Observations About Existence

Support this website by joining the Silver Rails TrainWeb Club for as little as $1 per month. Click here for info.

As a reminder, I keep a stone in my pocket.
That stone is as enlightened as it will ever need to be,
or that any thing or any one will ever need to be.
I am certainly as enlightened as that stone.
I have to be since the stone and I are not separate.
Thus, I am as enlightened as I will ever need to be.
But there is just Enlightenment
and no individual person or thing that is enlightened.

If you think you need to practice to awaken,
if you think you need to learn something to awaken,
then instruct the stone in my pocket,
for it is just as capable of awakening as I am.
Or is the stone already awakened?
Or is there no thing and no one to awaken?
So what is there to practice or to learn?

It is easy to be wrong.
But that which is wrong
is so close to
that which is right
as to not deserve a worry.

Enlightenment was
here before humans,
here before life on earth,
here before the earth itself;
And it will still be here
long after humans are gone,
long after life is gone,
long after the earth itself is gone.

This points to the fact that
Enlightenment has nothing to do with
the human mind, or even life itself.

This points to the fact that
Enlightenment is not dependent on the mind.
Enlightenment is not an experience of the mind,
but rather the mind is an experience of Enlightenment.

Enlightenment will continue to exist
even after there are no minds for it to experience,
just as it did before there were minds for it to experience.

There were no minds for most of the history of existence,
and there may be no minds for most of the future of existence.
But it is the mind that depends on existence,
not existence that depends on the mind.

Enlightenment and existence are not separate.
Enlightenment is all of existence -- As It Is.

What you think you are is just a partial overlay on the non-duality of existence.

The ego is always there like one's shadow. It isn't important or even possible to eliminate the ego just as one cannot possibly get rid of one's shadow. Just acknowledge that it is always there, but not be a slave to it.

The mind is like a chainsaw chopping down every tree that blocks your view of the forest. But when all the trees are chopped down out of the way, do you then have a clear view of the forest?

Have you ever stood in front of a map on a wall staring at the "YOU ARE HERE" symbol but still had no idea where you were? None the less, in reality the truth is that "YOU ARE HERE", even if you don't understand where the map says you are. You can not escape that "YOU ARE HERE" and can not possibly be anywhere else. It doesn't matter that you don't understand where the map says you are, or even if you don't understand where you are, map or no map. It will still always be true that "YOU ARE HERE". When it comes to awakening or being enlightened, it is much the same.

The concept of 'self' is like a waterfall. 'Waterfall' is just a word that describes where a stream of water falls over a cliff from a higher elevation to a lower elevation. There is no "thing" that is a waterfall. You can't pick up a waterfall and take it somewhere. You can take some water out of the stream before or after it has been part of the waterfall, or even capture some of the water as it falls, but you can't take any water to someone and say "This is a part of the waterfall". A 'waterfall' is a 'process' and is 'no thing'. Once you remove water from any part of the process, it is no longer a part of the waterfall.

What we consider our 'self' or our 'mind' or even our entire body is just like a waterfall. We are not any particular thing. We are a chemical 'process'. Food, air, and water go in to provide the substance of our body and the energy for it to operate. Waste products come from the body, even including cells from the body itself that have died and are no longer of use to the chemical process. In less than a decade almost every cell in your body has been replaced by a newly generated cell, just as every drop of water in the waterfall is continuously replaced.

You are just like a waterfall. 'You' are no particular thing, just like a waterfall is no particular thing. Just as a waterfall is the process of individual water molecules flowing from the top to the bottom, 'You' are a complex set of chemical processes. You are not any particular chemical or cell, but the activity of all the cells and chemicals in your body.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Support this website by joining the Silver Rails TrainWeb Club for as little as $1 per month. Click here for info.