Re: The Thinking Mind & Shattered Hopes

[Guest guest]

Hi ~

Dear Andy,

What is your point?

*****Good question! :-))) I think what was written was, itself, the

point. As Beckett once wrote in response to a critic who

requested that explain the meaning of a play he had written: " We have

no elucidations to offer of mysteries that are all of their own

making. "

> The entire search for 'enlightenment' is a futile

> journey to a never-never-land

Are you saying that there is no path to 'enlightement'?

*****Yes. This, right here, right now, whatever IS,

is 'enlightenment' (as I understand it). I am aware that there are

those who will disagree, who see it as some uber-state of perpetual

bliss and ecstasy. OK. That is how they see it. I have no wish to

argue or debate the issue.

> Since there really aren't any problems (in this

> arena), there can be no solutions.

....

> Where you are, at any moment, is " it " -

> regardless of whether the " it " is joy or grief,

> happiness or sorry, serenity or grief. The

> willingness to not move from exactly where one

> is, regardless of how it feels, is the beginning

> of enlightenment.

Or that we are already were we want to get?

*****Yes. Eggs-actly. ;-))

> the thinking mind is concerned with assuring that

> the ego, the " me " will survive. And as such it

> creates problems where there are none.

....

> Another part of the myth is that " you " can do

> something (meditate, pray, chant, do The Work) to

> achieve this 'enlightenment.'

Well - aren't these techniques to 'see' the ego?

And to 'love what is'? Isn't it about

'realization'? To learn, that all we are looking

for is already there.

*****Anything one " does " only enhances the notion that there is a

doer present who can " achieve " something. As you point out so

sagely, what we are looking for is already there/here. Perhaps this

may become more clear by doing nothing at all.

We are on the search for a goal we do not understand

with our mind. All we want to do is to

come home. At the end of our path we may realize

that we have never left.

*****This accords with the belief system that I hold (or that holds

me; whatever!). :-))))

> The recognition that you didn't cause the whole

> catastrophe

What about the recognition that there is no catas-

trophe?

*****Yes, right. The catastrophe exists only in thought, where all

the horrors reside.

....

> You are not dreaming -- you are the dream.

> Anything else just perpetuates the story.

So we are to dismiss the story?

*****Dismiss or accept. Do what you are led to do. I have no

preference for how it is taken by anyone other than myself.

Thanks for writing, .