The Veil and the Peace
El Velo y la Paz
An invitation to notice that the peace you long for is not something to find but what everything, even fear and pain, is already made of.
The Veil and the Peace
Meditation is always just what's happening.
It's not doing anything.
The practices that exist that can be useful,
all of the thousands of practices, millions,
they're only useful if they facilitate
recognition that meditation is already happening.
The veil as illusion
The veil that is here,
that is present,
that might be here and present,
is also something that does not exist.
So the veil is itself an illusion.
And so the effort to see through or remove the veil
is also a misunderstanding, something that's being misled.
This is why I speak of the ultimate freedom
being a choice to believe or not in the illusions.
Noticing attachments
So right now, with what's happening:
what are the attachments?
What are the illusions that we hold dear?
What are the veils
that are too beautiful
for us to let go of?
And at the heart of this will always be
a story about me,
my mind.
Just notice if anything comes up, bubbles up.
The signs of something bubbling up are very somatic.
You notice an attachment or a narrative that's a deep veil or illusion.
Just noticing it might make evident its relativity,
might make evident that it's not absolutely true, not absolute reality.
Seeing this,
we might feel something
which this illusion has helped us avoid.
A sense of emptiness or fear and anguish and sadness,
some energy,
subtly or less.
And just let this appear, this movement,
whatever is moving.
If nothing is apparently happening,
that is perfect as well.
The gate of freedom
All the veils, all the illusions, all the attachments
are in service of one thing:
to prevent the movement of mystery,
the experience of unwanted energies.
They are all the source.
They are all the freedom.
They are all true nature,
Buddha nature.
Everything is Brahman.
We are just Brahman
appearing as a cosmic surfer,
surfing the infinite waves of its own being,
savoring, delighting, tasting.
Infinite journeys.
The gate is wide open,
always here.
Freedom is present.
The fear at the gate always appears.
It's a tremendous, unbearable force
that is as well illusion.
The magnitude of the fear is a mirror response,
a desire of avoiding our freedom.
Turning to sensation
And all of the terrors of the mind that we run from
are illusions.
What we run from is the energies in the body, the sensations.
The intensity of the current of our being,
life force,
the aliveness.
The infinite realm of human and non-human experiences combined.
Peace before everything
At the source of this is just the peace that is always here.
There is peace knowing itself,
untouched.
A peace unrecognized: this potential liberation.
A peace that is recognized as embodied well-being.
To see that before there was a thought,
before there was a sensation,
before there was a sound,
before there are colors, shapes and forms,
body, universe,
before all of this was,
there is peace.
Unconditioned.
It's not determined by the content, the sensations.
The experience is not because the mind is calm or the body is painless.
This peace is prior.
It is what the distressed mind is made of.
It is what fear and pain are made of.
Peace is this substance-less source,
the true reality.
Fear and pain and the worried mind: nothing other than misinterpretation.
The appearance of a snake,
the reality of the rope.
Peace is this reality.
Trust it.
Let yourself disappear into it.
No need to fight
or resist or struggle.
It is the one taste.
Peace before knowing
This peace is to be known without knowing,
is first remembered, known without thoughts,
and can then be named.
And it has been named consciousness,
awareness, truth, reality, freedom, love.
It is what remains
when everything else is gone.
Before the universe, there is peace.
Before the body was, there is peace.
Before the mind was, there is peace.
Before the sense of self was, there is peace.
Infinite, boundless, timeless, dimensionless peace.
From this peace,
the freedom to create the universe appears.
The freedom to veil itself
with apparent limited experiences.
But the peace remains untouched.
The only true reality,
the only true source of substance-less substance,
which projects sensations, sounds, forms, colors, shapes,
thoughts, emotions, fears, pains.
All made of peace.