Get a sense of how you use mindfulness. For example, attend to whatever your hands are doing, noticing the physical sensations that are present. You can notice your hands in this way, or your feet, your shoulders, or whatever parts of the body you wish. You are having the experience of mindfulness and controlling where … Continued

Has your practice moved beyond your control? You have to see the utter futility of manipulating your practice in any way before you will be willing to surrender control, and only then will a new possibility open. This means that the egoic sense of you obstructs a greater awareness. You have to acknowledge the interference … Continued

It is not possible to listen without being aware. Awareness is listening. Notice the quality of listening when you are waiting to speak as opposed to wanting to understand. How thorough is your listening when you know what the other person is going to say or when you have opinions about what is being said? … Continued

Reflect upon a time when your body was hurt or injured. Was the physical limitation annoying? If so, it meant the injury represented an unrealized expectation: something you would like to do but no longer could. Every injury potentially has two expressions of healing. The first is the physical healing of the injury itself. The … Continued

When we first start following our breath, we begin the process of uncoupling awareness from the mind’s overlay of thought, emotion, attitude, belief, and so on. At first it seems like an either/or process—either I am with the breath or I am thinking—but as the practice develops, both occur simultaneously. The knowing that thought is … Continued

The central issue of the spiritual journey is stepping out of the self-imposed deception of being someone. At a certain point you will recognize the truth of your own emptiness, and the practice can then become very simple. Surrender the need to be someone. That surrender takes you to deeper levels of self-identification, which must … Continued

Surrender is the act of releasing our separation. We are not surrendering to someone or something but simply releasing the need to perpetuate the false belief of being a separate entity. If the sense-of-self is untrue, then it is better to let it go than to falsely sustain it. We do this not by making … Continued

When we surrender our formation, we transmute form into the formless, and when we mentally invest in the concept of me, we resurrect ourselves back into existence. If we attempt to control this process, the very act of asserting our will keeps us within form, but once our personal will is surrendered there is nothing … Continued

Once form and the formless are separated and understood, they return to their original union. When they reemerge they do not come back as either/or, they return inseparably as one and the same. The two were always identical. Form was confused as different from the formless because of the lure of form’s appearance. We did … Continued

When the moment is abided within, it carries both the translucence of the formless and the functionality of form. In this stage, we walk through life never believing in either exclusively, but living both simultaneously. When this realization is lived, form and the formless are no longer in opposition to one another. When thinking is … Continued

We want to be more conscious but repeatedly fall back into our habitual patterns of delusion. Insights are helpful, but it takes a while for an insight to penetrate our unconscious tendencies. When insights do arise we often reinterpret the message back into the darkened world of our slumber. Slowly after repeated incursions into our … Continued

As our lives become more conscious, inevitably a tear occurs in the veil that separates the unconscious worldly life from the consciously sacred existence. This opening can happen at any time, but it usually occurs when the unconscious shroud becomes sheer through our intention to be conscious and still. Even when the ignorance that veils … Continued

What happens during the awakened moment is a shift of identity away from the egoic self-centeredness through which we have always viewed the world, and into the authentic unconditioned source of our being. This moment reveals that we have utterly and completely misrepresented ourselves, and we now understand that we are continually and forever being … Continued

The senses are all known by awareness, but since awareness is the center of being, it cannot be experienced through the senses.

Passive discernment is the inactive expression of awareness. This is the Buddha’s Third Foundation of Mindfulness that will be fully explored in chapters 9 through 11, but as a preview, it is meditation without the meditator. It takes a purely receptive pose of letting everything be just as it is. Passive discernment does not interfere … Continued

When we unleash discernment we release the unifying power of non-separation, and that force goes wherever it needs to heal all distances and boundaries, refusing to rest until there is complete atonement. Once active discernment has plunged into the depths of all divisions, and explored every possible link to identity and all sources of belief, … Continued

Do you perceive any limitation or burden on your consciousness? Where are you blocked or cut off from a deeper sense of freedom? Where is your wisdom limited and your heart defended? Are you curious about what is obstructing you? Can you pose an open-ended question that goes directly to that point of contention? See … Continued

The second practice using active discernment is contemplation or reflection. It blends an active inquiry with the passive discernment of letting the question be in quietude. In contemplation we simply let something that we are curious about float in stillness while being sustained by interest. Simply let the subject of contemplation, which can be a … Continued

As the revelations come, thoughts may arise about what is being revealed, but instead of letting the mind dwell upon the thinking, simply return and sustain the contemplative phrase in quietude once more. Perhaps thought will come up with another perspective or find its way toward another contemplation, in which case we bring the new … Continued

Is there a natural resonance you feel with a word, phrase, or idea? It can be any word that stirs interest and depth. Do you have a gentle curiosity to understand more deeply? Offer yourself a word or phrase like “I am,” and let it float in stillness. See what arises around this phrase, and … Continued