True Meditation   Adyashanti:

True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness.

True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception. When you first start to meditate, you notice that awareness is always focused on some object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

In true meditation all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness (consciousness) is the source in which all objects arise and subside.

As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.

Silence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness and awareness are not states and can never be perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes.

As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications. It returns to its natural non-state of Presence.

The simple yet profound question "Who Am I?" can then reveal one's self not to be the endless tyranny of the ego-personality, but objectless Freedom of Being -- Primordial Consciousness in which all states and all objects come and go as manifestations of the Eternal Unborn Self that YOU ARE.

From Adya website  © 1999 Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

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….Allow all contents to be as they are.  All you need to do is watch and listen.  Listen, watch, see what happens.  Notice that the watching, the awareness is actually quite fluid.  It does not often stay in one place very long.  It moves around.  So there is nothing to do: nothing extra to do other than what is already naturally happening every moment: that is, consciousness is being aware of everything.  It may be aware of contents, of space, of openness, of presence: it may notice itself.   When we let go of control, let awareness go where it wants to go, then we relax.  No effort to sustain anything. …

….Simply by listening there is a sense of spaciousness: more room between thoughts, between feelings, more sense of openness.  Just notice this.  Awareness starts to stop its fixation on objects, on contents, on things.  It begins to rest in its natural state.  Contents begin to arise within a sense of great spaciousness or openness.  Let your body, your being, feel what that openness is like.  Feel what it feels like.  There is a completely uncontrived stillness in that awareness.  It is the nature of awareness itself to be open, silent.

…In the sense of openness there is awareness, as if the space itself is aware, highly awake. and there is no separation of inside and outside.  Awareness doesn’t belong to any being.  It doesn’t originate at any particular point.  It is already in a deep state of profound listening.  That awareness of being is not judging, just being itself, aware.                

Adyashanti   2007 retreat excerpts

FROM A TAPE OF TICH NHAT HANH:  living Vietnamese Zen master

[Comments on affirmations to accompany breathing]

Breathing in, I have arrived. Breathing out: I am home
In the here,  In the now //   I am stable, I am free//   In the infinite I dwell, In the Budha nature I dwell. 

MINDFULNESS meditation with breathing: putting your attention on the breathing, and with the in: “I have arrived”; with the out: “ I am home.”If we practice looking deeply we see that we have all the conditions for happiness right here and now.  “I have arrived, I am home.”  Means I have stopped running, I can touch happiness right now.  I want to make the present moment my true home. 

According to the Buddha’s teaching there is only one moment for us to be alive: the present moment.  This is the only moment where we can be deeply alive.  So our home is “in the here and in the now.”  It is not hard to understand, but needs some practice.  Using mindful breathing we can bring our mind back to the present moment.  We can touch the wonders of life in the present moment.  We can touch joy and peace.  We see things more deeply.    Buddhist meditation uses: stopping, calming and deep looking. 

At first we may think there is only pain and suffering in the moment.  But there is something else: stability, joy, peace and freedom are also there.  [contents are there, and also consciousness is there.]  The practice is to bring to us the energy of peace, stability, and freedom.   When we touch the present moment, we are touching the water.  We are touching the dimension of freedom, stability, joy.  We are touching Nirvana. 

If you come to the present moment with the energy of mindfulness you will not be afraid to encounter your pain, your sorrow, your fear.  The secret of your success is the energy of mindfulness, because with this you are not afraid to go home and meet what is there. Mindfulness is the capacity to be aware of what is going on.  The capacity to be here, really.  My definition of mindfulness is: to be there: to produce your true presence.

There is an Island of peace in each of us.  We can touch that island with the energy of mindfulness. Try to be present in this island, or to bring presence to this island. Touch the Buddha land with the energy of mindfulness. This Buddha land is not elsewhere but right here.  Right there in the world of birth and death is the world of no-birth and no-death. 

Imagine the waves on the ocean.  The wave can lead the life of a wave, or the wave can life the life of the ocean.  If the wave bends down and touches its true home as water, all fear will end. 

Living in the moment, we transcend time.  We find the joy and peace in the present moment.

Deep looking into the nature of our sorrow and pain, we come to know how to transform them.  Looking into our pain and suffering we will touch peace.  Looking deeply, we  see the world as inter-being.  A flower is made up of non-flower elements which are present right now with the flower.  The sunshine and rain are here.  The decay of the flower is here.

If you love and care for someone--to care you have to be there .  The person you love needs your true presence.  To be there is to produce your true presence.

You have to be present for yourself also.  You always try to run away from yourself--you have to offer yourself your true presence. 
 
And there is a second set:   [see Present Moment, Wonderful Moment]
Breathing in I know I’m breathing in.  Breathing out, I know I breathe out
As the in breath grows deep, the out-breath grows slow
Breathing in makes me calm, Breathing out brings me ease.
With the in-breath I smile, with the out-breath I release.
Breathing in there is only the present moment, Breathing out it is as it is.

And simpler:  Breathe in YES.  Breathe out THANK YOU

Robert Adams: Breathe in I : Breathe out AM

From Tarthang Tulku  Openness Mind: Meditation and “Awareness”

Meditation is a way of opening our lives to the richness of experience… not limited to certain times and places. …  In this kind of meditation we learn to embrace and learn from whatever we experience.

This all-embracing form of meditation, however, is not as easy as it sounds, for it entails mindfulness in all we do.   We cultivate this awareness in every aspect of our lives… 2

By learning how to be totally satisfied every moment, our time will never be wasted. 6
"Inherent in the realization that our everyday world is actually always changing is the realization of intrinsic awareness"

MEDITATION 1:
Visualize a vast open space, by thinking of all external objects as well as our bodies as being part of this space, all within the immediate moment.  Finally, no barriers remain.  Only a higher awareness alive and healing which gives warmth and nourishment. 

MEDITATION 2:
Let the body and breath be an anchor for the  meditation.  Open all your cells, even all the molecules, that make up your body, unfolding like petals.  Open more that your heart.  Open your entire body, every atom of it.  Once you touch your inner nature this way, everything opens up.  Energy flows from this openness. 

MEDITATION 3: AWARE OF AWARENESS
Our natural state of being is awareness: an awareness which is not of anything but which is an all-encompassing state of pure experience.  …  This awareness is accessible to all who search for it: it can always be reached by delving into the nature of experience. 

As we develop our meditation, gradually our awareness increases.  The mind naturally clears of confusions and dissatisfactions, and we touch upon a meditative clarity, an awareness which is there no matter where our thoughts go, no matter what occurs. 
Our usually idea of awareness, however, is bound to an association with objects.  The ordinary tendency of the mind is to look ahead, anticipate… one dimensional… conditioned. 

Only with a quiet mind, an aware mind, can we see these patterns at work and stop them.
There are several exercises that will aid us increasing awareness.  (but remember, they are only exercises…) 

MEDITATION 4:
LET IT BE: Be very still and relaxed, and do not try to do anything.  Let everything—thoughts, feelings, and concepts—go through your mind unheeded.  Do not grasp at them as they come and go or try to manipulate them… let meditation do itself.

Each moment, the entire field of experience is present to an ocean of non-objective open awareness.  let the thoughts be, and be aware of the space around them.  Be aware that there is awareness. do not try to direct the awareness to or away from any thoughts, do not attend to the content either, but just notice.  Awareness will come of itself: just stop holding on, stop grasping.  Just let everything be.  Accept all, but keep your mind open to what is not manifesting.

After we learn to let thoughts slip by, the thoughts will slow down, and nearly disappear.  Then, behind the flow of thoughts you will sense a feeling which is the foundation of meditation.  When you contact this quite place behind your inner dialogues, let your awareness of it grow stronger. You can then simply rest in the silence.  For in that silence there is nothing to do, there is no reason to produce anything or to stop anything. 
 
MEDITATION 5: 
THOUGHTS: With concentration we can move very deeply into thought, and we can move through thoughts.  We can become aware of the space between thoughts, and around thoughts.   “Within the space between thoughts we see that the mind is space, it is transparent, formless.  We see that our thoughts too are open and without form.  … In the space between thoughts is only the quality of pure awareness… vast, open, holding on to nothing, yet permeating everything.  ….  Learn to keep our awareness in the moment and just be, without creating any separation between self and thoughts. This is the way to cut through…”  p. 107

Whenever a thought arises, we usually feel the need to label and identify it.  Try to stop this process…
Simply watch the flow of mental images pass through the mind.  As past and future image-projections pass by, cut between them, not by looking at the thoughts and image, but by looking at “who” is watching the thoughts.  Try to develop a feeling for the thoughts watching the “watcher.”
Observing the mind carefully shows that the mind manifests our objects of experience directly.  Subject and object occur in the mind simultaneously, and both are manifestation of the mind.  There is no position to stand on, nothing to investigate.
In the moment of pure awareness beyond dualism, there is no longer division into subject and object; there can be no enemy; there can be nothing to fear. 117-119

 “When images come into your mind, bypass them.  Stay with the energy, the seeingness quality of the thought itself.  Gradually feel an opening which is part of the thought, an empty place.  See or feel this openness and expand on it. In this seeing quality it is also important to listen…”
Every single thought has a nucleus of energy, a center of power and awareness that we can easily find once we put aside the ideas of doing or achieving. …  this is being.  Being needs no improvements; it needs no doing or moving. 

First find the small gaps, the little points of entry you will learn to recognize.  Then make the gapes bigger until they expand into the whole. 
That is the meditation practice: expanding, contracting and expanding again this state of awareness.
This pristine quality of awareness belongs to nothing whatsoever, it is a new dimension.  [According to Longchenpa it is open, luminous, spontaneous presence, ineffable.]   120-122

Urgyen Tulku: from As It Is

Do not divide your practice, making one practice for meditation and the other for post-meditation.  Here, meditation lasts up until one is distracted from awareness, and then turns into post-meditation.  The moment you remember to recognize, you see immediately how mind essence is.  … It does not make any difference if you recognize while you are standing or sitting or eating..  The practice, as I state over and over, is short moments repeated many times… Don’t cover this present wakefulness up with another thought. Do not reconnect anything to the present wakefulness.  Do not accept or reject. Do not affirm or deny.  Remain without holding anything—that is called mind essence. 
Don’t expect anything spectacular.  Honestly, there is nothing more amazing than this recognition of awareness in which no thought can remain.
 
In the meantime, you will be distracted when you go about your affairs—there is no way around this. …  A thought is simply the extroverted expression of knowing, of awareness.  In the moment of recognizing the nature of what thinks, there is no way for this expression, the thought, to remain. 
We need the watchman named mindfulness, the guard who is on the lookout for when we get carried away in mindlessness. 

ECKHART TOLLE:

[NYC.  OCTOBER 2007]
If a mad person recognizes their madness then he or she is no longer mad….the truly mad person has no idea they are mad.  The ability arises to be aware of what your mind is doing: and that is the beginning of sanity.  Or rather a deeper dimension of consciousness arising that has nothing to do with the conditioned stream of thinking.  Aligned with the deeper presence, that’s a word we could use to describe the consciousness that is deeper than the conditioned stream of thinking. 

For many people it begins with repetitive and dysfunctional negative thoughts.  Recurring thoughts.  Thoughts that have made them miserable.  Because they didn’t know that they were just thoughts.  They were so identified with the thought that there was no space. The thought was considered to be absolute reality.  To you the thought is the reality.

The beginning of awakening for many people is recognition that this is the kind of thought that I tend to think, or that tends to arise in my mind.  Then you suddenly realize: it’s a thought, no more than that.  And you begin to no longer believe every thought that comes, every judgment, every interpretation about yourself, what you are telling yourself about your life.  The awakening process is a gradual dis-identification from the stream of thinking.  Where you become aware, for example, that there is the thinking in your mind.   A gradual dis-identification where you are able to see what your mind is doing. 

When you are no longer identified the thoughts gradually lose their power over you.  Then You stop telling yourself who you think you are.  When you can see a thought: who are you?  You are not the thought any more: you are the presence behind the thought.   You are now present, and within the presence, there may still be certain mind activity, but you are not imprisoned in it any more, it is not overpowering you any more, no longer a self in it, the sense of self is no longer in the movement of thought.  Which means your entire personal history is not really relevant to the sense of who you are.  Yes you still remember, what happened in the year so and so, what he did, she did. . But you no longer believe in the story, he did this to me, I’ll never forgive him for the dreadful things he did… you recognize it as a story, recognize the addiction behind it, because it keeps the ego going… 

And you become something that is deeper than the movement of thought.  It is not that you become it: you realize that has always been there. You realize that was totally one could say covered up.  Or a better way to say it, you realize that thought had been absorbing your entire attention into itself, your entire consciousness was consumed by thinking. 

And then suddenly the consciousness that you are, separates itself from the form of thinking.  Every thought is like a little entity.  Every thought that arises is an energy form. …you were completely identified with the arising forms of thinking, identified with form.  Then something separates and there is just a sense of pure presence. The present moment is the access point into that state of consciousness. And the present moment is also the exit point out of the dysfunctional state of consciousness which lives and thrives on time, and of course identification with thinking.  So the present moment is the way out of the egoic pseudo self and it is the way into the dimension where you recognize yourself as simply a timeless presence.

The ability then arises in you to be conscious without having to think all the time.  You can look at something and be the conscious presence, the spacious--another helpful word as a pointer; You become the space for the perception.  For example: here the room you’re perceiving through sense perception, the voice of the speaker, the colors of the stage, the periphery of the attention, you feel your body on the chair, this is all what is being perceived at this moment, and it does not need to be judged or interpreted,  It is what it is, and you are the space for it.  You are the space for whatever is at this moment; internally or externally.  Whatever arises, you are the consciousness, the space for that. You are the light in which these things arise. But you don’t have a form.  This is why we call it space. 
Everybody has a sense of, a deep sense of I: somewhere there is an identity where you feel there is something very precious. Now, for people identified with the mind, this precious beingness, lets put it like that, this precious feeling of simple feeling of aliveness, of being-ness, gets mixed up with form, mixed up with a story. This is the being of me.  Then the being gets diluted, because it flows into every thought form, there is a self in every thought.  Then you can only perceive yourself through a form.  You think: this is me, this story is me, this opinion of myself is me, what other people tell me about myself is me, other people’s opinion of me is me.
 
The separation happens here of form and something that is deeper than form, and that is the essence of who you are in its pure I am-ness, it's pure being-ness.  Where you can no longer say I am this or that.  As you sit here you can immediately sense the presence that is the essence of who you are.  Yes a personal  history still exists in this space.  But you are not that, you are the space, you are the presence, you are the consciousness that is timeless and formless. And whenever the mind subsides there is suddenly a space, and you haven’t gone to sleep: you are awake. There is an alertness in that space.  There is a stillness; stillness is inseparable from that.  Stillness is to be alert, to be awake, but not thinking..  So you encounter increasingly the dimension of inner space. 

So we have the two dimensions.  You can see the two dimensions of the world when you look into space at night, when the sky is clear. What do you see: basically, stars and space.  In other words you see things and no thing ness. All things existing in the space, the vastness of no thingness of the space itself.  I am using that analogy to describe a reality within yourself. 

Now most humans in their normal dysfunctional state have forgotten, no longer know, the dimension within them that is formless. They don’t know themselves as the underlying presence, they only know themselves as the form, the continuously changing form, and therefore the form that never satisfies for long, the form that always leads to unease, I’m not enough.  All the forms continuously-- thoughts, objects-- all forms continuously change.  When your entire sense of who you are is bound up with form, your life is not satisfying, it cannot be, it is frustrating.  There is always some fear, unhappiness, anxiety.  There is something missing, yes, but you can never find it where you look for it. Because when you look for what’s missing in the future, you look for some form that you want to find: and say ah this is what was missing.: this is the object consciousness which is the thinking mind, the object consciousness looks for objects;

This moment always appears in front of you, and it assumes a certain form.  A room with people in it.  Then you walk away, and suddenly this moment assumes a different form:  a street with cars.  Here you are a space for this, and there you were a space for that.   ..   so it is continuously the present moment, only what appears in it changes.  So if it is continuously the present moment, what does that mean?  The present moment is one with the space that is consciousness itself and that is who you are beyond time, beyond form.  And what is, is whatever form this moment takes. 

For everything else you need time.  And that’s not a problem. But for being yourself, for encountering life beyond form, you don’t need time.  In fact time is the one obstacle.  It is here and now.  To have continuous access you need to come to a relationship with the present moment that is FRIENDLY.  And the ego of course can’t do this. You need to see that this is all there ever is, so you might as well make friends with the present moment, because there’s never anything else.  If you are not friendly with the present moment, in whatever form, that means you are hostile to life, because life is always now. 

If your basic state of consciousness is hostility to now, or reducing the now to the means to an end, this moment is only important because it enables me to get to the next:  and that is how the mind works.  If the present moment is at best a stepping stone to the next moment, then you do the same with human beings is you reduce everyone to a means to an end.  This is how the ego relates to other people, and it uses other people. So relationships are dis-functional.  Because one ego wants to use the other ego.  Can you embrace the now, No matter what form it takes, and say, I might as well be friendly with this, because this is all there ever is.  It’s called life.  This moment is life.  Even if it is raining: this moment is life in form.  If you accept that, you are aligned internally: You don’t say: I don’t agree with this moment, if I were in control, this moment would be different… 

So the ego is completely out of alignment with the now.  To enter into alignment with now, you say this is as it is, then immediately something opens up… deeper than the form of this moment: that is the inner space:  by accepting the form of the present moment you become what you already are: what you already are timelessly.  Then the dimension of space opens up and you feel there’s something here that is actually not affected by what happens to be happening here, or even here in the head, thought, or in the body as an emotion. 

There is Something vaster, far deeper than anything that could happen in the world of form, but you can only be permanently in touch with that if you don’t make the world into some kind of enemy, obstacle, something undesirable.  So you have to become friendly to the forms of the present moment so you can have access to what is beyond form. That is who you are beyond your personal history. The eternal presence, the eternal timeless space for the world.  Then you can for the first time really enjoy the world. You can walk around and say: wow, look at the movement, people walking around.  You are not interpreting you just enjoy the movement of form. Then you are at peace with everyone else walking around.  and you say: this is good.  Life is good. 

And action can arise if needed.  It arises from that vaster space: and that vaster space is the true intelligence.  Truly formless.  That is where wisdom arises. Where realization arises. Where insights arise. Out of that space.  The space of yourself. The space of now.  That is the secret of human life.  And that’s the liberation from being trapped in the world, being trapped in your mind, trapped in time.  It doesn’t mean world and mind and time won’t go on.  And yet you are beyond.  And you can participate.  And be beyond.  And participate.

ECKHART TOLLE: SEPT 2001 OMEGA [Additions from Stillness Speaks ]

TIME
It took aeons to get conditioned.  How long does it take to get unconditioned?  We are talking about knowing yourself, being yourself, knowing the essence of who you are.  What does it take to be who you really are?   One view is that it takes much time to undo the knots.  Another view is that the timeless is immediately present and available from any thought moment.  The essence of the spiritual teaching is that you don’t need more time to become free of thousands of years of human conditioning.  To become free of time you do not need more time. 

No one really has that much time: it is an illusion.  It is over fairly quickly.  Time cannot help you to find your essence, the timeless essence that you are.  It is only when you step out of time that the essence is suddenly there.  How do you step out of time? You say yes to this moment.  That is surrender to life.  You say yes to the form that this moment takes, as a situation, event or person, a deep yes to the form that this moment takes, which changes continuously.   This moment  now is this gathering, and this afternoon it will still be this moment, you may be sitting in a car or plane, that is the form that this moment takes then, but it is the same now. 

Probably you have gone through many changes in your life.  Some people almost feel like they are going through different incarnations.  This is true, and yet underneath all that there is a deep sense of being-ness when you were a 6 year old child, and when you are 85: the beingness to whom all this happens.  Different incarnations happen, but they happen in this field of being which is the most fundamental sense of I-Am, of identity.  That is the one reality in one’s sense of identity is this deep sense of being.  That is the timeless being itself.  

The world becomes satisfying when you don’t expect it to satisfy you anymore.  And this moment becomes satisfying, because the illusion that at some time in the future it will satisfy goes away.  Suddenly you discover something long forgotten: the now.  The now had been a means to an end.  You see that almost everything you did was a means to an end.  You become aware of the now as it is, not in the service of a mentally projected self.  You discover how liberating it is to discover the now.  Miraculous.  Everything is truly miraculous.  This is truly awakening.  And you awaken into now

PRESENT/NOW
Most people confuse the Now with what happens in the Now, but that’s not what it is.  The Now is deeper than what happens in it.  It is the space in which it happens.   So do not confuse the content of this moment with the Now.  The Now is deeper than any content that arises in it.    ET Stillness Speaks

You are not here to achieve anything.  You are simply here to learn how to be aligned with now. 
We are here to step out of identification, out of seeking a self, of continuing in the illusion that there is a sense of self, a me, a true identity in the continuous flux of the mental-emotional structures--which are energy movements of form.  There is nothing wrong with them, but most people live completely identified with that movement.  And so liberation means liberation from that: from being trapped with your sense of self in that.  So it is a stepping back and out: and the moment you step back from thought and emotional flux, you become present.  The portal into that state that steps back is the present moment.  And then you can watch the flux, you don’t believe in it completely any more.  Especially when it tells you something about yourself or other people, or situations.  Whatever it says it may have a relative truth, but it is a perspective.  There is no wisdom in there.  Knowledge, yes, conditioned knowledge, but not wisdom.  It is a perspective. Not truth. 

Some of your life situations may be good right now, and others at a state of loss, and called not good.  It doesn’t matter where your life situations are right now, as they are going to change anyway.  Know the difference between the phenomenal reality of your life and a deeper reality that is deeper than the world of phenomena arising.  When you step back from thought into a state of alert alive presence, that’s life.  And it has no form.  When I speak about it, it has form.  It is the formless life. 

What is the present moment?  What is that?  In any experience you have, the one factor that remains constant, is the consciousness or the being, the field in which or out of which the experience arises.  The underlying field of consciousness unconditioned , pure being, deep stillness, aliveness.  Nothingness from the point of view of mind, and yet the fullness of life itself.  All phenomena come out of that.  So the now is really consciousness itself, before something comes out of it.  The timeless factor in every experience is consciousness, and it is you in the deepest sense. 

It is useful to think you can choose to be present, but you don’t really have the ability to choose to be present.  It is really the present choosing to emerge or arise.   You are only providing the space for it. 

AWARENESS/STILLNESS;
Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. P. 3  Stillness Speaks [more in booklet]

I am telling you now the secret of life; you still have to use it…  In any experience there are things arising: inner thoughts feelings, emotions and outer people places events.  You give attention, not resisting: saying yes to the moment.  But then, there is more.  You are aware of attention itself in which the content arises: alive stillness, continuously there.  And you stop seeking yourself in the even, circumstance, content.  You are the underlying field (awareness, stillness, life, intelligence.)  So now you know yourself, you are yourself. 

When the mind is still, who is perceiving?  One could say there is no one, no person,  perceiving, there is no one judging, there is no labeling.  There is an energy.  Gradually you know yourself as that, not as the person, as the consciousness itself.  And when you look at the world as consciousness, you see incredible beauty everywhere, and wherever you look, there is a strange sense of “oh, I am looking at myself”  everything is basically you.  Everything is an expression of consciousness.  …  You become aware of the content: and aware of the field of stillness, life, awareness.  You become aware of awareness.  Attention: still attention.  You are that. 

So you don’t listen to the mind, which say: “this matters so much.”  These things matter only relatively, but not as ultimate.  The only true thing you can do for the world is to know who you are. All there is to do is to know the Now as yourself.   Step out of identity with the form and contents as often as you can.

Zen story:  the finger pointing at the moon.  Pay attention to the moon, not the finger.

Pay attention to the silence and immediately there is a stillness.  Listening to silence immediately you are out of mind, because to listen to silence you cannot be in mind.  Silence is an incredible teacher.  Simply to be aware of that dimension, there is a shift inside you.  Stillness becomes available as soon as you become aware of silence: because the mind is noise.

At that moment you become aware of silence, the consciousness beyond mind is there.  The inner silence.  There is an aliveness to it, a preciousness to it, that is not understandable by the mind.  There is a goodness to it.  Something unbelievable in that. It is like some vast power enveloping you within and without. 

Once you dwell in silence, the inner silence which is stillness, you are not dependent on outer silence.  Whether that machine is going or not it doesn’t affect the inner.  But until you are established in the inner silence, or it has emerged more fully, it is very helpful to use the outer silence as a teacher.  Even if you never went to another talk, only remember to listen to silence whenever possible.  That would be quite enough. Through this the new consciousness would arise more and more.

Pay attention to stillness. Underneath any noise there is a field of stillness. Normally the mind is only interested in the noise that arises, and not the silence, the stillness, out of which the noise comes and into which it goes.  The underlying field of stillness.  Pay more attention to the field of stillness than to the noises.  The noises are there and are beautiful in nature, but there is an underlying field of stillness.  So you pay attention to that.  When you walk in nature it will deepen your way of being there if you pay attention to the stillness, and you will get a sense of the sacredness, the whole in which all these forms appear.  That field is the essence of sacredness.  This inner state of stillness is pure awareness, prior to thought arising.

There are certain kinds of music also where the notes point beyond themselves to the silence out of which they come. That is the deepest kind of spiritual music.  They enable the listener to enter the state of stillness.  When you pay attention to silence, it becomes still. This can take you to the state beyond form, the spaciousness.  That music is not about the sounds, it is about the silence.  It is about the gaps between the sounds; about the underlying field out of which the sounds come, into which each sound returns. When you pay attention to that, one could almost say you become more interested in what is not there than what is there.  You become more interested in nothing than in something.  The moment you pay attention to the absence of sounds you recognize the nothingness which is between two sounds or the field which is there even while the sounds are there. 
That is the state of no mind.  Thoughtless awareness.  Or: presence.  You are completely in the now.  Whenever thought arises, it is always about the past or future. 

ACCEPTANCE/ALLOWING/YES

When you completely accept this moment, when you no longer argue with what is, the compulsion to think lessens and is replaced by an alert stillness. P. 43  Stillness Speaks

When you say “yes” to what is, you become aligned with the power and intelligence of Life itself.  Only then can you become an agent for positive change in the world.  P.43  Stillness Speaks

The way to yourself is not by improving yourself.  This is easier than improving yourself.  If life gave you a bundle of awful things, with a name for it that you didn’t even choose, still somehow it has taken you here.  Some with a bad bundle get there more quickly than those with a nice bundle of content, stuff. 

See the power of an uncompromising yes to what is, to the now.  You are no longer dependent on any content being pleasant or not.  It is accepted completely, because it is.  Something arises, so to speak, that is greater, infinitely vaster, than that which appears IN the moment: the form, event or circumstance. 
When you are aligned with what is, you are the master.  Even if it is just for a moment.  And actually all there is, is the moment.  You are aware of a vaster dimension in which you really exist.  And within the vastness of now there is a little story: of me.

If something is accepted completely, you are suddenly aware of the now.  The now becomes stronger than what happens in the now.  An underlying spaciousness, a field.  At first it is something in the background, even when something undesirable happens.   The words only point.  You are more aware of the now, the spaciousness in which form happens.  How do you find it?  By allowing.  Allowing the form that arises to be there, be it emotion or event. So-called good or bad.  You allow it.  You are not opposing it. 

When the form is allowed to be, it takes you beyond form, into the spaciousness.  It allows you to realize that the essence of who you are is not any form that arises.  And that is a wonderful freedom. 

So these are little portals.  The most powerful is allowing this moment to be. Another is listening to silence.  That also takes you beyond form. 

LOVE/LIFE
Knowing other life forms as yourself is the deepest  meaning of love.  To know the other as yourself.  
Love is the recognition of oneness, knowing yourself as other.  The oneness is love.  You can’t figure this out mentally, I am only pointing to this state.  Silence is the language God speaks.  Everything else is a bad translation.  It is something infinitely precious.  And it is far more than silence.  It  has an infinite power in and out:  it has a gentleness to it, and also an infinite power: it is love itself.  It is always there.  When it is not there it means you have cut yourself off from it.   Inner and outer merge in that.  Even the entire energy field of your body is silent: but alive.  … And you can recognize this oneness with another even if the other is trapped in an ego identity, an identity with form.  You can still recognize him or her as yourself.  You look through the mental accumulations in the other person, through their mind.  And remember, this is not some state that only very few individuals can attain. 

Death is the opposite of birth, not of life.  Life has not opposite.  Life is eternal.  Life is consciousness itself.

You honor the world of form for what it is, because the essence of each life form, is one with your essence.  There is an essence with the leaf.  The formless life essence.  And you honor each form because you see that ultimately sacred essence in each form, and so you have a loving relation even to the world of form.. . And that includes other human forms: because most of the forms you will meet are human forms.  And your life situation is determined to a great extent by other human forms.  And where do they come into your life?  In the now.  No human being can come into your life that is not in the now. And what do you do in the now?  You accept the isness of this moment.  Of this being.  No matter what this being says or does.  That’s what is. 

You look like a walking human being, but what you really are is a field of consciousness: and WHEN you relate to the world as such, it changes the world. When you are with some person, that other person will be a witness: for either Christ/Buddha or ego,…

Can you look over and through the overlay of the pain body, the ego, not judging, but seeing beyond the person.  Apply what you know: you are not a person and neither are they…  Beyond the form and person is a being, just like you.  In fact, it IS you…   Oprah/Tolle show 10