April 23, 2011

Pure being is an almost gossamer sense of "I am" without sensory or mental inputs. This is why the sages tend to say they are already dead. Sensory and mental input continues, but from an unaffected distance. Your real self dwells there. Like an eagle hovering high above a noisy city, it comes down to feed or to visit its nest as necessary, but it lives removed from the hubbub, as witness only. Does this sound cold or calloused to you? Only if unfettered peace and the boundless love within it are deemed cold. I am a fortunate man. Somehow I have clambered into the leisure class and, more importantly,  I knew what to do when I got here. This is a privilege that should not be squandered, time to spend in search of our true nature and then to reside in it. Very few in America strive for this. The lucky few who attain or are born to leisure squander it on spending and acquisition, pursuit of transient happiness, temporary lifting of fear. And the great irony is that through it all, through work and strife and the anxiety of life, we have buried within us the end of suffering, perfect equanimity, radiant love, always there if we choose to access it.