The following is a letter from a reader (Tim) that addresses a fundamental misunderstanding. I hope this article helps to clarify it.

Tim: I never wrote to you before – read your blog occasionally.

One thing I’m surprised at though is the fact that you take anxiety meds – I would have expected realizing “the truth” would relieve emotional tension most of the time.

VF: Overall, there is less tension – much less. However, the “realization of truth” is always here and now – it never begins and it never stops and never ends – it is always fresh. There is no longer (this will be awkward, but I think you’ll get my point) the experience of an experiencer in this experience – Whew!

Tim: At the very least, I would say that like a spinning wheel coming to a stop, you will eventually not need it – what are your thoughts on this?

VF: I may or may not need it – no idea. Who is there to care? Don’t get too hung up on some idea of ‘realization’ and what happens or doesn’t happen because NOTHING HAPPENS! The body/life continues along as before AND it is totally different. Realization is seeing that there never was anyone here to ‘become realized.’ There is just this, now, here and no one to see it.

It’s interesting that this idea comes up, about the medication thing, isn’t it? Would you be surprised to know that I take a cholesterol-lowering medication? Would you expect that ‘after realization’ one should come to a point where it is eventually not needed? Notice the artificial division that is created. Thought does this all the time. Recognizing what you are at a fundamental level does not exempt the body from the need for food, water, air, shelter, warmth, etc. Same here – the brain is part of the body – an organ just like the liver or spleen – and it benefits a great deal from the anxiety medication (an antidepressant)… better living through chemistry!

Tim, you know, I think your phrase “spinning wheel” fits what I am trying to say: the experience used to be one of being the spokes and the wheel and feeling very ‘dizzy.’ Now, the spokes and wheel continue to spin, albeit somewhat more slowly most of the time, but it doesn’t matter because now I see that you and I and everyone else who ever took shape on this earth(and the earth, too) is also – and most fundamentally – the space in the middle of the spinning wheel and the space in which the wheel spins. Nonetheless, my ‘wheel’ has always been a bit ‘out of balance’ (just ask my wife) and the medication helps to create a much more pleasant experience.

I hope this is useful and I hope that anyone reading this who is ‘searching’ and struggling with depression or anxiety (or any other physical illness) will get the help they need – ‘you’ are already ‘realized’ anyway – ‘you’ just haven’t ‘realized’ it! There are no extra points for agony.

I am sitting on my porch on a sleepy summer afternoon here in

Springfield. I close my eyes and listen to the house wrens and

cardinals calling to one another. Now and then my dog, Shadow, barks at

a biker or another dog barking in the distance. A truck rumbles by on

the street at the end of the block. I feel warmth and tingling in my

feet, especially the arches. The bumpy wicker chair’s arm presses

against my elbow and the computer heats my lap. Jenna, my neighbor,

walks out of her house while talking on the cell phone, opens her car

door, puts a bag on the seat, closes the door, and returns to her house

still talking. Two flies chase each other around the bird feeders. The

soft breeze moves the branches of the sycamore. A circular saw whines

down the block. Patterns of light and shadow wander over the green wood

of the porch floor. My stomach tenses thinking of some nebulous worry.

The sun shines on a spider’s web between bricks and porch railing,

turning it into crystal. A thought of my cat, Pumpkin, who died Friday,

forms and dissolves. Another thought that my mother will die someday,

too, forms and dissolves. The red arm of the thermometer registers 82.

Bushes waiting to be planted lean against one another at the end of the

drive. The thought ‘I see all of this’ forms and dissolves. Now more

birds. Discomfort in the left elbow.

Is there someone

experiencing this? Look closely in your own experience right now.

Outside of the thought ‘I am —–‘, are you? The thoughts, whether

they shout ‘I am somebody’ or ‘I am nobody’ or anything else, are just

like the wrens – flying back and forth through emptiness.

Allow

your senses to point you home. Come to your senses now. Listen. See.

Feel. Taste. Smell. Pick one sense. Notice everything arising as that

sense. Notice, too, the thoughts that arise simultaneously. The

thoughts just arise – there is no one ‘deciding’ to think them.

Thoughts are simply seen, too, just like the sense objects. Even the

thought ‘I see them’ is itself another thought and, upon direct

looking, is seen to refer to nothing other than this openknowingness .

Everything, absolutely everything, that has ever taken form (including

what we refer to as ‘states’)has arisen within this formless awareness.

What ‘you’ typically refer to as ‘I’ or ‘me’ has also always and only

taken shape within this same formless awareness.

At this very

moment, the reading, the computer, the sounds, the smells, the

thoughts, the sense of ‘I’ – everything – is forming and dissolving

within and as this Great Knowing Formlessness. You ARE this Great

Knowing Formlessness. Relax. Enjoy the birds.

There has never been any emotion, any thought, any sensation, any situation, that has remained the same. Never. Look into your own direct experience right now – this isn’t some grand, esoteric teaching. Whatever you were thinking, feeling, or sensing when you began reading this paragraph has changed by now. That incessant, effervescing flow is happening all the time – bubbling, frothing, flowing and never staying the same. Notice, too, that the awareness – the Seeing – of these phenomena, has NOT changed. Experiences are just like the images appearing on the television screen; they are in constant motion, but the space of the screen doesn’t change.

Regardless of what is happening, we can either be caught in phenomena and attempt to modify or change what is already constantly changing, or we can just rest, relax, and leave everything alone. Awareness is inseparable from thought/emotion/sensation and thought/emotion/sensation is inseparable from Awareness. It is one and the same. Focusing on trying to modify what is constantly modifying leads to more and more entanglement and suffering; no longer efforting reveals space and freedom already complete and whole. Awareness is always present – it IS presence – YOU are presence. Just rest there; and when you doubt that you are doing it right, rest there.

You are OK.

Everything is OK.

Really.

See for yourself.

Rest.

If you are going to read this as theory, as something ‘interesting,’ do yourself a favor and go to another website.

I don’t intend this to be mean or exclusive. What I am saying is that if you are just reading this out of interest, you won’t find it that interesting. If you are reading this as theory, you will be bored with its simplicity. If you are reading this with the idea that ‘someday’ you will ‘get it’ and for now you just want to take in as much information about ‘it’ as you can, give up. If you are reading this and willing to DO what it suggests, keep reading.

Right now, in THIS very moment, notice…

Sounds

Bodily sensations

Sights

Smells

Thoughts

What is KNOWING those things?

WHATEVER just came to mind – What SEES that?

And the flurry of thoughts that just occurred, what KNOWS that?

IT cannot be named.

IT cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled or conceptualized.

Rest as that.

A million times identified as sound, sensation, sight, odor, thought…and a million times just rest.

When in doubt, read this again.

There is not KNOWINGNESS and the OBJECT of knowingness.

SEEING and SEEN arise together.

Has there ever been SEEING without AWARENESS of the SEEN?

Has there ever been HEARING without AWARENESS of the HEARD?

Has there ever been THINKING without AWARENESS of the THOUGHT?

Do you see what the seeming multiplicity share?

Awareness is the seeing and the seen.

Awareness is the hearing and the heard.

Awareness is the thinking and the thought.

Not two.

Awareness is inseparable from phenomena and phenomena are inseparable from awareness – they are different aspects of Being.

There is no need to change anything that arises. Take refuge in Awareness. Awareness is always present. Rest there.

Regardless of what is happening, we are what Sees it. We can either rest as the Seeing or we can attempt to change, modify, argue, flee, accept, etc. – all ways of avoiding what we are. Relax and leave everything alone. Quit trying to create sculptures from clouds. One path leads to more and more entanglement and suffering; the other leads to more space and freedom. Another way of saying this is that we can either live as Velcro or Teflon.

When we can just rest, just relax with everything exactly as it is in this moment, we bring suffering to an end. The spaciousness in which all of this arises and plays out is Love. What we are is Love.

Jesus said (paraphrasing), ‘Don’t build your house on sand.’ Most of us haven’t really taken that to heart. From one perspective, the ‘sands’ he spoke of are the ever-changing phenomena of moment-by-moment experience that are constantly shifting, changing, and reshaping. Paradoxically, the most solid, most stable foundation for our lives is this complete spaciousness, this fertile emptiness that is without height, weight, width, depth, color, or mass in and as which everything arises. Yet, this is the very building material that is indestructible and is the foundation of everything with height, weight, width, depth, color, and mass. Our treasure lies in this warm womb of Emptiness, not in the world of form.

Don’t make too much of this. In my experience, at least, there is no everlasting exalted state. All states, regardless of their character, are impermanent. What we are is the unknowable Seeing of all states. Rest as that.

Awareness cannot be ‘accomplished.’ There is no practice that can take you ‘there.’ What you are is what sees the striving, the frustration, the clarity. You are already It. It’s just a matter of acknowledging what is already so.

Just relax. Regardless of what you are thinking, feeling, or sensing – leave it alone and relax. Rest. Rest as what you already are – it will teach you everything.

Take a look – is Awareness/Knowing ever not present now?

You don’t need to change anything. You don’t need to ‘figure’ anything out. You can just leave yourself alone, relax, drop the story (disregard the voice you hear narrating your life), and give all of it Space. You are this Space and Space is about as bothered by what arises within it as the sky is bothered by lightning.

Every thought, every emotion, every sensation – when we forget that we are the Seeing of them – becomes like a tiny room with a very tiny window through which we attempt describe and function in the world. As we relax as the Knowing of emotion, thought, and sensation, we realize that we were never really caught in the tiny room (there is no room!) – we just thought we were, and that made it so in our experience, but not in Truth.

We can’t hold on to Awareness, just like we can’t grab a handful of water. If you have ever tried to float, you know the harder you try, the quicker you sink! Instead, when you lean back, relax, and allow, you find that the water floats you. The same is true with what you really are – Awareness. Start by resting back, relaxing, and you will find you have never been separate from or other than the very thing for which you search – it is the ‘water’ being you!

What we who have been ‘seekers’ have sought is the very thing that watches the seeking, that watches the stopping of seeking, that watches the frustration, the resignation, the eggs cooking, the Monday Night Football game, the dog sleeping, the stomach gurgling, the cold feet, the uncertainty, the bad money management, the opinions, the beliefs, the arguments, the peacefulness and violence, that watches the watching. 

What we really are – what everything really is – is this simple, uncontrived, undivided, unbreakable, unknowable knowing. I am not trying to be obtuse or poetic or philosophical. I really want to help you bring the searching to an end, if that is what you want to do. Right now, you are reading this and you are AWARE of reading it and you are aware of thinking, sights, sounds, and sensations right now. That simple awareness, which has always been here, is what we ALL are. 

Please see that there is nothing you can ‘do’ other than to just see that there is awareness here right now.  In fact, it is the awareness itself that is seeing the awareness!  

Resting in awareness is resting in God, Allah, Buddha nature, the Tao, Awareness, Mind, Knowing, Emptiness, the Great Spirit, Wisdom. No matter what name – or no name – just rest right now. This simple non-action of leaving everything alone just for a moment, is everything that all of the wisest people and most sublime scriptures have attempted to point out to us. We can relax. We are already home. We can trust It.

Nothing needs to change in the circumstances or particulars of our lives to rest as peace. In fact, the more we attempt to manipulate and alter the particulars of our lives in order to experience peace, the further we will (seem to) move from what we want.

What to do? Nothing. Relax. Give up. Release the grip. Resign ourselves to leaving everything alone, letting everything be as it is. We will find that we have always been standing knee-deep in the very peace we have been looking for. What a relief.

Our opinions, our beliefs, our certainties, our stories, our memories, our worries and projections – all of these make up the bed of nails on which we lie. Give them space – it is the solvent that dissolves them along with any idea of ‘me’.

If our sense of happiness and peace is dependent upon getting everything in our life ‘lined up’ just the way we want it, we’re screwed – that’s a Sanskrit term.