What Does Not Change
Lo que no cambia
An invitation to notice what remains constant beneath every experience and to gently sink into what is always here.
What Does Not Change
Setting an intention
You take a moment, come here to create an intention.
Or something different.
What's the difference?
Create space to observe more intimately and closely that which is always intimate and close.
How do you push aside, push away, push back, push forward into time, into space?
How do you push?
But it's always here and cannot move.
It's outside of movement and stillness.
It contains it.
What remains
No matter how much seeking or blinding, pushing, striving, resisting, accepting.
No matter how much you do that, something doesn't change.
Most precious and essential truth.
Keep noticing when you feel you go away, or something tracks you or takes you:
the mind, or thoughts about past and future, about me, about you.
Body sensations, discomfort, fears, pains.
All of it.
All of it.
Everything the mind is doing.
Everything it would prefer to be different.
What doesn't change, that is the gold, always present and overlooked, undervalued.
The question of value
The inner battle emerges.
And what we understand to be of value just describes the knowing of what is valuable.
What is truly valuable is not a thing.
It could be anything at any time, change.
But the knowing of it, the sensing of it, the recognition of it comes from freedom.
Freedom from having a fixed notion of what is valuable.
Because of this, we overlook what is most deeply valuable.
That which is most valuable is impossible to point to or describe.
It's always present, more present than the air we breathe.
And in a sense, it's an act of faith to explore letting go of what is partially valuable.
What cannot go away
It doesn't change, what is always here.
No matter how much you get pulled away, pushed away, you avoid it.
It's been called many things: presence, space, reality, the kingdom.
What I'm pointing to with that cannot go away, no matter how hard you try.
When there's frustration, despair, boredom, anything, it's still there.
You often see it and touch it and think very little of it.
You could touch it now.
You'd probably think, that can't be it, that's not special.
That's of no value.
That's not satisfying.
I'm not happy with that.
It's not what I want.
The deepest longing
Something deeper is longing for it. The deepest longing.
You cannot fight it.
The less you can fight it, the more blessed you are.
How can we not stop the fire of that longing till it overpowers every other longing?
Longing for what doesn't change.
Any sense of "I want that," "when I get there," "when will I get it," "when will I find it," "I want it so much."
Any sense of that is like a smoke, a veil covering the reality that you already have that.
You are that.
It's right here, right now.
Unmoving, unchanging.
The longing is felt, experienced.
That which is being longed for is not a secret, it's not hidden.
It's not something to create, find, or discover.
Just to realize.
Sinking in
You can sink into it like a tub of hot water.
At first, too hot.
Takes time to continue and adjust, sink deeper.
Everything that happens in life is like a tub of hot water.
All the struggles, the challenges, movement, discomfort, bouncing back and forth, excitement, pleasures, pains.
In every moment, something that does not change, does not move.
Sink into it.
Right now, everything that's happening, sink into it.
So it is the right temperature.
There's a lot of thoughts or discomfort, whatever it is.
It's unpleasant.
It's just the hot water.
The mind's going to create a narrative of how to get out of there.
It's not right.
Temperature's not right.
I don't want this.
Create a convincing narrative to pull away, push away.
Always running from the present moment.
You learn to sink into it like a tub of hot water.
It doesn't burn, just feels like it at first.
You discover the life, the presence.