Written on March 18, 2008 by Tom Stine
Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn’t one.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
“Is Enlightenment easy or difficult?”
“It is as easy and as difficult as seeing what is right before your eyes.”
“How can seeing what is right before one’s eyes be difficult?”
To that the Master responded with the following anecdote:
A girl greeted her boyfriend. “Notice anything different about me?”
“New dress?”
“No.”
“New shoes?”
“No. Something else.”
“I give up.”
“I’m wearing a gas mask.”
All of our thoughts are conditioned. We all are thinking exactly along the lines we are conditioned to think. Programmed like a computer. Anybody who thinks they are actually choosing of their own free will the line of thinking that they have is completely deluded by their thinking.
Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not- a destination called realization or enlightenment. But realization isn’t someplace else; it’s the naturally occurring human state. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s who we all are. Spiritual practices also set up many pictures of what this state looks like. For example, when I described how much fear was present, people told me the fear meant that something must be wrong, because fear was an indication that I wasn’t in the proper state. But fear is just what it is, and it’s there too in the vastness of who we are.
In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.
on March 19th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Tom, who said I was unhappy? I have times in my life where periods of unhappiness drift in.But like anything they move on. Like right now I’m happy to be communicating to you.I’m unhappy that my neck is hurting from sitting at the computer to long… but, All I need to do is get up and rest by laying down and we’re good to go again. I’m justa saying!
on March 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Hey Mark.
Pay careful attention to the next time you are unhappy. Notice who that to be unhappy requires a central character, you, in the drama. Without the character, the unhappiness disappears. Your neck my still hurt, but you won’t. To paraphrase the Buddha: no self, no suffering.