Watchfulness

We don't usually think to ourselves that we're asleep and that our entire identity is the moment to moment fabrication of what we are reacting to in that instant. Until there is something that rides the waves of these reactions and sees them crest and fall, we will appear and disappear with every last wave. In watching the waves we will not mistake ourselves for being the waves.

Most of us like sitting by a river and watching the water or anything else come downstream and then disappear in the distance. When watching a river, we don't usually focus on one thing in the stream and then resist it as it floats by. We are intended to be the observer of the stream of our interior life in much the same way that we would enjoy watching a river.

Student Talks: 6/2/2023 - Key Lesson: Part 1: Realize the amount of pain in your impatience, and in that revelation you will also know the extent to which you're deceived about who you are, and the true purpose of (your) life. Part 2: The vast majority of humanity views the idea of spiritual rebirth as a prize to be claimed: some sort of special possession, like winning a tropical island in a high-stakes lottery.

Topics covered: "I am" when I can see; "We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them, but by waiting for them." -- Simone Weil; Everything outside of us seems separate because we presently we through eyes that either want or don't want what they see; "The flapping of the wings of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world." -- Chinese Proverb

Student Talks: 5/5/2023 - Key Lesson: The witness to experience is not bound by it, any more than a clear sky can be captured by a passing cloud, or a sound can seize the ear that hears it.

Topics covered:There is no struggle in seeing. The struggle is in trying to get life to conform to what something in you wants to see, and avoid what it doesn't want to see; The problem is not what is seen. What creates the problem is the nature that is seeing; Within the sleeping human consciousness, there is something that is already awake, and its presence in that consciousness produces momentary glimpses...

Student Talks: 8/5/2022 - Key Lesson: Part 1: It is impossible to be afraid of oneself, and be in command of oneself at the same time. Part 2: Whatever fear seeds in us, it breeds in us.

Topics covered: Being fearless is not about conquering fear. It is about a new relationship with the consciousness within you, in which you see and understand more about yourself; Whenever there is a disturbance that comes with fear, you try to think yourself into a fearless life. Begin to doubt your own rescuing mind; The mind starts to become quiet when you begin to realize that it is...