sink deep down into yourself

So.   The atoms in a human body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space.
But is space really “empty”?
Bob O’Hearn echoes the ancient sages – Eihei Dogen comes to mind – in reminding us that what we think of as “empty space” is in fact vibrantly conscious, aware, and synonymous with the pristine and timeless awareness that is the bottom-line of our Being.  And – crucially – that one can know this irrefutably, for oneself and by oneself.

 

Just take the dive.

 

Sink Deep Down Into Yourself - Bob O'Hearn

 
 
Sink deep down into yourself, passing through flesh and bone, blood and water, nerves and electrical impulses, cells and molecular structures, atoms, and between atoms, immense empty space, conscious space, pristine awareness without gender, race, age, affiliation, belief, identity — our fundamental nature, nameless, formless, yet the basis of all names and forms, all life, all worlds.

Within this vast spaciousness, which has neither ceiling nor floor, nor any boundary or circumference, something appears. Immediately, attention flows out of itself and merges with that manifestation of itself, in the same way a cloud might appear in the midst of the empty sky, or a wave on the ocean, until we forget about the sky, or the ocean, in our effort to grasp at the cloud or wave. By habit, we grant these objects of consciousness a substantial and independent existence apart from their basis, identifying with them to the point that, when they inevitably vanish back into the space from which they originated, we tend to suffer a sense of loss.

Just so, this essentially cloud-like and transitory matrix of memory, thought, and perception which we generally regard as me, myself, and I spontaneously manifests within the spaciousness as a play of the spaciousness itself, except that we then imagine it to be our exclusive identity, and consequently squeeze the vastness down into this fragile formation of bubbling elements which we want to somehow persist forever, even though it never will, and so in its inevitable vanishing we tend to suffer a sense of loss.

Our friends and relations may gather around a glazed box of stuff which we once took to be our self. As it is lowered into the ground or rolled into the crematorium, some tears may flow, because the spaciousness took back what it made, leaving memories which too will fade, and eventually it will be as if it never was, and that much will be true — no praise or blame, no lingering regret: a wave arose, an ocean swell, it subsided again like a night’s brief dream, and all is well and will always be, in the empty sky of eternity.

– Bob O’Hearn


 
Sourced from Bob’s Facebook page.
Bob also writes on several blogs. Here are links to a couple of favourites:
the conscious process
feeling into infinity
Thank you dear friend.
 


 

I see you

Particle tracks on film from the Fermilab Bubble Chamber

 

If I should seek to know the thought-free state
all I need do is gaze into your eyes
every being who ever was, is, or will be
gazes back; I am gazing back, even though
I am not a being, not a thought, not conceivable
or perceivable, not even a secret godly whisper
shimmering in the stillness, nor anything
I thought I was, you were, we are.

I cannot see myself except through you,
you who live to share this same silent vision,
this eternal gaze expanding, always becoming
more than sight, more than any kind of knowing —
a fluid wordless epiphany emerging from nowhere,
the same place we inhabit now in our loving, this
exquisite loving without location or circumference,
and even though we never move, yet forever we are
circling in lazy liquid orbits around each other,
never once allowing our gaze to falter,
never even blinking

– Bob O’Hearn


These links open in new tabs:

Source: Bob’s blog feeling into infinity

Image: Particle tracks on film from the Fermilab Bubble Chamber, sourced from the wondrous sagan*sense blog


 

there is nothing to see but light

When at rest the mind is ordinary perception, naked and unadorned; when you gaze directly at it there is nothing to see but light; as Awareness, it is brilliance and the relaxed vigilance of the awakened state; as nothing specific whatsoever, it is a secret fullness; it is the ultimacy of nondual radiance and emptiness.

It is not eternal, for nothing whatsoever about it has been proved to exist.  It is not a void, for there is brilliance and wakefulness.  It is not unity, for multiplicity is self-evident in perception.  It is not multiplicity, for we know the one taste of unity.  It is not an external function, for Awareness is intrinsic to immediate reality.

~ Keith Dowman, The Flight of the Garuda

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More info about this beautiful book here.

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strewth and crikey

10

the apparent, assumed (and therefore experienced) self
is nothing more than a constellation of attributes
– all acquired –
around an identification

how it comes to be,
how it can be transcended,
and what might occur when it goes,
are more speculations of that assumed self

seen with ruthless directness, it all goes

only naked inescapable awareness remains

~

a silver shimmering silence sings
through this spacious beatland
called body-brain:
Lover tells me it is the Word of the Great Light

strewth and crikey –
I can’t extricate myself to argue!

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~ miriam louisa

echoes from emptiness

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the light that I am

This is an extract from The Light That I Am: Notes From the Ground of Being, by J.C. Amberchele.

At my core I am Aware Emptiness, and it is because I am empty that I am able to be filled, because I am no-thing that I am capacity for everything. This is why, wherever I look, to whatever I attend, I am replaced. And the replacement is total. I am not partially empty and partially replaced. I instantly and totally become what I am replaced by, including not only the physical but the mental as well, all the thoughts and feelings that adhere to the objects of the scene. This includes the scenes I call memory, mental imagery, dreams and hallucinations. This is why I am both No-thing and Everything, both Emptiness and Form, but it is essential that I not confuse what belongs where or what goes with what. Thoughts and feelings, although seemingly formless, belong to the world of form, adhere to and so define the physical appearances that constitute the world. Ultimately, they are the world. Empty Awareness is free of these things, and because it is free, it welcomes the world, which it then recognizes as itself! There is no separation, and at the same time, no confusion.

The Light That I Am: Notes From the Ground of Being
by J.C. Amberchele

Jerry Katz, who is an astute reviewer of books on the nonduality theme, has reviewed this book and I highly recommend that you make your way to his blog to have an in-depth read. This is a book from well outside the square, affirming that a true story can indeed be stranger than fiction …