Our mind, it has no locus of true and authentic pleasure
It’s role is to mitigate and resolve present moment suffering
And to try to imagine a world where this suffering does not exist.

One
Those in the inner circle know this:

That life is best known not through the mind,
but through direct experience.
Which means, we do not grip for an outcome
And instead we open, let things unfold, and release.

This is the inner circle and the orientation of experience

It is the realm of revelation
It’s where we find source in all it’s beauty
And where we get to meet the miracle of life itself.

Two

When our experience is pleasurable,
Our movements, their nature is expression There is no goal to them but authenticity And this, we call art, dance or play

When instead of pleasure, our experience turns discomfort,
Instead of expression, we turn ourselves, our movements, into action. Now our goal is to make the experience different
We are compelled, and so we desire change.

In action we set joy aside, and exchange it for the experience of effort. The inner circle becomes then darkened
And will power is declared the new master and king.

Contemplative ShortsTM

This is the nature of the orientation that is action

A realm governed by overcome and challenge The present moment looses its lure and luster Fundamentally, everything becomes not ok!

Three

To really open into pleasure is high mastery
It’s a dive below the mind
Into deep currents of subjectivity and surrender.

Instead we get enchanted by presentations of pleasure Trying to predict what the right circumstance is
That will allow us to have the experience that we seek.

Our dream is to be able to guarantee ourselves a good experience, One that can free us form our mitigating efforts
And one that will allow us to rest within

This is the nature of the orientation that is circumstance

We try to bind our circumstance to our sought after experience
An attempt to stop the ever changing subjective nature of experience A life of checking all the boxes, seeking to acquire a feeling state One that comes with a lifetime warranty.

The experience of a thing is always so much bigger than the words that describe it.

If I give you the word ‘water’ don’t expect it to quench your thirst. Also know that the word apple will always be much smaller than the sweetness that comes with sinking your teeth into it, and actually taking a bite.

We talk words but forget that what’s important is the experience that stands behind them. So we come to understand many things, but are oblivious of how very little we intimately know.

I like it that you understand many things because that means that you are aware of their existence, but ultimately I would like you to also take the time to know things, which means that you have lived them, and that they now live in you, so you can share them with others.

The one we call the mystic is the one who tries to share with you this big experience he is living. He wants you to understand that this experience is available to you, and that it’s really close, and in fact just around the corner. So you get excited to have some greater experience, but he’s just trying to tell you that this experience is you.

The path of wisdom is the one that takes you from the surface of your own ocean, all the way to its inconceivable depth. It takes you from attempting to grasp this enormity, to the miracle that is the dance of life itself.

The invitation for you is to pay less attention to the words, and more attention to their underlying meaning. To make it less about the symbols on paper, and more about how these pebbles touch your inner somatic space.

If you have never had the experience of ever being without money, then you might want to consider that the word ‘poor’ for you remains in the realm of the abstract. And so is it ok for you to let your guard down and be humbled, and admit that you understand, but that you are sorry but you do not actually know.

Let us try together, to tease apart the difference between understanding, knowing, and not knowing.

Maybe after that we can take the word ‘Self’, and see if we want to dive into its many layers. See if we are willing to gain a knowledge that only comes from letting ourselves naturally open up and unfold.

When I was a child, in school,
 the question, Its meaning,
was to present the correct answer.

Was the question my friend ? No 
Instead, it was something to overcome 
or all together, something to avoid.

To be surrounded by established answers
It leaves us very little room to experience and discover
And then instead of a living question
It becomes about adhering to the right answer
Or in other words, a question about how we can best conform.

It’s a wonderful thing to bring questions back to life
which is really more about the process of discovery, and less about the answer we present.

For me “Who am I?” was the gift that provided no clear answer
And it helped me wake up something that since childhood, was dormant and asleep.

Today, and perhaps not surprising, I find myself more curious that ever.
How to wake up the world in front of me, that is so outwardly looking and internally so very much asleep.

But since it’s about the question and since there is no presumed correct answer
Then all we have left is a dialogue between us, and a path we walk on, that we lay together, brick by brick.

Can you watch as this all arises? Can you see THIS?
Truly allow each wave to rise and fall and merge again into the vast ocean. Look. Each arising is calling you home.

Can you be as you are? Can you sit with you for a while? Have you contacted You?
Not the you you’ve conditioned yourself to be, but the you that is everywhere and nowhere at all, the you that is both everything and nothing. Be. That is home.

Can we walk each other home, only to laugh as we realize we never left? Can we click our heels together and feel the truth in, “there’s no place like home”?

Home is This.

And yet we leave trails of reminders to find our way - silence, stillness, a bird call, a babbling stream, our beloveds embrace, an infinite sky... everywhere you go my song is there calling you home, let’s walk awhile, get lost and pretend to find it all over again my love.

Awakedness is awakened from “me” and there is no difference between them.  

To be awake is to realize the game that is being played.  

To be awake is to re-member.  

To be awake to re-cognize who/what you really are.  

And to see that the persona is just that which you pretend to be.  

You forgot who you are in order to experience who you are and from that experience you create.  

You delight in all the forms of you.  

You are in joy in this life.  

You love yourself here.

In I AM-ness there are no dimensions - there are none and yet there are all.  

You contain the multitudes.  

I AM pours forth all creations in order to know itself.  What a gift of love!  Re-member, realize you are whole in this holy moment.  

This experience is so rich, so overflowing with life, so abundant with goodness and gratitude.  What joy!  What Joy!  

To know that I AM.  And what is that but Life Awake.  Life lifing.  How glorious!  

No matter where I AM, there I AM!  

A simple shift in perception and there it is.  

This is.  I AM!  That’s all.  

The Veil of Desire

In my thinking hunger is about food.
In my experience hunger is about discomfort

In my thinking hunger is about wanting
In my experience hunger is about not wanting

If you only knew in my thinking,
then you might say that hunger makes me move towards something I want.
But if you only knew me in my experience,
then you might say that hunger makes me move away from a sensation that I don’t want.

The thinking
it’s the orientation of the above,
and the experience
it’s the orientation of the below. 
and between them there is a veil, 
The veil of desire.

To awaken is to begin to consider the above as well as the below.

And this is why desire is so tricky, because when we are asleep, we are enchanted by the thinking in the above, and then it can seem like we are moving towards something, but below where it counts, we are actually moving away.

One time someone asked me why that very wealthy person is never satisfied. I told them, that you never know, he might have spent his whole life thinking that he is moving towards, not knowing that underneath, in the experience, he was moving away. And if you spend your whole life running away, is it really a surprise that satisfaction never arrives.

The Life Inside

When they tell you to stop and be still
It’s not about not moving
It’s about giving you the chance to recognize something,
that somehow has escaped your attention.
An aspect of you that seems to have gone unnoticed.

I know you can pay attention to many things.
and the world, it wants you to pay attention to a lot of things. 
But to yourself,
Have you had an opportunity to pay attention to that ?

You see, attention is like a reservoir
And when you pay attention to the many things 
That’s when it drains
But when you pay attention to yourself
That’s when it gets replenished

It’s easy for me to tell you about the life divine 
But if you don’t know me
Then this means that your reservoir is low 
That you can’t pay attention to yourself
That you have lost yourself in the ten thousand things

All I ever do is try to point you back to yourself 
Because you, yourself is where it’s at
You yourself is where you find life

Out there, it’s what we call your life story
But life itself
That’s inside, and that is a much bigger story 
then the one you are clearly enchanted with.