Empty Space

Empty Space

We see it as empty from matter's perspective

but science has never found matter or mind..

Changing then our perspective to aware being

we find a space alive and aware of itself

with matter and mind entering and departing

as pairs in our silent living space..

and more:  these pairs are made

only of this amazing space...

The Perennial Tradition (1)

The Perennial Tradition (1)

So...I was requested to lead conversations on this Tradition

a New Year undertaking..

Important it seems to write down my immediate formulations

of the meaning and ways of expressing this Tradition to those

who have no background, and use paths of duality to understand..

What seems important up front is to state that there is 

nothing new in this teaching and we all, at some level, 

already understand..glimpses have already been 

experienced..

However, our Western culture has veiled the Tradition by

teaching and learning since our birth of duality as our reality..

Language has reinforced the belief that duality is the only truth,

rendering the belief deeply embedded in our bodies and minds,

and convincing us further that consciousness is limited to the body 

and mind, thus forming the belief of a separate self, also known 

as the ego..

So, what is this Tradition..?

Starting with the aforementioned separate self (aka: ego) we can
say that the Tradition recognizes the happiness, the suffering, and
the longing related to the seeming separate self, and these 
experiences lead to questions of self-inquiry: Who am I? or
What am I? or Am I aware? The mind becomes exhausted in
trying to find answers, surrenders, resulting in an experience
beyond the mind, of Consciousness, or Awareness..these are 
modern names for eternity, or the infinite space, which constitutes
the real identity of all seven billion of us.  Of course, if desired,
one may use the name God for this experience.
So, how does this experience occur..?

It is amazing that our experience of Awareness is always
available for our noticing, and its simplicity is profound..
We are instructed to simply "go to our experience" to answer
the mind-boggling questions noted above.  A key here is
to recognize that this experience always occurs in the Now..
In reality, we never experience anything other than the Now..!
so the experience is only to recognize how we already and actually
live our lives..! As a result, time will then be understood as
a thought, consisting of a past and a future, but the thought
only occurs in the ever-present Now..
So, other than time, what about other thoughts, perceptions,
sensations, and feelings..?

We perceive what appears to be a multi-faceted dualistic world and
sadly, many (most?) people never get away from this perception..
the perception continually reinforces the belief in the separate
self with the attendant suffering and longing. Meditation often
 looks for ways to eliminate, or somehow move beyond the
suffering, not realizing that the Tradition offers a more immediate
and direct approach. Meditation (and searching, in general) often state 
goals to achieve, but these can delay the discovery of our true identity
 right Now, a discovery made by a spontaneous experience from asking:
Am I aware? and such questions, which boggle the mind! A key
for understanding is to reflect on the gerund form of thoughts,
perceptions, sensations, and feelings:  thinking, perceiving, sensing,
and feeling and find that these are only special modulations or
colorations of Awareness, not separate experiences..and, crucially,
these colorations are actually made of Awareness..!
So, I will pause here awaiting other questions to arise...

Any advice would be Welcome..!

Fundamental Natures

Fundamental Natures

Each of us

when awakened to our true Self

finds the very universe as limited

and the seeming separateness of the universe

is the creation and projection of our own

 Awareness..

What is the Aware universe projecting..?

seeming separateness

and creation..?

The essential discovery of all the great spiritual traditions is the identity of Consciousness and Reality, the discovery that the fundamental nature of each one of us is identical with the fundamental nature of the universe...Rupert Spira

The future Now

The future Now

Modern and perennial teachers have taught that

our experience of Now is the only experience we can Know..

As with the past, the future stands as illusion if not simply

shading and coloring the Now..

The crux of this matter seems to be the way we consider time,

recognizing time as simply a thought, among thoughts, which

lose their independence in our experience of Now..

Time enters, with its shades and colors, simultaneously with

our occasional en-trance of Now... 

Sensations

Sensations

Awareness 

is that placeless place

in which all sensations occur..

Sensations rise and fall

appear and disappear

live and die..

Yet eternal awareness as

 sensational background 

 our real identity 

ever remains and never dies..

Shocking news to us

 in culture so immersed..

We await arrival

in each moment

of this radical shift

a sighting at last

of simple joy...

Endurance

Endurance

In this season of dark and cold

we are advised to simply endure

as it appears that nature endures..

but does huddling down compress 

and veil a willing light..

Might we sense and accept

the discomfort and the advice

and place both within what fills

and spreads and warms...

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

On this Eve

she is there

etching those many

dark lines outlining

what appears as

so many separations..

Those many names

inns without rooms

the frivolous and fancy

of passing generations..

Yet there is 

the generous background

the light that shines

before the etchings

darken the light..

Except for glimpses

outside the inns..

Waves and Particles

Waves and Particles

This gift from the last century
a report on perspective
our point of view
it matters..

Uncertainty principle
is the consciousness
the unified field
or simply awareness
aware of itself..

The wave
in its ups and downs
bears our awareness
and with collapse
appears as particles
which are made
only of simplicity
of our wave...

Quantum physics just got less complicated

Is "wave-particle duality" simply the quantum "uncertainty principle" in disguise?

December 23, 2014

Quantum physics says that particles can behave like waves, and vice versa. Researchers have now shown that this “wave-particle duality” is simply the quantum uncertainty principle in disguise (credit: Timothy Yeo/CQT, National University of Singapore)

An international team of researchers has proved that two peculiar features of the quantum world previously considered distinct are different manifestations of the same thing. They found that “wave-particle duality” is simply the quantum “uncertainty principle” in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.

The result was published December 19 in Nature Communications and in arXiv (open access).

Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner made the breakthrough while at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore.

“The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,” says Wehner, who is now an Associate Professor at QuTech at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The discovery deepens our understanding of quantum physics and could prompt ideas for new applications of wave-particle duality.

Wave-particle duality is the idea that a quantum object can behave like a wave, but that the wave behavior disappears if you try to locate the object. It’s most simply seen in a double slit experiment, where single particles, electrons, say, are fired one by one at a screen containing two narrow slits. The particles pile up behind the slits not in two heaps as classical objects would, but in a pattern like you’d expect for waves interfering. At least this is what happens until you sneak a look at which slit a particle goes through — do that and the interference pattern vanishes.

The quantum uncertainty principle is the idea that it’s impossible to know certain pairs of things about a quantum particle at once. For example, the more precisely you know the position of an atom, the less precisely you can know the speed with which it’s moving.

It’s a limit on the fundamental knowability of nature, not a statement on measurement skill. The new work shows that how much you can learn about the wave versus the particle behavior of a system is constrained in exactly the same way.

Wave-particle duality and uncertainty have been fundamental concepts in quantum physics since the early 1900s. “We were guided by a gut feeling, and only a gut feeling, that there should be a connection,” says Coles, who is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Quantum Computing in Waterloo, Canada.

It’s possible to write equations that capture how much can be learned about pairs of properties that are affected by the uncertainty principle. Coles, Kaniewski and Wehner are experts in a form of such equations known as “entropic uncertainty relations,” and they discovered that all the math previously used to describe wave-particle duality could be reformulated in terms of these relations.

“It was like we had discovered the ‘Rosetta Stone’ that connected two different languages,” says Coles. “The literature on wave-particle duality was like hieroglyphics that we could now translate into our native tongue. We had several eureka moments when we finally understood what people had done,” he says.

Because the entropic uncertainty relations used in their translation have also been used in proving the security of quantum cryptography (schemes for secure communication using quantum particles)m the researchers suggest the work could help inspire new cryptography protocols.

In earlier papers, Wehner and collaborators found connections between the uncertainty principle and other physics, namely quantum “non-locality” and the second law of thermodynamics. The tantalizing next goal for the researchers is to think about how these pieces fit together and what bigger picture that paints of how nature is constructed.

A Glorious Kingdom

A GLORIOUS KINGDOM

Many teachings now speak of 'bridging the gap' between the absolute and the relative, between the human and the divine, between awareness and all that arises and dissolves in awareness, between spiritual enlightenment and 'ordinary human life'.

But - I've always thought - it doesn't really make sense to try and bridge a gap that never existed, heal a wound that never was.

Ordinary life is the miracle, as it is, the ebb and flow of things. God shines through the mundane and the everyday. Every joy, every pain, every moment of profound doubt is none other than That which we have always sought.

No special revelation is required here. We never need to wait for grace. This blessing cannot be transmitted by special beings, taught by enlightened gurus, bought or sold. It is simpler, closer, more freely available, more intimate.

It is the look in your child's eye. It is the gleam of sunlight in a shop window. It is the aching pain in your heart when your loved one dies, the surge of excitement as you contemplate a possible future, a world that may or may not come to pass. It is breathing, in and out, the expansion and contraction of the chest. It is the words and the spaces in-between, the songs we sing and the silence between them. It is never knowing, and in that, knowing. It is the simple feeling of being alive, present to this brand new day.

It is doing the dishes, perhaps for the last time, on your last day, on this last planet before the dawn.

You came from mother, and to mother you return.

The gap was bridged long ago.

We are heirs to a glorious Kingdom.

- Jeff Foster

Walking

Walking

takes place 
in being's space

a walking edge of separation

in being's pure light..

and we notice a searching

ever an expectation

a wish for the new

a new next bend..

walking is becoming

speaking of separation

hiding the space

from which it springs..

and joy returns

when with each step

 we in being remain... 

Expansion

Expansion

Within our expansion we find separations

and our Self notices constricting beauty

appearing in our expanding universe..

The Sea is aware of separate waves

the Light of shadow

the Morning of evening..

Such Experiences are paths

departing from Maya...

Silence

Silence

It is astonishing that we cannot say one true thing

about the reality in which we seem to come and go..

The Questions we ask reveal how aware we are

of this Impossibility...

Silence is the only Truth..

HIP 116454b

HIP 116454b

This new finding by satellite sighting
a new earth of giant size
entered our perception..
formed only by shadowed light
separation's view of duality speaks out
HIP made of water or gas out there
similarity with Neptune's cloudy life..

From our Now perspective
this new coloration of awareness
differences within similarity
astonishing as dissolving
in newfound Experience...


"Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kepler has been reborn and is continuing to make discoveries. Even better, the planet it found is ripe for follow-up studies," says Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The report of the Kepler spacecraft's death was greatly exaggerated. Despite a malfunction that ended its primary mission in May 2013, Kepler is still alive and working. The evidence comes from the discovery of a new super-Earth using data collected during Kepler's "second life."

NASA's Kepler spacecraft detects planets by looking for transits, when a star dims slightly as a planet crosses in front of it. The smaller the planet, the weaker the dimming, so brightness measurements must be exquisitely precise.

The newfound planet, HIP 116454b, has a diameter of 20,000 miles, two and a half times the size of Earth. HARPS-N showed that it weighs almost 12 times as much as Earth, a class of planets that doesn't exist in our solar system. The average density suggests that this planet is either a water world (composed of about three-fourths water and one-fourth rock) or a mini-Neptune with an extended, gaseous atmosphere.

that bruised place

that bruised place

quite small, really
but open to depths
never closed since first shock
aware of being here
no encoded response
from flesh dusted wild pulse
expressing just what is
but open  as one as all is one
precious beyond
already manifest
uniquely not comfortable
welcome not known
nowhere to hide being now

(poet K Mae posted her poem
 on the website:  Hello Poetry, to 

which I also contribute)

my response:  

CharlesC   

that bruised place
screams of separation..
no comfort or welcome
a missive from now
face about

dissolve... 

Revealing the Now

Revealing the Now

When this revelation

comes to experience

bypassing the mind's

 concept of moment..

The tongue is loosened

identity is reversed 

 a raking of residue

is a lifetime chore..

This engagement with 

happiness...

Thanks to the Animas Valley Institute

for the photo and quote by

David Whyte...

The Virgin Birth

The Virgin Birth

This astonishing claim finds resistance

for many in this Christmas season..

Rationality seems abandoned and yet

an intense wish only to believe

to somehow fall into a truth..

The verses and learned comments

do not seem to cooperate as translations

shout error and insert their findings

of a simple young woman..

So we try to find new paths for relief

and we ponder the simple word ponder..

She ponders how immersed seem her

pain and perplexity in a dawning

and welcoming grace...

Curved colors

Curved colors

a warm car parked in waning sun

on my steering wheel

central sun refractions

 surrounding waves of color..

this micro creation

a reminder of splitting beauty

when perception is cleansed 

with brilliant sun...

It doesn't matter

It doesn't matter

These three words

are not an escape or resignation

from our world tumult..

they are newly directed attention

to that which precedes what

 now doesn't matter..

intention and happiness

attend new experience..

forgiveness takes care

of the "it" and the "matter" 

How we see the world

How we see the world

The first way is the way we write

as we were taught in grammar school

subjects are there with their objects in tow

and other embellishments for color and show..

The second way comes from an oppositional lesson

a sudden seeing that those subjects and objects

disappear when either are absent

and standing between brings new joy..

Then we arrive at our third way

seeing with new eyes

a simultaneous knowing

of the words above...

Inside and Outside

There is no inside or outside of experience. There is only an inside and an outside for an apparently inside self. There is only an separate, distant outside world for an apparently inside self. Don’t let old habits of thinking fool you; refer directly to the intimacy of your experience. Stay with that, allow the intimacy of your experience to gradually condition the way you think and feel, and in time allow it to re-condition the way you act and relate.

Don’t relate to others separate from yourself, know everyone as yourself, relate only to that one. Don’t relate with an outside world made of dead matter, relate with a world made only of the totally alive substance called 'knowing' or 'experiencing'.

Treat the world as it truly is, treat others as they truly are. The world will respond in the form of beauty, others will respond in the form of love. That is the response we get from the universe when we treat it as it is.

~ Rupert Spira

Image below: Anastasia Ri via DeviantArt

Space

Space

As awareness grows of our very own innerspace

which we find embraces all of our perceptions and

we further understand that perceptions are all that

we know or can know of what appears out there
each of us then finds her true self as this space
which astonishingly creates the perceptions
of whatever it is that is out there...

The Old Man IS the Sea

His best. Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries. This time, he discovered God, a Creator. Until now, his men and women had made themselves, shaped themselves out of their own clay; their victories and defeats were at the hands of each other, just to prove to themselves or one another how tough they could be. But this time, he wrote about pity: about something somewhere that made them all: the old man who had to catch the fish and then lose it, the fish that had to be caught and then lost, the sharks which had to rob the old man of his fish; made them all and loved them all and pitied them all. It’s all right. Praise God that whatever made and loves and pities Hemingway and me kept him from touching it any further. 
(William Faulkner review of The Old Man and the Sea
 for Washington and Lee University.)

What is Mr. Faulkner saying..?

It seems to me that he is speaking of a perennial spirit which existed prior to coming into the realm of religion...the unrecognized root of all religion. Religions have formed static creeds and beliefs stemming from a dynamic "perennial tradition,"and their institutions have drawn up listings of such beliefs. Adherence marks those who are in, and those who are out.  Great literary figures, such as Faulkner and Hemingway, always return to the perennial spirit, or in modern terms, to consciousness or awareness, to find their own spiritual identity.  Faulkner seems to be simply claiming that Hemingway lost sight of his identity in his earlier writing, but re-discovered it in The Old Man and the Sea..

How is this perennial tradition to be recognized?  It begins in wholeness, and our realization that nothing resides outside of an immediate wholeness (often referred to as the experience of Now).  Mr. Faulkner alludes to this in the interfaces of man and fish and sharks. They all belong to one whole system,  and their relationships (polarities) within this system define true reality.  No "part" exists independently. However, differences (STRANGENESS, to use Hemingway's term), within the system, are recognized with awe.  Might the sea represent this wholeness, this system, this perennial spirit, within which all of the polar differences of life have their play..? And might we say that while the differences pass (die), the wholeness, the (eternal) sea, never dies..?
Are the old man and the fish and the sharks and the boy, and everything else, made out of the sea..?  Might we then say:  not the old man and..but the old man IS.. the sea..?

Here are some STRANGE things to consider:

"Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated."

"He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility.  But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride."

"I am a strange old man."

 "You'll not fish without eating while I'm alive."

"I may not be as strong as I think," the old man said.  "But I know many tricks and have resolution."

"We're different," the old man said."

"For a long time now eating had bored him and he never carried a lunch."

"The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean."

"She is kind and very beautiful.  But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea."

"Only I have no luck anymore.  But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day."

"He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure."

"I wish I had the boy."

"He could tell the difference between the blowing noise the male made and the sighing blow of the female."  

"Fish, " he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead."

"How do you feel, hand?"

"He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides."

"There are three things that are brothers:  the fish and my two hands."

"He commenced to say his prayers mechanically."

"I told the boy I was a strange old man," he said, "Now is when I must prove it."
The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing.  Now he was proving it again.  Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it."

"But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it."

"The fish is my friend too."

"I do not care who kills who."

"Then when he had seen the fish come out of the water and hang motionless in the sky before it fell, he was sure there was some great strangeness and he could not believe it."

"When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit."

"But then everything is sin."

"I'm sorry about it, fish."

"I went out too far."

"The old man was dreaming about lions."

by Charlie Coon.. marking the end of more rewarding 
times of listening to Jesse Gatlin..

December 19th, 2014

Two wings

God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.

~ Rumi

Photo by Dennis W Barter

 Rivers in the Ocean

Tears

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.

~ Rumi

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

--Albert Camus

Almost full

Almost full

There is cloud cover today

this day of the full moon..

Almost full last evening 

so full brightness may be

hidden this cycle..

Hence to recall that

her dependance on source

is absolute..

her beauty as ours

is realized only

in the intimacy

of Light...

The Eye of the Spirit

Ken Wilber

January 24th, 2012

5

       

In this excerpt from The Eye of Spirit, Ken offers one of the most powerful—and beautiful—pieces of spiritual writing he has ever produced.  This is the very first time these words have been reproduced on the web, and we invite you to share this chapter however you like.

Here's Ken's description:

"What follows are various 'pointing out' instructions, direct pointers to mind's essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session." –Ken Wilber

Where are we to locate Spirit? What are we actually allowed to acknowledge as Sacred? Where exactly is the Ground of Being? Where is this ultimate Divine?

THE GREAT SEARCH 

The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate-each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other.  

This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense. The separate-self is, at bottom, simply a sensation of seeking. When you feel yourself right now, you will basically feel a tiny interior tension or contraction—a sensation of grasping, desiring, wishing, wanting, avoiding, resisting-it is a sensation of effort, a sensation of seeking.  

In its highest form, this sensation of seeking takes on the form of the Great Search for Spirit. We wish to get from our unenlightened state (of sin or delusion or duality) to an enlightened or more spiritual state. We wish to get from where Spirit is not, to where Spirit is.  

But there is no place where Spirit is not. Every single location in the entire Kosmos is equally and fully Spirit. Seeking of any sort, movement of any sort, attainment of any sort: all profoundly useless. The Great Search simply reinforces the mistaken assumption that there is some' place that Spirit is not, and that I need to get from a space that is lacking to a space that is full. But there is no space lacking, and there is no space more full. There is only Spirit.  

Amassing information

Amassing information

We can become obsessed 
attending to a continuing itch
hoping to discover new information
adding to our imagined accumulation..
Or we search for that
to replace what we imagine is outworn..
The hidden desire of endless searching
is simply Freedom which is available
only directly and now...

...you are going all over the place...collecting knowledge in your capacity of being an “individual.” Don’t do that. Go beyond. This amassing of knowledge is not going to help you, because it is in a dream...That is not the point. Try to understand what is being said here. That only is the solution and will lead you somewhere. 

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

The Guide

The Guide

We each encounter 
our everyday guides
assisting our discovery of 
our real Identity..
These temporary guides
provide brief assists
for an embracing
of her
our own inner Guide..
She who alone knows
who I Am and
the path I must take
and abandon...

AT THE FEET OF THE GURU

The false gurus 

will call themselves gurus. 

They will ask you to worship them,

follow them, wash their feet,

in order to purge your own ego.

They will try to convince you

that they have something you don't,

that they are something you aren't,

that they have 'arrived'.

They will claim to have no self. 

They will carry the odour of specialness.

Disagree with them, 

and they may call you 'resistant'.

The true gurus are all around.

They probably won't even call themselves gurus. 

They need no worship,

require no doting disciples. 

They know they are profoundly equal to you.

They make no claims about themselves. 

They will always remind you

that the true guru is not external - 

she lies within.

They have travelled far.

They have learned how to wash their own feet.

- Jeff Foster

Sun and Earth

Sun and Earth

Soul and Body

Source and Separate..

A model for Knowing

oneness and separation..

Switching points of view:

earth viewing sun

earth viewing earth

separation seems truth..

sun viewing earth

sun viewing sun

oneness seems truth..

While our culture

prefers earth vision

the horizon reveals

new sun vision

 lo and behold

the earth Shines...

STRETCH...MacKenzie Place

STRETCH...MacKenzie Place

Corner of Fillmore and Union

December 8th, 2014

4:00 to 6:00 PM

No cost

Non-dual teachings have been around for thousands of years. They are the basis for some of the world’s major religions. At the moment, it seems the message of non-duality is breaking free from its religious history. It is being re-invented, translated, and adapted into really straightforward and simple language. The new teachings are making non-duality available to many people who would not have otherwise heard the message.

--Non-Duality America website

We will continue to examine these provocative and crucial 
"new teachings" by use of

video and discussion.

Hope to see you on Monday..!

Charlie Coon

When you ask me what I did yesterday, I tell you my story of ‘yesterday’. However, in truth, ‘yesterday’ is nothing more than a thought story happening in this present moment. I cannot find any ‘yesterday’ outside of right now. In other words, yesterday didn’t happen yesterday – it is collection of thoughts, images, sensations, arising in this present space, the space that I am. And ‘tomorrow’, too, is a story, happening right now. Yesterday and tomorrow are actually happening right now! They are right here, out of time, in this intimate presence. They are part of the texture of this very moment. They arise and dissolve in this vast field of Being. However, when you ask you me what I did yesterday, I do not respond: “What an absurd question! Yesterday is just a story happening now! There is no yesterday!” No, I say, “I went for a walk. And you?” As long as memory is there, response arises to meet question, effortlessly. You see, this intimacy that we are rejects nothing. It deeply allows past and future to arise and dissolve in its unconditional embrace. There is enough space for everything here.

~ Jeff Foster

You cannot be a thought, you can only know a thought, stay present as it arises, stays for a while, and dissolves into your unspeakable vastness, leaving you untouched, whole.
Be spacious, undefined!


- Jeff Foster

Illusion

When an illusion is seen clearly, it loses its power. The mirage lake may still appear in the desert sands, but we no longer run after it looking for water. When we give careful attention to this moment, we discover directly that no thing really forms in the way we think it does. There is only thorough-going flux. Even thinking and conceptualizing are activities of this same undivided flux. 

Realizing that no thing really exists doesn't mean there's nothing in some nihilistic sense! This vibrant aliveness of ever-changing color and shape, texture and smell, sound and sensation is undeniably appearing here right now. We can argue about how to interpret this appearance, whether it's mind or matter, truth or illusion, dream or reality, but the beingness of it is undeniable. 

~ Joan Tollifson