Openness
Enjoying the dance
Openness
There is an openness here, a vastness—
Can you feel it?
Open, spacious, warm, radiant, loving, all-inclusive, full of everything and yet utterly free and empty—formless, shapeless, limitless—dancing as infinitely varied appearances.
This open aware presence is our most fundamental nature, the ground of being, the groundlessness at the core of everything, the immediacy of here and now, the emptiness and fullness of everything.
Open, clear, boundless, ungraspable and yet most intimate, closer than close.
I’m not pointing to abstract ideas or philosophies to think or reason about. I’m pointing to something experiential, alive, right here, right now.
Some of you might be thinking that you don’t get it and then feeling frustrated. So then, let’s begin with simply allowing frustration to be here and exploring what this ever-changing event that we’re calling “frustration” actually is. Anything that shows up is the perfect place to begin. So, instead of thinking about how frustrated we feel, we might explore the actual sensations of so-called frustration as simply amazing sensations, and also whatever else is here—the sounds of the refrigerator, the light on the wall, the ache in the knee, the smells of dinner cooking, the sounds of traffic, whatever is showing up. Is it possible to really fully listen to these ordinary sounds, to explore so-called “frustration” as an amazing dance of energy, to behold it all in the same way you might behold a newborn baby or the face of your beloved, with love and wonderment, without judgment?
The awakening journey, as I see it, is about discovering the love, the beauty, the joy, the wonder, the wholeness of life right here in each ordinary moment. And sometimes it’s about feeling the pain, the grief, the anger, the sorrow that is part of being alive. It’s also about seeing (in the moment, as it happens) how thought, along with the habitual movements of grasping and resisting, create needless suffering and confusion. And it’s about discovering the open, spacious, unbound aliveness and wholeness of presence itself.
This aliveness right here, right now is always already fully present, waiting to be noticed, enjoyed and explored. It is simplicity itself. Thinking is complicated, abstract, always one step removed from actuality, always dualistic. Presence is simple, immediate, nondual, inconceivable yet unavoidable. Aware presence is always already here, whether noticed or unnoticed.
Attention can become absorbed in thoughts and stories about past and future, and consciousness can become identified as the character in the story of my life, the “me” who seems to be at the controls, thinking my thoughts, making my choices, performing my actions, living my life, and being subjected to frustration and pain and all kinds of unwanted feelings and circumstances. All of this mental activity is like a cloud that temporarily overshadows and obscures the full experiencing of this here-now-presence. (Of course, thinking and identifying as the little “me” are also impersonal shapes that this undivided presence is momentarily taking, but when these stories are believed to be real, suffering and confusion follow).
We can’t make this cloud cover disappear, and all such efforts are just more layers of cloud cover. Instead, can we simply see the cloud cover, allow it to be just as it is, beholding it with love instead of resistance, maybe being curious about it (what is it made of? how does it feel in the body? what thoughts are generating it?), and allowing it to dissolve naturally in its own time. It might be discovered that without our thoughts and stories about the clouds, their power over us lessens, and they are just passing events.
This kind of loving awareness, open attention and intelligent inquiry are the transformative powers that gradually (and always only now) have the potential to loosen the knots of confusion, dissolve imaginary problems, see through illusions, illuminate how needless suffering is created, and awaken us to the miracle that is always here but often over-looked.
Awareness is non-judgmental. It is not result-oriented. It allows everything to be as it is. It resists nothing and clings to nothing. It is open. Free. It has space for everything to be as it is and space for something new to arise. It could be called unconditional love.
Awareness is wholeness. It sees everything from wholeness, as wholeness. Seeing from wholeness brings total compassion for everything being as it is, and simultaneously gives space for everything to change and for something new to emerge. When we fully see someone, we naturally love them, even if we abhor what they are doing. And even though we find some things abhorrent, awareness recognizes everything as a seamless whole that cannot be pulled apart, knowing that it all goes together in ways we cannot fathom, that everything belongs. Nothing could, in this moment, be otherwise than how it is, and already it has dissolved and moved on to something new.
The dance of light and dark, forgetting and remembering, when seen from a bigger context, reveals both the indivisible wholeness and also the evanescent, dream-like nature of everything that initially seems so solid, substantial and real. Things that once felt personal and unbearable, things such as feeling frustrated, vanish into thin air. And if they don’t vanish, who cares? Without that phantom caretaker (the “me”), the problem is no longer a problem.
This luminous, radiant, awareness that is right here now reading these words is truly a miracle. It’s not a thing. It is empty of substance. It can’t be pinned down. It has no color or shape. It is closer than close, utterly immediate, and yet infinite and boundless. It is the light illuminating and beholding (being and holding) everything.
There’s no need to search for it. It’s right here. It’s what Here-Now is. It’s our fundamental nature, the ever-present groundless ground. Undivided and whole, appearing as this infinitely varied magical display and then disappearing into the germinal darkness from which it emerges.
Don’t try to grasp any of this with thought. Let the thinking go, just for a moment. Feel the breathing. Notice the colors and shapes here and now as pure visual sensations, let the labels and storylines go, hear the sounds as simply sounds, listen as you might listen to music, sink into the bare sensations themselves, feel the textures, taste the tastes, enjoy it all, and notice the vast awaring presence that you are and that everything is. Feel the aliveness of this whole present experiencing.
If the mind asks, “So what? What does this do for me? What’s the point?” or if it insists that, “This isn’t working, I still get frustrated,” notice that these are thoughts. Do such thoughts arise when you are listening to music, dancing, making love, laughing over a funny movie, walking in a beloved place in nature? I’m guessing they don’t. If they arise on the spiritual quest, you might wonder, where are you trying to go? What result are you imagining and for whom? Perhaps this imaginary future destination and the one who feels deficient here and now, the one who thinks that “this can’t be it,” are both mirage-like creations of thought. Delusions. Passing clouds. Is it possible to simply enjoy dancing and being the dance, even when it sometimes moves in ways that feel uncomfortable or unpleasant?
People desperately want to describe existence and, historically, they speak of matter, energy, consciousness, spirit, oneness, and mystery. But descriptions are merely limited interpretations. All of them. They can never tell us what life actually is…
Even the sense of existing disappears every night, only to reappear. It’s like a light blinking off and on.
When it’s on, our so-called life appears in its flow. Bodies, needs, interests, concerns, urges, and actions—family situations, national events, international events—all of these arise and fade as passing appearances in a formless event…
These forms don’t actually exist; they’re like ripples in flowing water…
Our appearance, direction, and actions simply happen. This realization is freedom…
At some point, the heart may open to the totally indefinable, unpredictable, and often unwanted movement that life is. Love is that openness of heart…
– Darryl Bailey
My Books
As I’ve mentioned, New Sarum Press, which has published 4 of my 5 books for the last several years, is shutting down. I have now “Independently Published” those 4 books on Amazon myself. Amazon unfortunately continues to list, and their algorithm often prioritizes, those old editions published by New Sarum and other earlier publishers. Those editions are all out of print, those publishers no longer hold the rights, so please look for the newly published editions that I’ve linked to below. I get the best royalties if you buy the “Independently Published” January 2026 editions of these 4 books, and as more of these are sold, the algorithm at Amazon will gradually begin to favor them. Here are the links to those new editions, plus a link at the bottom of the list to my first book at Penguin Random House:
DEATH: The End of Self-Improvement
PAINTING THE SIDEWALK WITH WATER: Talks and Dialogues about Nonduality
AWAKE IN THE HEARTLAND: The Ecstasy of What Is
BARE-BONES MEDITATION: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
Nothing to Grasp is a concise articulation of my essential message. Painting the Sidewalk with Water is a collection of talks and dialogs from my public meetings in the early 2000s. My first book, Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life, is a spiritual memoir that focuses largely on my work with Toni Packer, but also includes working with my first Zen teacher, discovering Advaita, and more. Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is and Death: The End of Self-Improvement both combine personal stories with expository and poetic prose about nonduality. Death: The End of Self-Improvement, my most recent book, first published in 2019, in addition to being about nonduality, is also about aging, dying, and going through cancer.
And by the way, New Sarum also published Darryl Bailey’s wonderful books, and Darryl tells me he’s working on making them available for download from his website.
Love to all…
Joan, “open attention and intelligent inquiry” - yes - pay attention to what moves around us and through us and be curious. Thank you.
DEATH: THE END OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT 😉