Everything as Wakefulness
Todo como Vigilia
An invitation to meet discomfort, thoughts, and difficult circumstances directly, and to notice the quiet freedom in how we interpret them.
Everything as Wakefulness
There's nothing to do, nothing to not do.
You may notice thoughts and getting lost in thoughts.
That is perfectly fine.
No need to fight with thinking,
just notice what's happening.
The noticing is without effort,
the noticing is already happening.
Finding what feels not okay
Very gently see if something in your experience
has the quality of not okay,
something that should be different.
And see if you can find in the experience right now something that should be different.
And notice where that appears.
Is it in sensations, or is it in thoughts, or is it in emotions?
Tasting the experience directly
If what should be different is, for example, some discomfort in the body,
just go directly to that experience.
Without the name discomfort,
without the judgment that it should be different,
just taste it fully.
Notice the complexity and mystery of the experience,
the way the sensations appear and change and move,
and consider what if it is perfectly how it should be.
The knowing is based on assumption,
that it should be different,
that it needs to be different for things to be okay.
Everything as Buddha nature
What if everything is Buddha nature?
Buddha meaning wakefulness.
Discomfort is wakefulness.
Thoughts are wakefulness.
Resistance is wakefulness.
Frustration is wakefulness.
Clear, transparent, infinite, free wakefulness.
Fear is wakefulness.
Pain is wakefulness.
Whatever you can find in your mind, in your imagination, in your experience,
whatever appears that is not okay is also wakefulness.
Circumstances as thought
Perhaps everything in your sensations is okay.
What's not okay is in your circumstances,
your living situation,
relationship situation,
family situation,
work situation.
Right now as we are sitting,
all of that is in thoughts.
They are an interpretation based on memories.
You notice that all memory is at best an approximation,
an interpretation itself,
and then all thoughts related to those memories are more interpretation of your life.
Everything that appears that you know about you and your life right now is memories and interpretation.
And so any sense of not okayness is in thoughts, in memories, in interpretation, in assumptions, beliefs.
Even a choice,
a choice in the form of: my interpretation of my circumstances is that I am not okay because of how things are, based on my interpretation.
This is all as we navigate the space of thoughts appearing
as we sit here,
mind directed to circumstances.
The freedom to choose
And there is a freedom.
We choose to drop the beliefs.
Rather than, I am not okay because of my interpretation of my circumstance,
we can choose: things are exactly as they are.
I cannot know how they are.
I have my interpretation of my circumstances.
I will bring my heart,
my deepest wisdom,
my creativity,
to shift the things I feel could be better.
Keep noticing any sense of something missing,
something that needs to be different.
Notice that the root of this is a choice and a belief.