The Taste of What Is
El Sabor de Lo Que Es
*Exploring open awareness*
The Taste of What Is
Exploring open awareness
Keep your eyes open if it's comfortable, or you can close them.
If you have a very long practice of meditating with eyes closed,
it's always good to explore meditating with eyes open.
Because the habitual meditation is to do something.
And there are some practices, forms of doing, that are helpful,
but ultimately freedom is in the undoing.
Seeing the nature of what is.
Recognizing in your experience that all the doing
ultimately is an avoidance,
trying to change what is,
and what is is already always changing.
What is not changing is the nature of reality: timeless, boundless.
That can be recognized as the same which we call "I am."
That which those words point to is prior to experience.
The same "I am" when we were children.
Unchanged.
And all these words point to a recognition,
something that can be known directly by you,
not as a thought, not as a belief.
Noticing what is happening
Notice the sounds, sensations.
Notice any tendency or temptation
to pull away from experience
into the experience of thoughts.
Don't try to change anything.
Just notice what is happening.
The peace and freedom we look for is already here.
It's not by changing this,
but by noticing what this really is.
The allure of thoughts is just imagination.
The fear and hope of future is imagination.
The more we see, something happens.
Illusion and freedom.
Meeting discomfort
You can experience the discomfort that might be present now,
any form of "no" to this experience,
any resistance,
any sense of worry, anxiety.
There's a crossroads:
to keep avoiding,
to keep trying to change what is,
or to fully taste the heart of that discomfort.
To simmer in the intimacy
with sensation, with contractions,
stormy emotions.
Or we are willing, able, capable
of tasting everything that appears fully, intimately.
The more the illusion of separation or duality
becomes unnecessary.
The suffering of pulling away fades.
Savoring
Just savoring and tasting.
The bittersweetness of this,
the beauty of this,
the mystery, the aliveness.
Its true essence starts to become present,
the essence of the sacred.
The nature of all is Brahman,
all is Buddha nature.
In all thoughts,
in all sounds,
in all sensations,
in all perceptions,
always right here.
Recognizing what is always here
And first this might appear as micro glimpses,
small tastes that keep you coming back,
searching, seeking.
First it appears to be in certain experiences, spiritual or non-spiritual,
relationships and moments.
The more you see, the more you are clarifying.
You start recognizing it's always here.
It's always this.
You cannot go anywhere.
Either into thoughts, into time,
or into tasting this, savoring this.
The taste of thought
What is the taste of thoughts?
What is the taste of the imagined future?
Tasting it as imagination.
You notice this traction, the movement into thought.
Don't bother with shifting that.
Be curious of the taste.
What is the flavor of the movement into thought?
Savor it.
Controlling thought is like stopping a river.
Drink from it.
Tasting everything
Everything you've avoided,
taste it, savor it.
The deepest childlike curiosity,
playful, open.
Sadness, worry,
boredom, fear,
flavors in a buffet.
There is nothing here you cannot savor.
Savoring is not a doing.
Allowing the intimacy with what is.
The intimacy already is.