All is Forgiven, Now

Q: I've been reading your dialogues. I would appreciate your help, if possible. I'll make it short and sweet.  What do I want? Clarity. What will I have when I get that? Knowing what to do. What will I have when I get that? No struggle. What will I have when I get that? Okay with whatever arises. What will I have then? No problems.

And yet...

Thoughts crop up and say, “You just can't sit here and waste your life. You need to do something!” As if they are angrily trying to defend my survival.  

And yet they pass as well. I know this.

And yet...on the other hand....Who is the “who” that has no problem? Just space. I don't know what is going on.

Any help would be appreciated.

A: I think you need to identify a problem you think I can help you with. I mean, sometimes it’s only attempting to do this, and realizing you can’t identify any problem at all, that makes you just stop in your tracks.

If you try to find a problem and can’t find one, then you can just live your life. Every time during that life that you stop and try to find a problem, you can’t find one. That kind of takes care of things, doesn’t it? 

There isn’t anything else but that: we think we have a problem; we look for it, in order to solve it, or make it go away; and in looking to really pin that problem down, we can’t even find one.

This is the irony. This is why you read people in my dialogues constantly saying “I can’t believe the mind has gotten away with this for so long!”, meaning, making me think I have a problem when I don’t.

This is all there is to all this so-called spiritual clarity and awareness and space and all of that. There is just nothing going on here, except our invented problems. When that is seen, there’s just space. The living goes on, but without any of it being seen as a problem. That’s all this whole search thing ends with: living, and no problems.

So....do you have a problem I can help you with?

Q: Thank you for getting back with me so quickly. You distilled the issue elegantly. I had to laugh. Frequently I just don't have a problem, then my mind starts inventing expectations, such as, "if you were really clear and happy, you'd have a better career, more fun in your life, a successful romantic relationship, blah, blah, blah.”

But when I ask myself what is the problem at this very moment....I can't think of anything. My mind goes blank. I do have to laugh.

I've set myself up with so many expectations of what “freedom,” “enlightenment,” or “awakening” should be like and look like and feel like.

I love it when you say, “That’s all this whole search thing ends with: living, and no problems.” Is it all that simple?

Really. I've tried to “pin down” a problem. I can't. I used to be able to do that quite easily. What's going on?  :-)

I will write you back if I find a good one, however.

A: Yes, it really is that simple. I had many misconceptions at one time about what “this” looked like – this freedom, or whatever – and it always looked like something I could imagine or create from the experiences I already had, extrapolating from what I already knew. But this can’t be imagined. But this is a total surprise.

I always expected, well, all the things you listed, first, and then also, every where I laid my eyes there should be some feeling of total bliss – shock and awe every moment for the joyous bounty that is in front of me, if only I could see it without my own limiting selfish mind standing in the way of me and the truth. I would see every cell of life animated before my eyes, because I would not be distracted by petty stuff. How frustrating that I could not see this psychedelic world I surely lived in!

But this was all selfish imaginings, too. I wanted more for me: spectacle for me, drama for me, peace for me, appreciation of life for me, love in every moment, for me. And this turns out not to have anything to do with me. And the surprising thing is, it’s joyous! It’s love, it’s life, it’s freedom – but none of these things is for me. They are there, they have always been there, in that very moment you’re talking about that “I can’t find a problem,” life, love, and joy are there, but they don’t need me! And interestingly, the “me” was made entirely of those problems I’d been thinking of. Without drumming up a problem, there is no “me,” and all that remains is impersonal life, impersonal love, whatever you want to call it. Nothing that “I” want, because if I can imagine it, it’s just part of the prison. 

So any idea you have of what this is – it is not. It can’t be. This can’t be something conjured out of your existing memories, which is all you have as a self. So if you go to any idea of what you must have in order to feel like you “have” it, that can’t be it! It can’t be thought of, it can’t be imagined out of what you know. It arises only in what is not known. All that is known or imagined, or can possibly be known or imagined, is part of the prison.

So you asked, Is it really as simple as “living, with no problems,” and yes, it is. But is that my living, with no problems? No, it’s not mine. When no problems are conjured up to think about, no “me-ness” arises. Which tends to reinforce the idea that this livingness is impersonal – general, not specific – and that tends to reinforce the idea that there is nothing to lose, because nothing in the general “livingness” can ever be wrong. So the validation starts building on itself, and the problems are conjured up less and less, until they are seen to never have existed at all. So, where was the “me”? Where was it, ever? Did it ever exist?

Let me know what comes up.

Q: I was reading some of your dialogues tonight and it reminded me of a quote that I enjoyed a lot: “The mind is only wrong 100% of the time.” I played with this I had a delightful time welcoming my thoughts in with “Now, now. You don't expect me to believe that one, do you?”

Your pointer “What is the problem Right Now?” makes me grin, because it seems to stop thoughts in their tracks and I can almost feel the mind scurrying around to find a problem, even if the problem is, “There is no problem, but how can you be alive if you have no goals or ambition?" (I tend to believe that quite often. That's a good one.)

Going to sleep at night used to be troublesome. My mind would race and I would brutalize myself with my thoughts and stories.  Recently I came up with this game. Whatever thought or story arose I would “wrap it in love and rock it like a baby” (I love babies). Just to see what would happen. Not to change them or get rid of them but “rock them.” When I was unable to do that, I sought out the imaginary speaker of the thought and “wrap him in love and rock him.”  I look forward to sleep now. I'm no longer afraid of what thoughts might arise.

I don't have a lot to say. And I can't think of any questions, at the moment. I just wanted to thank you for "cutting to the chase" and communicating with such simple clarity. Playful curiosity seems to go a long way... To where?

A: You’re doing great. Your last line says it all: “Playful curiosity seems to go a long way... To where?” Exactly! And as you’ve noticed, there really are no more problems unless you set your mind to inventing one. And certainly no “where” to get to.

Yes, you’ve noticed that the gentle compassion that arises for all thoughts, including the thought of self, is just a natural product of letting the thinking go. Whatever comes up for you to do with a troubling thought is fine, as long as it doesn’t further trouble you (like: “I must wrap this thought in love!” – you know the drill). There is nothing at all that needs to be done. You don’t become better in any way by wrapping a thought in love. Nothing is ever gained. (This really turns everything on its head.) But I do know what you mean, and what you were telling me, and it’s good.

Keep in touch if you need to have a little validation once in a while. After a while that need goes away.

Q: Thank you for being around and so available. There really is no one to talk to about these sorts of things, which probably is good because I've noticed I haven't had a lot to say recently. I mean, what is there to say? I've found I'm not particularly interested in my own story. Though I'm more curious about other's stories.

Right now I'm stuck because I really see no point in describing all this. I have no questions.

My mind still rears its head and says, “So, this is the way it's supposed to be? Bummer!” It seems like it has its own ideas.

I just feel like I'm sinking into now – a kind of settling in, and a lot of chatter has disappeared. I enjoy just resting in being. Struggling uses up way too much energy it seems – I've seen the depth of my struggle, so no wonder I've felt so exhausted much of my life, wanting to make things happen. My mind tells me I am losing my aliveness. But I don't feel like mounting a full-fledged rebuttal.

Part of me feels like it's dying, but there is more space, less density.
You're right: as the questions – seeking – disappears, so does the need for validation, though there is still this desire to share and say hello.

Anyway, thanks for being around and being so accessible. 

A: I understand the desire to say hello to someone who understands. With the whole world apparently going crazy around you, the simplicity of “just being” seems like a mild form of insanity, when compared to the standard manic mode of living for most people in our culture. But “just being” is self-validating, as you have noticed. It’s just so damned obvious, right here and now. There’s nothing else you can do but “be.”

I love how you said you didn’t want to mount “a full-fledged rebuttal” against your mind’s latest complaint of the hour – that’s perfect! You’re right – this is why we’ve been exhausted all our lives – we’ve been arguing, mind against mind, thoughts against thoughts, incessantly, since before we even reached adulthood. What a wipe-out! And isn’t it a huge relief to know that a full-fledged rebuttal and all the energy that requires won’t do a single thing to change anything?

This is the most important thing to recognize. None of the effort we think is required of us can ever change anything. If you were to succeed in convincing your mind that you are indeed not “losing your aliveness,” then what? What would you have gained?

None of the little remaining riddles and puzzle pieces have to be looked at anymore. It’s not like the questions have to be revisited in light of this “new” way of looking at things, until they are all seen in the light of pure awareness, and then “I’ll be okay,” or “I’ll be done.” That’s just more of the same prison. The remaining riddles – the pieces you always thought would be answered by this “realization” – need never be answered. The nature of any answer is that it brings up more questions. Or, shall we say, it is the nature of the mind to be ever-curious. But what is resolved by it?

The biggest favor you can do for yourself is to stare into space with no project of noodling something through to make sense of it, to make this somehow better or more lasting. No mental projects. Remember how you’ve already followed that path all the way to end and seen for yourself: mental projects always lead ultimately to a dead end.

This is the prescription for now, and for now, and for now. There is no other way to be free now than to be free now. You can’t plan now, with any mental projects, no matter how well-crafted, to be free in the future. You can’t devise a way to get permanently free. Nor is there a practice you can do to get permanently free. Why? Because there is no such thing as permanently free. There is only free now, and for that, the questions and niggling riddles are dropped, now.

Just now. And if you forget and go off fiddling with your mind again, no worries. Because you’re always here at “now” again, with a clean slate, a totally fresh start. Everything that came before is gone now. Every word you ever uttered, everything. Gone.

This is the gift. You always have a fresh start. Isn't that a miracle? Clear, empty, and totally free of any content of past or future, here is this new now, always, eternally present, eternally pure. The fresh start leaves no rubble from the past that has to be cleared away. The now moment wipes away every mistake you've ever made, every sin you've ever committed. It's all gone, right now. It's truly a fresh start, every moment. This is the gift of love and light that is given. Accept it. Not in the future, not permanently – it doesn’t exist permanently. It only exists now.

So any little fear that arises like “I’m losing my aliveness” – how does that appear, from the vantage point of this fresh, empty now? It has absolutely no context to make sense of itself, does it? This applies across the board. Nothing has context, and so what can be resolved? What can be wrong? What can be fixed? No statement I make about myself or the world has any context, in this new, fresh now. And so the thought fizzles.

Well, I know you didn’t need all this. I just got to rambling. Feel free to keep in touch.