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
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
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
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
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
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
. . .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
Who is the entity in bondage to beliefs, you ask? No one. That is the point! The separate self is only a conceptual dust-devil swirling in the clear, open sky of non-conceptual awareness that you are and which is entirely free right now. Step back a moment and see that you are already what you are seeking. Here and now, you are that non-conceptual awareness. Do not dig around in the dust bin of the mind looking for answers and reasons for a problem that never existed! You have been falsely enamored of the mind and were giving it too much weight. Just see the thoughts as thoughts, and let them be. Who even cares about the activity of the mind? Does the sky care if a few clouds blow through? Is it caught in the clouds? You have seen what needs to be seen. So just pause and be what you are. Besides, what are thoughts anyhow? Only vibrations of awareness itself. Nothing is ever appearing except awareness! You are that awareness. The thoughts are only awareness. Nothing is happening at all! If you think "you" are bound, stuck or limited, look for that supposed limited entity and you will find nothing except pure, ever-present freedom itself. Look like this and any interest in the apparent mind is over with. You have been boxing with a shadow. There was no opponent present. And who would want to put the brakes on the mind activity (if such a thing were possible)? Who owns that concept? That is just another self-centered story for a self that never was! A bit of clear seeing burns through these flimsy concepts like a blowtorch pointed at a few stray pieces of lint. You are NOT bound. Nothing is wrong. It is all a concept, an illusion. Step out of the mind entirely and reclaim the ever-present freedom that you have never lost. You are freedom itself. Everything else is a concept that has no reality whatsoever. - John Wheeler
There is absolutely NO reason why anyone should suggest that you should commit yourself to any spiritual program or practice. - What is true is as immediately available as your next breath.
The mind does not need to be trained, no matter what anyone says about that. Even the essential nature of what the Buddha discovered was his own formlessness. That is the essential nature of realization. - All the rest is concepts and postponements for the mind. . .
All there is, is being – seeing – knowing.
These three aspects, being, seeing, knowing, are not different things – they are one and the same.
There is no story line being pushed onto you here. -No deliverance. No learning ‘how’ to be enlightened – all such things are contrived nonsense, promoted by the ignorant.
The realization is always right here, right now. - There is NO other time than THIS. . .
Adding concepts to THIS can never bring freedom in some future time, no matter how sacred or how profound they may appear to be (for the mind). - Methods are only momentary appearances - when they are indulged in, they imprison a fictional character (me) like a donkey on a treadmill. - The 'carrot' - the enticement - future deliverance is held just beyond reach and it is never become nourishment because it is only a story, a mirage.
To say just a little more, is enough:
You imagine that someone else is awake - more awake than you - and that you want to be wide awake like them.
All that stuff is only imagination and it is that which seemingly covers the FACT that you are nothing but this wakefulness, which is Always naked and Ever Present. . .
In that clear 'space-like awareness' there is no doubt, no time - and even the empty space itself is being cognized clearly and precisely - without any error whatsoever. - It takes 'time' to find any fault in that and that 'finding fault' is only habitual mind. . .
An imaginary life is full of all kinds of 'things', states of mind with their fears and desires and they are the vehicles of suffering - for the believed in 'entity'.
All such things lead to nowhere at all - they never move away from THIS moment.
Who is life happening to? . . .
Life goes on - There is NO personal enlightenment.
Everything is just as it is. - Gilbert Schultz
The belief in being a separate entity who will eventually achieve some permanent state of bliss is the very reason why spiritual work is done at all. . . [T]he only thing that keeps spiritual work in place is the belief in being a separate limited helpless entity endowed with the power to do. - Felipe Oliviera
From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things
and makes us aware that we are nothing -— but the light is all. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to himself—that is, not able to censor himself in front of other people—he’s probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long silently—thinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didn’t say, what we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, what may yet happen—but we just know enough to just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the experience of millions of contemplatives suggests. . .
From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however. . . our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available. - Sam Harris
The way out -- and that's the only thing I'm interested in talking to you about -- is to see that any revisiting of what happened last night or what is a pattern of mine that happens all the time or what is the story of mine that I get it intellectually but it's not permanent or whatever -- that all of that is a story that's simply arising right now. . . The reason we tell stories like this is because we want to have mastery over them. We feel like there's no way to end the suffering without some control and some mastery -- that's how we've done everything else in our lives, control and mastery. So if you don't talk to me about how this suffering occurs for you and I don't help you find a way to master it and control it, then it's not doable. This is what our mind tells us. - Annette Nibley
What are teachers saying when they tell you, “There is no one to be frustrated”? They are really referring to the story you have to be making up all the time in order for there to be a person, and in order for there to be frustration. It’s the story that is at the root of the belief in a person. You’re making up the story, and so you’re making up the person, out of your own imagination. No story, no person.
A story needs to be told for there to be frustration. Without telling a story, is there frustration? Where? How? Look for the story you are telling. Look for the narrative you create for the frustration to thrive in. This narrative creates the person out of thin air. This is something you're doing all the time – you’re creating the person all the time with your inner narrative. And this is the center of every problem, every speck of suffering and seeking.
So what can you do? What is needed is not action, it’s inaction. Stop making up a story.
Having no story amounts to the same thing you’re asked over and over: Who is frustrated? Where is the person? But, “getting” that there is no person is not something you just have to wait around until you "see" – making up the person is actually something you are actively doing all the time. You don't have to do it. You don’t have to make up a story. And without the story, "This is so frustrating" has no place to take hold, no place to bloom. It just blows away like dust. Nothing has any place to take hold. Nothing can harm you. You are at total peace.
If you don't tell a story right now, there is just a watching, a peaceful noticing of the current moment. No problem arises, no frustration, no irritation, until you start constructing the narrative. Until then, it doesn't exist, and it's just pure consciousness, you, peace, that's all. - Annette Nibley
