Tag Archives: awareing

And there was endlessness

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The wholeness of undivided, intimate attention – an awareing that has no boundaries, no sense of separation, where observer and observed are both obliterated in a single movement of observing – is the subject of one of Denise Levertov‘s last poems, First Love.  The whole poem is sublime, but the final few lines speak so powerfully to me that I’m singling them out for this post.

It seems to me that one taste of that timelessness changes everything. This is not some cunning escape into yet another thought-bubble; not some desperate effort to transcend one’s mediocre little life. This is an experienced glimpse of another order of relationship. Haven’t we all had this glimpse? For me, it took hold of the steering wheel and has driven the trajectory of my life.

Through the entirety of your lifetime, what is it that you’ve deeply desired?

What has been – is – the Great Motivator of your days?

 

Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968)

 
 
[…]

`Convolvulus,’ said my mother.
Pale shell-pink, a chalice
no wider across than a silver sixpence.

It looked at me, I looked
back, delight
filled me as if
I, not the flower,
were a flower and were brimful of rain.
And there was endlesness.
Perhaps through a lifetime what I’ve desired
has always been to return
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness
of that attention,
that once-in-a-lifetime
secret communion.

 

– Denise Levertov, from First Love
 in This Great Unknowing, Last Poems

 

Painting by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968), Morning Glories (Convolvulus)

 

infinite space and light

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Vale, sweet, uncompromising Clara.

We are eternally grateful.

~

Awakened awareness without trace of thought
is the triumph of the sole One.

Clara Llum

Be aware that you are. Be aware that you are aware, right now.  At any given moment, rest in that simplicity of being yourself, free from labels or concepts of “myself.”  The very beingness, the very awareness is the constant “you”, the true you, faceless, formless, empty, cognizant, all containing, all inclusive.

Be aware of being…  Aware of being aware.

Meditate, stay with this awareness that you are and that is you.

Worship it, dive in it, make of it your home, and all will unfold.

Self-present awareness – awareness that is present in itself. Watch your watchfulness, be conscious of being conscious right now…

Aware-ing is happening, see it, know it, be with it, that’s all.

The mirror looks in the mirror, infinite space and light.

All enlightenment comes naturally from this. All wisdom, all peace, all realization.

~ Clara Llum

Source:  http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/an-interview-on-awakening-with-clara-llum/

Via:  Jerry Katz  at the Nonduality Highlights

this awareness is not aware that it is aware

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To say that “awareness is aware of itself”
is to split it into two:
one bit as the viewer
and the other as the view.

But is this really so?
(Not according to any teaching
or dogma or philosophy; no,
save me from second-hand ‘truths’!)
What’s the experience right here,
beyond the cunning concepts
that inevitably appear?

Awareness awares.
That’s all that I can say;
its ceaseless unlit light
both creates and acts its play.

Even emptiness is empty
and mind a four-letter word;
my gut rips wide open
as I fall on my sword.

Just this! I cry –

yet instantly it’s clear
that thusness is a step too far
from the lucid living light
that’s plainly shining

h e r e

[~ ml – emmelle – on exiting retreat]

your original luminous brilliance

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“… whose only beacon
is this unlit light”

 

Although it might seem to be the case if the three little words are taken literally and out of context, THIS UNLIT LIGHT does not refer to some kind of light – mystical or mundane – that needs to be lit, like a candle or a light bulb. In some scriptures there are references to mystical light that must be lit, but that’s not what is referred to here. Let’s be clear about this beloveds, so that we’re dancing on the same page.

The phrase “this unlit light”, as I use it, refers to a light whose brilliant origin cannot be found – a light that was already alight prior to the “big bang” moment, and every moment imagined, dreamed, or experienced in any way by anything possessing sentience. It’s described as “unlit” because it has never been ‘turned-on’ or ‘lit’ by any known technology, mental or otherwise.

This self-luminous light is sometimes called transparent, nondual present awareness; it is seamlessly intimate to every sentient being – so close it cannot be perceived, yet present as the awareing of every perception.

“this unlit light” points to the luminous clarity of awareness that knows, and in which knowing all existence and experience are birthed and named, even as it remains unmoved. Actually, to say that it “knows” is a step too far. (Even to say it “alights” is untrue, for it does n-o-t-h-i-n-g.  Words about the ineffable are automatically a contradiction in terms.)

Diamond Clarity

If readers of this little blog have scrolled down to the bottom of the page they will have come upon these words from J Krishnamurti – they have been there since its launch 3 years ago  –

A mind that is awake, intelligent, free, why should it need,
why should it have, any “experience” at all?
Light is light; it does not ask for more Light.

Light is light. Nothing is required for this light to be alight; both darkness and brilliance are as its shadow.

“this unlit light” – like Bankei’s “Unborn mind” – is right now awareing these strings of words displayed on this brightly lit screen. Simply awareing. Not judging, reacting or even understanding; not labeling or seeking meaning. Those functions are the province of thought and memory – and the miraculous movement of creative story-smithing. Stories are without number, and if one of them includes the need for the Great Light to be lit, no problem – enjoy the dance!

It might sound outrageous and irreverent, but “this unlit light” couldn’t give a toss about nonduality or any other philosophy. It couldn’t care less whether we’re spaced-out in the absolute, or beavering away heart-fully in the relative, or perfectly aligned in wisdom-compassion. It couldn’t care less whether we’re a hip Advaita teacher or a fierce dispeller of ignorance, a serenely blissful yogini or a story-sabotaged suffering seeker. It’s utterly unaffected.

Utterly unaffected.

It simply abides. Receiving everything; rejecting nothing.

That’s why it’s felt as unconditional Love; that’s why it’s called Beloved.

Your true nature is something never lost to you,
even in moments of delusion,
nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment.
It is the nature of your own mind,
the source of all things,
your original luminous brilliance.
You, the richest person in the world,
have been going around laboring and begging,
when all the while the treasure you seek is within you.
It is who you are.
~ Huang Po

[My emphasis]

 

SIMPLY REST IN THIS PURE DIAMOND-LIKE AWARENESS – TRANSPARENT, YET REFLECTING THE ENTIRE MIRAGE OF CREATION

 

Dedicated, with deep appreciation, to

| jk | jax | jac |

 

think on this, whispered the candlelight

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187

folded up on my zafu
venus rising, a brilliance
above the coral horizon
where soon the first
radiance of a new day
will emerge

legions of bats, black
against indigo, are
winging their silent way
back to their favorite
over-day treetops

 

 

but it’s still dark enough
for my candle to be
queen of the shadows
and she whispers to me:

“If the light of your awareing
wasn’t brighter than my own,
how could you see me?

I am but a shadow-play
of the unviewable, unlit
Light that you are!

Think on this.  And when the
sun climbs over the eastern rim
and reaches into this tiny patch
of sacred space, undressing
the dark,
think on this again.”

– miriam louisa

echoes from emptiness

this morning I watched my toes

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Forget about navel-gazing. Let’s face it, unless your zafu is in front of a full-length mirror and you are skinny as a rake, who can actually peer into that little enclave of lint and jam?

(It’s a bit like doing the ‘Headless’ experiments: What head? … What navel?)

But sitting here this morning, languidly lazy, with both legs stretched out and in full view, I marveled at my toes.

Perhaps they felt flattered, for as I gazed, Big Toe on left foot bent forwards towards me as though bowing, and Next Toe flattened itself back and away from Big Toe as though allowing it more space.

I watched, amazed. My toes were performing a dance totally independent of their assumed owner and resident choreographer!

It’s commonly called ‘cramp’.

I watched my toes. I felt the weird sensation without applying the ‘pain’ label. I marveled at the autonomy that paid no heed to my command to relax. I thought,  “Today, toes.  Another day, heart.”

Yet there was no morbidity in that thought, for marvel outshines morbidity every time.

And the Awareness that awares it all – the watching, feeling, marveling and thinking – outshines everything.

Memo to self:  If slipping into delusions of control, watch toes.

~ miriam louisa

Painting – Yoga Toes by Wendy Gendanken

then Beingness becomes Beloved

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The love that ‘I’ seeks is the Love that is seeking itself. Is there one ‘human’ beingness who is not seeking this thing called love? They mightn’t necessarily call it that – it might be referred to as happiness, peace, contentment or harmony, but all these are qualities of love itself.

Love never tires of seeking itself. The whole drama of Life is this search. And when Love eventually returns to find itself, one realizes that it was never lost, ever – it was just playing a kind of bittersweet game with itself. It was never, ever lost, for it is nothing but this inescapable Beingness.

Beingness – unavoidable and unchanging – is never unfaithful for one nanosecond. It never packs up and takes off with another lover; it is the Watching that notices lovers leaving on a fresh search for the love they haven’t yet recognized as their true Beingness. It never has an unkind word for me or anyone; it is the impartial Noticing of my unkind thoughts and thoughtless words. It’s never depressed or alienated or flattened or disappointed; it’s the Awareing of and the accepting of, all my mental and emotional states. It never demands that I or the world be better, different, more peaceful; it embraces everything equally, without judgment.

To use these words  – noticing, awareing, embracing – is completely incorrect actually, for it implies a split between Beingess and something ‘other.’ In fact, in our experience, there is no such split. Beingness is all – it is the hurt and betrayal and unkindness and violence as well as their perceived opposites.

This is the ultimate absolution. Beingness doesn’t condone nor does it mean one won’t act to help; it isn’t passive or nihilistic. It is simply realized that whatever is happening, is Beingness unfolding itself.

It strikes me that one could never find any object or person that could measure up to these qualities of basic Beingness. I guess that’s why after repeatedly trying to escape, and repeatedly making the return, I found that Beingness became Beloved for this gadabout. I rush to its immediacy without moving a hair. I am enfolded in its embrace. And I know it as ‘I’.

~ miriam louisa

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