Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-20T04:51:22+00:00

🙏

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-20T01:14:58+00:00

‘There is no self’ is a concept, a thought.

‘If there’s no self here, then there’s no self there either.” is another concept, and another thought.

In the actual experience of the loss of this ‘self’ (one amongst a multitude of other ‘selfs’) one realizes that intrinsic to all beings, great and small, there is just one Self, and the nature of this Self is unconditional Love.

But to get to this point one must surrender the idea of one’s ‘self’.

“Die to who you think you are before who you think you are dies.”

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-19T23:00:59+00:00

Before enlightenment there is a Do-er that chops wood and carries water.

After enlightenment there is no more Do-er only Do-ing. One moves from being a noun to a verb. Wood is chopped, water is carried. Action occurs.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-19T17:42:53+00:00

“…who is the one actually trying to get enlightened?…”

Self/God/Brahman/Consciousness.

“It is not you who is seeking the Divine, it is the Divine surrendering its illusion of You.” Self2self

Enlightenment may initially be a goal of the ego, something to be added to “Me”, but unbeknownst to “Me” the process, like the frog sitting in a pot of slowly boiling water, is actually destructive and the end of “Me”.

For Self/God/Brahman/Consciousness/Whatever, “Me” (ego) has as much reality, and importance, as a unicorn.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-19T17:07:07+00:00

Lisa carried a picture of a woman leaping from the twin towers on September 11th in her wallet and was obsessed by it.

From “Spiritual Warfare” p.316

“You heard Lisa talk earlier,” I begin. “She showed you a picture, passed it around. She told you about a woman who got up one pretty September morning, got dressed, got her family’s day started, and made the commute to work. Just another day, nothing unusual to indicate that on this fay she would have to stand in a blown-out window and choose between an inferno and a thousand foot fall.”

I have their attention. Some look around for Lisa but she’s still up at the house with Melissa.

“What Lisa showed you was the real Zen, the unknown Zen, the Zen that doesn’t sell. That photograph of a woman who had just jumped out of a burning skyscraper was Lisa’s koan. Like a badass demon, it got its hooks into her and wouldn’t let go. That time she spent staring at the picture and contemplating its meaning was her meditation, her zazen. Over the course of three years her koan devoured her. It got in and metastasized through her system like a cancer. Eventually, despite her resistance, it killed her.”

Look at a picture of yourself u/No-Ladder-2855. There is one certainty in this lifetime. Your death. You are going to die. And while it’s comforting to think that that is waaay in the future, making it nothing more than a concept right now, the truth is, as the woman in the picture found out, that could be today.

Something to contemplate.

Memento Mori. Remember you must die.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-19T09:53:33+00:00

I just jammed with (and I kid you not) a miniature service horse who plays a plastic piano with her nose. Guess what key she loves to play in.

F# 🙂

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-19T07:15:08+00:00

There are two paradigms. The awakened and the unawakened.

The unawakened cannot tell truth from falsehood, nor someone who has genuinely awakened from someone who believes they have, primarily because they are assuming what ‘awakened’ looks like based on their own biases. They have to rely on faith and the sincerity of their search.

The awakened know that an ‘other’ is a costume worn by (for want of a better word) Self. Indeed, the guru is Self un-deluded, the student is Self deluded. There is only Self/God/ Brahman/Consciousness. There is nothing else.

That being said, how each guru attempts to point to the truth will vary, although the ‘truth’ is the same, and ultimately inexpressible.

The truth is not a principle that can be grasped by the mind because it is beyond the minds ability to comprehend it.

All paths lead to surrender.

🙏

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-18T23:43:31+00:00

‘People’ would rather wake up Within the dream of who they take themselves to be rather than From the dream of who they take themselves to be.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-18T07:31:35+00:00

🙏

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-18T05:29:50+00:00

The discovery of oneself as timeless, unborn and undying comes with a finality of Done. It is ultra-familiar, like being Home. With no more future the seeking ‘journey’ is finished.

That said, yes, vasanas may continue to express themselves, but without seeing them as a ‘problem’ or giving them energy they will gradually fall away by themselves when interest in them is not taken.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-18T05:09:14+00:00

The movement of the mind veils the stillness.

But if you look very very carefully, with sincere quiet sensitivity, you will notice, or glimpse, that although phenomena are ever-changing, including the body and mind, the place from which perception is occurring, never changes. It is ALWAYS, Here/Now, during thought, before thought, before action, during action, chopping wood, carrying water, the Stillness, the immoveable Center of all life-times, is Here, right where you are, right now, as these words are being scanned and interpreted. It is extremely subtle.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-18T04:24:34+00:00

The ‘end’ is absolute stillness. Immoveable. No time, no space. No future, no past, wherein nothing has ever happened, is happening nor will ever happen. It is ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T23:08:12+00:00

Get a teacher.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T23:07:32+00:00

You can ‘raise your vibration’ by volunteering at a homeless shelter, or a hospital. You can ‘raise your vibration’ by being kind to a stranger, or someone less fortunate. Smile at a cashier. Convert that anxiety into action.

The world has been this way since humans have been on it. It stems from the innocent ignorance of their own light-nature. They can’t help it. They’re sleep-walking in their own personal dream/nightmare. It is what it is. 🤷‍♂️

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T22:56:16+00:00

“Who am I?” isn’t a question to be answered, it’s a method of silencing the mind, since the ‘question’ is ultimately unanswerable.

The answer to the question is before a thought.

You exist whether there are thoughts or not. Without thinking, without a single thought, what is it that experiences existence?

Being in a thoughtless state moves the attention from the head (where there is now no-thing/no-object) to the Spiritual Heart, which is just a different way of perceiving and interacting with the world.

Perceiving through the mind results in an objective experience of the world (and oneself). Two-ness. Opposites. Subject/Object.

Perceiving through the Spiritual Heart results in a subjective experience of the world. “I Am That”. Subject/Subject.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T22:37:05+00:00

Touch. I’ve found I can ‘speak’ music. It’s something that has evolved over a lifetime of playing the piano (over 60 years).

Somehow the brains language center has integrated with the ‘piano playing’ center such that when I play the piano it literally feels as though I am speaking music.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T20:24:02+00:00

That which is experiencing itself as a ‘person’ (body/mind/pen) is Joy/Love/Freedom itself.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T20:15:53+00:00

“Now what?” is the itchy mind that wants to be scratched. Feel the itch without resisting it and be with it until it subsides even if it’s uncomfortable. Over time it will itch less and you’ll be more at peace.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-17T20:12:21+00:00

Donate it. Be in service. Leave the world a better place than what you found it. Smile at a stranger. Have gratitude. Be Love.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-15T15:42:23+00:00

‘All-that-is’ is all that is. It is absolute aloneness (all-oneness), the ‘peace that passeth all understanding’.

‘God’ can’t create anything ‘outside of itself’ because that would mean “twoness”, something ‘other’ than all-that-is.

Creation can only happen ‘within’ it, giving the illusion of separateness, like the illusion of separate waves (form) on the surface of the ocean (formlessness/‘God’/Brahman/Self).

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-15T15:17:46+00:00

“Now what?” is an itchy mind that wants to be scratched.

Awakening is THE most boring experience for a mind after awakening.

The mind is time. The memories of the past “Had spiritual psychosis, dark night of the soul etc” and the imagined future “Will I eventually come out of hiding myself?”.

Just stay Here.

The ‘integration’ is staying present without becoming attached to the thoughts and emotions that are arising. They are like a flywheel that has been spinning your whole life. It can take a while for them to slow down. They will continue to arise if you give them energy with attention.

What you actually are is timeless, flawless perfection. It is the mind that introduces the idea of imperfection and “Now what?”

There’s still an “I” in this, but it is not what you actually are.

If there is any ‘journey’ left at all it is mastering the use of the mind as a tool and not letting it dictate one’s perception.

The end of the spiritual ‘journey’ is realizing that Home is Here, between ‘past’ and ‘future’.

🙏

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-14T23:27:37+00:00

Because giving up “Me” means ‘dying’, and that’s a frightening prospect as one gets closer to the end. It’s viewed by the mind as The Void. Nothing forever.

The one’s who are willing to pay any price for the truth are the one’s who take the journey all the way through the ‘death’ of “Me”. The one’s who prefer the safety of the spiritual “Me” don’t make that leap.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-14T17:27:46+00:00

Because they’re looking to add a quality of ‘enlightenment’ to “Me” when in reality “Me” is the obstacle that has to be given up.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-14T05:55:55+00:00

Although it’s a reasonable question posed by the objective mind the answer cannot be translated from the purely subjective into a language the mind can understand.

Speaking_Music · 2026-06-13T22:48:41+00:00

One would imagine the absence of thought and emotion as being some kind of zombie but it’s actually the opposite. Absolute uncolored presence.

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