October 10th

The ordinary and the extraordinary

The mind believes that enlightenment is something other than this present experience.  It keeps looking for the next moment.  It can't believe that enlightenment could be as simple as taking out the trash right now.  Yet it is.  Enlightenment is overlooked in each moment simply because we are expecting something extraordinary somewhere else, in some later experience.

Then one day, after all that movement towards some other moment in the future, the mind utterly fails.  It sees that it cannot know.  It gives up.  It doesn't give up because some guru said that enlightenment happens when the mind gives up.  It gives up because it sees that no matter what the question, the answer will not be enough.

When the mind fails, it is like falling into a ditch.  A hand reaches to the water and mud.  "What is this?  It's like I've never seen this before. . . "  All of a sudden the water and mud appear alive for the first time.  "That's me.  I am that water!  I am this mud!"

Joy, love, wonder and innocence arise.  The person who was looking for enlightenment drops away completely and all that is left is what was always here . . . this ordinary life in this moment.  But now, because there is no one living it, and no one looking for some later moment, it is extraordinary.

Michael Brown

From PART V: 2. 

(Continuation...)

Chapter 86

The Unknown is the Home of the Real

Q: All and sundry are urging me to meditate. I find no zest in meditation, but I am interested in many other things; some I want very much and my mind goes to them; my attempts at meditation are so half-hearted. What am I to do?

M: Ask yourself: 'To whom it all happens?' Use everything as an opportunity to go within. Light your way by burning up obstacles in the intensity of awareness.  

When you happen to desire or fear, it is not the desire or fear that are wrong and must go, but the person who desires and fears.  

There is no point in fighting desires and fears which may be perfectly natural and justified; It is the person, who is swayed by them, that is the cause of mistakes, past and future.  

The person should be carefully examined and its falseness seen; then its power over you will end.  

After all, it subsides each time you go to sleep.

In deep sleep you are not a self-conscious person, yet you are alive. When you are alive and conscious, but no longer self-conscious, you are not a person anymore. During the waking hours you are, as if, on the stage, playing a role, but what are you when the play is over? You are what you are; what you were before the play began you remain when it is over.  

Look at yourself as performing on the stage of life.  

The performance may be splendid or clumsy, but you are not in it, you merely watch it; with interest and sympathy, of course, but keeping in mind all the time that you are only watching while the play -- life -- is going on.