Letting go of dualities

See the perfection. . .

Disguised as the Obvious

On the spiritual search we hear about something called our "true nature" and we also hear that the ego is an illusion - a problem we must somehow get rid of. Fascinated by this proposition we go about looking for a way to somehow dissolve the ego and then get hold of this thing called our true nature, awareness, being or any of the seductive terms we have heard about. The next thing we might hear is that we have to find out if our ego exists - to investigate the self and see where this “I” sense is coming from. However, when inquiring into the existence of a separate self, or “I”, the mind will simply not be satisfied with the answer it finds when it sees the unavoidable. Perhaps there will be a strained mental search, furiously scanning that field of experience which you think of as yourself, and yet nothing will turn up. Unsatisfied the mind will continue searching, irritated, like an insect flying up against a glass pane it is unable to see.

It is as if the mind were looking up at the heavens and asking “what number is the sky?”, always finding the only answer it can ever find - an empty blue expanse. Unsatisfied it continues puzzling, enquiring, desperately looking for the the right number - it must be a number, it thinks with certainty. Perhaps it then begins dreaming about what sort of number the sky might be - probably a really BIG number, it speculates, unable to accept or even notice the the vast expanse of blueness right in front of it.

Similarly, when investigating the reality of what you are with the expectation of finding an object, or thing, your conceptual mind will never accept the evidence that what you are is not a thing. The investigation is based on a false premise. The mind can never contain what you are - it can only attempt to make slippery mental image about it; offering a fleeting, highly unstable signifier known as a thought. As with the sky in the afore mentioned example, what you are in reality is like that obvious blue expanse which can never be reduced to a concept - certainly not the ‘number’ that the flawed question demands. Until you are willing to drop the expectation for the answer to look a certain way, you cannot find what is always disguised as the obvious. And when the expectation is dropped, before you lies the truth plain as day; open, available and effortlessly ever present like the heavens above. - Chad Barber

Resolving the Story

If you are waiting for the contents of the story to resolve in such a way that you will have ever lasting peace, you are going to be deeply disappointed. The thought stories are ever changing; sometimes there is happiness, sometimes sadness or joy and then fear. The story is on autopilot; no-one is driving your life. Its a part of the unfolding spectacle of what is. If you are looking for the story to get fixed in such a way that you will have permanent anything, you are setting out on a hopeless journey. The story has no ending. Its just happening, like the seasons or rotation of the planets.

Peace, however, is in this primary experience of being right here - these sounds, these feelings, and this body right here. Find out for yourself what is more real - imagination or what is happening right now? Relax into the actual, this primary Realness you feel right now. This sense of being – this primary Realness, or presence is more real than stories. It has a sense of quiet and peace to it – explore that feeling and you will notice it is the ever present background of all experiencing.

Entering the dream door of thought stories is secondary experiencing; a simulation. Even that is happening in primary Realness, or Reality. But we can talk about it as secondary experiencing for the sake of analogy, to point to that illusory sense of separation from Reality.

Relax into this effortless primary awareness of actuality; this room, this seeing right here. Let the stories arise unobstructed, while you rest in what is Real. There is no way of controlling or changing anything in the story. This does not mean you can’t have peace, what you are in reality is outside any story, peacefully watching. The peace we are talking about is so basic it does not need the story to be certain way, for it to be. It is, everything else comes and goes. It is this living Reality right here – you are looking at it now, feeling it now, seeing it now.

This is Reality. Rest in the Real let the imaginary play of its own as you watch, indestructible, from the diamond seat. Once you realise it is simply this obviously available actuality you are always occupying, confidence and ease effortlessly arises. - Chad Barber