Choice or Choice-less ?

Since awakening occurred, there is a willing acceptance of the arisings of life-ing.
No decisions need to be made, although it still seems that they are.
Sometimes there is a reminder that i will 'go with the flow', and this seems like a choice, but on investigation, it is seen that there was already put in place the intention to 'do' this.
Certainly, it seems (in hindsight) that i could have 'chosen' to take a different direction.
But that didn't happen.
Did i have the capacity to 'do' otherwise ? i don't know.
i do know that it seems like i did, but i also know that there were no alternatives considered.
There was recognising some resistance, then a 'letting go' when the memory arose of the 'going with the flow'.

By going with the flow, i mean that whatever is in front of me, is what is willingly accepted as the top priority. eg, i am typing this and my wife comes and asks will it attend to a job, whereas before i would feel intruded upon and interrupted, now there is just doing it. No reluctance, no resistance. Just happiness at the opportunity to practice 'going with the flow'.

This 'going with the flow' seems like a previous decision was made, but in fact was a recognition that it is either do this or add distortion by resisting.
Is there a choice here ?
Before that recognition, while the illusion of choice was present, there was habit.
There was a desire to continue what was happening (what i was 'doing') and so the request to 'change course' was seen as an interference. This was where conflict occurred, which resulted in anger and disharmony.
Once seen, where was the choice ? Could i choose to continue with an attitude/behaviour that induced stress ?
Of course, conditioning (habit) still sometimes arises, but is usually seen to be occurring, which instantly causes evaporation of resistance, accompanied by a chuckle of recognition.

Friendship

In pre-awakened times, friendship, like all relationships existed on a spectrum.
There were those that were closer and those more distant.
An acquaintance, being the most distant, was someone that you shared little more with than a knowing of names, maybe occupation, and had somewhat regular visual contact with.
As the distance decreases, at some point we start calling it friendship.
It may be that this point is when personal sharing occurs.
'personal' is a whole rabbit hole of its' own.
Since awakening, it has been impossible to take anything personally. For a start, there is only a story of I or Me or self, so there is no-one to take anything personally. 
Then there is the recognition that others cannot actually know anything about 'me'. 
They can only relate to their story of me, 
and who knows how accurate that might be ?
There is no doubt that imagining that the other likes me is also important, and add to this an underlying sharing of attitudes and philosophy and the distance decreases even further.
In close friendships there is a non-judgemental acceptance of the others behaviour and thinking.
Predictability may have a place in the feeling of safety that exists when either interacting or thinking about a friend.
i used to think that it was important that a friend 'knew me'. Knew my likes and dislikes, knew my philosophy on life. Now, my 'best' friend clearly relates to a story of me, and there is complete acceptance that they will never really 'know' me.


Many so-called friendships, like most couples relationships, are actually each others demons feeding of the other.
When you say "friend", there is a softness, a warmth, good humor, connection. It is a heart thing.
When you say "acquaintance", there is a knowledge about that person. It is a mental thing (mostly).
The awakened can see clearly that the relationship with another is, in fact a relationship with a story they hold about the other, and actually is very loosely based on the actual person.
This doesn't preclude friendships as preferences still exist and the organism certainly prefers feeling safe and warm.

...maybe to be continued.

Is 'Looking At' the same as 'Seeing' ?

When we 'look AT' we are looking at labels, we are therefore relating to a brain generated overlay, complete with opinions and judgements, and just as opinions and judgements are ABOUT something, so too is the overlay, but when we are SEEing we are experiencing what IS. Not about it, but  direct experiencing. This includes the perception that what is being SEEN is not an object 'out there' but a focussing on details of interaction that are indescribable.  Indescribable because to attempt to describe them is to ignore the nuance that is the depth of the multi sensorial experiencing. 
Can the Seen be seen without the See-er ? Is there a See-er without the Seen ? Where does the See-er and the Seen begin and end ?
To appreciate that See-er and Seen are actually an experiencing of SEEing, that there can be No separation, is to begin to grok this.
It may not be possible to avoid the 'looking At', as brain conditioning has already taken place and all of the ingredients for labeling are already there, But it is possible to be aware that this is happening and to give it the attention that it deserves (which is very little usually, though to communicate with another, it may be useful to have a 'shared' perception) The mind is obsessed with applying meaning to everything and part of doing this is to categorise and label everything that it touches.
The realization that thoughts have no inherent integrity (thoughts are always about, always conceptual and can only interfere with direct experiencing.) allows a relationship with reality that doesn't distort it. (reality is not actually an "it", nor can it be related to,  but language...)

When looking at it,
mind knows what it's seen before.
and sees it again.

When SEEing something,
it's always for the first time,
and it's Wonder-Full

What is Love ?

Love is such a contaminated word these days, that it is almost better not to use it.

An open, willing acceptance of what IS, tinged with appreciation and a huge Wonder at the constant discovery that is occurring.
When this is focused on other people, a compassion emerges along with the realisation that they are actually a projection of 'me', and indeed are revealing something more about this organism..., provokes an almost painful emotion that can conveniently be labeled Love.

Seeker - hear this.

Seeker, all of your effort-ing has caused your body to hover about a meter above ground level. The more you struggle, the higher you go. The usual struggle to maintain an I, has most of the world just under a meter high.
There is NOTHING you can DO to float back to ground level.
It happens with the cessation of struggle.
Any belief (opinion, judgement) is an attempt to manipulate reality, and up you go...
There is nothing to 'get' here.
EVERYTHING you Seek, already IS, and ALWAYS has been.
Grounded is the default state.

Surrender

Is surrender what happens when you do not do ?
Surrender doesn't mean 'giving up'.
Surrender means Letting Go !
Surrender means that the Only thing that can happen is to Witness, just Watch, Observe. No judgment, No Opinion, No Belief. Wordless Observing. Thoughtless Observing. Mindless Observing.
And in that, there is a SEEING.
A SEEING of What IS
Now let's not get too pure here.
Thoughts or Doing will still occur, you can't willfully turn them off, but you can recognise them for what they are. That is an attempt by mind to do what it is good at. Maintain the status quo, keep within the familiar.
This is where (you have heard it said) that everybody is already enlightened.
Whatever IS, is. Shit included.
It all just IS. Even when it's not, it IS.
Do you have a choice which thoughts arise ?
Do you have a choice about anything ?

mind mistaking mind for reality.

An object (a tree) is seen. Seeing occurs.
Light of various wavelengths enter the eye and this stimulates nerves which trigger the brain to see shape and color. At this point the brain consults a database of previous experiences and learned information to arrive with a label "tree".
It is at this point that mind enters the show.
It might say "just a tree, pleasant color and shape" and minds' physical component, emotion, kicks in and a good feeling happens.
At this point most people are 'seeing' what was in the database and not the actual tree.
This all happens automatically and takes nano seconds.
Can you imagine if we didn't consult the database ?
Everything would be seen as if for the first time and there would be an overwhelming flood of information that needed to be sorted. But the database has been filled with both useful as well as 'actuality distorting' information.
We just need to sort out the wheat from the chaff and allow the inappropriate to 'bleed' away.
The point i make here is that this process is mind seeing mind.
To think ABOUT what is occurring, to recognise, involves thought. But only original thought. First thought. This is how communication occurs. Labels are applied.
Importantly here, we need awareness, not to start relating to the label instead of the actual.
The minds I kicks in as soon as we have opinion or judgement and obviously we have to think to consider if that is occurring.
To say that an I is involved here maybe nothing more than a recognition of a familiar, habit form.
If you see the opinions that ring the alarm bells for I involvement, then identification is broken.
If unthinking wallowing in judgements happens, then I-dentification with an imaginary self exists.
Without identification with the illusory I, thoughts will continue to arise (Thoughts will never go away completely - maybe) The I will always be on call for when it is useful, but will always be seen as story.

Reality...

There is no such thing as Truth. It is as much an illusion as Self.
Check for yourself. Have you ever Experienced a thing called Truth ?
It is just language talking about some supposed characteristics of something.
You are not separated from the Truth (presuming Truth = Reality) Nor are you separate from "what is". Reality is, As IT IS.
As Reality consists entirely of your current experiencing, tell me, is it possible for there to be Experiencing without an Experiencer or an Experiencer without an Experiencing ?
Is it possible for there to be any separation between 'you' and 'your' experiencing ?

Experiencing
reality is only
Experiencing.

Belief in the story of I

Some people say that the mind is I.
The reality is that the I is mind.
That is it is constructed of thought and is just a story, a concept.
This concept is powerful in that the emotional reactions to the story are very real and they imply that the cause (the story) is real too. NOT SO!
The mind won't immediately stop doing what it does, but the SEEing that it is doing mind stuff, is ALL it takes to break the identification with the belief in the story of I.

If I is the mind,
and mind is only some thoughts,
When thinking ceases ?

about freedom...

This comes from a blog by Ciaran Healy; http://ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/second-kind-of-freedom.html

Freedom. What is freedom?

Well, there's two different kinds. One, is freedom FROM something. The other is freedom TO DO something you couldn't do before.

Yeah? Positive and negative freedom. Everyone tends to think of negative freedom. Freedom as the removal or this tyranny, or that tyranny.

Negative freedom is freedom from something bad. The civil rights movement, for instance, is a case of people fighting for negative freedom. Freedom from discrimination, freedom from inequality. Freedom from.

That's not to say it's not important, it is. But there's also another kind of freedom.

Freedom to. Freedom TO. That's something different.

Freedom TO is the addition of an option you never had before. If you are suddenly granted a pair of wings, that's not freedom from not having wings. It's freedom TO. Freedom to fly.

You don't have to fly. You can just sort of sit there. But you can, if you want, spread your new wings and take off. If you want. You don't have to. You just have the option to. The freedom to.

Freedom to.

Enlightenment is classically seen - and we have seen it, including myself, from the start - as freedom FROM. We've been looking for the end of suffering, freedom from suffering.

The problem with freedom FROM is that unless something VERY intense happens, you'll never fully root out the thing you want freedom from.

Racism is a good example. Did the Civil Rights movement deliver freedom FROM racism? Well, it definitely reduced the tyranny of it, absolutely. But no, there's still racism.

What it did deliver is freedom TO. With the new laws passed against discrimination, and the groundswell of public support for their cause it meant that black people had a new option, they were free TO live in ways that had previously been blocked to them.

Freedom TO.

Does liberation + gate + void end deliver freedom FROM suffering?

Nope.

Does it help?

Yup.

Does it deliver any FREEDOM TO's?

I would argue that with this eternal stuff, yes. Yes it does. It is brilliantly delivering a very CLEAR freedom TO for me.

The freedom to be cool. The freedom to be chill. The freedom to be balanced. The freedom to focus. The freedom to be open. The freedom to empathise. The freedom to apologise. The freedom to live an emotionally balanced life.

Yeah?

"I don't know how to SEE." said the Seeker.

SEEing is about Direct Experiencing.
That is about what happens before mind.
Before thoughts start their ranting about what just happened.
The thoughts take a milliSecond to arrive and if you are relaxed and ready you can take a snapshot of conditions which can then be inspected 'outside of time', so to speak.
Thoughts will still arise as a torrent, and like ads on the tv will endeavor to make you dissatisfied with what has just been observed and then offer you relief in the familiar.
Allow these thought (you can't stop them anyway), allow them, then as in judo, rather than try and stop them, you just deflect them, using their own momentum to take them off into infinity.
It's the moment before the thought torrent, that you intend to glimpse.
That glimpse will encompass so much detail that you may spend days inspecting it.
Practice it. (without judgement or opinions about how successful you might be)

enlightenment description

A quote from this blog that resonated here; restinginawareness.com
When awakening comes it is known, there is no more feeling of incompleteness or need for seeking. You can carry on learning and increasing in wisdom for the rest of your life, but you will know your true nature beyond doubt.

A rant for reality.

See the difference between IT, and About IT.
See the difference between a Thought, and the Content of that Thought.
If you See that there is a thought, and also See that the thought is About something.
That About, is a Story!
The Thought is Not. The Thought is an Experience.
Reacting to That Thought Experience, happens without judgement, without opinion, without belief. It happens without reacting to a Story and without building a New Story.
This is IT !!
Thoughts about This will happen.
You will See them and recognise them as part of a Story. You will simply ignore them as Just a Story ABOUT... and know that they mean about as much as the sound of the refrigerator.
That will be another Experience... well, no. Experience is a thing, and by now you are EXPERIENCING.
This is IT.
This IS..!
IT Always Has Been. You just didn't SEE it before.
This is Totally Choice-less.
This is Total Trust that What needs to Happen. Will Happen. (and it Does..)
Stop scratching the Seeking Itch. That will let the bite heal.
Then it won't itch any more, much..
Well it does, but you can See that it's refrigerator sound.
...but we get ahead of our 'selves' here.

Awareness

Awareness is simply a label collating the diverse experience of various forms appearing via dependent origination, there is nothing singular, independent, unchanging, inherent. Nothing can be pinned down. Soh Wei Yu

Labels and the damage they can do.

This is a copy and paste from; http://markedeternal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/labels.html
Don't just read it, DO the exercise. Amazement will occur.

When we are little children we learn to speak through labelling. At least this is how I remember.
Mum would ask - what is this?
I would say- this is a house
This is a car.
This is a window.
This is me.
Where is your nose?
Here is my nose, and I would touch it...

I have learned to label things and experiences and tested my limits and limits of my parents patience by throwing things, by saying no, by trying not to be conditioned. You know that little rebel age if you have kids.

So I learned the language and started using it, communicating with other people. One of most important words was me and mine: this is my toy, not my brother's.

No one has ever told me that 'me' is a word that is only useful in communication with others. Without others, there is no me, without I there is no them.

Somehow this belief in a me became stronger and took over, it became the central belief around which everything else was turning. It's like a belief, that earth is the centre of the universe, I became the centre of my world.

Until I looked. It really was just one look, it took a few seconds and all the search was over. The search for clarity, the quest of 'who am I?' was seen as cosmic joke.

There is no who.
There is nothing here in direct experience that is separate from experienced. Just this. Always now.

If you want to test this, simply do this little experiment that won't even take much of your time. All you need is 20 minutes, a pen & paper.

First write what you are experiencing right now using words I and me. Get right to the point, no past or future fantasy, just plain description of here now.

Like this-
I am laying in bed. I am hearing the rain, I am typing these words..

Do it for 10 minutes. Watch the body, are there any sensations of tightening or relaxing?

Then for next 10 minutes write without words I and me. Just describe the experience as it is happening using verbs:
Waiting for next thought, typing, breathing, blinking, hearing the rain.

Again watch what is happening in the body.

Now compare the two ways to label experience- is one truer than the other? If so, which one? What is here without labels? Do labels affect the experience or just describe it?

Your body knows. I is a label, not experiencer. Not a thinker, not a doer, not a hearer of rain. I is not what makes eyes blink and it is not a breather, it's a word, that is used for convenience of communication. If it's believed to be an entity, the mind is confused, the body is tensed up. Unconfusing it is simple- bring attention back to now and look once again- is there a me behind the word 'me'?

Life is happening. Looking is happening. Getting lost in the story is happening. With or without label I.

What is not on automatic?
And do we really need to be enslaved by labels? After all, experience is what labels point TO.

The story goes on. The belief in story drops away. The story is way much more enjoyable without the fear that something can happen to this 'me' once it's clearly seen that there is no actual me. Confidence, grace, fearlessness, peace with what is starts to shine through as fear gets loosened.

Imagine that! Humans got screwed by labels. And look at world of fashion- labels are so important!

So much emotional pain, such strong desire to get home, when home is all there is. Right here- underneath all the labels. Here, now waiting to be recognized.

Look. Don't think, just look.

After the 'gate'...

http://liberationunleashed.com/Article_After-The-Fall.html

What is liberation/enligtenment ?

Right at this moment I would call it the event of the recognition of a perspective, which then takes time to be deeply integrated into the system. Forkfoot O'Flannigan

a Haiku on Presence.

Anticipate nought.
Remember nothing at all.
What's left? Only NOW!

The habit of self.

The habit of me,
conditioned by life so far.
Now seen as a lie.

The freedom to see,
the world as it is really,
now resides in here.

DeConditioning,
occurs with each emotion.
Each seeing weakens.

What is left now that
self is seen as delusion ?
Just what always was.

But the ride now has
become more wondrous.
Wonder-full it is.

What dies at the point of death ?

In a conversation death came up.
One person asked what survives death, and there was consensus that the only answer to this could be "I don't know"
The next question was "Well, what dies at the point of death ?" and there was agreement that the body does (duh! obvious) but the idea that 'life force' or soul or whatever you want to call it 'leaves' the body at this point, which is a commonly held belief could only be supposition.
There is no doubt that 'something' is missing at the point of death, and on consideration that something was in fact a whole lot of things.
Movement and the unique activity of the person, the expressions, sound expressions, look expressions etc were absent, leaving an inanimate body. This could easily explain the absence of what was seen as the personality or the core essence of that person.
Somebody else then said that "They", meaning the I or Me that they were, that also went, to which i responded, "no, that never existed in the first place."
The idea, the concept that was held and believed to be a Me/I/They would stop as it was brain generated thought, and would stop when the brain/body stopped.
Next there is a story that i like that says the energy, the unseen, unmeasurable energy, maybe even consciousness, anyway something magical returns to be recycled. Nice story, i have no idea if it is right or not - doesn't matter, i'll just use it 'till a better one comes along. i'll never know, there'll be no i when it happens.

Scattering ashes,
with love in my heart for her.
She lives on in me.