This week’s self-inquiry goes deep into understanding thought and the true nature of awareness. It requires space and attention to digest properly. It’s two weeks’ worth of content combined into one. I guess I had a lot to write about on these subjects! At the end, I also share some questions for self-examination as well as a personal update.

I hope you enjoy:

The Nature of Experience

We try to think, feel, and sense our way out of problems,
but we forget
or fail to examine
the nature of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
So we end up trying to solve a flood with buckets of water
or trying to put out a fire with barrels of gasoline.

Whether it’s sensations,
thoughts, feelings, or objects,
the content doesn’t matter
because their nature
and the effect on our perception
is the same:
we chase the pleasant
and escape the unpleasant.

We become fixated on the wrong stuff
and lose ourselves in content
without observing the context.
Like staring at waves
without seeing the ocean.

What’s happening on the surface
is changing, impersonal, and creates suffering.
What’s happening beneath the surface
is never changing, connected,
and a source of enlightenment.

When we identify with form,
those identities are bound to wash away with the tides.
When we seek shelter in the formless,
we find a depth that cannot wash away.

This is what’s behind the veil–
our true nature:
peace, happiness, and understanding.

The difference between heaven and hell
is recognizing and forgetting
our true awareness.

When we lack the perspective
of direct experience,
we suffer.

From a materialist perspective,
an object exists
outside of awareness.

In direct experience,
everything is connected through consciousness.
Consciousness appears as
objects, thoughts, and sensations–
which are very narrow and condensed
fragments of awareness.

You can arrive at this conclusion directly
or by dividing and dissecting the content
all the way to the root.

Examining the Nature of Thought

Thought gets a bad rep
in the spiritual community.
It’s pushed aside and demonized,
something to clear your mind from,
to get rid of.
But thoughts are an intelligence of the mind.
Most thoughts are like
well-meaning family members
or a dear friend
trying to keep us safe.
Suffering only arises when
we lose awareness.
Otherwise, they’re a perfectly useful tool
to develop understanding.

Clearing your mind
is never the goal–
it’s a byproduct of presence.
The goal is not to get rid of thought,
but rather to see what’s true.

Thoughts are here to stay until they aren’t.
We need them to survive,
to solve intellectual problems.
But we mustn’t confuse them
for our identity.

Thinking and thoughts
are not who we are.
There’s a difference between
who you are
and thought of who you are.

Thoughts of you create an idea of you
Which is not the actual you.
The thought of you is an illusion.
The experience of you is something closer to reality.

Thoughts create a sense of self,
but there is also the Self.

While the sense of self only exists
in thinking and imagination,
The Self resides prior to thought.
It’s thoughtless, formless,
and inseparable from consciousness.

Often, awareness of a thought is enough
For it to lose its grip over our attention.
We’re able to disidentify from the illusion
and return home.
This can come from years of practice,
or recognized in an instant.

There are many ways to work with thought
to produce different insights.

One way to make a thought disappear
Is not to push it away
Or redirect your attention
but to allow the thought to be as it is
and to observe it clearly.
The goal is not the disappearance of thought,
but rather knowing the truth.

Another way to work with thought is
to search for it in the space of experience,
like looking for the hoot of an owl
in a pitch-black forest.
If the thought is so real,
Where is it?
Can you pin it down?

Another way to work with thought
is to label the thought as “thinking”
To observe: “This is the process of thinking.”
And note the phenomena objectively.

But to go even deeper in our self-examination
is to turn attention onto itself,
and ask: where is the thinker?
When we look for the source of thoughts,
We find both a dead-end
and a deep well of understanding and peace.

The mind will try to solve problems
rooted in thought
with more thought,
Which creates more thinking,
and more suffering.

Only you can sort yourself out.
Balance yourself out
with sensing,
Feeling,
Awareness.

We think thoughts alone create suffering
But suffering arises from
delusion,
Identification,
attachment to
and aversion of
the apparent reality.
Clinging to something
inherently impermanent,
changing, and illusory.
The fear of loss and death,
when there is nothing to lose,
nowhere to go,
but here and now.

~ ~

Self-Inquiry:

• Who are you?
• Where do thoughts and sensations come from?
• Where is the thinker of thoughts?

This can be a lot to approach at once. I recommend sticking to one inquiry that resonates with you and being with it for some time. They all point in the same direction. I hope the inquiry is worthwhile.

~~

Personal Update:

I’ve enjoyed writing these weekly emails to you. It’s the kind of stuff I’ve wanted to better understand and learn how to communicate more clearly. This is a vehicle for that process, so that you for your patience. I would love to hear your feedback!

I’m also reading my favorite author Haruki Murakami’s Novelist as a Vocation. It turns out his story of how he became a writer is just as inspiring and absurd as his books. It happened one day at a baseball stadium in Tokyo:

“The satisfying crack when bat met ball resounded through Jingu Stadium. Scattered applause rose around me. In that instant, and based on no grounds whatsoever, it suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.”

I love that. It’s never too late to completely change your life inwardly or outwardly.

As for my own story, I’m excited to find new ways to share my books with the world. Just recently, a friend ordered ten books for his tea shop! There are few better feelings. I’m staying open to giving and receiving.

If you want to order signed copies of my books, shoot me an email. The holidays are approaching and now is the time. 🙂 Thanks for your consideration and best of luck on your journey.

Love,
David