Only One

Morning, White Oak Swamp

2008-09-21T21:13:00.000-04:00

Watery Dawn

2008-09-21T21:12:00.000-04:00

Award!

2008-08-11T22:44:00.003-04:00

Billie over at Camera Obscura at has graciously bestowed an award on this blog.

Thanks very much Billie!

Lighthouse Path and Flowers

2008-08-04T21:20:00.000-04:00

Longleaf Light

2008-08-04T21:19:00.000-04:00

The assumed separate person

2008-08-04T21:15:00.001-04:00

Our mind, based on misunderstanding, assumes we are a separate person apart from reality. Then we seek a path, practice, goal and so on. But the problem is a creation of thought. Without the thoughts, is there a problem!? The concept on which all other troubling concepts is based is the notion of the separate “I”. The one with the problem (the “I”) is the problem itself! Until this is seen, the seeking, suffering and doubts cannot help but go on. How can an illusory character let go of an illusion which is, in fact, itself? - John Wheeler

Duck Pond

2008-08-04T21:14:00.000-04:00

Porter's Creek

2008-05-11T19:16:00.000-04:00

Little River Dogwoods

2008-05-11T19:15:00.001-04:00

Tremont Spring Colors

2008-05-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

You do not create the next thought. . .

2008-05-11T19:07:00.001-04:00

If you look closely at thoughts moment by moment, you will see that the thoughts are not generated by a conceptual "I" at all. "You" actually do not create the next thought. It appears and the mind steps in and erroneously interprets that the thought was generated by the phantom character called "I". There is no such entity present. John Wheeler

Strange Tree

2008-05-11T19:01:00.001-04:00

The ego is a concept. . .

2008-05-11T18:35:00.003-04:00

The ego is a concept, an assumption. It is merely an idea. What is that idea? It is the notion that you stand apart from the deeper reality of things as an independent and autonomous self, a limited being. As you look into this matter, you find that this assumption proves to be entirely false. So the ego simply evaporates due to discovering its non-existence. There is no “ego death” needed or possible, because there is no ego present to die. - John Wheeler

Porter's Creek in Spring

2008-05-11T18:34:00.000-04:00

Little River Spring

2008-05-11T18:29:00.000-04:00

You are not a seeker. . .

2008-04-28T20:07:00.000-04:00

See what you actually are, not what you think you are. You are not a seeker, a person, an unadvanced soul or any other concept proposed by mind. You are nothing short of the non-dual reality here and now. The answer is not in the mind and cannot be approached by any definition, concept or thought. Before the next thought appears, you are. Your being and its aware nature are fully evident. Your identity as that is clear now, if you take a few moments to verify this. - John Wheeler

Purple and White

2008-04-28T20:06:00.001-04:00

Spring Creek Colors

2008-04-28T20:05:00.001-04:00

Tremont Rapids

2008-04-28T19:59:00.000-04:00

Letting go of dualities

2008-04-06T11:42:00.002-04:00

See the perfection. . .

Spring Storm Skies

2008-04-06T11:38:00.001-04:00

Spring Flowers, Light and Clouds

2008-04-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

Wisteria Hysteria

2008-04-06T11:36:00.000-04:00

Glorious Redbud

2008-04-06T11:35:00.000-04:00

Spring Lake Sunset

2008-04-06T11:34:00.000-04:00

The third thing

2008-04-06T11:24:00.001-04:00

Not effort or
the absence of effort,
neither choice nor
the impossibility of choice,
neither self nor not self,
neither nothing nor something,
neither emptiness nor form,
neither unborn nor born,
the third thing... - John Astin

The great ego. . .

2008-04-06T11:20:00.001-04:00

The great ego turns out to be a lifeless jack-in-the-box. Even more, when you look inside, “Jack” is missing! When you look into the mind, all you find are a few thoughts, feelings and perceptions. You do not find a defective, limited person — only the space of pure knowing and being, or the non-conceptual, ever-fresh presence of awareness itself. Now you know you are THAT. That is the main point. All the suffering and seeking was only believing in a thought about someone who never existed. - John Wheeler

Distinctions

2008-04-06T11:17:00.002-04:00

Black and Pastels

2008-04-06T11:17:00.001-04:00

Layers of Colors

2008-04-06T11:16:00.001-04:00

Spring Lake

2008-03-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

Burned Forest

2008-03-16T09:50:00.000-04:00

Rhododendron and Fence

2008-03-10T23:17:00.001-04:00

In the absence of the person

2008-03-10T23:14:00.001-04:00

No wonder "you" cannot see this : This is a freedom that a "person" will never see.

How could a "person" ever accept that everything happens spontaneously, of its own accord, in the absence of the person?

The Tao (or Oneness, or God, or Life, or Spirit, or Emptiness…) has no centre, no mind, no personal volition. It appears as everything, but itself is nothing. Nothing manifesting as a world, as everything there is and is not. And there is only the Tao, which is to say there is no Tao at all.

And even to speak of it, even to think of it, even to do that is to lose it forever.

And yet the thinking and the speaking are fully the Tao; there is nothing that it is not.

It is the no-thing by which everything appears. And it’s not even that, because it’s not an “it” at all.

When speaking of the Tao, silence is the only way… - Jeff Foster

Light over Water

2008-02-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

Hawksbill and Clouds

2008-02-12T23:16:00.000-05:00

Concentration

2008-02-12T22:25:00.001-05:00

Why does it matter
where I look,
or how long my gaze
remains there
when everything
I behold is That,
this unspeakable
Mystery
that lives
as everything? - John Astin

All bets are off

2008-02-12T22:20:00.002-05:00

I have not overcome suffering, because such a statement presumes there is an “I” who has attained such a state. However, a looking did not happen to find the “I”. No such thing was found to exist. All belief in it ended precisely then. Not for “me”. The belief just ended. I make no claims about what “I” have attained. If I ever find an “I”, I might be able to say something about it. Until then, all bets are off! - John Wheeler

Grandfather Awakens

2008-02-12T22:15:00.000-05:00

Pink and Blue

2008-02-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

Day Fades

2008-02-12T22:11:00.001-05:00

Day Begins

2008-02-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

Blue Skies Emerge

2008-02-07T23:45:00.000-05:00

Grass, Trees and Fog

2008-02-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

Lake Storm Breaks

2008-02-03T21:16:00.001-05:00

Setting Sun, Trees and Water

2008-02-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

Belief in self centered thoughts. . .

2008-02-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

A bit of belief goes into the reference point of the separate self and the thoughts about that entity are assumed as true. In this, the natural state, which never departs, is overlooked. Nothing is wrong or lost at any time. You will see that with this basic insight, less and less energy is capable of going into the mind and its beliefs. You are always the light of awareness illuminating whatever appears. Look at this mechanism of suffering until it is clear. You cannot be free of something that is not understood. So make sure all this is clear. Then the root of suffering is resolved. Essentially suffering is believing in self-centered thoughts. The remedy is to remove, through clear seeing, the belief in the self center. All other beliefs hang on the belief in that core concept. It is as simple as that. - John Wheeler

Pine Savannah in Fog

2008-02-03T21:07:00.000-05:00

Poplar Point Fade

2008-02-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

Clarifying who you are. . .

2008-02-03T21:03:00.000-05:00

Clarifying who you are and resolving suffering are the same movement, two sides of the same coin. All experiences (thoughts, feelings and objects perceived) arise as appearances. But there is something in you that does not arise or appear. Yet it cannot be denied because it is what you are. Initially this is simply pointed out as the sense of being, which is present and aware. Notice this as the constant presence through which all experiences naturally flow, like a river. Then you are no longer being swept along by the current of events. You remain rooted in a solid source. Suffering and problems are seen for what they are — mental phenomena, mere images passing through the light of awareness. Your home is in and as that non-conceptual awareness. You no longer experience yourself as a limited self bound by imagination and concepts. - John Wheeler

Grass, Pine Trees and Lake at Dusk

2008-01-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

What are we to do?

2008-01-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

Ah, we would if we could! Isn’t that the game that is the spiritual search? To give up? To surrender, to relax into Being, to plunge back into the no-thing?

But here’s the point: it’s always turned into a doing, isn’t it? “I need to give up! Why haven’t I been able to give up yet!?”. And so the game goes on. The mind will turn anything into a doing. It will even turn a not-doing into a doing, and spend the rest of its life trying to do that! Trying to do nothing! Oh, the wonderful games the mind plays, trying to save itself. It really doesn’t want to die. And so it creates all these terrifying stories about death. And it keeps itself going. Always seeking, always wanting, always hoping. Always fleeing from an illusory past, aiming towards a made-up future. - Jeff Foster

Rainbow Water, Sky and Rocks

2008-01-28T23:15:00.000-05:00

Twisted Trees

2008-01-28T23:13:00.000-05:00

Unconditional

2008-01-28T23:08:00.000-05:00

That which we seek is, by definition always something else, is it not? Whatever we are looking for is always some other time, always some other place. We are never seeking the state we are for that state is already present! And though we traverse the inner and outer worlds in search of that elusive “something else,” there will never be a “something else.” There will always be only this. . .

Now, it would be easy to hear such a message and then try to put an end to all the searching. But of course, the effort to not look for something else is to look for something else. The struggle to be free of the search and “accept what is” is, ironically, to turn away from what is, to turn away from the experience of “not-accepting.” But turning away from what is and seeking out some other experience or state of mind is to simply seek out some other experience or state of mind. In other words, it is not actually a problem. It is simply the way life moves, simply what is. . .

So, what would become of the search if there were no effort to end it? What would happen to the experience we call “seeking” if all the spiritual manipulations and strategies to make it disappear were to cease? . . . - John Astin

Lake, Creek and Sunset

2008-01-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

Goodnight, Jordan Lake

2008-01-28T23:06:00.000-05:00

Winter Wonderland

2008-01-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

On a Winter's Day

2008-01-20T13:41:00.000-05:00

"Powerful" experiences

2008-01-20T13:38:00.000-05:00

. . . So-called “powerful” experiences are really no more important or worthy of attention than seemingly less powerful or significant ones. The mind’s tendency is to divide the world up, to split reality into what it likes (and thinks is worthwhile and desirable) and what it dislikes (and sees as less worthwhile or desirable). There are those experiences mind deems to be meaningful and extraordinary and those it considers to be quite ordinary, maybe even meaningless. But presence or awareness - the mystery that is awake - does not see the world this way. It is radically and unconditionally open to things and experiences, as they are, regardless of their particular taste, texture, or feel. This that is Awake sees beyond the mind’s preferences. It recognizes that every moment is a gift, every moment the miracle, not just the ones that match our particular preferences and desires. - John Astin

Frozen Forest

2008-01-20T13:37:00.002-05:00

Snowy Pines and Grass

2008-01-20T13:37:00.001-05:00

Fog, Water and Trees in Winter

2008-01-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

Swamp Colors in Winter

2008-01-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

Teaching you to become something

2008-01-16T21:48:00.002-05:00

All the teachers are doing is teaching you to become something.

All teaching is about becoming something, becoming still, becoming whatever. And always you're going to become it, you never are it, but you're going to become it. If you try a bit harder, you'll get there. That's crap, that's just crap. You are there, you are this, This is it. . . - Tony Parsons

Trees, Water, Sky

2008-01-16T21:48:00.001-05:00

Spiritual work is not a prescription

2008-01-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

It may well happen that your life will be of arduous spiritual work but one single moment of clear seeing puts an end to it. Also, it may be revealing to know that that conclusive freeing insight or understanding has been recorded to happen through people who are not spiritually conditioned at all — people who are not in any kind of 'spiritual way'. This alone reveals that what we call spiritual way is simply a conceptual construction and not a prescription for one to follow. This insight alone may make the belief in the self-center crumble and leave you bare and free as you are. - Felipe Oliviera

Branches, Sky, Reflection

2008-01-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

Poplar Point Sunset

2008-01-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

Moon over Jordan

2008-01-06T08:31:00.001-05:00

Looking Up

2008-01-06T00:08:00.000-05:00

Tony speaks. . .

2008-01-06T00:04:00.000-05:00

Go here for more from this lecture / presentation / satsang / whatever you choose to call it. . .

Light Through Trees

2007-12-30T21:18:00.000-05:00

Stumps, Colors, Textures

2007-12-30T20:37:00.000-05:00

Interview with Jan K

2007-12-30T19:40:00.000-05:00

Here is a short and cogent extract from an interview with Jan Kersschot:

Jan Kersschot: Life is a good movie: you don’t realise you’re in a movie because everyday life looks so real. That’s why I call it a daydream. But when you have a good look at what this person really is, you may discover that it is a concept. I think it is one of the greatest discoveries you can make in life, really seeing that the ego is an idea that appears in the mind. What you think you are is built up by hearsay and memory.

Interviewer: It’s a label.

Jan Kersschot: Yes, it is just an image appearing on the screen. It is not “you” watching the movie, the movie is being watched by the Light and your ego or personality is just one of the thousand images that appear on the screen every minute. While you read these words, you are convinced that there is a person – you – who is reading them. There is indeed a sense of “you” around. We believe it’s something solid but in fact it’s an image that pops up. Not always, but let’s say regularly. There is also a sense of letters forming words – and these sentences having a meaning. So you believe you are reading these words right now. This means that both the text as well as the sense of “you” are being witnessed. What is the witness of both your “me” and the words? Who or rather what is the final witness? It is the Light that makes your movie shine.

Interviewer: That is my higher self then.

Jan Kersschot: No, not all. Don’t try to claim it for yourself. Please be accurate here. The idea of a higher self or soul is again an idea in the mind, it is just another image appearing in the daydream. There in only one Light. And that is not “your light” or “my light.” You as a person appear in It as an image, that’s all. What you really are is that Light, not the individual. There is only one of it: it is timeless and borderless.

Tree, Alone

2007-12-30T19:36:00.000-05:00

Sunset Splash

2007-12-24T00:51:00.000-05:00

Suffering

2007-12-24T00:47:00.000-05:00

Suffering is self-centered thinking. It is thoughts about "I", what "I" should do, what "I" should be, about "my" life, and so on. If there is no belief or interest in them, they just sail through. They have no real bearing on you or your identity because you are not a thought. And most importantly, you are not the person that the thoughts are ostensibly about. If we find ourselves struggling with thoughts, there is some residual identification with the person concept. Who, what and where is this person at the center of thoughts? This is the root concept that keeps the conceptual cycle in motion. The core belief is the assumed presence of the person, the "I" at the center of the self-centered concepts. So, rather than deal with the thoughts on a piece-meal basis, go for the root. Investigate the person. Where is it? Can you find it? Does it exist? If you cannot find the person, then there is no one to whom the self-centered concepts apply. Without the belief in that reference point, the whole network of suffering thoughts is deactivated. They do not belong to anyone. The self concept is the cause, and the self-centered thoughts are the effects. . . John Wheeler

Cloud over Sun and Water

2007-12-15T19:08:00.000-05:00

Advice from John Wheeler

2007-12-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

My advice is to drop the paradigm of "awakening", "enlightenment", and "liberation". That is a worn out model that is primarily useful for those who want to accumulate followers and promise them things they do not need. It may be good for business (it generates repeat customers!), but for knowing yourself, it is entirely misleading. Your real being is ever-present and fully established. If you get interested in concepts, you follow them. In doing so, you may overlook the constant freedom that has never gone anywhere. Your true nature is not something you achieve, get or attain, either now or in the future. There is no need for awakening, enlightenment or liberation. Why? Because your true self is already present, and the separate self who would want to awaken does not exist. You are freedom itself. Everything else is a false concept arising in the ever-present awareness you never left. You are nothing but non-conceptual presence-awareness itself. So why continue to talk in terms of a separate self that has no existence or about attainments that are entirely unnecessary? - John Wheeler

Lakeside Trees

2007-12-13T19:50:00.001-05:00

John Wheeler

2007-12-13T19:44:00.000-05:00

In the end, you see that your being is not a matter of work or effort. You are what you are. Your ever-present self is not the result of a process. Work and striving are in time, but what you are is already here. So it is hard to see how relying on time or effort could help you arrive at what is timeless and naturally present. This is about something so simple that we constantly overlook it due to assuming it is complicated. That is why many a seeker gave a good laugh when the basic point struck home. If you have been striving and struggling with this, it might be time to ponder on who is doing all that work! Certainly not your real nature. Then who — and why? That is why the question "Who am I?" is so potent. It immediately exposes the root of the issue, which is the nebulous sense of self at the core of our seeking and suffering. A little bit of looking and the bottom falls out straight away. - John Wheeler

Incomparable Light

2007-12-11T00:19:00.001-05:00

Effortlessness

2007-12-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Effortlessness is not something that can be attained by effort.
No-mind is not a state that can be achieved by the mind.
Peace cannot be achieved by striving. - David Carse

Lakeside Twilight

2007-12-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

Sunset and Rock Pools

2007-12-10T19:42:00.000-05:00

Seeking unravelled

2007-12-10T19:30:00.000-05:00

But then, in a moment of grace, something else revealed itself. It was suddenly seen that the entire experience of seeking was being sustained by one simple belief, one idea that was holding the whole thing together: “This should not be here. Seeking should not be happening.” That was it, one little thought…

And in the instant that was seen, the whole thing fell apart. Seeking unraveled itself, for it was so obvious that it was only the resistance to seeking, the very effort to become free of it, that was keeping it alive. For what is seeking when there is no resistance to it? What is resistance like when there is no resistance to it? What are fear, and anxiety, and insecurity when there is no idea that those experiences should be other than they are (or if such ideas are present, there is no idea that such ideas should somehow disappear)?

What happens to the experience we call “suffering and separation” when there is no effort to liberate ourselves from it? - John Astin

Rocky Beach and Sunset Light

2007-12-10T19:19:00.000-05:00

Rocky Sunset

2007-12-10T19:13:00.000-05:00

Pathless Path

2007-12-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

The path to God, the path to ultimate reality is as Krishnamurti said, a "pathless path." In the end, there is no path to the ultimate because there is only the ultimate. Everything is made of That, the source and suchness of all things - every tree, every person, every flower, every atom, every star - all of them made of the same ineffable mystery, the wetness in every wave...

We may imagine that we are on a journey back to God, but how can there be a journey to something that is everywhere and everything? We walk to our temples and mosques, our churches and synagogues, our yoga centers and meditation cushions, to find God, to find Truth, but what is sought is already present, present before the first step is ever taken, and present as that very step. What is sought is here before the first thought ever arises to seek It, and It is here as that very thought. Truth is present, before the mind ever imagines it has been lost. But Truth is also the imagining, God seeking God...

We seek God but there is no escaping God for there is only God, only Spirit dancing as everything that is seen, everything that is touched, everything that is felt. We search for something else that will make us happy, some other experience or moment, but the happiness and freedom we seek is already here as this - this experience, this state of mind, this moment. Every breath, every sensation, the clarity, the confusion, the seeking, and the end of seeking, all of them God, all of them the Truth, all of them, enough. - John Astin

Lakeside Cliff

2007-12-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

Water, Fire, Sky

2007-12-10T18:42:00.002-05:00

Foggy Cove

2007-12-10T18:42:00.001-05:00

The Hungry Ghost

2007-12-10T18:34:00.000-05:00

When I get this one question answered, there will be no more questions.

When this one desire is finally satisfied, there will be no more desires.

When at last, I have found what I’ve been searching for, there will be no more searching.

We’ve heard it all before, haven’t we, heard all the false promises of the me? It is the voice of a hungry ghost, an emptiness that will never be satisfied because there is nothing there to fill. . . - John Astin

Rock Slope and Sunset

2007-12-10T16:55:00.000-05:00

Arc of Land, Arc of Light

2007-12-10T16:54:00.000-05:00

Skyfire

2007-12-10T16:52:00.000-05:00

The wanter

2007-12-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

. . .the wanter is the problem. No matter what the desire, nothing will be fixed by having it fulfilled. Nothing. Having a want fulfilled only leads to more wants – anything we get, we want to keep, which leads right back to fear. The wanter has to be seen through as unreal. That’s the only way. . . - Annette Nibley

Here Comes the Sun

2007-12-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

Winter's Here

2007-12-06T23:37:00.000-05:00