Shopping is Arising

There are times when an expansiveness comes over me. No, that's not a great word for it - Bliss, a good one, or an awareness of the Joy of Simply Being Free. Along with it comes the awareness or sense of no time and space, just Now-ness, Everything will work out fine because it already has. No worries, no self-imposed constraints - all that washes away. A feeling of freedom, no time sense. It's all just Right Now and feeling very content.

And I go onto Amazon and buy some thing. Sometimes a few things (an Apple wireless router this morning).

This has been one of the "odder" aspects to the whole awakening thing. Not that comparing oddness makes any sense at all.

So there we are. It's all good - All of it, no time no space and simply free and I go shopping. Not for unneeded frivolous things, and generally nothing too big.

Just funny, is all.

What keeps you stuck is your belief in your own existence

You believe you exist in space-time.
You believe you exist as a brain-consciousness enclosed in a meat-popsicle body.
You believe you were born, will grow old and die.
You believe you inherited traits genetically from your parents.
You believe what you perceive is Real.
You believe what you are told or is written by others in authority is Real.
You believe what thoughts occur to you are Real.
You believe you can predict the future.
You believe you understand how your body and mind work.
You believe you are in control...of at least some things.
You believe you have to hold back, are afraid to abandon yourself completely, to lose yourself, to lose control.

You have to be willing to cease to exist to be completely free.


You have to ignore all thought, sensation, perception...to allow The Truth to emerge.

Rebirth and What the Buddha did when nobody was around

Recently I was asked:
Could you please post your views on rebirth/reincarnation? If nothing is or ever was, then why this whole story about The Buddha being all-knowing and able to trace back his births (the story may have been created by his followers later on)?Who or What exactly reincarnates?

In Jed McKenna's last book he puts it well."When someone starts to quote the Buddha, run away, Big Bullshit coming." Or something like that.

I've thought that on *that* day, when the Buddha Attained, got home and told his wife, she said:
"That's nice dear, now go wash up, we have a dinner party to go to..."

One the one hand, it is easy to dismiss stories related about one who may or may not have existed thousands of years ago; and most stories written about him centuries after his death.

Nisargadatta was asked if he could, while sitting in his room in Bombay, tell his listeners what the weather was in NYC. He thought they were nuts and told them so. He said that is a special power and can be developed, but has NOTHING to do with breaking free of the illusion and awakening.
I tend to think that as one works the path of awakening, one develops some skills and once awake, still has those skills. Like lifting weights as part of practice, till one can bench press 300 lbs. Then, one day he awakes and while lifting weight is clearly seen to have nothing to do with Enlightenment, nonetheless the it is taken that E will give one great strength.

But, the question why is the ability to trace previous birth attributed to the Buddha?
I have no idea. It is easy to ascribe it to egoic-Maya illusion - once more (deliberately) confusing E with not-E and once again, as all religions and spiritual practices do - shift one's attention from The Truth, to a "nice story" that will keep one sleeping soundly and feeling good.
The Buddha is quoted as saying "there is suffering, but no one suffers."
How would that square with seeing previous birth?
Sure, images can come and go and stories proliferate.
That's the point. All there IS is the story.

The REAL question is who or what rebirths?

Seems like the right thing to do at the time

When asked "why did you do something," how often have you responded this way. At the time, the path whatever it was, "good or bad" felt "right" and you took it.
Ego insists that "You" are the author of your actions, you control them , you decide what to do.

But is this really true?

For example, where did the idea to do something come from or the idea that a choice needs to be made in the first place?
And, once that choice is presented, WHY does one choice "feel right" and another not right? (I don't mean right and wrong in terms of morality. I mean right and wrong in terms of approach-avoidance.)

If you 're honest and look closely, you cannot say with 100% certainty where the idea came from or why you ended up making a certain choice. You just do.
Best that can be said is that there is witnessing of the choice.
So, while you are certainly the actor, you are not the author.

And if you aren't, then who or what is?

Why Not Eat a Can of Frosting?

What if there was no one and nothing watching over you? If you knew that there was no cosmic, higher judgment. It was all: if you take a newspaper, leave a quarter. But on a Universal, Cosmic scale.
We want someone watching over us. We want to feel we're being watched over, even if that means manufacturing guilt. We want to abdicate our power, our birthright.

We make ourselves feel guilt because deep down we know, in Reality, there is no guilt, there is nothing to feel guilty about, That we are truly innocent. That there are no moral or ethical consequences. All that is made up; an overlay.

But more, there is no one, no GOD watching over us. Judging us, Approving or Disapproving. Nothing watches over us. Things, experiences happen and ripples are formed, but there are no “repercussions” of right and wrong.

What if there were no “consequences" – no cosmic, religio-spiritual punishment? (In Groundhog Day Bill Murray’s character says this. I think about ALL the things he did to everyone in every possible combination and ways for all the YEARS he was there.) I think people are afraid to realize there is no higher authority.

I can say that I am free and that I can do anything I want and know what that means and all that goes along with it. I think most people would freak out if faced with that. Yet that truth is as true for them as me. We are all free.

They would scream in fear and terror that if they could do anything they want they would do it to excess and society would fail and so on. But, really, I don’t see that as automatically following.

Just because I KNOW I can do anything, doesn’t mean I will automatically do it.
Amsterdam may be (have been) a good example. While soft drugs were easily available, the locals rarely partook and then in light moderation - it’s all the tourists coming from areas w/ tighter drug laws that created all the issues.

So, do something that you have always thought you would get in trouble for. A classic one seems to be: eat a can of frosting. Or 10 Twinkies. And see what happens when we do the one thing(s) we’ve thought or been told or believed would cause the world to end, and the world keeps spinning.  Because, really, no one is watching and no one cares. It’s all perfect. All of it. Even the nasty bits.

We want to feel we matter, that we are special enough to deserve attention, and if that means punishment along with it, then so be it.

I’ll take being a "Free Nothing"  over that any day.

One Day

On a day that may have come and gone
or never was or never can be
a bird may be singing,
a raindrop slides down a window
a plate breaks
a cat brushes your leg
you pick up your keys
or turn on a light
and
you will forget to remember to be you
and
in that moment, everything will change even as nothing changes
you will be you no longer
but ever more so

I’d had enough for one day, so I put my computer to sleep, turned off the lights and left. I didn’t even bother to pick the quote for our next meeting. I am pretty lazy these days. Unless I have a set task laid out in front of me, I tend to just drift, do the least possible to get by and goof off a lot. I often act in the last moment and things take care of themselves. I don’t aspire to anything or desire anything or have a need to improve myself. I don’t believe in reincarnation or an after life, not to mention heaven or hell. I know that the universe is perfect, that “I” am taken care of, I don’t live in fear of my creator, to put it in gross religious terms, and I no longer need to seek for that which I am.

I also know that the universe is, all evidence to the contrary, empty. There are no separate beings with volition and choice, God doesn’t sit back and watch. In fact there is no God, in the sense most people mean. Any sense of separation is just an illusion, a belief, a getting lost in the content of awareness. I don’t really get lost in the content anymore, or not for long, and so I live with a pretty strong sense of detachment from almost everything. The only thing I like to talk about is spiritual awakening; so I make for pretty single-minded dinner conversation. And, since the nature of what I talk about is so foreign, if not downright threatening to so many, I don’t tend to go and ”hang out" with a crowd. I am pretty much a recluse.

But, this evening I wanted a nice glass of scotch and felt the urge to drop by a local bar, which was unusual for me, as I said.

I walked into the bar and took a seat on one of the bar stools. Far enough away from everyone else and the TV, but still close enough to get served promptly. I don’t go out in public much or often but this bar had a good choice of single malt scotches.
I asked for a Languvulin instead of my usual Laiphroag. Neat, with an ice water back. I dropped few drops of water in the scotch and watched the pattern they made. Random, and yet, the water and the scotch interacted with each other – one was defined by the shape of the other. Like pouring milk into coffee and watching the shape it takes against the coffee. One defining the other. Like most questions of this nature, the answer is not as important as the questions. And, the question forms or determines the shape of the answer. Again, like the form of milk in coffee.
I was just sitting there, contemplating the glass of scotch when I noticed the guy next to me looking at me.

I just let it go. It happens. My energy is odd in some ways. People notice me and don’t know why. I do, but why tell them. I glanced over up and looked him over. Dark hair and eyes that I can only describe as crisp. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown. Rather, his face seemed neutral, yet somewhat intent. Odd that I hadn’t noticed him when I’d sat down. He was seated right next to me and I would never choose a seat next to another person if I could avoid it. The bar had been mostly empty when I came in and I thought I had sat down with no one next to me. Like I said: odd.
After a while I heard him say “Hi.”
I said “Hi” back and went on looking into my scotch.
He kept looking at me.
Fine, whatever, I thought, I’ll play.
“Yes, can I help you?” I asked.
He said, “I know why so few of you are free.”
“Excuse me?” This was a different way to open a conversation, I thought.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. ‘Free.’ As in Free from the belief you are a person, a…” He paused, and looked upwards, like he was trying hard to recall an obscure term.
“A separate self.”

I was impressed. There are only a few people who would even understand what he was saying, I was one of them, and here he starts a conversation like this. But I wanted to make sure.
“Could you say more about that?”

“By free I mean what you mean. Awake, dying while alive, Enlightened.”
I inwardly cringed. I don’t really talk about my current state anymore, and never use the E word, so I was surprised.
“OK, why?” I asked. Might at least see where he was going with this.
“Earth is the only planet where the sentient beings cling to ego-identification and ignorance of non-dual oneness past the age of six. In all other systems we learn to overcome the ego-addiction. Only on earth does this not happen. A few of you manage to do it later, mostly by luck – happening on the right combination of skills and techniques – as you have - and this has formed the basis of your entire religious and spiritual teachings. It’s easy for us to spot those who are awake and that’s what drew me to you.”
“Earth?” I inquired. I started to sense where this was going, but I wanted to hear the words.
He just smiled and sipped his drink. It was his turn to wait.
“That means…” I continued.
“Yes" He replied.
I ordered another drink. For each of us. This looked to be a long night.