Nothing Needs to Happen

Nothing Needs to Stop Happening

We don’t have to go anywhere or change in any way in order to be this one, infinite, undivided whole, this boundless aware presence, this unpindownable aliveness. We all are this, and we can’t ever not be this. We also don’t need to know what this whole happening is, whether it is fundamentally Consciousness or God or energy or a brain experience or some kind of subatomic dance. Those are all just labels for and ideas about THIS that cannot ever be captured by any label or conceptual formulation. It simply is. It’s always right here, right now. We truly can’t get it wrong.

The pathless path is simply a matter of SEEING—in the moment, as it happens—the ways that thought tells us “this isn’t it,” “you’re not getting it,” “you’re not there yet,” and noticing and feeling the ways the body hums along with tight, contracted, uneasy sensations, and the ways consciousness gets mesmerized in a kind of dream-like hypnotic trance in which “I” appear to be a small, separate, deficient, encapsulated character who needs to somehow stop this trance from happening and get to some better place.

But when we turn our attention around to see to what that word “I” most deeply refers, prior to everything learned and added on, we find no little encapsulated self. Instead, we find this boundless open aware presence that has no shape or form, but which is showing up as every possible shape and form, as the whole universe!

The character we’ve taken ourselves to be is a kind of mirage made up of passing thoughts, sensations, memories and mental images. This mirage is appearing here along with the birdsongs, the clouds, the planets, the stars and everything else. Even this hypnotic trance and all the thoughts and sensations that produce it and the “me” who seems to be at the center of it are ALL simply momentary shapes that this aliveness is taking. Nothing that appears has any actual substance or enduring form. Our thoughts and moods are no more personal than the weather outside. The whole story of our lives is no more real than last night’s dreams. Nothing is really a problem, except in the story, from the perspective of that mirage-like character in the dream.

But yes, it hurts to feel separate and deficient and lost. It’s uncomfortable and confusing and stressful. So naturally, there is a desire to get beyond this suffering. And we’ve heard stories about awakening and enlightenment and liberation, and we want that. So we search for that, hoping to find it in the future, where it can never be found, somewhere other than right here, because thought tells us that, “this can’t be it.” And in that effort to get somewhere, or get rid of something, or make something either happen or stop happening, we’re like a wave trying to get back to the ocean. That whole effort is all part of the hypnotic trance.

Pointing out the dream-like nature of experience doesn’t mean that the person and the everyday world aren’t real in any sense. They’re just not what we think they are. Pain and painful circumstances are part of life. This isn’t about denying that. But religion or spirituality offers a different way of seeing and being with life’s challenges and apparent misfortunes, a way of waking up from the hypnotic trance of encapsulation and separation and all the unnecessary drama that prolongs the pain and makes it so much worse. In the kind of religion and spirituality that interests me, this isn’t about believing in comforting ideas. It’s about looking, listening, exploring and waking up to how life actually is, rather than how we think it is.

When we give open attention to our actual immediate direct experience, we discover that no separate, persisting, independent forms actually exist in the way they seem to. Whether we’re talking about people, problems, mountains, emotions, houses, presidents, nations, thoughts, or anything else, they are never the solid, independent, separate, persisting “things” that they seem to be. Every apparent form, including every person, is like a whirlpool in the river or a wave in the ocean. A whirlpool or a wave doesn’t hold still. It’s not separate from the river or the ocean. It’s not a part of the river or the ocean; it’s an activity of the whole river or the whole ocean.

Each of us is an ever-changing activity of this one, infinite, undivided whole that goes by many different names—Consciousness, God, the Tao, the universe, etc. Obviously, each person’s perspective and experience is limited by their conditioning, their biology, their position in time and space, and so on. So the whole is obviously more than the content of any one person’s experience. But in a very real sense, every wave includes the whole ocean, because there is no separation—no place where one ends and the other begins. And there is a common factor in all the waves, namely the water. Presence-awareness (Here-Now) is the common factor in every different experience. We might say it is the groundless ground of all experience, our shared being.

The whole is unlimited and all-inclusive. It has no location, no edges, no size, no shape, no place where it begins or ends. It is like the proverbial circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. Our movies may each be different, but we all share this common ground, for which groundlessness is perhaps a better word because this presence-awareness is not an object or a “thing” of any kind. It is the no-thing-ness of everything, the aliveness of just this.

We can’t grasp it. We can only be it. We already are it. We can’t not be it. It (or it-less-ness) is all there is. It’s nothing hidden. It’s the bright red car driving down the road, the cheep-cheep-cheep of the bird, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the cold wind in our face, the rippling reflections in the pond, the sudden pain in the hip, the bowl of oatmeal on the table, the thought-stories passing through the mind, the hot upsurge of anger, the cold wave of fear, the joy that fills the heart, the empty page, the words, the silence, the listening presence, the awareness beholding it all. It’s always right here, right now, utterly immediate, most intimate, boundless and without limit.

And if thought tells us otherwise, simply SEE that thought for what it is. Stop, look and listen. Tune into the living actuality. Behold the wonder right here now in every ordinary moment.

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A few beautiful words from my friend Jay Matthews:

Nothing harms you, everything supports you… Allow yourself to dissolve into the Love that you are… We can focus on our apparent story in time, or we can focus on Love in the present moment… This choice is our path, and our path is also our goal… Enlightenment is a choice—it doesn't happen ‘one day’ because it only happens now... Give yourself over to love. Let the seed of joy grow in your heart. Don't take thought's ulterior avenues. Stay at the center, with God... We think we’re at the center of our lives, but Consciousness is the center… We think our temporal existence is reality, but reality is eternal ever-presence… The understanding that Consciousness is all—some call it God—is a door. Go through it, and you will find nothing at all. This no-thing-ness is Love and Joy, but it cannot answer to these names. Try to glimpse it, and it has no beginning. Try to follow it, and it has no end.

—Jay Matthews: https://eternity-now.org

These words are addressed to the Heart, not to the thinking mind. They point to a way of being and seeing, not to a philosophy to believe or disbelieve. If they speak to you, as they do to me, marinate in what they evoke and invite.

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Love to all…