Dogwoods and Redbuds

Tremont Spring

Why do we seek?

Q & A with Felipe Oliviera:

Q: Why do we seek?

A: It is better to ask "what do we seek?" We seek something very clear and simple. We seek peace in all circumstances, whether enjoying a life pleasure or facing its inherent difficulties and tragedies. Once what we seek is clear in our hearts we can ask "why am I not or do I not have this that I seek?" The answer is only one: a concept about myself is accepted as being the truth about myself. The seeking ends when no concepts about myself are taken to be real. Why does seeking end? Because there is no more subject seeking the object or experience of peace.

From the moment consciousness accepted the first false beliefs about ourselves at an early age that seeking started. That seeking has produced all sorts of activities on our part as an attempt to fill the hole in the heart, and has attracted all kinds of events. Then we meet spiritual concepts and those too are taken as a new concept of ourselves and life. So we say: all is one, consciousness is all there is, I'm not the doer, etc. Those are fine concepts aimed at restoring a clear view of what we are.

The tricky part is that there is no individual to truthfully claim 'I am not the doer', there is no 'my consciousness' and all is one but 'I' do not know it. So, all these fine spiritual concepts are built into a new conceptual framework for 'me'. The next step then, must be to investigate the 'me' concept (the root concept) for only the concept 'I am imprisoned' projects the concept 'I need to be free' or, the concept 'I am asleep' projects the concept 'I need to awake'.

We look at life and living through a filter called 'me'. This filter is made of countless fragments of accumulated thought patterns and experiences called memory. The heart then, reacts to the light that has passed through the filter and suffers according to the concept of self that is in place in the moment.

We seek because there is a belief that concepts are truth. See concepts to be concepts and the desire to seek vanishes. If the whole setup of "I want that" is seen for what it is — a play in consciousness, there is nothing left to be sought and no one to seek. There is only being and its spontaneous manifestation.

Redbud and Jordan Lake

Don't believe thought. . .

More from John Wheeler:

The key is simply not to believe self-referring thoughts. Any thoughts, personas and identities in thought about "me" can be let go of. Why? Because you are not a thought or an image created in thought.

Jordan Lake Sunrise

Do not grasp. . .

Another cogent pointer from John Wheeler:

Do not grasp onto an image of one who knows, one who got it, one who completed the journey, one who lived to tell the tale, one who "awakened" or whatever. All of that is just more tales of an image. If you grasp hold of the "acceptable" image, there is a rush of satisfaction and hope that maybe "this time" it will stick. But it is still following an image, a story of a “me”, even if it is supposed to be a better, freer, more worthy “me”. Inevitably the crash comes, followed by disappointment and frustration. And the cycle continues to the next teacher, technique, the next hope. But there can be no real change unless the underlying mechanism is seen at the root, exposed and no longer believed. In truth, those images are like tying yourself to an anchor, throwing it in the sea, and expecting that you will float to the surface — not likely. One must let go of all images, all stories, all identities — good, bad and indifferent.

Framed Sunrise

There is no "you" who can be awake

More from Felipe Oliviera

There is no "you" who can be awake or is not awake. All that is perceived or conceived is absolutely impersonal while, due to identification with a person and a body, imitation, habit and inattention, we go around ascribing individual identities and powers to every being we encounter or imagine. These bodies and thoughts are manifestations of consciousness. By imagining a person who is separate from this consciousness suffering arises and all kinds of teachings and activities arise to help the person to be free. It is not possible for a person to be free. The person IS the prison. When all has been tried unsuccessfully attention is turned onto consciousness itself and the spiritual evolution mind game comes to a peaceful halt.

Absolute Peace

From Felipe Oliviera:

Absolute peace cannot be found in the relative. It cannot be found in objects or experiences. When the object of desire is acquired or when the climax of an experience is reached, a moment of impersonal peace or happiness is experienced. However, because the focus is on the apparent means to that happiness and not on the source of that happiness, it is short lived and psychological suffering and seeking resume. Greed, hatred, envy, fear are all based on a genuine longing for eternal peace gone misdirected.

Absolute peace cannot be found in time or space, in thought or sensation. Absolute peace — the peace that does not come and go — is here now as the backdrop to all experience. See that the one who searches for peace is searching for it in the conceptual and the perceptual realms, both of which are relative and changeful — dualistic. All experiences invite and become their opposites. All objects that exist cease to exist. In the relative what is present must become absent. Nothing is permanent in the relative — in the mind; in the world.

At one point the fact dawns or is pointed out that the fulfillment of our deepest desire for permanent absolute peace lies in another realm altogether. It lies in the realization that the world and all experiences are appearances on the screen of pure Being. Life can go on as it pleases — as it always has and will. Peace is the peace of simple being.

Spring Lake

Tired of the mind. . .

I got my copy of Irreducible Mind today from Amazon. Opened it up and began to read. The weight of the material bogged down on me. And I realized, this is not it. The answer is not found in thought, no matter if the topic is the scientific study of spirituality, or anything else. The mind is an arising within Consciousness and therefore cannot ever grasp it.

Dawn light, Haw River

Self-improvement

From Felipe Oliviera:

Self-improvement is ultimately unrelated to the pursuit of freedom because whatever can be improved is not the real self.

Taking a position. . .

Everybody seems to take a position. There is a God. Belief in God is rank stupidity! Republicans are sick, twisted and evil fascists. Democrats are credible fools who want the government to control how much money everybody makes. Duke is the best college basketball program in the country. Go Carolina, we hate State! Tutsis and Hutus. Palestinians and Israelis. And on and on and on we go.

But when a bit of space comes between the "self" and one's conditioned beliefs, it is seen how similar every person is to everyone else. One becomes aware of the essential unity with every other person. Identifying with a particular position, a particular belief, a particular facet of reality. And what is ultimately happening? A total obsession with a particular perspective, a particular constellation of thoughts. Nothing more. . .

Sunrise

Unfolding Reality. . .

Attributed to Imam Ali:

Thinkest thyself a puny form when within thee the universe is folded?"

Jordan Lake Sunset

No separation

From John Wheeler:

There is no person and no one separate from what is. So there is no answer to the question "Why did separation happen?" It did not. Karma, processes, conditioning, levels, states, attainments — all this is provisional and false and depends on the presumed presence of the person to whom all of this pertains. It is all imagination. If there is no person, then the root is pulled on all of it. There is no need for time or process. You are what you are. That is all that is pointed out. In that, all is complete. There is nowhere to get to apart from what you already are. So do not grasp hold of some concept or notion and believe you are not "there". Even all spiritual teachings and the highest non-dual pointers must be left behind. They are all pointers and conceptual only. Once you see your non-conceptual nature beyond the mind, you have no more need for pointers. If you return to them, you will turn back to the mind and start looking for the answer in the mind again and it will not be fruitful. Try that if you must, but see that you will not get anything more than what you already are.

Fog and Flood

Blood Moon

Only One

There is an appearance of multiplicity. But behind the appearance are clues pointing to oneness. . .