Last night I was speaking about
a different gear that we can function in
when living life.
A gear that for a lot of people is unknown to exist.
And that gear is a place where we still function in life participating,
however, we find ourselves uninvolved psychologically in what is happening.
So fully involved biologically
and yet the thinking mind
that was previously always judging
and wanting life to be a particular way
has quietened down.
And in order for this to become a way of being in life
it needs to be practiced.
It's not something that just happens
instantaneously and that's it.
It's actually a movement away from a heavily ingrained habitual way of living.
And so breaking a habit
tends to be gradual and what happens is
we tend to get pulled back into the habit.
And so we need to pull out of it.
So, meditation is a valid part of the process.
So we often hear that there is no effort to be made,
that everything can
change instantaneously.
And that, too, is accurate.
And here I am saying that
there is a gradual change
and that practice is part of that gradual change.
And that, too, is accurate.
It seems like they are contradictory.
But when seen from different perspectives
when different movements in the process are(?) seen
we do see that there is the potential for shifts to happen instantaneously.
So, if we find ourselves thinking
the dropping into being is something that can happen instantaneously
that movement from thinking into being
is not something that happens gradually,
it's not about us using the mind to slow down the mind
and we saying 'Oh please mind, will you stop.'
It's not a gradual movement in that sense.
It's the thinking mind functioning and then an awareness or a thought arising that says 'Stop.'
And the 'Stop' is not so much an instruction, but a realization.
'Stop' is a realization that all this thinking that is going on,
which is deeply believed to be valuable, to be useful
is actually the problem, it's the uncomfortableness
the ongoing commentary about how life should be.
The commentary about how the other should have acted or I should have acted or
the commentary about what life needs to look like in the future for me to be happy or complete.
All of that commentary is what is keeping us out of our completeness.
And
once this is realized, once we start tasting
the essence of the human being ...
when we start resting in our own being we start to have
an experience, an experiential contrast
between the two different gears,
the two ways in which life can be lived.
And so each time there is a dropping into being, which is the
instantaneous cutting off of thinking
we find even without the commentary life still is,
it's still here.
And what we might come to appreciate is 'I am here,'
'I am intrinsically required in order for the experience from this perspective to be here.
And
if we touch into that part of ourselves
we realize that the thinking mind
is essentially an uncomfortableness with ourselves.
And this other gear is already comfortable with what is.
So that shift starts to have more and more weight once this is realized.
The more this is realized that there are two different places to live life from
the more easily the 'Stop' will arise.
'Stop' is just the reminder, the realization
that that thinking is not optimal.
And so the 'Stop' is a reminder to come back into being.
Because the thinking is based on deeply ingrained beliefs that are assumed to be true,
e.g. the belief that in order for everything to be ok, life needs to look a certain way;
deeply ingrained and believed to be truth.
Then it makes sense that the thinking mind is going to function in such a way that
it's strategizing in order to achieve a particular outcome
that is believed to be what will bring about happiness.
So once that is in place it makes sense that the thinking is going to keep happening.
So the remembering that that thinking is actually not at all as valuable,
not at all based in truth as it is believed to be,
cuts it off and we drop into being.
It means that even mid-sentence - when the thought is half-way through completion -
the thought that says 'Stop'
means that it becomes valid to not even need to complete the strategy, complete the thought.
It means the thought coming up that says 'Stop, this thinking is not valuable'
can bring us back into being instantaneously.
But because the deeply ingrained belief is exactly that:
it's deeply ingrained and believed to be true,
we can drop into being
and realize that
even without things being the way I imagine they should be
I AM,
that I exist.
And there is something very
unique and special about the core of the human existence.
Primarily that that is complete and self-fulfilling, self-contenting.
So we drop into being and everything is seem to be complete, however
the deeply ingrained beliefs haven't been completely uprooted, just because there had been cut off in that moment.
So they have a power to essentially make us forget our being,
pull us back onto this other highway.
And each time we get pulled onto the other highway
thinking that what we are doing is useful for our happiness ...
After all we might realize
'Oh no this is the uncomfortablenss, this movement of mind
that is telling me that I need life to look a certain way in order for me to be complete'
that is the opposite of what I am really looking for,
the opposite of peace of mind, the opposite of happiness for the human being.
So then a thought might come up 'Stop'
and we drop into being again.
So this dropping in is instant.
Yet we find ourselves in a process of being dragged back,
but each time we come back, remember
that's another reinforcement that what I really am is here right now and complete.
And each time we remember that and get experiential feedback of that
then
the process is a process of finding ourselves able to rest in being for longer,
finding ourselves remembering more frequently that there is this other place to live life from.
Until one day being dragged back into suffering becomes so short-lived,
so irregular that we realize that this is my home.