Suzanne Foxton - The Nonduality rules

THE NONDUALITY RULES (Neo-Advaita Subsection)
   
(In case there is any confusion, Suzanne would like to point out that the following post is largely tongue-in-cheek)

1. Nothing exists.
2. Everything that seems to exist is illusory.
3. This appearance is meaningless, yet miraculous, and is its own purpose.
4.  All apparent dual reality is oneness.
5. Any thought, feeling, sensation, or action that seems to occur is perfect.
6. No matter how paradoxical the happening, it is perfect, i.e., fear-based ego reactions “after” oneness has been “seen” or apprehended.
7. There is no time. All there is, is this, this ever present “moment”.
8. There is no space. Space is part of the illusion; what is perceived is an appearance only.
9. Everything is allowed, as everything is one, including rejecting oneness.
10. There are no separate individuals; this is the dream. The mind/body organism is lived.
11. The sense of separation is the longing for oneness.
12. As oneness is everything, there is no true separation; everything the seeker looks for has never left, as it is everything.
13. When writing about oneness, simply dropping the personal pronoun doesn’t mean the apparent writer has “awakened”. There is no one, so no one can “awaken”.
14. Oneness (or enlightenment, liberation, consciousness, as variously referred to by different writers) cannot be described, as it is not a concept, a feeling, or an experience.
15. Paradoxically, the story in time seems to continue whether oneness is apprehended (by no one) or not. Often, the story seems to go more smoothly, and seems much more informed by compassion and unconditional love, but there is no guarantee.
16. The overriding quality of oneness is unconditional love. Unconditional love is just that, unconditional, and accepts everything, as it is everything.
17. What the seeker is seeking is life, just exactly as it is, in all its imperfection and multifariousness; thus, “awakening” can seem to be a bit of an anticlimax!
18. The intense feeling of aloneness is exactly the same for every apparent individual, so is actually all-one-ness.
19) Clever wordplay like “aloneness/all-one-ness” is entirely optional.
20. There is absolutely no way to teach this, as it is already what every apparent thing and individual is.
21. There is absolutely no point in writing about oneness. There is absolutely no point in any apparent activity, except in its intrinsic value.
22. There is no right or wrong; all is unconditional love, in endless guises.
23. There are no goals, not even the loftiest ones, i.e., ending suffering, stopping war, saving the planet. Who is it that would do these things? There is no one. Whatever is meant to happen, happens.
24. This message is exceedingly unpopular. It means that everything the separate individual ever valued is valueless, yet wondrous; meaningless, yet extraordinary.
25. There is no one, so no one reads writings about oneness; reading arises.
26. No one writes about oneness; words are written.
27) The best part of spiritual practice is that the seeker may get fed up and give up. However, there is nothing wrong with spiritual practice; there is nothing wrong with anything.
28. There is no one, so there is no personal responsibility or volition; every choice made, chooses oneness in another guise.
29. When life is a miracle, life-affirming actions usually seem to be the story; yet there is no guarantee; in duality, there must be dark for there to be light.
30. There is nothing, despite appearances, including these rules.
~~~
For crap’s sake, “everybody,” enjoy yourselves and try not to be too hard on yourselves, and “others”. If there is a goal, not taking it all too seriously just might be it.

Nothing exists despite appearances

Symeon the New Theologian - Come

COME!

Come, O true light!
Come, O eternal life!
Come, O hidden mystery!
Come, O indescribable treasure!
Come, O ineffable thing!
Come, O inconceivable person!
Come, O endless delight!
Come, O unsetting light!
Come, O true and fervent expectation
of all those who will be saved!
Come, O rising of those who lie down!
Come, O resurrection of the dead!
Come, O powerful one,
who always creates and re-creates and transforms
by your will alone!
Come, O invisible and totally intangible and untouchable!
Come, O you who always remain immobile
and at each moment move all,
and come to us, who lie in hades,
you who are above all heavens.
Come, O desirable and legendary name,
which is completely impossible for us
to express what you are or to know your nature.
Come, O eternal joy!
Come, O unwithering wreath!
Come, O purple of the great king our God!
Come, O crystalline cincture,
studded with precious stones!
Come, O inaccessible sandal!
Come, O royal robe
and truly imperial right hand!
Come, you whom my wretched soul
has desired and does desire!
Come, you who alone go to the lonely
for as you see I am lonely!
Come, you who have separated me from everything
and made me solitary in this world!
Come, you who have become yourself desire in me,
who have made me desire you,
the absolutely inaccessible one!
Come, O my breath and life!
Come, O consolation of my humble soul!
Come, O my joy, my glory, and my endless delight!
I thank you that you have become one spirit with me,
without confusion, without mutation,
without transformation, you the God of all;
and that you have become everything for me,
inexpressible and perfectly gratuitous nourishment,
which ever flows to the lips of my soul
and gushes out into the fountain of my heart,
dazzling garment which burns the demons,
purification which bathes me
with these imperishable and holy tears,
that your presence brings to those whom you visit.
I give you thanks that for me
you have become unsetting light
and non-declining sun;
for you who fill the universe with your glory
have nowhere to hide yourself.
No, you have never hidden yourself from anyone
but we are the ones who always hide from you,
by refusing to go to you;
but then, where would you hide,
you who nowhere find the place of your repose?
Why would you hide,
you who do not turn away from a single creature,
who do not reject a single one?
Today, then, O Master,
come pitch your tent with me;
until the end, make your home
and live continually, inseparably within me,
your slave, O most-kind one,
that I also may find myself again in you,
at my departure from this world
and after my departure may I reign with you,
O God who are above everything.
O Master, stay and do not leave me alone,
so that my enemies,
arriving unexpectedly,
they who are always seeking to devour my soul,
may find you living within me
and that they may take flight,
in defeat, powerless against me,
seeing you, O more powerful than everything,
installed interiorly in the home of my poor soul.
Yea, O Master, just as you remembered me,
when I was in the world
and, in the midst of my ignorance,
you chose me and separated me from this world
and set me before your glorious face,
so now keep me interiorly,
by your dwelling within me,
forever upright, resolute;
that by perpetually seeing you,
I, the corpse, may live;
that by possessing you,
I, the beggar, may always be rich,
richer than kings;
that by eating you and by drinking you,
by putting you on at each moment,
I go from delight to delight
in inexpressible blessings;
for it is You, who are all good and
all glory and all delight
and it is to you,
holy, consubstantial, and life-creating Trinity
that the glory belongs,
you whom all faithful venerate, confess, adore, and serve
in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
now and ever and unto the ages of ages. 

Amen.

Symeon the New Theologian's poetry

Paul Hedderman - LIFE IS A VERB, NOT A NOUN

Text is by Paul Hedderman, selected and edited from his talks by James Saint Cloud, part of a series on Emotional First Aid at http://emofirstaid.com

Paul Hedderman's site is: http://zenbitchslap.com
Art on this page is by Aimee Stewart (Foxfires.com) 

 LIFE IS A VERB, NOT A NOUN

Each moment Life streams through the gates of the senses, fresh and new. That’s CONSCIOUS CONTACT. Then the mind hijacks it, says, “I am what’s in conscious contact.”A bird flies by.

 There is simple consciousness of it; seeing happens.

Then the head says, "I am doing that."
 WHO is seeing --- the sense of being the one seeing --- becomes more important than

SEEING itself.

 
You’re not the seer. That is a STORY, an INTERPRETATION. The conscious contact is being claimed by the head. It puts you to sleep to the awareness that you ARE conscious contact.Life is a VERB. It’s just happening. Not TO anyone. Just energy, ripping like crazy. But Self makes a NOUN of itself. A thing. The illusion of being a noun is that everything is happening from outside TO YOU.

All day, every bit of conscious contact that is continually happening, your head is claiming it, as YOU being the one in contact.

The “self” is just a story the mind’s running. Nothing ever happened to Paul. To what I AM. I am the pure and simple AWARENESS of events.

Most humans are living in that world of WHAT'S NOT HAPPENING. Living in THE THOUGHT OF past and future. Producing a lot of anxiety. “What might happen to me?” The physical apparatus is reacting to that all the time. Stressed by living more than one day at a time.

Life is happening; it’s a verb. The verb is the reality and the noun is the illusion. You are looking at it from the point of view of being a noun so you’re missing it. That’s what your head is doing all day: INTERPRETING what is going on and making it into a story about something else. You lose the verbing of life as soon as the noun claims the experience as something that happened to it.

You say you want to be "awake." But while you are adsorbed in the story of self you will be unconscious to the fact that you are ALREADY AWAKE. Then you may have the curse of thinking you want to BECOME awake. Reinforcing the idea that you are not awake.

The head is playing God. And it’s already beat you, since now it’s got you thinking you’re not awake. It’s going to play with that for years.

There’s no escaping WHAT’S SO. You can SENSE living or else you can THINK about it. That’s the choice.

This is not about acquiring knowledge. It’s about waking up to the essence of what we call living. If you identify as SELF, you’re going to inhabit the realm of WHAT'S NOT HAPPENING. The future and the past.

A thought is just a thought; but it changes dramatically when it becomes MY thought. The interpretation of the thought as being mine is slapped on it. But that’s not living, it’s reliving – a self-centered system of thought and interpretation always going on.

You think you’re separate from life and it’s HAPPENING TO you. “I’m the noun that everything is happening to.” But there is no noun in living; it’s just verbing.

When you’re seeing with a noun way of looking you are interpreting life from a false center. And you don’t understand why you’re so confused. All the experiences of being a verb become something that the noun HAD. You're wanting the verb-ness of life, but you’re missing it. You’re saddled with this noun way of looking at things. There is the dilemma: You cannot see you've made yourself into a noun. The noun cannot get the sense of peace because peace is a living movement, not a stagnant thing you acquire or capture.

As a noun life becomes interpreted and you become a storage unit for the mind’s interpretation of life. You’re not experiencing a living moment, you’re rehashing an old moment. You live from memory; interpretation is constantly presented to override the living-ness of life.

As a noun the best you can do is to assume that you HAD an experience; you cannot be THAT in which the experience occurs. One is a movement; the other is a package deal. You’re either moving with things or you are packaging them up, “I know this and that; I’ve had this and that experience.” Taking the verb and transforming it into something you possess.

The mind’s interpretation is, “All right, I’m going to stick myself in front of that verb. Stick myself in as a noun and edit life, under the assumption that I am the doer of this verb. I am seeing, I am touching, I am feeling, I am hearing, and I am especially thinking about it all. The doer and the haver and the interpreter.

Exhausting! Trying to have control over it all. Grasping at some assurance it’s going to be okay down the river. Building dams and reservoirs.

What fuels the selfing is your attention to the thoughts, your obsession with them. But the thoughts are about a body, not about you. Seeing that, you can become disinterested in it. The energy gets freed up. Maybe you’ll even become interested in the source of life, called consciousness.

Perhaps you have an epiphany: Life with the absence of self. You get the flavor of the moment, life-as-it-happens; and it startles the self into submission. The self goes down, goes to its corner, has some water thrown on it; but it’s soon back in the ring again, saying, "Oh! I HAD the experience, this epiphany!" It pulls out a victory from the threshold of defeat.

Generally the epiphany ends when this selfing arises and interpretation begins. A couple of epiphanies like that and you’ll be a spiritual noun. Ha-ha!

But the epiphany may offer a glimpse outside the box of being a noun — a portal between timeless and time I call the “pause" or the “gap.” Attention gets out of the box and spreads out. An eternal non-time event in this linear story of time. Witnessing seeing, feeling, touching, tasting, and thinking as the eye would witness a passing bird. That’s conscious contact.

The mind’s reaction to conscious contact is: I am doing the seeing, touching, thinking. The mind’s major method of moving is CLAIMING. There is life; then the mind claims that life.

You can drop down into verbing and see the noun in action. See it on its throne. The verbing doesn’t stop; it’s always on. There is not a "past of presence" nor a "future of presence." There is BEING. Now.You have tons of old ideas about you. Unless you let go of these you are traveling very heavy.

You’re meant to be fluid. A very light boat that can navigate and handle different kinds of weather.

You’re just an old tanker now. Each moment big waves coming in. You need relief. But where do you go for that release? To your head! Which is the problem. The relief it offers is part of the bondage to self. We go to the problem asking for advice!

Get a better self? When will that be delivered? Never now. Always put off. “When I arrive there, it will all be great.” And when you arrive? The happiness doesn’t arrive; and the mind blames you for it.

Selfing is not what you are. There is no noun happening. But when you look into the past, or look into the future, it’s all about what is happening to the self. It can worry the hell out of you.

Solution: Look at a situation and see no problem. Only what is now. Being-ness. With that recognition comes immunity from becoming a noun. The real flavor of life, just happening — not happening “to me” — this is the open secret, the gateless gate. Available at all times.

Realize you not in the problem. Never have been. That’s the solution. The lie is that you were “in self.” But you never were. Your attention was hijacked, that’s all.

You and I have tons of faith. But what vehicle do you put it in? Most of us have been putting it into the idea of self, of self-centeredness. This leads to fear, since self-centeredness is unreliable. You faith in self produces the anxiety that you try to deal with as though it’s real and solid. The same faith put into the infinite will create an ease and comfort. Traveling lighter.

The mind tries to write its relevance into the story. But things are just happening. It has nothing to do with the self at all. The head’s interpretation is causing travel to be very heavy. All based on the idea of being a self.

Self says it wants to “be free,” but true freedom is to be free OF IT: To be the verb of attention, pure and freed from self. Selfing needs attention; when the attention is taken from it, there is the freedom.

Something has been witnessing through you. If you knew what had been witnessing through you, it would take your breath way. You would just sit there in adoring gratitude.

http://paulheddermanslaps.blogspot.com/

Mooji - Wake up to what you can never not be

In the beingness itself there is no anxiety or waiting.
No waiting, no anticipating, no next.
Recognize the Self that is not on the way to becoming another state.
It is stateless. It simply Is.
It is not the thinking mind.
Recognize the difference between thought and Self.
Thought is more like the wind that moves about,
but Self is like space which is present everywhere and doesn’t move about.
Space has no opinion about thought.
Thoughts cannot crash into space for space is formless.
Recognise, acknowledge and be one with the space which Is.
This is natural for you.
It doesn’t matter what the mind says about that.
It may say: ‘There is no value in simply being.
There is only value in becoming’.
And by accepting this, it will rob you of your inherent peace and silence.
To be the Self is not a state of laziness.
It is to be in natural harmony.
Keep the attention here in the silence of being.
And at the same time you can notice that your activities don’t suffer from your attention being in being.
The invitation here is to go completely through the forest of mind into the pure recognition of what is timeless and perfect.
This is completely possible here.
Don’t be afraid.
Whenever a human being has done this, however long ago that is, the rest of the world cannot forget them.
The impact of their presence brings light to uncountable beings.
That presence, I am speaking about is your own true Self.
Nobody is more close to it to another,
or too far from it.
These are mere ideas.
Wake up to what you can never not be.
Seize your chance.
Come.

Zeynep Hatun - from You to You

I am a fountain, You are my water.
I flow from You to You.

I am an eye, You are my light,
I look from You to You.

You are neither my right nor my left.
You are my foot and my arm as well.

I am a traveler, You are my road.
I go from You to You.

–Zeynep Hatun
from Women in Sufism: A Hidden Treasure

~

Zeynep Hatun was the first significant woman poet of Ottoman Divan Poetry. As with so many love poets in the tradition, her words dance on the borderline between worldly and divine love.

In Camille Helminski's book, Women of Sufism, we are told that:

"...Zeynep Hatun [was] one of the strong women of Sufism around whom people have gathered for light and guidance in the Ankara region of Turkey for many years..."

 

Jenifer Edwards - the inner jewel

See the weary traveler;
How he suffers carrying everything he owns,
Ten years worth,
Twenty years worth,
Wondering why.
Upset at how the years have gone.
And many have taken him in,
Offering him shelter from the constant storms.
But the storms are within him.
And in his anger, he can always find something wrong;
"The bed is too hard"
"They were not so kind"
"I am not welcome anywhere"
"This is not the truth I was meant to find".

One day he met a calm man
That in anger, he could not shake.
The men greeted each other with smiles and bows,
One in kindness, the other, fake.
"Would you take tea with me?", the calm man asked
"Yes thank you." the angry man replied.
So the man set off to make his tea
Leaving the angry man there for awhile.
And while he waited, his anger grew,
Harsh and loud like a storm of the sea.
He thought long about how rude his host was
For keeping him waiting,
And what he would say when he returned;
How he would show him humility.
Hours past and day became night
Finally the calm man returned with just one cup of tea.

"This is the best tea from my village." he said,
"We serve it for only most honored guests.
It takes a very long time to brew
because we can only pick and steep the leaves
when the leaves are just right."
The angry man sat staring at the beautiful tea cup
and the hot tea steaming inside
In it, he could see the many people picking the leaves.
He could hear their prayers and chants,
He could see their smiles,
How heavy their burdens were,
And yet, how light their lives seemed.
He looked deeper and could see the earth blossoming
The simply beauty of both flowers and trees.
At the bottom of the cup there was a single tea leaf
Rolled up like a pearl
"You left something in my tea." he said quietly.

The calm man smiled and touched the mans hands.
"Many decorate themselves with jewels." he said,
"But the grandest most beautiful jewel of all, is within.
Hidden beneath our fragility,
Hidden far beyond our every day sight,
Buried in the places we'd rather not go,
Beneath all the hurt we'd rather deny,
So in our tea, the curled green leaf is a reminder
to cultivate the inner jewels that cannot be seen."

"Then why did you offer it to me?" the angry man asked,
"I am not worthy of such things.
I hate and rage, am ungrateful and unkind.
I am a foolish man, foolish, cruel and blind.
I have hurt more than I have helped,
and have left so many feeling angry and used.
Why give me such a gift?
Why share with me this "precious jewel"?

"Every being is worthy.
Every being has such worth inside,
No matter how deep they bury it,
No matter how hard it is to find,
We offer only what we have to give
And ask nothing of you in return.
Drink the tea my friend,
May we all work with joy to cultivate and share
the very best of ourselves
We cannot always stop the storms,
But we can always learn to act in love, not abuse."

Niutou Farong - Song of the Mind

        The nature of the mind is non-arising,
        What need is there of knowledge and views?
        Originally there is not a single dharma;
        Why discuss inspiration and training?

        Coming and going without beginning;
        Sought for, it is not seen.
        No need to do anything;
        It is bright, still, self-apparent.

        The past is like empty space;
        Know anything and the
        Basic principle is lost,
        Casting a clear light on the world,
        Illuminating, yet obscured.

        If one-mindedness is impeded,
        All dharmas are misunderstood.
        Coming and going thus,
        Is there need for thorough investigation?

        Arising without the mark of arising,
        Arising and illumination are the same.
        Desiring to purify the mind,
        There is no mind for effort.

        Spontaneous wisdom
        Throughout time and space
        Nothing is illuminated;
        This is most profound.
        Knowing dharmas is non-knowing;
        Non-knowing is knowing the essential.

        Using the mind to maintain quietude,
        Birth and death forgotten;
        This is original nature.

        The highest principle cannot be explained;
        It is neither free nor bound.
        Lively and attuned to everything,
        It is always right before you.

        There is nothing in front of you;
        Nothing, yet everything is as usual.
        Do not belabor wisdom to examine it;
        Substance itself is empty and obscure.

        Thoughts arise and pass away,
        The preceding no different from the succeeding.
        If the succeeding thought does not arise,
        The preceding thought cuts itself off.

        In past, present, and future,
        There is nothing;
        No mind, no buddha.
        Sentient beings are without mind;
        Out of no-mind they manifest.

        Distinguishing between profane and sacred,
        Their vexations flourish.
        Splitting hairs deviates from the eternal.
        Seeking the real, you give up the true.

        Discarding both is the cure,
        Transparent, bright, pure.
        No need for hard work or skill;
        Keep to the actions of an infant.

        Clearly knowing,
        The net of views increases
        Stillness without seeing,
        Not moving in a dark room.

        Wakeful without wandering,
        The mind is tranquil yet bright.
        All phenomena are real and eternal,
        Profuse, yet of a single form.

        Going, coming, sitting, standing,
        Don't attach to anything.
        Affirming no direction,
        Can there be leaving or entering?

        There is neither unifying nor dispersing,
        Neither slow nor quick.
        Brightness and tranquility are
        Just as they are.
        They cannot be explained in words.

        Mind is without alienation;
        No need to terminate lust.
        Nature being empty, lust will
        Depart by itself.
        Allow the mind to float and sink.

        Neither clear nor clouded,
        Neither shallow nor deep.
        Originally it was not ancient;
        At present it is not modern.

        Now it is non-abiding;
        Now it is original mind.
        Originally it did not exist;
        "Origin" is the present moment.

        Bodhi has always existed;
        No need to preserve it.
        Vexation has never existed,
        No need to eliminate it.

        Natural wisdom is self-illuminating;
        All dharmas return to thusness.
        There is no returning, no receiving;
        Stop contemplating, forget keeping.

Wisdom from the Zen Classic Xin Ming"
        Translated by Master Sheng Yen

Adyashanti - Stuck in emptiness

 Many spiritual seekers get “stuck" in emptiness, in the absolute, in transcendence. They cling to bliss, or peace, or indifference. When the self-centered motivation for living disappears, many seekers become indifferent. They see the perfection of all existence and find no reason for doing anything, including caring for themselves or others. I call this “taking a false refuge." It is a very subtle egoic trap; it’s a fixation in the absolute and all unconscious form of attachment that masquerades as liberation. It can be very difficult to wake someone up from this deceptive fixation because they literally have no motivation to let go of it. Stuck in a form of divine indifference, such people believe they have reached the top of the mountain when actually they are hiding out halfway up its slope.

    Enlightenment does not mean one should disappear into the realm of transcendence. To be fixated in the absolute is simply the polar opposite of being fixated in the relative. With the dawning of true enlightenment, there is a tremendous birthing of impersonal Love and wisdom that never fixates in any realm of experience. To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true nonduality. If emptiness cannot dance, it is not true Emptiness. If moonlight does not flood the empty night sky and reflect in every drop of water, on every blade of grass, then you are only looking at your own empty dream. I say, Wake up! Then, your heart will be flooded with a Love that you cannot contain.