The Intimate Enemy
- The intimate enemy is a consciousness that is asleep to itself but does not know it.
- As long as we have good reasons for why we suffer, we are never going to transcend painful patterns.
- Something in us believes that there are good reasons to suffer over things that we have no control over.
- Sufi story: "I lost my donkey, but at least I was not riding it at the time." We are not meant to be saddled by negative thoughts and feelings.
- Not identifying is a question of awareness. See where identification is painful, which is very different than trying to not-identify.
- The world's ongoing pain is rooted in the perception that everything outside of us is to blame for our experience.
- The divided consciousness creates enemies, not aware of its responsibility for its experience.
- If someone pushes your buttons, who brought those buttons into the moment? If you get triggered by something, where is the trigger? The moment reveals those buttons and triggers within you.
- Suffering uselessly is unawareness of the consciousness that is the cause of the suffering.
- The purpose of meditation is to bring about a sensitivity that is aware of what moves through the mind as the world stirs it.
- There is nothing to attain in true spirituality, because in reality there is no one there who can attain anything.
- The consciousness that wants to add something to itself imagines that it is missing something.
- You as the witness is participation in creation as it reveals itself.
