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Sometimes I look up and am overwhelmed by the sheer scale and mindless indifference of time and space. I look down again and all the goals and strivings of this world seem like meaningless, temporal distractions, without purpose or point. In time it will all be gone. We’re all busy looking down, rearranging deckchairs as the band plays on and we sail inevitably on to oblivion. We try and cry and fight and fall and then we’re gone. Done.

If we won’t be remembered or matter in a million years then it’s as though we were never really here at all. Are we then really anything now? We trick ourselves into meaning, into our”selves”, with a localized gaze but anything dropped into eternity becomes nothing, even time. Infinity negates everything, even space. Endlessness does not allow for the location of a specific time or place, the idea of finite self is meaningless in the face of the infinite. Only one can be true; time or eternity, space or infinity, me or … ? So if I mean nothing, I am nothing, then these words do not exist. This thought is not. So then, what is?

the open door

There is no right or wrong.  There are no mistakes.  There is only experience.  And all experience is the doorway to Truth.  With Truth as its goal, for the open mind, the willing mind, the mind that is present, the mind that seeks, all paths lead to God.

the quiet mind

The mind, not the world, is the cause of all suffering and of all joy. Learning how the mind works, learning how to master your thinking is the key to self-knowledge and self-knowledge leads to self-mastery. Self-mastery means the mind is no longer controlled by fear.

But the true goal of learning how to think is learning how not to think. Silence, stillness are the greatest teachers. Knowing how to quiet the mind is the key to true freedom and peace. To know inner stillness releases the self from the need to know anything else. The greatest thinkers are also the greatest non-thinkers.

every moment is a classroom

To choose forgiveness doesn't mean we need to like the person who we feel has wronged us and it doesn't have to be instantaneous.  But you can use the situation to begin today by simply deciding if even some small part of you wants to learn to think differently about yourself, about the world.  To think in terms of love instead of attack.  To learn to be grateful to that person for giving you an opportunity to practice choosing love instead of using them to reinforce your own pain.  That practice will serve you well in life and those you love will benefit from it immeasurably because forgiveness is the choice to free the self from pain.  People attack and abuse because of their own pain.  You can be present to the pain in others and love them through it when you are able to let go of the need to make it about your own pain. This is why forgiveness frees us to truly love others because without pain within ourselves we don't meet their pain with ours.  We meet it with our love instead.

Seen in this way those who appear to hurt us become those who save us. Given the purpose of learning forgiveness they are the springboard from which we catapult ourselves into true unconditional love for others, into peace and into a life filled with gratitude and joy.

the freedom of the forgiving mind

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” ~ Albert Einstein

Those who embrace the path of forgiveness are not "better" or somehow more special than others, they're not even smarter.  Intelligence has nothing to do with enlightenment.  Freeing the self from suffering is dependent only upon the willingness to learn how not to suffer.  Those who are on the path of unconditional forgiveness perhaps only differ in that they have reached the limits of their tolerance for their own suffering and have decided there must be another way to be in this world.  Even if they're not clear on what that way is, they're open to it because they've realized that their way of being up until this point has not brought them the peace or happiness they desire.  Their belief in the value of their past learning about life has diminished enough for them to be open to an alternative although they are still unsure what that alternative could be.  But while the tolerance for pain is high it is not endless and the true seeker of peace will eventually reach the point where they are willing to exchange all of their past learning, their cherished and fiercely protected hurts and grievances against the world, their long held conflicted and conflicting ideas about who and what they are, for a fundamental peace of mind and lasting freedom from pain.  They are willing to be shown.  They eventually ask themselves the question "Would I rather be right or be happy?" and finally answer "I choose to be happy".

Even if others have appeared to wrong you it is not their actions that are causing your pain.  Your internal response to the external world is the ONLY thing that dictates and defines your experience of yourself and others and is the ONLY thing you truly have control over.  What happens is not the same thing as what we experience.  What happens we cannot control.  What we experience is always our decision and is always a direct consequence of how we have already decided we want to experience ourselves, of how we want to SEE ourselves.  We selectively perceive and interpret events so that people will always play the role in our minds that we have assigned to them that justifies upholding the story we want to tell ourselves about ourselves. But we always have a choice in the purpose we give to the people and events of our lives and in the script we choose to experience.  We can use them to teach us how to suffer and thereby reinforce our own existing pain or we can use them to learn how to love, to forgive and thus free and heal ourselves.  It is our stubborn insistence that we cannot be free of anger, conflict and pain in the present until the world gives us the compensation for the wrongs of the past and acknowledgement of our "rightness" that we believe is so dearly owed to us that keeps us stuck in the need to suffer.  If you are not at peace in any way this is the choice you have made, are still making.  It's how we say "You have done this to me and so it is your fault that I suffer", "YOU must change in order for me to be at peace", "It's not my fault I'm like this", "My pain is your fault and not my responsibility." 

But it IS your responsibility, it is a choice you are making, every day.  No-one else can make you hold onto pain, stop you learning to be at peace if peace is what you truly want.  What happened in the past may be have been painful but it's not happening now and yet you still hurt.  Why are you still holding onto it?  It's over and gone.  You are keeping it here and now because as long as you need someone else to be wrong and guilty, to remain unforgiven, then you need pain, you must continue to suffer, to make the present an ongoing testament to your past pain because that pain is the proof that upholds the validity of your case against them.  If you were to forgive and no longer be in pain then there would be no blame to be assigned, no guilt to be projected, no "wrong" to be righted because the decision to forgive fundamentally says my experience of you has not robbed me of the peace, love and joy that I deserve and so you owe me nothing.  If you forgave you couldn't play out the script that you fundamentally believes makes you YOU.  This is the cause of our basic resistance to simple forgiveness.  It's the root of our unconscious and powerful investment in suffering.  This self is the only self you know, for who would you be without your pain, without your stories of long gone but not forgotten injustices and unfairness?  We are fundamentally afraid of letting go of this painful idea of what and who we are because even though it doesn't make us happy, it's all we know and so we hold onto it stubbornly.  But the blame for the pain it causes has to go somewhere and so we project the responsibility for this inner conflict onto the world around us. We look for the cause anywhere but within the self.  Not looking at it directly is how we protect it, keep it.

We replay our past hurts and the injustices of the world in our minds, turning them over and over like coveted gems that must constantly be buffed to reveal our pain and misery and the faces of those we accuse reflected and made real in every facet.  The secret thought they represent is "you may have robbed me, abused me, neglected me, wronged me, but at least I have my rightness.  I am not the guilty one".  This is why we are so invested in being right and in others being wrong.  This thought is a treasure that we fiercely guard and yet it is a poor substitute for the riches that we truly deserve, that our soul truly yearns for.  To hold onto these dim stones leaves no space within the self for the shining richness of joy, peace and a mind that is truly free.

And so the choice for forgiveness is, above all, a fundamentally practical decision.  Through a willingness to look honestly at their own investment in holding onto pain as a means to punish or hold others accountable and a genuine desire to learn how to escape from suffering, those learning to forgive have begun to understand that while forgiveness may not satisfy the ego and its need to be right, it is the only thing that will truly liberate and heal the self.  And so they are learning that they are not their painful ego self but that it is simply a painful thought about themselves that they mistakenly identified with as being themselves.  They are learning that forgiveness is the only way to permanently release the ego blocks of anger, judgment and condemnation which obscure and dim the experience of love, joy and peace within the mind, that cause us to feel separate and unloved by others.  Their practice and the experiences it creates are teaching them that to forgive and to love just feels better than to judge and to hold grievances.  They are happily learning that only when identified with the ego does the world seem painful, upsetting and separate from us and that forgiveness is the choice to see that when we look beyond our ego selves there is no difference between our own needs and the needs of others, there is no need for one to suffer for another to be guilty.  We ALL need release from suffering.  This is why to forgive is essentially a self serving activity.  The beauty of it is that is serves EVERY self.  To forgive frees everyone in your mind, including you.  

the inner path

We all want the experience of peace and fulfillment. Where we get stuck is that we somehow believe we can find it "out there". As if happiness lies in the temporary and transitory things of this world. But our experience of "out there" can only ever reflect back at us how we're truly experiencing ourselves inside. The constant search for happiness in the external is the decision to avoid connection with the authentic self, the only place where fulfillment can truly be found. The more you accrue on the outside the greater the awareness of the emptiness on the inside. 

Until you are in clear, authentic and loving relationship with yourself no amount of outer striving will fulfill you. All the strivings and paths of the outer world lead nowhere except back to the suffering of the self until a meaningful path within the self is found.

stormbird

It was super windy at the lake yesterday.  I sat watching a bird dive beneath the waves.  She stayed below for so long it made me fear for her.  But she resurfaced, sometimes far away from where she vanished.  I wondered what she found below.  Was the bird that dived the same bird that emerged after that journey beneath?  I knew I was afraid of losing myself by diving below, by going deep.  That I would no longer be me.  Yet she had no fear.  She emerged renewed.  She appeared the same and yet it seemed she had changed.  Could she teach me to dive?  Do I want to learn?

Another, a seagull, hovered above.  Despite the constant driving wind he moved steadily forwards.  I marveled as he progressed despite the insistence of the elements that he retreat.  As I observed I began to see that he expended no effort, didn't fight it, he wasn't trying, he simply, patiently met it head on.  Not once did he flap his wings, but constant, subtle adjustments to his body, his shape, his attitude, somehow allowed him to ride the howling air slowly towards his goal.  It made no sense to my mind. Surely he had no choice in his direction.  He was so small, the world so big.  Then, watching him, I suddenly understood that only from my limited perspective did the world appear to be an impediment to his success, to his progress.  It appeared to me as though all the forces of nature were resisting him and yet he saw that not.  Effortlessly he harnessed the unstoppable power that appeared to be against him, gently accepting it, receiving it to glide ever higher, ever forward.  He had learned to join with the world, not resist it.  He didn't resist the wind and so it didn't resist him but lifted him instead.  He had learned to be one with it, not to fight and separate himself from it.  He BECAME it and so was free within it.  He had mastered it by mastering himself.

I thought "if he can do this, then so can I".  I can't change my body, I have no feathers but I can change my mind, give it wings.  I can allow my mind to adjust, not resist.  To shift, not to fight.  To encompass, not reject. To confront the windstorm of life head on with the surety that its seemingly uncontrollable power, correctly perceived, could be transformed from the obstacle to my happiness to become the very force that propelled me towards joy, towards peace.  I could confront my fear, confront myself.  Learn to dive deep into it.  He had no fear of falling or failing.  Only his single-minded desire for the destination.  With his eye on the prize everything he encountered was translated into a means to attain it, to become it.  Could he teach me to fly?  Do I want to learn?

unconscious projection

Today was a perfect lesson in Truth.   My bike being stolen was a surprise and upset me although not greatly.  It did make me think about why this had happened though.  Lately I've been having a lot of issues with honesty in my life, feeling that people are not being honest or clear with me and experiencing some conflict about it.  Various people have upset me in this way in different forms and I've certainly judged them for it.  My first thoughts today were about the dishonesty and selfishness of the thieves.  Of their lack of concern for someone else's needs.  I recognized that this was the same feeling as my recent upsets and I asked myself would I accuse myself of the same thing?  If I'm honest the answer is yes.  It took me a minute to see (admit?) it but there have been various ways in which I have recently withheld things from people, even lied, and also in one instance taken something that wasn't mine without real consideration of how it might affect someone else.  I was selfish.  

Clearly I'M not honest either but I hadn't wanted to see that in myself and always found some way to justify or minimize it.  So when someone commented to me that the thieves would get their karma I immediately recognized that this was MY karma.  And not karma in the sense of punishment, I don't believe the universe is that vindictive, but in the sense that my own earlier, repressed INTERNAL thoughts and actions had created an equal and "opposite" later reaction for me EXTERNALLY.  I was really just experiencing EXTERNALLY, through others, what I was unwilling to acknowledge and experience within myself INTERNALLY.  

The bike thieves were just showing me myself.  Same content, different form is all.  In truth there were no thieves.  I never saw them or heard them and spoke with no-one who had.  The only 'evidence' of their existence is my missing bike.  And I don't even truthfully know that it was stolen.  All I know is it vanished.  The thieves exist only in my mind as an idea, a screen upon which to project my own repressed thoughts of  selfishness and judgment. What I had been unwilling to acknowledge and accept in myself had to be put somewhere and so I put (projected) it "out there" and created a string of upsets at others for not being honest with me, including the 'bike thieves'.  

So I was really just upset with and judging MYSELF for not being honest but that thought was unconscious.  I can't release/heal what I don't even know is there.  Projecting it allowed me to SEE it and for it to become conscious, which is good.  Now I know it's there.    Now I'm not upset my bike was stolen, and in truth I never really LOST anything.  I feel that today was a blessing in disguise.  I lost my bike but what I actually got is far more helpful and valuable.  I can always buy another bike.

choosing peace

A peaceful mind comes from a consistent, unified perception of everyone and everything. The thought that Love is really the only motivation for anything in this world greatly simplifies the decision that must be made in any instance. Regardless of the situation, no matter how complicated, difficult or unreasonable it may appear to the eyes, it will immediately relieve you of strain to remember that people are really only either asking for Love FROM others or extending it TO others. In either case the only appropriate, practical response is to simply love. Just as the Truth sets you free so does your decision for Love open your eyes to the awareness that freedom from conflict was always yours to choose.

nothing real is ever lost

Biked home late after the heavy rain today.  It was exciting, fun and strangely beautiful, orange fluffy clouds, jet black sky.  I don't remember when the sky had ever seemed so clear, maybe some forgotten camping trip when I was a kid.  I do remember the feeling though, something I haven't felt for a long time.  There was a moment when, looking up, I caught a glimpse of Orion moving through the trees and was filled with awe at the grandeur of it all.  For an instant I caught the perfect view and it all seemed so immense and yet so immediate, not apart.  As though it was me out there being looked at.  Still biking I kept trying to find a gap in the trees thinking I would stop and really look at it, take it in,   but it didn't come, then there were too many other lights glaring in my face and I knew the moment was gone.  But not lost.  

choice and perception

Imagine a day where every grievance was released. Every perceived slight or attack forgiven. Every judgment let go. Every idea of pain and fear given over to the thought of joy. Imagine each person seen through the eyes of love. What vision of the world would be revealed to you?  What idea of your self would you awaken to?

the song of freedom

Forgiveness frees your mind, heart and body to become the instruments through which you play the song of love. It frees you to become the music that heals the world.

sharing

Once your thinking shifts from 'what can I get?' to 'what can I give?' you'll never feel lacking again.  The shift from 'what can I take?' to 'how can I serve?' is the choice to acknowledge the worth of what you already are.  It is the willingness to be shown the value of what you have within you to give to others.  In sharing yourself you are loving yourself.  It is only in sharing ourselves that we allow others to show us our meaning.  It is only in sharing ourselves that we feel truly connected to life.  It is only in sharing yourself that you learn you were always whole.  It is only in giving yourself that you truly gain yourself.

self acceptance

True peace of mind comes from knowing and accepting the self. All conflict is the choice to avoid the self and blame the world for not feeling whole.

the need to suffer

You cannot truly help someone else to be free from suffering while your mind is ITSELF choosing to suffer. It's like the blind leading the blind or the drowning man trying to save someone else who is drowning. When we see others as suffering and experience conflict, guilt, pain about it we are really USING them to reinforce our own CHOICE to suffer. We see them as JUSTIFICATION for our own suffering and conflict and so we're not really diminishing their suffering but reinforcing it AND adding to the overall pain that exists in the world.

Only a mind truly free of the need to suffer is able to see others clearly enough to give them what they TRULY need. As long as you are afraid and in conflict yourself, ANYTHING you do in response to others will simply be a means of trying to alleviate your OWN suffering, to manage your own conflict. You can't see others clearly when all you can see is your own pain and you believe that changing THEIR state is somehow a means of changing your own. That's then not about them, it's about you. Any action you take is REALLY intended to alleviate your own conflict even though you may feel like you're trying to alleviate theirs.

You ARE here to ease the world's burden but how can you truly diminish pain in the world when your OWN mind is still choosing to ADD to it? It's like a person who smokes a pack a day trying to help someone else give up smoking. It's just not possible to teach, to communicate to demonstrate to others what you are incapable of yourself. So the way in which we ease the world's burden is by healing ourselves, letting go of our own burden. That's all we need to do because in doing that we ARE healing the world.

A mind in conflict and pain can ONLY teach that conflict and pain are real no matter what attempts it may make to alleviate it externally. A mind free of conflict and pain can ONLY teach that the escape from conflict and pain is possible simply by its very being. This is what the world truly needs.

Think of Jesus as an example. He simply held a healed perception of everyone and everything around him and this was enough (this was ALL that was needed) to awaken the same perception in others. This is how miracles were performed, how sickness was healed. By a simple shift in perception. This same shift in perception STILL resonates for us 2000 years later. Yes the human ego has distorted his image and message for its own reasons but the purity and simplicity of his example is still clear.

If you had NO fear, NO fear of suffering, NO fear of seeing suffering in others, NO belief in guilt, sin or attack, who would you be? Think about the freedom and the power that your mind in that state would have to teach others, to extend to others, to TRULY be present to others (instead of trying to manage its own conflict), not even through words or actions but by simply being a reflection of the POSSIBILITY of complete freedom from suffering of any kind. The best way to teach, to lead is to DEMONSTRATE.

This is not to say that showing kindness, being compassionate and trying to help when you can is wrong.  It is not wrong to want to be of service where we can. But look HONESTLY at what you're really doing in these moments. Until you are aware of your own NEED to suffer you cannot effectively alleviate suffering in others, you cannot truly give them what they need because you're still trying to get what you believe you need. There will always be the secret agenda of reinforcing suffering in there somewhere, even if the external actions appear altruistic, giving, kind. For example, there are people who are always ministering to the sick not because they are TRULY giving but because it helps them feel less guilty, more valid, more innocent, more special, the list goes on. It's not wrong for them to be in this space but to call it completely selfless is not seeing it clearly. They NEED people in the role of sufferer so that they can play the role of savior. This is unconsciously reinforcing the desire for suffering, not truly trying to alleviate it.

Who would you be if there were no pain or suffering in the world? You wouldn't be the 'you' that you know now. As uncomfortable as your experience may be at least it's FAMILIAR. The truly uncomfortable thought is not that there is suffering in the world but the thought that without suffering in the world I wouldn't be myself, I couldn't be the self that I know.  A painful self is still preferable to our fearful minds than a self we have no concept of. That feels like the complete loss of the self. In a pain free world you wouldn't know yourself, there would be nothing to "reflect" back at you your own pain. This is why we are subtly invested in keeping pain and suffering in the world. It allows us to maintain the painful yet familiar identities we are deeply invested in. Until you see yourself clearly you can never be sure that you are TRULY helping and not just reinforcing suffering in some subtle way that satisfies your own unconscious need.

The self that you would be if you were to heal your mind of the need to suffer, of the need to be in conflict would be the same self that Jesus embodied, that the Buddha embodied. It may seem difficult if not impossible to attain the level of clarity that Jesus or the Buddha held but why else would they have come but to demonstrate that it was possible? They didn't come for us all to stand around and clap at how wonderful they were. They came to show us that we are NO DIFFERENT from them. We just think we are.

Whether or not Jesus or the Buddha actually existed millennia ago as physical human beings is unimportant. In following their example, in being willing to train your mind towards forgiveness (of even the most seemingly horrible events, travesties and injustices) you will be shown that the way is possible. You will see the results of the willingness to reorient your thinking away from the belief in suffering, away from fooling yourself about your own selfishness. Your life, your mind will be opened up as you are willing to be taught a different way of being, of perceiving yourself and therefore the world. Looking honestly at your own selfishness, at your own need to reinforce the limitations or smallness of others as a means of managing your own feelings will make you more helpful, will make you more more honest. You will be able to better see where you are blocking yourself and where you're NOT being helpful. This is extremely useful information to have about yourself. It's not spiritual to pride ourselves on being unconditionally giving and loving. It's more truthful to be honest about the fact that we're NOT unconditionally giving that we are selfish and fearful. That is a more authentic expression of the desire for Truth, for growth, for healing. It's not easy, but it's possible. And the time's going to pass anyway. What better purpose to give it than to learn to escape from pain and guilt, suffering and fear? And to be able to be an example of this possibility to others?