VF: Hi Ron. Good to hear from you again. Let’s clear this up so you can get on with things!

Ron: I am fully clear in my head that, as you put it, “thought” is not necessary to know ‘I exist”. I can also see that ‘sensations’ coalesce to produce the body and the sensations are transitional. I fully understand when you say that forms take shape in the smoke. But these ‘forms’ demand to be fed. The body is not like a plant to get by itself ‘freely’ energy from the Sun. Body has to depend on some others.

VF: Everything depends on everything; and, if everything depends upon everthing, then nothing depends on nothing and all arises IMMEDIATELY in THIS NOW – including the seeming Ron’s seeming questions!

Ron: Any sort of dependency implicitly removes one away from total Freedom (Independence).

VF: Total Freedom is a concept whose existence depends up another concept – Total Bondage. Struggling with these concepts keeps the seeming you trapped in duality – this approach is like trying to escape from a house of mirrors! There is no freedom – there is ONLY THIS. Right now! Leave the thinking alone – let it ramble on – it always has and always will. Stop!

Ron: But isn’t one forced to see a distinction of this body versus that (bringing in otherness). Another aspect highlighting otherness (Not Oneness)?

VF: “Otherness” and “oneness” are both ideas, constructs, concepts, arising in this complete and total cognizing (thank you, Gilbert Schultz) emptiness that is beyond concept, construct and thought. This ground of being is our mother. There is no doubt that you and your mother are, in some relative way, separate. At the same time, can you deny your oneness? Of course not. What I am pointing you towards is the Mother of all – the Mother of the ten thousand things, as it is referred to in Taoism. Ron, “you” cannot know it or experience it – you can only give up and rest AS it. Trying to “know” or “experience” it via more thought only takes you further and further from home. Rest. Quit playing the game, and run home to your Mother. You’ve never left her, anyway.

Ron: Isn’t this staring right in our face: if Vince feeds his body, this ron-body does not get fed. It still needs separate food. So Ron and Vince are two — not one there!

VF: Try an experiment. Hold up your left hand, palm facing your face. Now, with a piece of paper, cover all of the palm so only the top half of the fingers are visible. Do the fingers appear to be separate? In some relative sense, are they separate? Remove the piece of paper. Are the fingers really separate?

As long as you identify yourself as a finger, these questions will continue to arise. Unquestionably, from the standpoint of a separate finger, these questions are legitimate and, seemingly, of great importance. See clearly that your premise is wrong. Your premise is itself a conceptual construct, “I am separate.” You can ask as many questions as you’d like from the wrong premise and you will get a myriad of interesting and useless answers.

Begin with the premise that doesn’t rely on any mental construct or fabrication – YOU EXIST. Before the thought “I AM,” you are. Begin there and stay there and see what (if any) questions arise. When in doubt, just rest as awareness. Thought is a hungry ghost – to borrow a term from Buddhism – it has a voracious appetite but cannot find satisfaction.

Ron: Of course, I can develop an attitude of being unaffected and lead a ‘what if’ sort of life. But then it is an “Attitude.” Not beingness, Brahman!

VF: No “attitude” will be necessary if you change your premise to what is without question.

Ron: Another serious doubt : Is that “SEEING” so called “Brahman state”? (I know state is a wrong word but used here to express that condition). Does not Brahman state imply omniscience, omnipresence etc. etc.?

VF: Is there any doubt that there is KNOWING right now? Can that be doubted? Isn’t even the doubt KNOWN? Forget all of this and return to resting as awareness – simply rest as what you already are and let thought do whatever it does – there is no choice. Conceptual explanations such as “Brahman” are meaningless and worthless without resting as what you are BEFORE the concepts can arise. Rest; just rest. I hope this helps. Get back to me with more questions, as necessary. Be well.

VF: Hello Sam – good hearing from you again. I’m sorry this response is so late in coming, but I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything other than my “paid” work recently.

Sam: Thank you for your prompt and generous response.What I get from your reply is that the endless flounderings of my personality are beside the point, and the only thing that matters is to see who is seeing, NOW.

VF: Yes; but you’re not going to leave it there, are you?!

Sam: Again it’s my smart intellect getting it all ‘intellectually’ while going on much the same way as before, but am I right in assuming that what I am as a person doesn’t matter, that I can be good or bad or indifferent, the only thing is to SEE that it’s all a mythical self, and so not different from Mother Teresa or Hitler, or you?

VF: It isn’t that what “you” are as a person doesn’t matter; it is that there is no you, no person. The believed-in “person” Sam, whom you mistakenly take yourself to be, doesn’t exist other than as a swirling, buzzing, vaporous group of thoughts and sensations that arise presently. There really is no one to choose good, bad, or in-between. It happens that seeming choice may arise in this simple, unbroken, space that we are, but there is no choice in whether or not a seeming choice arises or is made (by no one).

Sam: One thing that has bothered me about being undifferentiated consciousness is how, if everything is awareness, there is no difference between me and a piece of wood, both are equally enlightened, and so what is the point of it all?

VF: This is only an issue for the believed-in separate person, the idea of an independently existing individual who believes itself to be separate and aware. To that imposter, just being awareness and no different from a piece of wood sounds horrible – understandably! Look at this directly right now! See that these are just ideas arising from nowhere and dissolving back into nowhere – they are seen, but they are seen by no one.

If you just rest as awareness, you will see clearly that all of this is just more of the same conceptual argument and struggle – it is one thought seeming to struggle with another thought. In fact, there is no struggle between thoughts; there is just this thought, now this thought, now this thought, and on and on…it is only another thought that says thoughts struggle. Just rest back, lean back into awareness, and leave thoughts alone. Thinking is none of your business!

Sam: Another point is about us all getting there in the end, after death, so what is the point of struggle?

VF: Good! There IS no point in struggle. What you really are, this clear, open space of awareness, doesn’t struggle. What you are is the space in which the story of struggle arises, is seen, and dissolves back into formlessness.

Sam: I like the way you throw me at the NOW!

VF: You’ve never been anywhere else. Even thought – whose content is typically either struggling with now, arguing with now, regretting the past, or imagining a fearful future – is still arising now.

Sam: But is there any point in formal meditation, and do you advocate any practice, a daily sitting?

VF: Where do you imagine daily sitting will take you? Do you imagine it will deliver you to some other “state” of being? Every state just arises and passes away in this open, clear, spaciousness – states come and go – what is aware of the changing states never changes.

So, if the imagined separate person sits in order to no longer be a separate person, well, as one japanese zen teacher put it, it is like polishing a brick to create a mirror. You can polish a long time, but the brick will never become a mirror. I once heard Catherine Ingram say that it’s like trying to drain the water from a mirage – the premise is completely wrong. So if you sit as the imposter – the believed, separate me – you will likely just reinforce a belief in the mirage being full of water. If you sit as this open awareness, fine; but if you’re already resting as open awareness, then any activity is meditation – sitting, standing, shitting, stirring the soup pot, drinking tea, wiping off the table, writing a note, smoking a cigar, looking at the sky, listening to music, lying sleepless, sweeping the walk, paying the bills, arguing with the landlord…everything, everything, everything arises in and as this clear, open, space. Try resting! Lean back into awareness (it’s already where and what you are anyway); rest as awareness right now. Leave thinking alone, leave sensation alone, leave emotions alone, leave hearing alone, leave seeing alone, leave tasting, alone, leave smelling alone – leave everything, including the idea of a “you” alone. Just rest and watch.

i hope this helps. love, vince

Imagine that whatever you are looking for – let’s call it ‘The Answer’ – is in the middle of a toy snow globe (you know, a clear glass globe with some sort of picture or figure in the middle and filled with tiny, white flakes). Now, imagine that thoughts and experiences, all objects, are like the flakes in the globe.

We believe that if we can just get a better view of the flakes, they will finally reveal to us The Answer. Most of the techniques we learn when we begin searching, deal with the flakes, the contents of the globe. We learn practices to help us in our attempt to take a look at every flake. We mindfully describe them all, often with the subtle belief that we will be able to control each flake and its thousands of siblings.

We try to get the flakes to arrange themselves in a particular order. We share with others the patterns we imagine that we see; and, we imagine meanings in their swirling, floating, fleeting dance. We decide that some of the flakes are “positive” and some are “negative” and we do our level best to make them ALL positive.

We introduce New Age flakes. We criticize some of the flakes. We worship some of the flakes. We think that by focusing more and more on the flakes, we’ll finally “get it.”

We investigate each flake because we think The Answer must be hidden on one of them, maybe written in some secret code. We search online and read what others are saying about their flakes. We join flake discussion groups.

Some claim to have found very special flakes; they describe these special flakes and suggest that only if we are able to remake our flakes into flakes like theirs will we enjoy the infinite, unending, bliss that they enjoy. Some sell their very valuable, bliss-producing flakes as well as their techniques for creating or finding the Right Flake.

Others suggest that only with – until now, secret – physical, mental, and emotional techniques, will we be able to get our flakes into shape so that we will be more available to receive The Answer. Ancient and revered teachers tell us that, if we are lucky, our flakes might evolve to the necessarily sublime level of existence after hundreds or thousands of reincarnations. We secretly hope that, if we really work at it, others will envy our flakes and want their flakes to look the same as ours. Then, we’ll be able to write a book about flake-improvement, getting your flakes into shape, improving your flakes, reshaping your flakes, working with your flakes so they manifest even more interesting flakes and, yes, living as enlightened flakes.

Working with the flakes to find The Answer, the end of suffering, is folly. We keep shaking and shaking the globe in the hope of finding just the right flake at just the right time. We shake and shake in order to see every flake from every angle. The answer must be there, we think. More flakes. Shake harder. Change the rhythm of the shaking. Get up early in the morning and shake. Shake at least twice a day for 20 minutes. Get together with other people and shake and then talk about the shaking. Write about the shaking. Draw images of the shaking. Worship particular forms of shaking. The Answer must be there – we just need to try harder. Shake more. Take a seminar on shaking. Wear flowing clothes and crystal jewelry that opens our energy centers to create better, more loving, more creative shaking and flaking. Go on retreat to shake with expert shakers. We think, ‘I know if I just keep shaking it will become clear’ – that is what the flakes themselves tell us, after all.

Finally, perhaps, we tire; we are at the end of our rope. We’ve tried it all and to no avail. No flake, no matter how profound or sublime, is The Answer. We are ready to hear a simple suggestion: Just Rest. Quit shaking the globe. What you are looking for is already what you are. It surrounds you and interpenetrates you. In fact, the flakes themselves exist within what you are searching for – they are inseparable from that for which you are looking. Peace is already here. Clarity is revealed when we STOP shaking, not when we shake harder or longer or with better technique.

Someone tells us, ‘Put the snow globe down.’ We put it down. The flakes settle. We leave them alone. They no longer interest us. We realize that there is no end to the amount of shaking that can be done. As the flakes settle, we discover that there is no answer waiting inside the globe. Instead, we find a pristine clarity in which all of life is reflected. We enjoy looking at all of the shapes and colors and movement reflected in the globe’s clear, open space. Now and again, flakes are stirred up. No matter. We enjoy watching them, too. Even snow can be beautiful. We no longer focus on the flakes; they are just part of the entire scene. We rest. Clarity and silence shyly shine forth. We disappear.

Quit shaking the globe.

Put it down.

Rest.

Here.

Now.

Life is a wreck. Nothing will ever go right – at least, not for long. Rain will fall on the picnic. The basement will flood. The car tire will go flat. The computer’s hard drive will crash. The light in the kitchen will burn out. The ceiling fan will stop running. The refrigerator will stop cooling. The sidewalk will crumble. The roof will leak. The check will bounce. The shoestring will break. The pot will burn. The cup will crack. The shirt will shrink. The blanket will unravel. The garbage disposal will stop working. The dryer will stop producing hot air. The water heater will stop heating water. The boss will criticize the report. The kids will leave. The milk will spoil. The silver will tarnish. The cheese will mold. The ice cream will melt. The car lock will freeze. The brakes will squeak. The flowers won’t bloom. The paint will peel. The photograph will yellow. The page will crumble. The house won’t sell. Interest rates will fall. The market will crash. The flight will be delayed. The crop won’t come in. The clock will lose time. The candle will melt. The chain will rust. The vacuum will clog. Partners leave. Hair will thin. Muscle will atrophy. Joints will ache. The dog has fleas. Eyes lose their focus. Ears lose their hearing. Teeth loosen and fall out. Kidneys produce stones. Bowels get constipated. Reactions slow. Arteries clog. Unwanted growths grow in the wrong places. Discomfort and pain become intimate companions. Waist lines increase. Sex drives decrease. Memory dims. Liver spots darken. Skin thins. Mucus thickens. Retirement income is too little. Loneliness is too great. Property values diminish. Friends die. Careers fizzle. Livers stop cleaning blood. Lungs stop charging blood with oxygen. Immune sytems fall into disrepair. Neurons fire haphazardly. Hearts stop beating. Money or no money, property or no property, health or no health, peace or no peace, it all falls apart. Nothing will go right. The imagined you will not make it. The imagined you is doomed. Doomed. The imagined you that struggles and fights and argues and works at it and analyzes and plans and postures and gesticulates and makes itself into somebody will blow away like a thin pall of smoke from burning leaves in an autumn wind. The imagined you will dissipate like fog on a summer morning. The imagined you will melt like the last patch of ice at the corner of the field at the beginning of spring. Everything imagined, thought, felt, seen, heard, smelled, tasted, sensed in any way passes away like the last beat of the heart. All hope, all fear, all ignorance, all knowledge, all ideas of a “you” die presently to blossom as this unborn, unknowable, unsensable, spacious clarity reading these completely meaningless words. Better to give up now – who you think you are doesn’t have a chance. Go outside; smell the earth. Listen to the birds. Feel the breeze. Watch clouds.

You are the Livingness.

Isness being All.

Rest.

Bring a finger (your choice) up to one of your eyes – very close – notice that your entire field of vision is ‘filled by finger’. There is nothing but finger. If you get it close enough, you will discover that it cannot even be recognized as ‘finger’ any longer. Slowly, move your finger away from your eye – notice that more and more objects are now seen – the finger is still there AND there is recognition that there is SEEING of the finger because it no longer fills the entire eye screen.

Thoughts are like fingers poking us in the eye. Until we recognize the fact THAT there is thinking, we (seem to) live in the dark with a lot of suffering. As soon as we recognize that thinking is always happening, identification with thought dissolves (the finger moves away from our eye) and in THAT instant a new Buddha is born. Notice that the finger may still appear in the SEEING, but at a distance; ‘finger’ no longer ‘fills’ the seeing (our world) or seems so important.

Enlightenment (finger-in-the-eye-free living) is available now…and now…and now… SEE that the word “I” followed by ANYTHING is just another thought (finger). Whether the ‘finger in your eye’ comes in the shape of ‘I am enlightened’ or ‘I am the Light of the world’ or ‘I am horrible’ or ‘I am wonderful’ or ‘I am hungry’ or ‘I am smart’ – no matter what – is thought(potential fingers in the eye) arising NOW.

Seeing thought as thought – not being hoodwinked by the finger in the eye – IS enlightenment, but only right NOW. SEE that ‘you’ (a thought arising now, a finger in the eye, arising NOW in SEEING) cannot be enlightened because the ‘YOU-Thought’ is just a shadow arising after-the-fact of SEEING (which only happens NOW)and is ‘done by’ no one. Resting as THIS (really, literally, THIS SEEING now, now, now, now, now!) – Right Now – is complete and full enlightenment – but ONLY NOW. YOU won’t find it tomorrow, or ever again, but NOW.

Where is your finger right now?

There is nothing to do.

Watch.

Watch the imposter’s belief-thought that much can be done to “awaken.” Watch the thought ‘there are books to read;’ watch the thought ‘there are practices to do;’ watch the thought ‘there are films to view;’ watch the thought ‘there are conversations to have;’ watch the thought ‘there are tapes and talks to listen to;’ watch the thought ‘there are satsangs to attend;’ watch the thought ‘there are websites to search;’ watch the thought ‘there are techniques to master.’ This imposter lives, moves, and has its being in, by, and as thought – nothing more.

Look. Can ‘you’ find the ‘you’ that tells ‘you’ that there is much ‘you’ can do to awaken anywhere other than in and as thought? Right now, awareness SEES the thinking that has stirred as a result of these word-thoughts. Is SEEING another thought? Can thought SEE thought?

Look; REALLY look. Watch the imposter’s facile explanations and claims – all thoughts. These habitual thoughts are the story, the spell. SEEING does not require thought. No doubt, thought will continue to arise; but, what cares other than another thought that says “I care?”

What can be done? Some suggestions that may help, unless they don’t…

Don’t move, unless movement happens.

Don’t talk, unless talking happens.

Don’t eat, unless eating happens.

Don’t breathe, unless breathing happens.

Don’t sleep, unless sleeping happens.

Don’t work, unless working happens.

Don’t search, unless searching happens.

Don’t read, unless reading happens.

Don’t touch, unless touching happens.

Don’t choose, unless choosing happens.

Don’t live, unless living happens.

Don’t die, unless dying happens.

Don’t care, unless caring happens.

Don’t be, unless being happens.

Don’t do, unless doing happens.

Don’t not do, unless not doing happens.

Don’t think, unless thinking happens.

Don’t you, unless you-ing happens.

Just watch, and nothing happens…

except for everything.

Watch that, too.

There is nothing to do.

Watch.

Watch the imposter’s belief-thought that much can be done to “awaken.” Watch the thought ‘there are books to read;’ watch the thought ‘there are practices to do;’ watch the thought ‘there are films to view;’ watch the thought ‘there are conversations to have;’ watch the thought ‘there are tapes and talks to listen to;’ watch the thought ‘there are satsangs to attend;’ watch the thought ‘there are websites to search;’ watch the thought ‘there are techniques to master.’ This imposter lives, moves, and has its being in, by, and as thought – nothing more.

Look. Can ‘you’ find the ‘you’ that tells ‘you’ that there is much ‘you’ can do to awaken anywhere other than in and as thought? Right now, awareness SEES the thinking that has stirred as a result of these word-thoughts. Is SEEING another thought? Can thought SEE thought?

Look; REALLY look. Watch the imposter’s facile explanations and claims – all thoughts. These habitual thoughts are the story, the spell. SEEING does not require thought. No doubt, thought will continue to arise; but, what cares other than another thought that says “I care?”

What can be done? Some suggestions that may help, unless they don’t…

Don’t move, unless movement happens.

Don’t talk, unless talking happens.

Don’t eat, unless eating happens.

Don’t breathe, unless breathing happens.

Don’t sleep, unless sleeping happens.

Don’t work, unless working happens.

Don’t search, unless searching happens.

Don’t read, unless reading happens.

Don’t touch, unless touching happens.

Don’t choose, unless choosing happens.

Don’t live, unless living happens.

Don’t die, unless dying happens.

Don’t care, unless caring happens.

Don’t be, unless being happens.

Don’t do, unless doing happens.

Don’t not do, unless not doing happens.

Don’t think, unless thinking happens.

Don’t you, unless you-ing happens.

Just watch, and nothing happens…

except for everything.

Watch that, too.

Give up.

This body never

had a chance.

Born in the deepest ocean,

it began sinking

before its first breath.

Stop thrashing.

Sink.

Breathe in what you fear.

The water will dissolve

what you never were,

leaving only Love.

You mistake yourself for the sun

but are Space;

You mistake yourself for the wave

but are Ocean;

You mistake yourself for a body

but are Being;

You mistake yourself for alive

but are Never Born;

You mistake yourself for a seeker

but are the Sought;

You mistake yourself for a student

but are Knowing;

You mistake yourself for a name

but are Unknowable;

You mistake yourself for opinions

but are Silence;

You mistake yourself for imagination and memory

but are Thoughtless;

You mistake yourself for yesterday and tomorrow

but are Now;

You mistake yourself for here

but are Placeless;

You mistake yourself for a child

but are the Mother;

You mistake yourself for fears

but are Love.

Stop mistaking yourself for something!

Admit that you don’t understand!

There is no map.

Live Not-Knowing.

You are already home.

Rest.

There is nothing that needs to be done about “the world.” The world is a concept. It arises in this present awareness as various combinations of sensation (read “sensing”) and thought. Look into your immediate experience. Can you find “a world” anywhere other than in this present awareness? There is no world – there are old quilts, paper cuts, sleeping dogs, dry skin, train whistles, darkness, dandelions, purple paint, pagers, pain in the back of the arms, thoughts about the weather and the middle east and strawberries. What is your world right now? See that it has died and arisen a billion times. It arises from nowhere and dissolves back into nowhere.

There is nothing that needs to be done about “other people.” Other people are experiencing of combinations of light and shadow and physical sensation (i.e., seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting) and thought. “Other people” arise only as these combinations presently. What other people do you see right now? Do they come to you in any way other than as combinations of sensing-thinking in this moment? They arise from nowhere and dissolve back into nowhere.

There is nothing that needs to be done about thoughts. They are picture and sound. They exist for an instant and evaporate. They arise from nowhere and dissolve back into nowhere.

There is nothing that needs to be done about physical sensations. All sensing – seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling – is sensation. Itches, contractions, tingling, coolness, softness, pinching, heating – all arise from nowhere and dissolve back into nowhere.

There is nothing that needs to be done about emotions. Emotion is nothing more than a combination of thought and sensation. Notice that emotion is sensation linked with a story. The building blocks of emotion arise from nowhere and dissolve back into nowhere (see above). Emotion does the same.

There is nothing that needs to be done about “problems.” What are they? Can there be a problem without a thought? Is there anything, in your direct experience right now, which can be called a problem without the judgment of thought? Is there any “problem” that has not arisen from nowhere and dissolved back into nowhere?

There is nothing that needs to be done about “you.” What are you, anyway? Is there anything “wrong” with you without the judgment of thought making it so? In direct experience in this very moment, is there anything other than sensation and thought?

Yes, there is.

What is it?

This is not a game. Answering the question with your blood and bone will vaporize you.