One of Mind

The mind fabricates meaning onto everything. What if everything is really nothing, a projection of your mind where meanings are imposed upon what is not there? That would mean that you only see what you have judged it to be, a label of a nonexistent thing.

In Buddhism, the mind is the Buddha, and a mind free of projections is the Buddha. An essential part in discovering the true nature of the mind is to cease labeling things. Be it an inanimate object or a person, situation, or abstract idea, the labeling of it obscures the true nature of whatever is perceived. It has arisen within the mind of the Buddha. And in reality it does not exist apart from the mind. Were you to cease labeling it, it would disappear and reveal its true nature.

Everything has the “one taste” of divine mind. It is not apart from the substance, the mind, wherein it arose. To look at an object and have no thoughts about it is to be Zen. The mind is completely still and the gaze is not arrested or halted on what is not there. Bodhidharma looked straight into a wall for nine years. He surely did not analyze the contours of the wall or its details. He looked straight through it, because it was not really there.

The same holds true of every object in the world, including our body and its five senses with the sixth sense of thought. They do not really exist. They are only a projection of the mind, made true to the beholder because it is invested with belief. Were you to withdraw all meaning that you have given it, it would be seen as nothing and the mind wherein it arose would be released.

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

One of Mind

It is essential to go beyond the thinking mind in meditation. Yet if we stop our thoughts by suppressing them, we are doing so only superficially. Any form of practice or effort induces merely a temporary solution to a persistent problem. We want to be free from problems permanently, and all problems are thinking problems. That is because life is thought. Perception is projection of the mind. A mind free of projections is the Buddha.

So how can I be free of thoughts permanently? Is there a solution to all of my problems that is not just another method or spiritual practice that promises much but delivers little? See for yourself. If you relax your mind and allow whatever thoughts and feelings arise, yet you do not grasp at them, merely let them be, they will self-liberate.

You don’t have to do anything. You just need to not grasp. This is truly the most relaxing thing in existence, because grasping is a form of strain and contraction of the spacious nature of our limitless mind. It is only our habitual pattern of clinging that makes grasping seem natural. It is really the opposite. Clinging to thoughts is wholly unnatural.

The question may arise: What should I do? Don’t I need to practice? Yes, you do. You need to practice all the time. But it is not a practice in the form of a method or meditation. It is a non-practice, a non-meditation of merely resting beyond conceptual contractions. The unconscious mind will untangle itself without our interference, and we will be intuitively guided on our most direct course to harmony and liberation from limitations.

In summary: whatever arises, don’t grasp at it.

1 month ago | [YT] | 1

One of Mind

The mind free of thoughts is awakening. Yet it can seem like an impossible task to stop thinking. The awesome news is that it is not necessary to stop any thoughts. The one essential change is to cease grasping whatever may arise within the mind. If a thought or feeling arises and we neither cling to it nor reject it, it will self-liberate without our attention even touching it. This opens a wide, immediate path to the mind itself, free of thought.

The mind is naturally free, and thoughts naturally liberate themselves if we do not grasp them. Now, the focus of our existence can rest in the is-ness of what is, the very substance of our being, instead of being carried away by conditioning. It is such a peaceful and natural state of ease that the practice itself may feel like the end goal we sought: freedom from problems, deep peace, and abiding contentment.

But the good news does not end here. Amazing! The nature of the mind, wherein every thought and phenomenon arises, is the mind of God. It is limitless, with no end to its peaceful, exquisite unfolding. All phenomena, perceptions, and conceptual elaborations, when left alone, take on the substance of this mind. Like waves rising from a limitless ocean, they arise and fall, leaving only the ocean. Yet at no point are we carried away by them. As we sink into the all-encompassing silence beneath the surface of thoughts, nothing can move us from its spacious peace.

Serenity is here. Wide open. Right in front of us. It is us. It is you.

A thought-free mind containing all of existence, with all its thoughts and phenomena, yet completely independent of them. Nothing is as valuable as this. The more we value it, the fewer obscurations arise. The more certain we are of the self-liberating nature of thoughts, the more we can relax into its effortless ease. We can finally breathe, be at peace, and cease all forms of meditation. The time of enjoyment has arrived. And the expansion is endless.

Yet life continues. The journey of awakening, free from time and space, includes every aspect of life. Every relationship, every conditioning, all our dreams and aspirations arise within this limitless mind. To have faith that this non-conceptual mind, the mind of God, will unfold our future for our highest good is where the true test of faith arises. Is there any authority higher than the thought-free state of mind? Is there anything you value more than this? Are you still carried away by reactive emotional patterns in certain situations?

1 month ago | [YT] | 1