Nothing to Fix. Just Look!
Beyond the Senses, Sensing
Fence; Sky
Being The Wonder
When you see the mirage is just that, a mirage–not the source of water that will quench your thirst–you can no longer be in the herd running mindlessly towards it. The mirage, in this case, means the external world as the source of happiness, peace (or discontent, for that matter).
The most important thing becomes the most important thing. And, of course, it’s not a thing, any more than wonder is a thing. It’s a way of being.
So if you find yourself running towards the mirage, or being angry or frustrated upon discovering just more desert, again, and again. Just stop and notice the Source, or water, or nourishment, or contentment–the sustenance that is already here. You’ve never left, you’ve never been separate from it. It is. I am. Here it is.
It is the backdrop of all that is, has been, and will be. And then there’s no has been or will be. It’s simply here, and felt. This being, knowing, is all that is, even as we are running towards the mirage. It’s the sand that sends us back to look again, the looking itself.
Behold the wonder; be the wonder. Disappear into it, like the water in the mirage.
Memory: A Box Full of Stuff
A question has been asked in regard to my spiritual biography, or timeline, as part of an upcoming interview with Jerry Katz. All that I have been able to come up with is a kind of curiosity. Where does the impulse to seek, or anything else for that matter (to love, to work hard, to play, to learn to fly), come from? I don’t know where this came from, or where it started, was the best answer I could think of, but it seemed certain that a better response was hoped for, and that I should be able to come up with such. Read more
Who’s to say that this life isn’t concurrently an entering into selfhood, and an ongoing impulse to naturally return to this true one-thing-we-know-we-really-are? Two inclinations happening at the same time. There are stops and starts–“I am this separate person.” Yet in the next step, “What was I thinking?” and then a brief a reprieve from the role, the falsity of it all. It seems that this becoming and unbecoming, pretending and clear seeing, has always been going on. There are constant rents in the fabric of reality, constant and obvious red flags, telling us that things are not as they appear. Read more
Specialness: The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Watching The River of Selfing
The Unfindable Inquiry (UI) is a useful, powerful tool that leads one to the discovery that the self is not an image, not a word or a thought, not a sensation. If you’re convinced that there is a deficient (or exalted) self in there somewhere running the show, consider a session with one of Scott Kiloby’s Living Inquiries facilitators. Any one of them can help you look for this mythical creature. “Is that it?” is the question. “No, it can’t be. I can’t find it,” is the usual response. Oh, what a relief it is!
If that dogged sense of self persists, consider this: The self is not an “it,” not a “thing” to be found. It’s an activity. An activity isn’t found, it’s observed. This pesky sense of self is not a noun; it’s a verb. Read more
Rowing, In and Out of Confluence
That self is still unfindable, and Scott Kiloby’s Unfindable Inquiries can help to see that all our deficient selves are but one missing person. There are 21, and counting, excellent facilitators that can help you look to see if you can actually find, whatever seems stuck, problematic, needed, or believed in your day-to-day experience.
I am resigning from Living Inquiries, effective July 1st, and will no longer, or very rarely, be offering the Unfindable Inquiries as part of the sessions we all have been engaging in. I will continue to offer what I have been offering for quite sometime now, whatever you want to call it or name it. There was some veering off script, and many wonderful experiences had, but having veered off, there’s no pull to wander back. It has been a great trip, to be here with so many, other Facs and Scott Kiloby included, but someone seems to have left the island.
It bears repeating: There are many competent Living Inquiries Facilitators that are willing to look in this way. Take full advantage, fearlessly. I’ll still be continuing with sessions, just looking–in whatever way comes up. Feel free to contact me, and see what is new at The Deepest Peace. We have nothing to lose, because there is nothing or no one to defend, protect, or to promote.
Truman Burbank: Somebody help me, I’m being spontaneous!
Young Truman: I want to be an explorer, like the Great Magellan.
Teacher: [indicating a map of the world] Oh, you’re too late! There’s nothing left to explore!
Facilitating, Teaching: A Walk in the Woods
There are a lot of discussions around, and derision for, the idea of teachers in the non-dual community. As a facilitator, I have an interest in the distinctions between the two titles, and in clarifying what we do. First of all, I’m not even sure what it means to teach. Seriously. I looked it up in the Online Etymology Dictionary and found that the Old English derivation of the word “teach” is “to show, point out.” And furthermore discovered that it shares its origins with the word “diction,” which comes from digit, or “finger.” Huh. The finger pointing towards the moon—there it is. And I thought it meant, as is noted on dictionary.com, “to impart knowledge or skill; give instruction.” It was the imparting knowledge and giving instruction parts that I was confused about. I could use instruction on how to tie a Gordian knot, but can anyone impart knowledge about that which is essentially unspeakable? Like they say in the writing world, “Show, don’t tell.”
I can say with complete confidence that, as a facilitator, I have no knowledge that you, or anyone who comes for a session, does not have. I mean “knowledge” and “don’t have” literally. The inverse is true, as well. There is no teacher, mine or yours, of whom this could be said. It is fundamentally dualistic to think otherwise. And by that I mean, it is inherently divisive to think in terms of a teacher with knowledge up here, and a student believing in his own ignorance out there.
That is not to say that there is not the appearance of teachers, and students going to hear what they have to say. And by using the term “appearance of” I do not mean some flakey version of no one here, nothing happening, transcendent foolish-wisdom-words. If a bird sings, there is a song to be heard. If a teacher teaches….No problem there. It is to say that the belief that someone has answers that you do not is the sticking point. It is the belief itself that is coming from a dualistic viewpoint and necessarily divisive. It is the belief, the concept, the culturally and socially condoned practice that, in effect, creates the appearance of teacher/student. If you did not have this particular belief, it wouldn’t be a part of your experience, and you wouldn’t care much either way. Is it a problem if you’re not thinking about it?
To facilitate is “to render easy.” The facilitators at Living Inquiries, to the best of my understanding, can and do render, or “give back,” the questions, and see to it that it is your answer to your question that is the imparted wisdom. Your experience is paramount, not the wisdom or clarity of any particular facilitator, and Scott Kiloby does the same. We’re all birds, just singing songs. Listen or doze off, as you please.
So what to expect in signing up for a session? (First, note the caveat here to drop all expectations.) But in a manner of speaking, what happens, from my point of view, during these sessions is that they are somewhat like a walk in nature. We walk through the woods or the hills, and like friends do, we point out to each other this or that tree, that bird, those tracks. It’s not a matter of labeling or categorizing the various appearances; not an expert on flora and fauna. A facilitator just happens to have made this particular walk many times before, down this particular trail, so may or may not see things that might otherwise be missed. However, someone new (or old) to this work often has the fresh eyes to see the trail in new ways, so the pointing is just as often mutually enlightening.
A friend once took me to see Black Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world. I never knew it was there, had never even heard of it before. He simply drove down a dusty old road, parked in a nearly vacant parking lot, and we walked through breezy evergreens toward a fenced precipice. I looked over, and stepped back from the edge immediately. This was, experientially, a whole new definition of “looking down.” I went back to look again, and the response this time was simply, “Oh.” We stayed awhile to gaze wordlessly at the wonder of it all. My concept of “deep” has been fundamentally altered. It doesn’t even mean what I thought it meant, at all. And the depth of the glimpse displaces any notion of this body as a limited container, or located vessel of consciousness. There, here, it is—in the looking. All distinctions fall away.
Yesterday, I had a session with someone who wanted to look for the teacher. We went to where there was no teacher, internally or externally. And finally, no teaching…nothing…but, like the glimpse into the depths of the canyon, space, vastness, emptiness. Meh, those words don’t cut it either. Lose the words, any description, all points of reference. It was like that.
I have no special knowledge to impart, no claim to be anyone or anything different from you. I would like to take you to see that canyon, watch you step up to that precipice. The “oh,” is all yours—to make of it what you will. End of tour spiel.
Or, there’s more over here, just beyond that ridge, that you just might like to take a look at before you go home again. Let’s go see.
unfindableself 