notrehta

image source: UUA post on Unitarian principles – archived*

being is a vibrant flame: the ever-changing present*

no being is other than this ever-changing presence

nothing is other than this

no one is

this moment is the ever-changing present, a present any conscious being is aware of – like it or not

no one need be unaware of being so choicelessly aware

with choiceless awareness, being aware of being – in this moment, the ever-changing present – the observer is the observed … and in light of this, no longer under the spell of stories

“… choiceless awareness – at every moment and in all the circumstances of life – is the only effective meditation” / Aldous Huxley  … in his foreword to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s The First and Last Freedom

“Do you want to know what my secret is? … I don’t mind what happens.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti

minding is dukkha; not minding, equanimity

dukkha arises and ceases with consciousness; equanimity, with meditation

effective meditation balances “dukkha with equanimity” – and arises and ceases with appamāda

dukkha with equanimity – the miracle of being aware of being in this moment, the ever-changing present

image credit: Sandy Millar*

other than in the mind,
there are no entities:
nothing depends on nothing,
and nothing doesn’t change;
there is only what is, this being,
this eternal, interdependent flux

nothing is other than this,
no one is

no one is unaware of being,
and no one need do more than need be done
to be and let be in choiceless awareness* *
“at every moment and in all the circumstances of life,”
as being aware of being, as the observer and the observed,

… and so to live with the miracle of being aware of being

image credit: Kelen Loewen*

being is a living flame,
and every form of being,
a candle burning*

living flame (!gb)

appamāda is being awake to what is or seems to be, carefully observing
without evaluating or judging as good or bad, in choiceless awareness* *

and, backing up to see how this “somehow synthesizes everything he taught,”

nothing is unchanging, nothing depends on nothing,
and nothing can explain this – no one can

believe no one, not even Buddhas*

keep on keeping on with appamāda

nothing is as it seems:

nothing doesn’t change

nothing isn’t dukkha

nothing depends on nothing

“things are not as they are seen, nor are they otherwise” / Lankavatara Sutra (!gb)*

“it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing” (!gb) to believe in nothing is to believe in being that is
empty of everything but the potential for anything

unless you are asleep, unconscious, or dead,
you are aware of being

you are aware of being, like it or not,
if you are alive, conscious, and awake

Aldous Huxley, in his foreword to The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti:

Ama et fac quod vis. If you love, you may do what you will. But if you start by doing what you will, or by doing what you don't will in obedience to some traditional system or notions, ideals and prohibitions, you will never love. The liberating process must begin with the choiceless awareness of what you will and of your reactions to the symbol-system which tells you that you ought, or ought not, to will it. Through this choiceless awareness, as it penetrates the successive layers of the ego and its associated subconscious, will come love and understanding, but of another order than that with which we are ordinarily familiar. This choiceless awareness – at every moment and in all the circumstances of life – is the only effective meditation.*

if you are alive, conscious, and awake,
you need do no more than need be done
to be and let be, to live and let live
in this and every moment
with love, compassion, joy, and equanimity,
without comparing or judging,
in choiceless awareness**

“awareness of form, feelings, perceptions, and thoughts” (!?)

appreciation of the miracle of one’s own awareness – always present, requiring no conjuring up – has been “scribbled over with false images” (!?) / Robert Saltzman* 2020-09-01 17:40 (citing Q and A from February, 2018)*

enjoy what you may, endure what you must (!?)

choiceless awareness is key to experiencing “dukkha with equanimity” (!?)

love, compassion, joy, and equanimity (!?)

image credit: NIAID on Flickr*

being is all that is,
implicate and explicate (!?)

whatever is thought of as something
cannot be as it is
without being thought of as not that*

whoever is thought of as someone
cannot be as they are
without being thought of as not them*

and so it is for any being

no being is not this being

implicate and explicate,
this being is all that is

“You can have the feeling that you totally know what’s true or you can have a humble devotion to trying to learn the truth as best you can from moment to moment. You can’t have both.” —Caitlin Johnstone*

you either think you know the truth
or see that it’s beyond the mind*

relative truth is what is thought to be
and depends on what else is thought

absolute truth is simply what is
and depends on nothing else*

* * *

absolute truth is eternal, timeless, imperishable – and so is being;
in some sense they “are ultimately two names for the same thing” (!gb)

screenshot from a result of that search on Google Books

NGC 4605, located around 16 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear)*

nothing doesn’t change, and nothing depends on nothing

believing in nothing is believing in what is empty of everything but the potential for anything

Shunryu Suzuki: “I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing.”

A foreword by Aldous Huxley to The First and Last Freedom, a 1954 book by Jiddu Krishnamurti, ends with this:

Choiceless self-awareness will bring us to the creative Reality which underlies all our destructive make-believes, to the tranquil wisdom which is always there, in spite of ignorance, in spite of the knowledge which is merely ignorance in another form. Knowledge is an affair of symbols and is, all too often, a hindrance to wisdom, to the uncovering of the self from moment to moment. A mind that has come to the stillness of wisdom “shall know being, shall know what it is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.”*