Can there simply be stillness without knowing? This stillness, this pure awareness, with its wisdom and compassion - is this the manifestation of God from moment to moment? Who knows? Where does the question itself come from? The word, the name, is not what is. What is is without self. It is unknowable, unthinkable, indivisible. Why attach a name to what is?
Toni Packer; “The Light of Discovery”, p. 7 (Thank you, dhammanovice)

(Source: stillcuriosity)

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it's all dhamma.: Awareness

Awareness cannot be taught, and when it is present it has no context. All contexts are created by thought and are therefore corruptible by thought. Awareness simply throws light on what is, without any separation whatsoever.

Awareness, insight, enlightenment, wholeness — whatever words one may pick to label what cannot be caught in words — is not the effect of a cause. Activity does not destroy it and sitting does not create it. It isn’t a product of anything — no technique, method, environment, tradition, posture, activity, or nonactivity can create it. It is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed in all its grossness and subtleness and defused in the light of understanding.

Can the inner noise be entirely left alone while attending? When the changing states of body-mind are simply left to themselves without any choice or judgment — left unreacted to by a controlling or repressive will — a new quietness emerges by itself.

Sitting motionlessly quiet, for minutes or hours, regardless of length of time, is being in touch with the movements of the body-mind, gross and subtle, dull and clear, shallow and deep, without any opposition, resistance, grasping, or escape. It is being in intimate touch with the whole network of thoughts, sensations, feelings, and emotions without judging them good or bad, right or wrong — without wanting anything to continue or stop. It is an inward seeing without knowing, an open sensitivity to what is going on inside and out — flowing without grasping or accumulation. Stillness in the midst of motion and commotion is free of will, direction, and time. It is a complete letting be of what is from moment to moment.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masks — images, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody. This new mind that is no-mind is free of duality — there is no doer in it and nothing to be done.

―Toni Packer

She describes this process very well. Thank you, sharanam.

In truth the me is no-thing other than thought, memory, and sensations which happen to have tremendous electro-chemical power within this mind-body, giving it the false impression of existing as a separate entity among other separate entities.
Toni Packer (via sharanam)

(via sharanam)

There’s a very, very delicate line, a sort of razor’s edge: where is the ‘me’ being reborn, strengthened, or denied, and where is it simply being exposed, being seen directly for what it is?
Toni Packer (via sharanam)
Not knowing is dying. And at the same time being wholly alive.
Toni Packer (via sharanam)
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The quest for enlightenment

Would there be any quest for enlightenment if it weren’t for our sense of time? Time is created by thought, memory, and imagination: what I was, what I am, what I will be. Forever feeling insufficient and lacking, we want to become whole and complete in the future. We will submit to any spiritual path to overcome our hindrances in the course of time. Then, we imagine hopefully, there will come the day when we will experience enlightenment, the liberation from bondage that has been promised to us by the traditions of the past.

I don’t think in terms of having experiences any more. Things just happen. Rain is dripping softly. The heart is beating. There is breathing, in-out-in-out. There is quiet listening, openness…emptiness…nothing…

Enlightenment? How lethal it is to attach a label. Then you become somebody. At the moment of labeling, aliveness freezes into a concept. “My enlightenment experience!” To be alive, fully alive, means flowing without hindrance—a vulnerable flow of aliveness with no resistance. Without any sense of passing time. Without needing to think about “myself”—what I am, what I will be. Our experience mongering is a form of resistance in time.

Our craving for experiences is a resistance to simply being here, now. It’s the hum of a airplane. The fog. The wind blowing gently, the rain dripping, breathing, humming, pulsating, opening, closing, nothing at all…

It’s such a relief to realize we don’t have to be anything.

—Toni Packer in The Light of Discovery (Shambhala Publications), adapted from a talk delivered in June 1991.

Wonderful. Thank you sharanam.

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it's all dhamma.: Thought

From a different tradition, but I think this is what Madame de Salzmann speaks of when she says: “Truth cannot be thought.”

from sharanam:

“As we all find out, going over and over our problems and trying to seek mental solutions doesn’t work. It just becomes a repetitive, circular, looping thing. And, of course, every time we think of our problems, the whole body is upset, one way or another. Can one see for oneself that with psychological probelms, thinking, trying to come up with a solution, does not bring the ending of the problem? One needs to find out for oneself the limitations of thinking—where it is appropriate, where it can do something, and where it becomes circular, looping around and around and around.

Can thought alone understand this, or to see it does one already need insight—insight into thought and its limitations? I don’t know. Some say thought can see its limitations. My perception is that thought can only think about its limitations—it can’t SEE! Thought doesn’t see—it’s thinking! But thought looping round and round can be seen: insight reveals it clearly, and the futility of it. The solution of the problem lies in seeing it—in the seeing, without wanting a solution, or dissolution—just seeing what’s there…

This seeing is not watching in the way that we usually think about it—with “me” always there as the watcher. Seeing has no seer involved in it, no watcher, no observer. It’s open like the sky, just revealing what’s there without any sense of separation or judgment.”

—Toni Packer in The Light of Discovery (Shambhala Publications), adapted from a talk delivered in June 1991.

Most of us are afraid of dying. One can try to combat the fear of death by concentrating on death as a practice. Recently I heard of a monastery where the monks were not supposed to talk at all, except for when they met each other they said, “Remember, brother, that you are going to die.” What goes on in these people’s minds? What are they doing in this exercise? Essentially the resistance to being here now is the fear of dying and losing all that we know about ourselves - our whole history. So can one work with this fear directly, listening openly, vulnerably, dying to ideas as they come up about myself and the world? No idea, not being anything, no grasping to be somebody, not anything - when that happens freely there is no fear of dying, because this is what we really are, what we were before we are born, and what we will be when we die. It is our true state. Now. There is nothing fearful about it.
Toni Packer from The End of the Story | Tricycle - The Buddhist Review (via sharanam)

(via sharanam)

Can we begin to realize that we live in conceptual, abstract ideas about ourselves? That we are rarely in touch directly with what is going on? Can we realize that thoughts about myself—I’m good or bad, I’m liked or disliked—are nothing but thoughts, and that thoughts do not tell us the truth about what we really are? A thought is a thought, and it triggers instant physical reactions, pleasure, and pains throughout the bodymind. Physical reactions generate further thoughts and feelings about myself—‘I’m suffering,’ ‘I’m happy,’ ‘I’m not as bright, as good looking as the others.’ That feedback implies that all this is me, that I have gotten hurt, or feel good about myself, or that I need to defend myself or get more approval and love from others. When we’re protecting ourselves in our daily interrelationships we’re not protecting ourselves from flying stones or bomb attacks. It’s from words we’re taking cover, from gestures, from coloration of voice and innuendo…Is there someone real to be protected from words and gestures, or are we merely living in ideas and stories about me and you, all of it happening in the ongoing audio/video drama of ourselves?…As we wake up from moment to moment, can we experience freshly, directly, when hurt or flattery is taking place? What is happening? What is being hurt? And what keeps the hurt going? Can there be some awareness of defenses arising, fear and anger forming, or withdrawal taking place, all accompanied by some kind of story line? Can the whole drama become increasingly transparent, can it be thoroughly questioned? What is it that is being protected? What is the me? Is it images, ideas, memories?
Toni Packer, from “What is the Me?” in The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry (Shambhala Publications) (via sharanam)
Actually, awareness is here even during times of darkness. Presence never goes anywhere. This is not a dogmatic statement but a simple fact that each one of us can come upon. See the cloud, the darkness! Hear the wind! Feel the breathing! Smell the flowers! Touch the swaying grasses! Clouds, wind, thoughts, breathing, fragrant flowers, and grasses change all the time, but seeing is here without time. Even though doubts may obscure it, it is here the instant the mind stops and every cell of the body opens to hear and see and be.
Toni Packer, “Open Presence” (via sharanam)