillness, with stability and patience can give rise to the momentary, or longer, dissolution of our ordinary self, leaving an open gap. In that gap we can abide in our essential expansive self. With time and practice these glimpses will become increasingly stable.

Although we usually do not notice the gap between two thoughts or feelings it is always there. Watch your mind to see if you can notice this gap. You can intentionally create it by holding the breath. Take a deep breath in, exhale, and then hold the breath for a comfortable period of time. Notice that during the breath hold cognition and mental activity ceases. Amazing. This occurs physiologically because breath-holding is one of a number of actions that suppresses the neural default mode – the series of brain centers responsible for the active mind.

You will experience an extended gap. Remain aware. Do not analyze or comment. Merely abide in this gap, subtly aware of the stillness and presence. That is who you are! You may work with this during your daily routines or use this method to deepen your daily awareness practice and extend the gap.

Another approach you can practice during the day is to intentionally stop your mental activity for a few moments and notice the ensuing gap that is present before mind talk resumes. Practice this frequently and it will slowly integrate into your daily life.

The gap, however it comes about, is a break in the dominance of the personal ego “I” which allows a glimpse at the underlying and ever present natural self. In time these gaps will gather together and create small islands of presence in your life. Slowly, this openness will once again become the foundation of your life, replacing contracted, limited, and judgmental self. You will notice this in subtle ways – a calmer life, less reactivity, less busyness, and more of a desire to just be.

Full Podcast: The Gap - Glimpses of Our Essence

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Virtual Reality to True Being

Simply stated, virtual reality is an experience that on first glance appears real but on further examination is found not to be real. The experience seems real, looks real, and sounds real, but it is isn’t.

Consider the water mirage on the distant desert road, an echo, or railroad tracks appearing to meeting in the distance. They all seem real, but they aren’t. They are a virtual reality. Or consider the night dream. From the perspective of the dream state it’s real – the emotions, the images, the body reaction. But when we awake in the morning, we discover that the night dream was in fact unreal. Finally, consider a virtual reality headset. We put it on and we can be skiing, bungee jumping, or any other activity. We become immersed in whatever comes through the headset, and if didn’t know otherwise what seems in the moment to be very real is likewise unreal, a virtual reality, a simulation of reality.

Each of these examples is well known to us and does not cause us grief or distress, as we know that a mirage is untrue, the virtual goggles are only a playful digital display, and we awaken from the night dream. Undeceived by these experiences, no harm is done to our life or psyche.

But consider our ordinary day-to-day life and activities – the usual experience of people, places, things, and mental activity. From the perspective of ordinary consciousness, it’s all very real to us, but can it be just another example of virtual reality? Let’s look at this startling possibility.                     

In ordinary day-to-day consciousness there is a sense of outer and inner. Some experiences seem to occur outside of us and others inside. Is this actually how reality is? There is also the experience that people, places, and things are distinct and separate from us. Is this actually how reality is? The people, places, and things that we experience appear to have substance, stability, and autonomy. Is this actually how reality is? And most often we are immersed in a personal drama of one sort or another that appears quite real. Is this actually how reality is? We could go further, but it suffices to say that we experience our world to be solid, divided into inside and outside, comprised of distinct and separate entities, filled with drama, and more or less seemingly permanent.

To ordinary consciousness this is how things appear to us. But as we have seen, awakening from dream consciousness and the night dream exposes the dream as actually unreal. Similarly, awakening from the “day dream” exposes as well the unreality of our ordinary day-to-day experience. Our usual world and life reveals itself as a virtual reality. And that, changes everything.

Awakening from the night dream requires that we step out of dream consciousness into wakeful consciousness. This shift offers a larger view of our situation. The same is required if we are to recognize the illusionary nature of our ordinary reality. We must step out of ordinary consciousness into a witnessing or observing consciousness, a meta consciousness. From this more expansive and uninvolved viewpoint, we can see that ordinary day-to-day reality is also a virtual, mentally constructed, illusory reality.

That is a difficult one to bear. What seems so real, true, and tangible to us at the level of wakeful consciousness is seen as an extensive inner drama projected outward to simulate an external world, things, people, and events. There are 7 billion inhabitants on our planet with 7 billion different worlds.

Understanding that our seeming outer ordinary reality is in fact virtual, allows us to live with others in this illusion without distress and suffering. We can share enough of our illusion to function together and attach to none of it. However, when our inner virtual reality differs from others or we become attached to our story as universal truth, it can become a source of considerable personal and cultural strife. To avoid that we must each strive to create the healthiest illusion possible.

Since our experience of ordinary reality arises and appears in our consciousness, we can influence the details and character of day-to-day life. We can take steps to create as healthy a personal perspective as possible – reading, studying, self-improvement, and psychological development can help in that effort to create the healthiest day-to-day human life.

Living in but not attaching to ordinary reality allows more ease, simplicity, and inner peace. By recognizing that ordinary reality is a virtual reality, transient and not truly existent, we can enjoy, but cease to attach to what is unstable and unreal. This motivates us to turn inward to the final and true reality – our inner and unconditioned awareness and beingness, the heart center of our being.

Stripping away the obscuring dreamscapes, we discover the spacious and ever-present deeper and true self to be the foundation and source of all life’s experiences. At this center of our being we find unchanging stability, serenity, and freedom. We abandon distress and suffering and discover oneness and wholeness. We become experts at navigating two worlds – the true reality of fundamental being and the virtual reality of ordinary life.

And in time, we will come to the final recognition that there are not two worlds. In actuality, they is one.

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Zooming In – Zooming Out

Our fundamental nature is a simple, innocent, unconditioned, and easeful awareness. This ground awareness is the source of all of our experience. Without it we would not have any experience. We are born into this natural awareness, but as our personal self develops we lose access to it. If fortunate, we will recognize and dwell in it during adulthood, regaining the natural essence of our life amidst the cacophony of a complex personal world.

Consider the world of the infant before the commencement of personality/ego development. It is one of pure awareness without commentary, judgment, or elaboration of its simple and innocent experiences. The infant directly experiences one phenomenon after the other without lingering, emotion, memory, or reaction of any sort. Take the opportunity observe this in an infant – the curiosity, astonishment, delight, and non-attaching awareness.

In the East they use a metaphor. Consider a young infant looking at a complex wall tapestry. The child’s experience will dart back and forth experiencing the colors, texture, and shape, without comment or judgement. An adult viewing the same tapestry will rapidly move into cognition – liking or disliking, seeking a meaning, storyline, symbolism, or comparing it to this or that. The infant has a direct experience unconditioned, unshaped by past experience stored in memory. It is very much different for the adult whose experience is cognitive, conditioned, and far removed from a direct and unembellished experience. There is neither a good nor bad here, but two different ways of experiencing each with its benefits and losses.

For the adult who lives in the limitations of a “thinking and interpretive” world, there is the loss of vitality, freshness, astonishment, and immersion in what truly is

As adults, we may consider the words of the poet T.S. Eliot from Little Gidding.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

As adults lost in the contracted and worrisome world of the ego “I,” what we yearn for is to re-ground our life in a foundation of simplicity, direct experience, and innocence – but, unlike childhood, know that place for the first time. Our home can once again become an unconditioned awareness that manifests, as needed, access to worldly skills and capacities without the afflictive effects of a concretized and inflated identity.

To know it for the first time is to live from this core essence as a wise adult rather than an innocent infant. We live the essential truth of who we are while simultaneously manifesting, as needed, a simple mere personal “I” to navigate day-to-day life. We can cultivate this ability to zoom in to our true essence and zoom out to navigate the day-to-day world. We seek access to both worlds and the capacity to surf them as needed.

Our first effort is to recognize and reconnect, to the natural experience of a pure, unconditioned, timeless awareness – our unchanging essence. The movement in this direction can be stimulated by suffering and its vulnerability, frustration with unsuccessful efforts to find sustained serenity and happiness in outer experience, or the subtle yearning for more to life.

Every adult has re-touched this foundational presence. Perhaps this forgotten moment was experienced in nature, exercise, dance, beauty, intimacy, or other moments of flow. The common thread is a momentary loss of our sense of personal identity and opening into our larger nature at the center of our being. These moments are brief, as our ego structure tenaciously reasserts itself. But they are memorable tastes of our true nature.

It is through meditation that we can, in a focused manner, visit this still center of our life and gradually stabilize its presence. It is important to note that this must move beyond a meditative emphasis on relaxation and a calmer ordinary mind, although this has its own value. Our direction should be toward a simple awareness-based meditation that is absent the focus and dependency of method-based practices.

I have been teaching meditation for decades and regardless of my previous belief that “dropping into awareness” without a focal point is far more difficult the evidence is to the contrary. In practice, with skilled guidance, it is far easier to drop into a simple presence and beingness than it is to set-up an ongoing struggle with mental activity that is too often the result of a focused-based method. Awareness-based meditation cuts through the cognitive mind and takes us directly to the aim of all traditional meditative experience – a direct encounter with the expansive, timeless, and unconditioned awareness that is at the center of our being.

As we zoom in repeatedly and become increasingly stable in our experience of a simple awareness, we ask how can be zoom out to ordinary life and still “hold” our center. When we need to be in day-to-day life we simply reach into our vast unconditioned consciousness and manifest those aspects of memory, cognition, intellect, creativity, imagination, and relational skills that are required in the moment. We create a temporary “mere I” that is needed to navigate our daily life and we let it drop back into consciousness when no longer need.

Our base is our natural unconditioned consciousness and the assembled and transient mere “I,” when needed, comes and goes. Our fundamental source is our broad awareness and the “I” is a mere construction that helps navigate worldly life for the moment.

It is possible to practice accessing and stabilizing our essential awareness through regular awareness-based meditation practice. During the day we can practice zooming in and zooming out. In time we will become masters of two worlds and there will come a time when the final truth emerges and those two worlds will become one unity. There will then be no further need for zooming in and zooming out.

Personal Love – Essence Love

I approach the topic of Love with hesitation. Although we speak of it so often, our understanding of love leaves much to be desired. Perhaps we can begin by agreeing that there are two fundamental kinds of love – personal love and essence love.

Although the first, personal love, may take many forms, it is characterized by the love of one person for another within the scope of our usual mind/body life. That love will vary in character and quality following the psychological development of the individuals involved. The most rudimentary personal “love” is needs based, transactional. I meet your needs and in return you meet mine. That’s the stated, or too often the unstated premise. Such relationships are characterized as co-dependent transactions.

With psychological development personal love evolves. There is a diminishing focus on one’s own needs and an increasing focus on the other. Self-cherishing shifts towards other- cherishing. My happiness is increasingly derived from seeing the happiness of the other. Kindness, care, patience, open communication, and emotional intimacy characterize the increasingly mature and relatively selfless personal relationship. The poet Rainer Rilke describes it in these words:

                  For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most

                  difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the

                  work for which all other work is but preparation.

The work he is referring to is the progressive maturation of the personal ego self – the shift from “I ness” to “other ness.” However, there are limits to this shift. By its very nature the individual self is experienced as distinct from other individuals and similarly is by design self-cherishing, defensive, and self-righteous. Even the most highly evolved personal consciousness – which is to be affirmed as a major achievement – will remain subtly subject to these tenacious egoic forces.

The second kind of love is what I have called essence love. It exists outside of the realm of personal identity, outside of conventional consciousness. It exists at the source of our being. It is the source of our being. We cannot actually know or describe it, as we can personal love, because it cannot be known through our usual sensory or mental capacities. It can only be known through direct experience, by being one with it. It then knows itself.

Essene love is not one entity loving another. The word love as used here is more a sense of wholeness and oneness, existence itself, the treasure house of human life. We have all had this experience at one time or another. As indefinable as it is, Rumi speaks of it this way:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”

Beyond “rightdoing” and “wrongdoing,” beyond our personal ego self, there is a field. That field is the experience of being, wholeness, presence, timeless awareness, love. It is there that essence meets itself. We call that the love of which there is none greater. It is perfect peace, harmony, union, and communion. Although we call it “love,” it has no name. How do we arrive there? Rumi goes further:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek

and find all the barriers within yourself that you

have built against it.

This second kind of love cannot be gained through effort or will. Why, because it is already there and complete in each of us. It is the perfume of our natural self, of pure awareness, of presence, and beingness. It is our essence. And that we can only experience when the ego barriers that hide our natural state dissolve. And that is where meditation can assist.

In the great traditions meditation is not a relaxation or stress reduction technique. It is a contemplative process which allows us to observe and dissolve the barriers to gaining access to our true nature. There are no techniques or methods necessary, just a shift in attention from the objects of awareness to awareness itself, from the wandering mind to its essence. Watch your mind. Observe that it cannot easily sustain awareness or witnessing. It is rapidly drawn, like a gravitational pull, into all sorts of mental and sensory experiences. And this entanglement is what we let go of in meditation. We learn to once again be the knower, the awareness, the seer.

Without methods or techniques, we drop into a state of being. Nothing to do. No goal or destination to aim towards. No one to be. We remain in the here and now, in our natural state. Of course, the dynamic energy of the mind will manifest all sorts of appearances – thoughts, feelings, images, sensory experiences – but we don’t grasp onto, elaborate, or become involved with these movements. They are not who we are. We remain in the continuity of our natural state of presence, awareness, beingness. That’s who we are. With practice and persistence we will increasingly be able to sustain a state of natural and easeful awareness, and the gravitational pull towards mental appearances will progressively diminish.

When we rest with ease in our natural state, absent a personal identity, we will increasingly experience the perfume of our natural being. That includes the perfume of a natural, whole, selfless, and indescribable embrace that we can call love. It cannot be described in words, as it is not cognitive. However, we will know it when we see it, and be filled by its energy, pervasiveness, and naturalness. From this direct experience all lesser forms of love lose their interest. From this perspective all love becomes selfless, joyful, and filled with grace.

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Seen But Not Real – Not Seen But Real

There was a time when I could share stories with my grandchildren about wonderful mysterious animals. There was the Garufula, a four-legged bear-like animal that had various configurations depending on the telling. Sometimes it was yellow, sometimes red, but always with vivid polka dots and a colorful tale. There were many adventures to speak of.

Then there was the pink Giraffe with blue dots, a green tale and bright yellow eyes. His/her head would often appear at night in my grandkids second floor window. He could also serve as an easy slide down a big tree in the back yard or a ladder to climb heights. It was lots of fun.

As it does, there came a time when the young ones were proud to announce that there are no Garfulas or pink Giraffes. From where I do not know, but in response, Zoe, my oldest granddaughter, blurted out – “There are some things you can see but are not real and there are some things that are real that you cannot see.” Amazed, I thought I had found my next teacher. Unknown to herself, Zoe was speaking that enduring accessibility to a natural wisdom, present but obscured in most of us, that revealed itself in those simple words.

I reflected in her words. A desert mirage, an echo, train tracks appearing to meet in the distance, and magic tricks are among those experiences that we can see or hear, but they are not actually real. These are sensory-based illusions that we initially think are real, but later learn that they are not real.

Love, kindness, patience, and spirit cannot be directly seen. They have no form, shape, texture, color, weight, or location. We cannot touch, feel, see or smell them. However, we would all agree that they are real.

If we doubt their reality our lives would be quite bleak.

I think I have touched on this enough to honor Zoe’s revelation that there are things seen that are not real and things that cannot be seen that are real. I would like to take this to a bit more subtle level by extending her words. I would like to suggest that from an ultimate perspective all experiences are unreal – sensory based or mind based.

What do I mean by this? Here I must add another statement: all experiences are transient expressions of our foundational consciousness/awareness. My visual sensory apparatus experiences light waves reflecting on an outer object. These form an imprint on my retina which is converted to electrical activity that travels to my visual brain cortex where it is converted into chemical reactions. By some unknow mystery this appears in consciousness as a mental image that I label, as learned from culture, a tree.

But, this is not the object outside. That I can never truly know. It is a mental representation that is labeled and projected outward, magically appearing in front of me. The experience I have of the tree is not the real object outside. It is a transient expression of consciousness. Although we can conventionally consider it to be the tree in front of us it really isn’t. Like all other experience, including our personal self, it seems real to conventional experience but in reality it is unreal. Experiences do not exist in the manner in which they appear to exist. That is the most subtle understanding of reality.

Yet it all works and functions as we understand that underlying ordinary life is the true essence of reality, an all-manifesting consciousness. If we forget this, as we do, we get attached and desirous of that which is ultimately transient and unreal. The result is confusion about how self and life really exist and invariable loss, distress, and suffering.

So ultimately, Garufulas, polka dot Giraffes and all other experiences have an equal nature. They are all simple manifestations of consciousness, neither real nor unreal. They just arise and dissolve on their own. Some are catalyzed by our senses, some by memory, and some by imagination. As we dive deeper into our understanding of how things really are, we can play in our ordinary world of experiences, all of them, without holding on. And that is joy and bliss.

That brings me back to my grandchildren. Pela, my second grandchild, was the most insistent several years ago that in the “real” world these wonderful animals don’t exist. A wonderful artist, she surprised me for my birthday with a painting of our beloved Giraffe. Like everything else it was both real and unreal. Its true home was in consciousness along with love and kindness. Actually, it was love and kindness.

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Reclaiming Your Center: Small Self to True Self

Our lives are influenced and guided by our sense of “self.” When we refer to our self – I believe, I think, I feel – it is important to ask what self, what “I,” we are referring to. Is it our customary, personal day-to-day self, or our natural, inner self? Which “self” have we placed at the center of our life?

We can imagine our life as a mandala with a central hub and spokes radiating out to the periphery. Our sense of self is located at the central hub. It is our operating system. The character of our life is sourced and determined from this center. When we awaken to the possibility that we can re-design our life, we get to choose which self we place at the center of our life. It can be our acquired personal self or our natural, true self. That choice makes all the difference.

What we place at the center of our life will define how we experience the world. When our small personal self is at the center – past history, ideas, perceptual patterns, and learned identities – will determine the character of our relationships, reactions, and life. For most of us that is our default, perhaps for a lifetime. We are defined and guided by the automaticity and acquired traits of our personal identity that we have placed at the center of our existence.

Yet, that is not how we started life. We were born into a simple awareness – no past history, no fixed perceptions, or identities. We were just present, open, unconditioned, and aware. I do not wish to glamorize this youthful and innocent presence and innocence, as individuation must occur to live a full human life.

However, as a result of individuation, we spend our adult years functioning under the influence of our personal self. It is the default center of our being. Life has its achievements and delights as well as difficult challenges. But the self-centered, protective, defensive, and self-righteous character of the personal self permeates our day-to-day experience. It is the source of subtle and gross distress, anxiety, and suffering that we falsely consider an unavoidable part of human life.

Too often we follow the faulty operating system of the small self. That’s how we are programmed. We’ve placed the wrong “self” at the center of our life. We live with small self- leadership rather than large Self-leadership. And that, is the realization we must arrive at if we are to transform our life, if we are to shift from person to presence.

We may check on this moment-to-moment by simply asking “Who is in charge right now? Is it my small self or my larger self?” We know the feeling of tenseness and contraction of body, mind, and spirit when the small self is in charge. We also know the feeling of openness, heart, expansiveness, and ease when the larger Self is at the center of our being. Which self is leading us right now? How easily can we switch from the small self to the larger Self?

What is it like to live under the guidance and leadership of our larger Self? Can you remember an experience of openness and flow? Do you remember the wonderment, awe, and curiosity of a child? Can you recall as an adult a moment of flow in nature, intimacy, music, art, dance, or other such moments? All of a sudden, likely unknown to you, in that moment your personal self dropped away, revealing your natural self, your simple moment-to-moment awareness that temporarily becomes the center of your life.

We have learned to falsely trust our small self with its limits and protections. We are accustomed to it driving our life, avoiding dangers, and gathering pleasures. But there will be a time when we recognize that our limited self can never offer us a stable, serene, wise, and fulfilled life. That is when we can correctly identify the problem and apply the appropriate remedy, re-installing our true self at the center of our being. That leads us to meditation, the contemplative life, and Self-leadership.

When our life unfolds from that center, it will be authentic and clear, easeful and peaceful, content and creative, wise and loving. At any moment in life a choice and shift are possible. We transform our life by choosing the central core of our being, shifting from the limited personal self to an expansive and natural presence.

The Decisive Experience

We have all had moments when the tumult of life stops and clear and truthful insights arise from the depth of our being. We call them “aha” experiences. These moments of understanding are neither planned nor organized. They come unexpectedly and spontaneously. They are brief and carry with them a sense of truth, authenticity, and authority. We don’t know how or where they come from. We might not be able to explain these insights to others, but without question we know them to be our truth. They have a clear and decisive impact on our lives.

These spontaneous insights may be about concerns we’ve been struggling to understand or they may offer a glimpse into the great questions of life. Suddenly there is clarity. But what would it be like if we were able to have a decisive experience that fully and permanently resolved the essential questions of every human life – How can we find unchanging happiness and serenity in the midst of human life? What is our essential nature, our authentic unchanging larger self? What is the final truth of reality? There are many ways to ask these basic human questions, but I sense you know what I am aiming at. We all want to know what is the essence of human existence.

Throughout human history these are questions that philosophers, religious scholars, and mystics have sought to answer. Not surprisingly their answers have been much the same. For us their answers are instructive, but not transformative. Intellectual knowledge can inform but cannot shift one’s life towards truth. For that we each need to have a personal “decisive experience” that illuminates, in heart and spirit, the direct knowing of these truths. When it occurs, that experience is a blessing. It is grace.

When it occurs, the actual experience of life’s fundamental truths is spontaneous and unplanned, precisely because it is already and always present within each of us. However, it is densely covered over by our tenacious belief that we are our ego, our personal self. The resulting overactivity of our ego with its ruminations and doings obscures the basic ever present truth of our being.

Although we cannot, through the accumulation of knowledge or through any method or technique gain access to these revelations, we can clean up the “room” of our personal identity. We can clean up our runaway mental chatter, fixed beliefs, rigid habits, and so on – so that we can live a calmer more loving life. That increases the probability of a spontaneous breakthrough and realization, a decisive experience.

If we choose to use meditation as a tool for cleaning up our life and taking us to the near shore of the truth, we must choose carefully. Why, because meditation can be as much an obstacle as an aid. Meditation is generally taught as a technique or method to calm the mind with the aim of relaxation and stress reduction. This approach works within the scope of our ordinary mind to shift, at least temporarily, our mind and body towards greater balance and harmony. But these practices all remain within the context of the ordinary cognitive mind, the personal ego mind. To arrive at the answers to the great questions of life we must access a greater consciousness beyond the limitations of the ordinary mind.

If that is our aim, we begin at the end. We drop all of our notions about what meditation is, let go of methods and techniques, abandon hope, effort, or any goal. We simply drop into being, into presence, into awareness. That, you might say seems quite difficult. What do I do with my active mind? The answer is – nothing.

You simply observe mental activity, abiding in awareness, the witness. It’s OK for the mind to be active. The problem is our identification and attention to it. As we rest our attention in awareness and observing, the mind quiets down by itself. We are engaged in a “non-meditation” merely abiding in our true, simple, innocent, effortless, unconditioned and unfettered awareness.  

And that is who we are and as close as we can come to a decisive experience of our true nature and the source of our life. The rest is grace. We merely leave everything go, cease grasping onto mental movements, and just be and abide in awareness. If you get entangled in mind traffic simply abide again in the witness state of awareness. Do nothing. Just be. Trust the natural unfolding of this sacred space of presence and learn from the experience.

That is how we fertilize the ground, preparing it for the light to open, wisdom to arise, and a decisive experience arise naturally and spontaneously.

Website: www.elliottdacher.org

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Come to Me as a Child

Come to Me as a Child

A child is born with a clear, pure awareness. Not an awareness of this or that or an awareness accompanied by interpretations, commentary, judgments, or preferences. A simple clear awareness is experienced without labels and filled with a natural wonder, awe and curiosity. And that miracle of beingness is experienced, but at the time unknown to the infant.

We use the same terms – empty awareness, pure awareness, choiceless awareness, and timeless awareness – for both this natural foundational awareness of childhood and the re-discovered beingness touched later in life, if fortunate, by the spiritual seeker. Thus, the often-quoted words from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning ......

What happens that causes us to forget what we subsequently spend years and great effort trying to re-capture? The answer … Human life! That’s what happens. Human existence. To successfully navigate through the stages of human life we begin to collect skills, experiences, knowledge, preferences, patterns, perspectives, and protectiveness. We develop a personal self, an ego structure. And this mentally constructed ego self separates and disconnects from its source … natural presence, and that is the fundamental cause of human confusion and suffering.

If you are raising a child you can watch the necessary but poignant loss of the pristine self in service to the development of this functional ego and the capacity to live as an adult in culture. Years ago, I recall writing a letter to my young grandchild with the intention that it be delivered decades later by her parents. I wanted the letter to serve as a reminder to my granddaughter of her pure vital essence which I witnessed in her infancy but would soon be forgotten in the rush to “mature” into adult life.

All we really need from a personal self is the simple capacity to carry out the functions of human life – basic memory, work and relational skills, intellectual capacity, and so on. We don’t need the troublesome, but more complex aspects of the personal self. We don’t need excess individualism and its disconnectedness, self-cherishing and self-centeredness, protectiveness and defensiveness, the contortions required for social standing or accomplishment, or the loss of our simple natural self. These excesses turn a simple and carefree functional personal self into a complex seemingly separate self that makes our true nature increasingly inaccessible.

The spiritual journey is not about the reduction of stress and reactivity, although quieting the active mind is a valuable pre-requisite. It enhances the probability of re-discovering the joy of our natural self. The spiritual journey is much as Eliot informs us, returning home to our foundational simple presence and being and knowing it for the first time. To know our essence as an adult, which is impossible for the infant, is to desire, cherish, and devote oneself to living from the heart center of our being – from essence, spaciousness, infinite possibilities, joy, and yes, love.

Of course, our core self never leaves us, it is ever present although obscured by our complex lives. How do we begin the recovery process? First, there must first be a strong and natural desire to return to who we are and let go of who we are not. T.S. Eliot states it this way:

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

What we are not now is presence, beingness, the natural self. In order to reveal this natural state, we must begin with what and where we are now – taken over and run by an out-of-control and endlessly busy personal “I.” We must turn that energy towards the journey home.

As mentioned before, we can begin with one of many quieting techniques (mindfulness, mantra recitation, guided imagery and so on) to quiet the course noise of our usual mind. However, there comes a time, early on, when we must cease utilizing quieting techniques and let go of meditation. It is then that we allow the natural stilling capacity of mind and body to bring us back home without effort.

Like the silt that natural settles to the bottom of an aquarium, sensory and mental activity left alone, that is not given attention, settle by themselves into the emptiness and presence of natural awareness. A word here about leaving mental activity alone. To use a Buddhist metaphor, we allow mental activity to enter the front door of the mind and exit the back door without serving it tea! No effort required. No interest shown.

Allowing the mind to naturally settle, we slowly experience, once again, the presence we lived so naturally in childhood. The more time we practice allowing our mind to naturally settle, in formal practice and during ordinary activities, the less importance we will attribute to the impermanent movements of the ordinary mind, and they will naturally dissipate and dissolve into the ever present background of still, clear, and simple awareness.

And then we shall once again reveal our home, joy, peace, and freedom. “Truly,” the bible says, “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Glimpses of Beyond

 Glimpses of Beyond

We have all experienced glimpses of a larger consciousness that lies beyond our personal identity and day-to-day life. These glimpses are characterized by a sense of flow, ease, wholeness, peace, delight, and freedom. They are a welcome release from the day-to-day struggles of our usual self and life. We would, of course like, to know what causes these glimpses so that we can re-create them at will.

These special moments, seeming  unexpected and spontaneous, reveal themselves when our personal self, with all of its habit patterns, reactivity and mind talk drops away, dissolves, disappears, and leaves a still gap. Like the sun, clearly visible when the obscuring clouds move away, ever-present essential self is seen in its natural luminosity when the obscuration of our personal identity dissipate.

There are however certain circumstances or events that may facilitate the unexpected dropping away of our personal identity. These may include an absorption in nature, beauty, dance, music, intimacy, art, meditation, or a religious experience. There is a common element in each of these. For a moment they draw attention away from our personal self and in that absence, when we are fortunate, our true nature spontaneously reveals itself for a glorious moment through the crack in the egg of our ordinary world. We are touched by a fresh known but unknown touch of aliveness and wholeness. Unfortunately, although we have all had that experience, we miss its meaning. What we mistakenly take and label a serendipitous pleasant experience is in actuality a profound window into our essential nature, our authentic self. That is the meaning we have missed. We touch the divine and experience it as mundane pleasure.

But there is more. Not only do we mistake that glimpse as another transient pleasurable experience, but we falsely attribute it to the immediate circumstance. We say its cause was being absorbed in nature, touched by art, and so on. The activity or circumstances does have a role, but not a causal one. What happens? For a moment, the experience draws out attention away from the tenacious personal self with all its related mental activity. When this obstacle to experiencing our natural self is removed, what is spontaneously revealed is what is already and always within us, our essential self.

Our natural everpresent self is neither created nor caused by the transient dissipation of our personal identity. When the veil of our personal identity is lifted, our true self is simply experienced, as what it is and has always been at the core of our being. Consider an aquarium with silt. We would say the water is dirty. When the silt settles to the bottom, we would say the water is clear. But the water was always clear. It was only obscured by silt. The settling of the silt did not create clear water. It merely revealed what is there all the time.

Why is this distinction essential? First, if we do not recognize these glimpses as windows into who we are and have always been, we miss these special opportunities that unexpectedly reveal to us the nature of our true self. And second, if we take these glimpses as pleasurable moments caused by a particular activity or circumstance, we will seek to re-create that circumstance, and that is the beginning of an addiction. Too often we have the experience and miss the extraordinary meaning. Life goes on in its usual, ordinary, and limited way. We touch the sacred and divine and return empty handed.

All spiritual practices, meditation included, serve to quiet the ordinary mind and diminish the influence of our personal self and its tenacious conditioning. It is sort of like cleaning our room in preparation for a special visitor. Merely resting in the most subtle and still aspect of the personal mind is a healing antidote to the fears, anxieties, reactivity, and urgency of modern life. It enhances the quality of day-to-day life. But it does not take us beyond, to the essence of our self and its treasures.

With practice and understanding we slowly become less entangled in the dramas of daily life which promise much but fail to deliver. One drama leads to another and then another. There is no rest and no satisfaction. However, as we increasingly dwell in stillness these small islands of peace and clarity become larger land masses. We discover our personal self has been an unreliable and untrustworthy partner in the search for peace and happiness. Its influence softens, our faith in it diminishes, and our interest turns inward towards a more trustworthy essential self.

 As we turn our attention inward, and if we are fortunate, now and then unexpectedly and spontaneously a sacred breeze will embrace us, and its grace will offer the sacred union with the one that we seek in our journey home. It may just be a glimpse, but if we continue to move the clouds, the obscurations of our personal self, we will increasingly live from this glorious and noble center of our being.

And if you are fortunate to glimpse what lies beyond you will know it to be who you truly are. Blessed, you will dwell in your true nature. To the one who is truly devoted to a precious human life these glimpses will become one’s life.

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I Am You

                                                      I Am You

The following is spoken from your heart essence. 

I am your natural state of being. That is where you will find me. I am beyond your ordinary sense of self. I am the infinite and wholly perfected expanse of your existence. I am with you always. I have never forsaken you and never wil I.

It is you who have forsaken me. It is you that has forgotten who you are. You look outside for the fullness of life that is always within you. When you realize the truth of your being in its nobility and splendor, you will have no need for external remedies or reminders. 

I am not an approach. I am awareness and presence— uncontained and unconditioned existence itself. In me, all is one, all is whole, all is healthy, and all is healed. In me, there is no suffering or non-suffering, disease or non-dis- ease, birth, death, or time. There is naked existence in its vast spaciousness, awareness, wholeness, and ease. I am health and healing. I am the truth of who you are. 

I am speaking to you from a higher awareness. I am using words to describe your natural state. Yet, if you are listening from your mental experience, you cannot know me. You cannot know the distinction between serenity and relaxation, true happiness and transient pleasure, natural wisdom and learned knowledge. You cannot know the supreme state of well-being that endures untouched by outer experience. 

The path to me is not through your mind but through your higher self and open heart. When you find me, you will no longer search, as your search will be complete and perfected in me. You will live in the natural and unshak- able harmony of being. 

I do not exist in time. Only the conceptual mind exists in time. For me, there is no past, present, or future. I exist before your mental life, before your conceptual life, before time. I am with you right here and right now. Stop for a moment and recognize me. 

If you recognize me as your eternal essence, I will be present for you as a constant companion throughout the adversities of life. My qualities of peace, wisdom, hap- piness, wholeness, love, and compassion will similarly remain with you. The fullness of life will never leave you. 

Disease, aging, and death, as seen from the spiritual realm, are part of the seamless transformation of life’s forms. From this transcendent vista, there is neither birth nor death, beginning nor end. There is only the ongo- ing creation and re-creation of the miracle of existence. When your illusion-like ideas are replaced by ultimate wisdom, you will discover the enduring and perfected health—human flourishing—that is always present. 

Haven’t you seen an individual who lives through the adversities of life continuously sustained by my presence? Haven’t you seen the transition through aging, disease, and death accomplished with peace, grace, and insight? Surely you have seen the opposite. Surely you have seen great despair in many. What is the difference? When you recognize and live in your timeless essence, you will know and live the uninterrupted serenity and joy of the fullness of life. 

Although you have many theories and practices, some called conventional and others alternative, they are all limited in scope. They are limited from the beginning, as they place their allegiance in partial understandings and fail to see me as the source of an all-encompassing, boundless health and well-being. 

I am perfected health. I am as vast and spacious as the sky. I am a circle without a center or circumference. I have no boundaries. I am the expanse of pure awareness that is your being. I am immeasurable. I am who you are. Once you return home to the essence of your being, you will know me as your spacious mind and vast heart. You will immediately realize that I cannot be measured. Health befitting a human is immeasurable. Only matter is measurable. 

I am not outside of you. I am within. My qualities are not temporary. You do not have to hold me tightly for fear of losing me. I am like a shadow; I cannot be lost. I am abundant, ever renewing, and everpresent. 

For you, true health is a possibility for another time. Yet you are always near and dear to me. I am not a god. I am your unrecognized essence. Give health another mean- ing. Give health the name of harmony, peace, abundant and enduring happiness, wholeness, love, and compassion. Then you will recognize what is already and has always been at the center of your being. And this natural state of perfected health, beyond words and understanding, will transform your ordinary, imbalanced body and chattering mind into a perfected instrument of my divine presence. 

You’ve known me through the longing of your soul, your courageous and relentless striving for a larger life.  Come home to me now. Come home to perfected health now. Come home and rest in ease in your innate and indi- visible wholeness that heals all. Nothing need be given up. It is all there. Your being is perfected wholeness. 

I Am You.

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