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.

Seeing this – whatever ‘this’ is – isn’t about finding a way to never experience anything uncomfortable or painful. It is about seeing that the discomfort or pain forms in and is composed of a sea of spacious awareness – just like a stream or a whirlpool is formed in and of the water that composes it. Just that enables us to sit squarely in the middle of it until we see clearly that no one is sitting in the middle of anything.

We only know what we are doing after-the-fact. The ‘decision’ to do whatever it is we’re doing is ‘made’, that is, comes to us fully-formed. Then, we say ‘I decided.’ Thought is always after-the-fact. What we think of as our ‘life’ is only known in retrospect. Now is completely unknown.

Awareness, Cognizing Emptiness, Knowing, Seeing, Space, Presence, It – whatever name we use – is an absolutely loving mother. She opens her arms and completely allows all that arises – welcomes it, in fact. We can rest in her arms and follow her example of loving allowance or we can fight. In the end, it doesn’t really matter because we’ve never really left ‘mom’ anyway. But, in the meantime, one way makes for suffering and the other ease and grace. 

Any instruction other than to leave everything alone, to relax, to just rest as you are, is dangerous. It is dangerous because it points us back into the shadow realm of thought, technique, manipulation, alteration, effort, and theory.

The good news is that the very shining awareness that we are is the source and substance of thought and shadow, too. No matter what, we cannot be separated from Isness – we can only ‘think’ we have been separated. 

Isness is you-ing you. What a relief! There is nothing to do but rest as we are.

All of your suffering is your fault. All of my suffering is my fault. It isn’t our mother’s fault or the fault of our teacher or boss or spouse or partner or dog or genes or the president or the economy or the weather. 

Our suffering has nothing to do with our income, our education, our weight, our life management skills, our time management skills, our bald spot, our less-than-stellar athletic abilities, our tendency to sweat too much, our questionable choice of friends, or…or…or…

You get the idea.

As long as I believe the THOUGHT that MY suffering comes from or because of YOU (or IT or THEM), then I have reinforced This Conceptual World. Which conceptual world? The one that is telling you at this very moment whether this essay (or the guy writing it) is “right on target” or “he must be full of sh#@!” It is the BELIEF in the THOUGHT (pretty much any thought referring to a “me,” by the way) that creates this tense little knot of worry, uncertainty, and insecurity commonly referred to as “me.”

Anytime we complain about anything – our coffee, the heat, the car, the kids – it is US creating our suffering in that moment. It is this believed THOUGHT/IDEA of “I” – and all of the requirements it has of life attached to it – that creates psychological pain.

Take the blame. EXPERIENCE the discomfort in the body without attempting to THINK your way out of it. Remember, it was thinking that created it. Don’t try to think your way out of anything – especially thinking!

Be quiet. 

Ask, “what experiences this now?” If an answer comes to mind, it’s wrong. Whatever you think, whatever answer comes, throw it away. Keep coming back to the question, “what experiences this now?” Devour the question and let the question devour you.

Then, blame disappears. Fault disappears. Suffering disappears. You disappear…and Life appears, just as it is – blame, fault, and suffering included.  And, that turns out to be more than enough. Weird, huh?