the present presents perception


the present presents perception*
of sensation, emotion, and thought

***

with attention always on direct experience,
notice any sensation, emotion, or thought,
and whenever possible, silently ask:

    Who is experiencing this? I am? Who am I? 

continue with these questions
until no need for them arises

no need for them arises on seeing that
only in the mind or by convention
does any being exist as an entity,
any more than does an eddy in a stream

selves as entities are illusions

there is only this, the present


2025-10-22T08−07*  / date also may be listed as a link to this post at bit.ly/dateposted – along with more about posts
*asterisks may link to anything (!*) – select/check links for destinations* / items below are notes for this post

an asterisk that links to nothing refers to these notes

the present presents perception / see also a page on Buddhism

perception / in this context, perceiving is noticing, experiencing

attention / in this context, appamāda … (!?)

the questions in this post draw on an ancient practice now known as self-inquiry (!?)

Who is experiencing this? / this heat/warmth, hate/love, story/insight, … this whatever

an eddy in a stream / a whirlpool is not a thing …* (!?) / Robert Saltzman 

… the turbulence remains – it’s just no longer misunderstood as my turbulence* (!?) / Saltzman 

… the self: not a thing but a recursive event, repetitive claiming of experience as mine* (!?) 

the self: not an entity you must liberate, improve, or protect – it’s a performance … (!?)

only this, the present / this is what is or seems to be*

changes to this post* / logged by date, most recent at top … note that changes to notes are not logged

TK* / to come (!?)*
Posted

nothing is perfect: believe in nothing

dukkha, the central mark of existence, arises from the other two*

nothing is perfect

- nothing doesn’t change
- nothing isn’t dukkha
- nothing depends on nothing

believe in nothing

on seeing no reason to believe in
any assertion of ultimate truth,
believe in nothing as much as
direct experience of what is
or seems to be: this being

to experience this being as being aware of being
is
to experience nothing as other than the present

the present presents perception:

  sensation, emotion, and thought

    ebbing and flowing,
    coming and going,
    arriving and leaving,
    arising and ceasing 

  endlessly flowing into and out of awareness

experience nothing as other
than this miracle – the present – and see
that only in the mind does anything
or anyone exist as somehow separate
from the rest of what is

no one is as they are thought to be

other than in the mind

nothing is as it is thought to be

believe in nothing:
just be and let be

live and let live with
love, compassion,
joy, and equanimity

believe in nothing and do no more
than need be done to be and let be

believing more and doing more
may do such harm as to mean
no human being survives the
man-made mass extinction
manifest in the present

believe in nothing
and do no harm

be well


2025-07-14T21−07*  / date also may be listed as a link to this post at bit.ly/dateposted – along with more about posts
*asterisks may link to anything (!*) – hover/click on links for destinations* / items below are notes for this post

*an asterisk that links to nothing refers to these notes

caption: dukkha, the central mark of existence, arises from the other two (!?) / image: from Wikipedia* 

alternative image: also from Wikipedia* 

nothing in this post is other than the view from here / see also a page on Buddhism*

nothing doesn’t change … nothing isn’t dukkha … nothing depends on nothing (!?)

nothing isn’t dukkha / nothing is perfect, ideal, complete, and beyond change and dependence (!?)

nothing is perfect: believe in nothing … as much as direct experience* (!?) / The Answer*

Thanu Padmanabhan (1957–2021) / theoretical physicist, wrote article titled The Answer (!?) 

… this being / “what is” … for “is” read “seems to be” except in constructs, like math: 2+2=4

we do not know, nor can we tell, whatever this may be,
but we perceive what seems to us to be reality*

/ in the last line above, “perceive” means “notice or experience”

experience nothing as other than the present / see the two lines below from the link log*

Meister Eckhart most likely didn’t say “present instant” in English … (!?)

there is only this: the present / fewer wurdz* … Meister Eckhart’s words from 700 years ago (!?)  

the present presents perception / of sensation, emotion, and thought (!?)

live and let live with love, compassion, joy, and equanimity (!?) 

the man-made mass extinction manifest in the present (!?) 

do no harm / the zeroth precept*

TK* / to come (!?)* 
Posted

how not to be and how to be

Don’t take instruction on how to live your life from a stark raving mad society.

This civilization is sick. It is genocidal. It is ecocidal. It is omnicidal. We are ruled by psychopaths, while the best among us are relegated to the fringes of the fringe. We are hurtling into totalitarianism and armageddon at breakneck pace while our attention is aggressively pulled toward the vapid and the inane.

You should share none of the values and priorities of this freak show. You should not let any aspect of this dystopia inform your decisions regarding who you should be and what kind of life you should live.

In this warped and twisted madhouse, we are trained to believe that “success” looks like making a lot of money, earning large amounts of esteem and adoration, having a certain body type, living in the right kind of neighborhood in the right kind of house full of the right kind of products to impress the right kind of people. We are trained to believe we need to rack up all kinds of accomplishments, academic achievements, promotions, impressive stories, social ascendence. We are trained to believe we must attract a certain type of partner who will be approved of by everyone whose approval we crave.

If we cannot achieve these goals, we are trained to believe we should feel bad about iourselves. That we don’t deserve happiness. That we should either spend our time stressing and striving for worthiness as defined by our crazy civilization, or go and join the ocean of miserable failures who couldn’t win the capitalism game and sedate ourselves with alcohol and entertainment waiting for death to carry us into the nothingness where we belong.

This is clearly insane. It’s a stupid game with stupid prizes. The only reason anyone takes it seriously is because we were raised and taught how to live by other people who take it seriously. Our parents have been indoctrinated into the power-serving worldview that has been forcibly imposed upon the denizens of the empire, and we want to make them proud. Our friends, families and acquaintances have been likewise brainwashed, and we want to impress them.

But to do so is to take lessons on how to live from a collective disease that is pointed at misery and dysfunction. It is impossible to lead a truly fulfilling life while also trying to live the way the people around us think we should live, because the society which shaped their ideas about how we should live is insane.

If you want to really live an awake and inspired life, you’ve got to blaze your own trail. You’ve got to unlearn everything you’ve been told about what a life properly lived would look like, and write your own rules. Because the rules everyone else has been playing by were written by madmen.

Find your own truth. Set your own values and priorities. Define your own idea of success. Define your own idea of sanity. Consider the possibility that just being present for the beauty of each moment on this wonderful planet is worth more than anything the imperial insane asylum has to offer you. Consider the possibility that your very next breath, deeply relished, would be enough.

We are destroying our planet and driving every living organism toward annihilation. The status quo has failed as spectacularly as anything could possibly fail. The old ways of doing things plainly do not work. So try some new ways.

Be different. Be strange. Be a freak. Do everything the wrong way. Disappoint your parents. Fail to live up to your potential. Transgress your family doctrine. Anger whatever gods you were taught to believe in. Nothing anyone has done has worked. It is therefore necessary to travel off the beaten path.

The world won’t get better until humanity changes its ways. Humanity won’t change its ways if it keeps insisting on trying the same failed approaches over and over again. Our survival as a species depends on diverging from our patterns.

Maybe we’ll succeed in surviving, and maybe we won’t. But at the very least we can rescue ourselves from spending one more day on this amazing blue world trying to live by the rules of lunatics.



2025-07-14T10−07*  / date also may be listed as a link to this post at bit.ly/dateposted – along with more about posts
*asterisks may link to anything (!*) – hover/click on links for destinations* / items below are notes for this post

image and body text above copied as is from a post by Caitlin Johnstone*

experience nothing as other than the present – and this as worth more than anything …* (!?) / see bit.ly/link-log

TK* / to come (!?)*

Posted

the body is a candle

image credit: see note below

life is a vibrant flame
that shines where it may

the body is a candle
meant to be consumed


2024-11-20T17−08*
*a link – an asterisk may link to anything (!*) – hover over these and other links for details* / items below relate to the above

image credit: John Smith – full moon from Hornby Island, 2024-11-15T17:07−08, used with permission

the body is a candle meant to be consumed (!? !*)

TK* / to come (!?)*
Posted

updated credo: evolution and extinction



2024-10-31T15−07*
*a link – an asterisk may link to anything (!*) – hover over these and other links for details* / items below relate to the above

to print the document, go to the original here

any note below is further to the endnotes in the document above

notice that to build our own theology together – at VanU (!?) or wherever – isn’t BYOT, it’s CTT*

Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life (!*) inspired this credo update, as did seeing the current mass extinction (!?) less as a problem for us to solve, more as a predicament for us to survive – if we evolve in time

it’s not hope, it’s love … for everyone making mouth noises about their mind noises (!?)*

nothing isn’t dukkha … so, awake and respond: be awake, responsive, and free (!*)

nothing isn’t dukkha: nothing is perfect, ideal, complete, beyond change or dependence / footnote from page 1

no one need see dukkha with other than equanimity / Norman Fischer (!?)

TK* / to come (!?)*
Posted

do no harm – the zeroth precept

whenever possible, avoid
harming any being – avoid
killing, stealing, cheating,
lying, and otherwise denying
being awareness of being

may all be well*


2024-08-13T07−07*
*a link – an asterisk may link to anything (!*) – hover over these and other links for details* / items below relate to the above

zeroth: before the first (!?)

precept: a principle intended especially as a general rule of action (!?)
/ the precept to avoid harming any being leads into the five precepts

the five precepts (!?) / recast above in light of the ten theses of secular dharma*

the five precepts: an aid to enlightened being / “Strictly speaking, …” —Shunryu Suzuki (!g !* !*)*

denying being awareness … / read this also with being as a mass noun (!?) and awareness denied it

TK* / to come (!?)*

Posted

on any and all being

for a note on this video, see the notes following the post below

the whole – all that is – is what is

nothing is other than what is

nothing is other than the whole

nothing doesn’t change

nothing is perfect

nothing depends on nothing

only in the mind or by convention
is anything or anyone an entity

nothing is other than the whole

no one is

20221208T0158Z*
*a link; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer; see also the about post and the archives of miscellany, notrehta, or fw posts

/ the video above is of the Sunday service on November 6 at a small Unitarian church in Fall River, Massachusetts, and is set to start at the point when Rev. Richard Trudeau begins to speak on the topic of the day – with breaks during the next twelve minutes for other aspects of the service

nothing doesn’t change … nothing depends on nothing / anicca, dukkha, anatta (!?)

nothing is perfect / apart from the whole … dukkha/nirvana (!?)

/ nirvana: wanting nothing; being at one with what is – the whole – as seen in this moment by the whole

/ dukkha: wanting something; being at odds with what is – the whole – as seen by an entity not the whole

no one is / the self – an entity not the whole – is an illusion, a mental construct reinforced by convention

/practice self-inquiry (!?) …
as a thought – or anything – arises, silently ask to whom it arises, and then ask: Who am I? (!*)
Posted

absolute truth

relative truth and absolute truth are two sides of the same coin*

any thinking being is amphibian,
existing at any moment in one or both of two worlds:
the world of what is and the world of what is thought to be

the truth of anything thought to be is relative:
it depends on what else is thought to be

as for what is,
nothing doesn’t change
nothing is perfect
nothing depends on nothing
☛ what is depends on what is

the truth of what is depends on nothing else;
it is absolute, beyond words, beyond the mind,
open here and now – even so – to any and all being
as nothing other than the direct experience of being

nothing thought or said is the absolute truth

the thought of being – I am – is the first thought,
the origin of relative truth, of the world of what is thought to be:
the origin of separation into me and not-me, this and not-this, …

may all be well, letting that thought of being invite the question: Who am I?*


20221102T2313Z*
*a link; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer; see also the about post and the archives of miscellany, notrehta, or fw posts

date and time of last edit: 2025-03-12T15−07* / changed the comment directly above the document reader below

“Man is an amphibian …” / from the foreword by Aldous Huxley to Krishnamurti’s The First and Last Freedom (!?)

nothing doesn’t change … / anicca, dukkha, anatta – the three marks of existence (!?)

nothing is perfect / ideal, complete, beyond change … from notes on a Substack post*

nothing depends on nothing (!*) / a site-specific search

the direct experience of being / aka choiceless awareness (!* !*)

a direct frontal attack on the question: Who am I? / see “The Answer” – link on his home page – by Thanu Padmanabhan (!?)

/ search for the word direct in the document below and step through the six matches




Posted

nothing and being

image credit: Samuel Regan-Asante*

nothing depends on nothing, and nothing is unchanging

nothing is other than what is or seems to be

what is – what seems to be – and nothing are not two:
neither exists without the other

nothing exists, and nothing is other than being

no one is


2022-01-25T21:10−08* / January 25, 2022
*a link; see a note on notes and links and a disclaimer; see also the about post and the archive of miscellany or notrehta posts

nothing depends on nothing (!*)
Posted