This transcript was made by speech-recognition software, so names and some words may be misheard. The recording is the original: watch on YouTube.
I am Kat and we got Bob here. He is with us. He will be a fly on the wall. And he instructed me to suck into him. That was the instruction. So, yeah, we're starting from the fact that whatever you believe yourself to be and whatever you seek to become, you don't need to do that. There's nothing to find. You're already whatever you are, whatever you want to be. If you want to be enlightened, just consider yourself that. If you want to be emptiness, just consider yourself that. You are, you exist, there is a being. It doesn't mean that there exists a separate thing which is the you that possesses.
No, but at the same time the being cannot be denied. It is something that is prior to any consideration, any seeking, Any philosophical discussions of what exists and what doesn't exist, prior to that there has to be that witnessing presence, which is not an objective quality because it's not an object, it is a pure subjectivity. And to that pure subjectivity we invite people to return. And this is returning from the conceptual cloud of the mind. And the conceptual cloud, the thinking, will tell you what you are, what you are not, what you have to become, how you have to get there, what you have to study, what sadhana you have to do.
And this is all concepts, this is all narrative that is telling you that right now is not good enough, that this is not as it should be. There is something else to be had, that is something else to see, something else to understand. In the future, because there is such thing as future. So the mind conceived of that idea that there is another world apart from this moment and in that world there is something to find, something to achieve, for someone to get it. Well, if we come back to that pure singularity of the presence, of just the undeniable fact of existence that can't be found as an object but cannot be denied because there is something going on.
There is nothing going on really but it appears to be something. And there is a witnessing presence to that appearance. Even though everything that appears is called maya or illusion, there is a witnessing presence to that maya or illusion. And that witnessing presence is not a thing that can be found by someone who is looking, because that witnessing presence is what is looking. And if it is to find the Self, it's not gonna find it, because there is no Self. But who is looking? There is still a looking. So that very looking is an activity of the mind, is the constructed entity that is trying to find a home Because there is an assumption that it is not there yet, that there is something to be had and someone to have it.
So really this is all about recognizing what's not true. And what's not true is all the constructed mind by thought and thinking, imagination, words, concepts, ideas. Those are basically the obstructions to the obviousness of that witnessing singular being right here, right now. Not somebody's being, this being that is experienced closer than your feet and hands and breath and everything. And really that undeniability of my own being is all there ever is because we could theoretically assume that the time is real and there was a time when that presence, witnessing presence didn't exist. And that there will be time when the body is no more, that that witnessing presence will not exist.
And a lot of different paths and different scholars fell on for that trap. And instead of really just sitting in that silence of presence and waiting for it to unravel, they went on lengthy discussions where different Buddhist groups and scholars and troops We are fighting over the years and centuries trying to prove each other wrong about the conceptual idea of any other time than now. There is a time when the body is not and what then? Is it experience Is it real Is it anything else than another thought or concept What is there Is there existence Do I exist am I when the body dies before the body dies who cares if you really do the due investigation and you find that there is no one there this question doesn't arise if you still have theoretical questions about the time when this is not well obviously you I understood nothing because there is no future, there is no past.
The whole time and the whole theoretical concepts in time exist only when you think about it and when you really want to know. So it was a little bit of a discovery for me when I read your file, Tony, on Nagarjuna who I actually know and respect as someone really clear, to find out that his clarity He got absolutely gone when he started engaging with the ideas that there is something other than this moment right now. But it could be a translation because I think I have much more mature investigations of his from probably later time when he went through that threshold of just aiming at proving others wrong because there are no others.
There is no one there to be found wrong. Like apparently his life mission was to say that Hinduism is bullshit because they believe in Brahman. Well, there is no Hinduism, there are no Hinduists, and there are no Brahmans, and there are no beliefs. And he should know that because he says everything is empty. So all those concepts are empty. But it was very, very interesting study and thank you for that. I actually read it last night and it was... The, the, the, the, you know, strictly speaking, we can talk about the present and the present moment because it's convenient and it's, you know, and so on, but there really isn't even a present because, you know, a present depends on the past, you know, and so once, once it's dependent, it's not a real thing.
So there's not even a real presence or a real past or a real future and the whole thing of time, you know, and so on. But conventionally, we still used the term past, future and so on as a conventional, but there's no real reality to even the present. Otherwise, if we don't know that, we'll reify the present. We'll fixate on that and make that into something. The present will become something. And so on. Thank you. As Bob says, try and get out of this moment. That's right. And that's the key. To conceive of the... And this is, I know they are all very fascinating. We had to talk about it on the last Zoom.
How wonderfully interesting it is to be able to prove certain ideas. And to feel that, oh, they are all wrong, they are not getting it, but I am right, I am getting it. But there, you see the assumptions behind it. First of all, that they, somewhere there, separate and apart from me, and there is me here in relation to them, and they are wrong and I am right. How it actually solidifies the sense of I being right and being right about something. Now we have the whole new universe created overlaying that simplicity of being. There is me, there is them, I am right, they are wrong.
A lot of concepts, a lot of... And now, of course, the defense, the needing to prove it, all that stuff comes up and clouds the obviousness. It really transports the whole attention into that cerebral functions, comparing, judging, distinguishing, defining, you know, the definition of this term, definition of that term, this is well, this is not well defined. Really the whole conundrum of constructed world come with learning the language. Learning the language. I am the soul, or the spirit, or the mind within the body that has this experiencing, this trauma, and differentiating starts. I've experienced this and you didn't. I understand this and you didn't. My guru, my religion, my philosophy, my father, my school is better than yours.
And the differentiation creates more of the diversity, the ten thousand things of the world, all because of the language. So recognizing that language is the cause, I mean of course it's not a cause because the cause is everything Language would be nothing if there was no sun shining if there was no body or the earth or the trees or the parents Of course, it's just one of the elements that constitute that way it expresses and appears. But really the language is instrumental in creating the overlay of the world that is narrated by the mind. Within this world of narrated separate objects related to the me or to each other, the world of the relationships, only in this world there are questions, there are problems to be solved, there are right and wrong, good and bad, religions, philosophies.
Every single point that needs clarification or defining, they all exist in that overlay of the narrative constructed by labeling things out and relating them to each other. When that cloud of narration is left, dropped out of it, there is no question, is there existence or no existence? Who gives a shit? Is there a separate entity or not? Who wants to know? Who cares? There is no questions like those very, very sophisticated, oh, is God real or is not real? Is He good or is He evil? If the God is good, then He shouldn't create the devil. And if He has, then He's... if He couldn't, then He's not omnipresent.
My gosh! What a verbal masturbation! Who cares? This is all happening in the sphere of the thinking While this is happening and the attention is trapped in the totally theoretical nonsense like this, life goes on and there is the miracle happening. There is breathing happening, there is perceiving, hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling. All that incredible diversity, all that beauty, all that miracle, the mystery is going on. And of course that is part of the mystery, the cloud of thinking, it is part of the mystery. But if it completely covers up the mystery, that the basic of it, the real juice of it is lost, then of course there is a suffering.
If that's all there is, the cloud of who is right, who is wrong, I'm getting it, I'm not getting it, is it something I will get in future or no? If that is all there is, there is suffering because of the assumptions that go with it. If there is something to get and I should get it, there is an assumption that there is me that is incomplete, that is deficient, is not good enough. That poor me that needs self-medicating, that needs to break through, find something. Oh my gosh, what a miserable, miserable place to be. And the sun is shining and who is noticing that?
And there is so much to appreciate around, but no, instead I'll compare it with others and say what I don't have. And I will be hoping that maybe that misery or that sense of incompleteness will go away when I get it. When I get a new car or I get a new job or I get more money or plastic surgery or whatever it is. And this is what the suffering is and this is what can be avoided. And of course, the suffering can be described in different terms as well. That not only the self-definition as the confined little object inside called me, which can't be found, anyone's going to look and try and find it, it's impossible, it can't be found.
But at the same time, the fact that there is something looking, There is some sort of activity or movement going on trying to find it, which would be the me trying to find the me. So that can't be denied, that there is a movement, there is noticing happening of the activity of trying to get, trying to find, trying to see, trying to understand and doing all this, that is being noticed, noticing is happening. But is it any entity called me doing it? No, the entity can't be found. The noticing is happening, the conscious witnessing or some sort of a processing is happening. But it doesn't belong to anyone or anything.
And that's the realization of not having a separate thing that needs fixing. There is nothing to be fixed anymore. The sense of deficiency or incompleteness in there is gone with the idea of someone incomplete. If there is something incomplete and you look and you can't find it and it's just obvious, the being, the looking, the finding, the noticing, the experiencing is still going on but there is no entity doing it. There is no one to fix. And suddenly the sense of incompleteness completely dissolves and there is nothing wrong. There is no deficiency anymore there is no lack anymore There is no need to fix There is no need to grasp or desire anything That there no one left to enjoy that Ah, quite the contrary.
That's a good point what you say. There's no one there to enjoy that. But joy is the natural state. There is no entity. There doesn't have to be a little thing inside To experience the joy of being because for some reason when you look at the whole manifested world, everything comes in and out of existence and everything loves to be. You see the plant, the bird, the tree, all of it, it somehow loves to be. It doesn't want to disappear out of existence. It all has survival instinct. The effort to get out of suffering is simply the me attempting to rid itself of an aspect of life.
The me is ridding itself. The me's attempt to get rid of suffering is just more me expecting that life can be free of suffering. But yes. When there's emptiness, there's no one left to suffer, but suffering can still arise. Subtitles by the Amara.org community There is no one. It's not a fixing of all your problems. They don't go away. There's just an emptiness to them. And then there's an emptiness seen in everything. So that aloneness is in itself quite intense. But is it really something that you would like to go away? Not at all, but I think that it's a lot to get used to.
Yeah, I totally hear what you say. Yes, absolutely, nothing disappears. There is no concept of suddenly achieving an eternal bliss in which all the problems are suddenly gone. You never have to pay your bills or you never stub your toe ever again. Totally right, that's a good point. But at the same time, the way we are perceiving resistance, suffering, is a resistance to what is. If there is a sadness arising, or there is an anger arising, and it arises to no one, there is no one to object to it, there is no one to resist it. So it is happy to be. Sadness, anger, or loneliness, or whatever arises, is just part of the arising, and without resisting it, wanting to get rid of it, You don't create the entity that has an agenda for anything that shows up to be any different.
I tried for 20 something years to get rid of that pain, that suffering. And now that there's nobody left and seeing that there's still the conditioning, there is the movement of trauma of past, it's like, wow, this... Enlightenment is nothing, it's not something that is yours to hold or to fix everything or to enjoy even. It's just empty. No one left. Yes, and thank you for that. This is a really important point. If anyone is looking for the easy fix to heal their traumas or to end up in a sense of pleasure or bliss, No, that's not the right way. Yes, that's the individual, the self, trying to self-medicate or fix.
When you realize the emptiness of that all patterns arising, then you see in yourself and in everyone else that same emptiness. And it's the best way I like to look at it is the way Bob shown me. Look at those who did not construct the self and did not have to deconstruct it, the animals. And I was speaking with Julia a few days ago about the situation when you go to the shelter full of dogs that were captured from the street. Some of those dogs will be just screaming and yelling. And there is, it feels like, oh yeah, there is an ego there that is resisting what is.
No, it's the way the body has formulated the software, the program. There is a trauma, there is a danger. If the impulses from the environment are translated as a danger, it will cause the barking and the turmoil. And there's no one doing it. It's just the software running the hardware, that's all. Other dogs will be sleepy, will be placid. Every single creature has its own unique conditioning and realizing there is no one there, of course it does nothing to the conditioning. Because even if you dream that there is someone there, it also does nothing to the conditioning. Translationata And the thinking, the thinking also formulates the personality, the reaction patterns, formulate in the response to the environment.
Like Bob has this fragment of the spiel when he says, if the little child has nice, warm and loving family, it feels more complete, less insecure. But when the child is severely traumatized, and there was a fantastic research, there's a lot of different research in psychology, showing how the frontal lobe of the brain in a little kids in a like very often very very poor so sort of mafia-ridden communities in America where the mothers are sitting or either homeless or running for their lives and being raped in their pregnancy they don't get enough nutrients because they in fight and flight mode So the hands and legs of her and of the fetus there get strong to run, but the brain doesn't really develop.
So their chances in life are completely unfair. They will be marathon runners, but they won't really think very well, because they didn't need thinking. The survival is prioritized. They may not even develop. We had someone coming to the group who didn't even develop the sense of self. There was some whatever, a mini stroke, something happened in the language center and he never had that sense of being separate. He struggled at school. That's a great paradox too. The material world is that someone can have a fabulous upbringing and warm, nurturing parents and a great career, but never necessarily that hunger to eat through all that and then get to the emptiness.
It can be a great blessing to have 40 years of great suffering. Because you eat through everything, trying to find what is it, what is it, what is it? You're losing more and more and more and it's so much pain. And then that has to fall away because eventually the longing to see through it is overwhelming. And it must be, it must be solved. Absolutely. That's interesting, Cara. Yes. I think what you're saying is like trying to pierce through this illusion and so on. But we have an expectation we are going to finish up and discover emptiness or an ultimate whatever. And that's another trick.
The greatest trick. The reality is not in finding something, like even emptiness or an ultimate. The reality is in not finding. That's enlightenment, is in not finding. Even that sounds like something that can be done in a way. I don't think it can be done. It just happens. The You can only know who you're not because that's the nature of the mind. So the nature of the mind is to work in the pairs of opposites. First there's a me and then there's the other as Kat was rightly saying before. And then that mind is like a clunky machine that works in the pairs of opposites.
Pleasure, pain, happy, sad, me, you, today, tomorrow, yesterday. It works in those pairs of opposites. And, you know, the presence that we are, that's what that's appearing on. And so you can only know who you're not if you're identifying with the mind. Because, you know, the mind's always going to translate and narrate. And then there's the, you know, the fact that you know, or you've been pointed to the fact that you're a me, or you're not a me, rather. So it's just a negation really and I loved what someone said a couple of weeks ago. Once you realise there's no me and there's this knowing who you're not, it's like having a backpack on your back and you know a whole bunch of rocks in it and then eventually the backpack emptied And so then you travelling lighter and so there the trap of the me naming and claiming The Backpack is Empty And so then once you really see that, conditioning doesn't matter.
Conditioning is just old patterns. They can still suck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they suck. You know, if you want to name them, they suck. Yeah, but who is it happening to? It's happening to a me, and who is that me? The me is a memory of you. It's not really who you really are. Who you really are is satchitananda, being consciousness bliss. That's who you are. And you have a joy of being. Nobody here, like Bob says, would want to be dead right now. And the only fact you know for sure is that you are. And the rest of it is just a narration on that presence that you are.
And that little me, as you say, that sucks, trying to name and claim. I didn't mean the me sucks, I mean what still goes on can suck. For no one. Oh right, okay. I understand what you're saying. Like any idea that I'm in bliss and I'm never in bliss. No, it's nonsense. But you know, an ultimate truth, which can be useful or may not be, and it depends, As I was mentioning that even suffering, like anything, has never ever come into existence in the first place. And so suffering or anything, this whole world has never come into existence in the first place. There are appearances like a mirage, but there's nothing there.
Or as I used, the snake in the rope. There was never a snake in the rope. The snake never appeared, never existed in the first place. And so any idea how do I get rid of suffering is from the assumption that suffering exists. It's real and it has come into existence. We still have this idea that it does, things do exist. The other thing which is interesting to me anyway is that trying to pierce through this illusion and then discover the ultimate or so on underneath it, it's a negation affirmation. Lineage terms for the The I Am the Absolute. We think there's a difference. We think that the ultimate is privilege.
Right. And some people even think they're more privileged than a rock. Right. I know. And so on. And that makes distinctions. And once we get distinctions, we have, I like that and I don't like that. And now we start to have conditioned existence and we're attracted to the pleasant And we're averse to the unpleasant. We've split everything split up. And that's the character. That's the person that the human being and that's okay. And that continues. Yep. That that can even be more intense because there isn't a me saying, I know this. I know that this is wrong. This is right. It's a unfiltered. Yep. Terrifying.
Yeah, I call the pleasure and pain. Yeah. And that's all too confused with... But you're calling it terrifying pleasure and pain. Yeah, sure. There's a kind of a defining of it or in a way. Naming Judgment There a judgment of it Yeah Can I ask a question to you Because I really curious And the judgement is? Whose judgement is that? No one's judgement. But there's just judgement of it as terrifying pleasure or pain. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. So something may arise like depression. Something that's traditional. Depression is more an accumulation. Okay, let's make it a sadness or something. Which historically, to me, was...
Nobody liked... you didn't like that, right? But now it happens, still, like nothing's actually changed. All of the awkwardness or intimidation from somebody or whatever still arises. But it just doesn't arise to somebody, is that correct? That's right. It's just arising for the... Is it qualitatively different? So there's still a conditioning that moves in time. Sure. Is there any difference between how it's happening now and say how it happened before? Is there a qualitative difference to that sadness or awkwardness? I can't find it. Sorry, I haven't spoken about this much. It's a lot to get used to. I can give a little example of what's been discussed just from something that happened yesterday.
So I got angry at someone and I yelled at him for a few minutes or whatever and I left. And then she came up to me an hour later and she said, you know, about that anger and I completely had, like, it lasted ten seconds. It was gone. It didn't exist. I actually had to be reminded of what I was even... it was like a little outburst of something. And so what I'm trying to say is that in the past, that would be... the conditioned response would be to replay and believe a narrative. And the narrative was dead. It was just a spontaneous, don't do that, that's wrong, blah, blah.
It was all over. There seems to be a softening. A less ruminating. Occurring. I Am the One If we start to deny that we're angry and upset or we're suffering, that's not an answer. But things that I've helped a little bit, or probably quite a lot, is that anything that shows up, whether that's a tree, whether that's suffering, whether it's a self, a supposed self, and so on, I Am Not I Am The One I am a person of the nature of everything in this world. Everything changes. There is nothing static anywhere for one second. Everything is changing every second. I am also not advocating that change is a reality because a reality is really beyond change or no change, I Am.
Throw in Julia's comment to support the conversation anyway because there's several but this one seemed relevant and then I'll go back to the others. She said isn't suffering a label? Just energy moving? I just thought that was supportive. There were some other comments if you wanted me to read them So lots of good mornings and thank yous Carl said, present can only be something if there is an idea of something other than present. No past, no future, no present, yet only presence. And then Tanya had added the spontaneous living virtual summit interview you and Bob were on is excellent. Great to see you both there and the smiles and laughter.
Life is definitely amazing and yes, there could have been nothing and there is no thing really. It appears there are things With or without thought, there is only one singularity. With no labels, there is lightness and peace. Nothing excluded. All is this. And that's it. I think those are the most relevant comments that I just wanted to add in from the Facebook group. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Did you want to say something? Can I just say something about suffering? Because the first question was what is suffering? Suffering, from what I've picked up, is not, you can't say there's nothing there. Even a self, you can't say there's totally no self.
There's an appearance of something. Ksitigarbha das remembers Linares terms, the mere appearances and nothing else and not superimposing something that they're more than an appearance that it's bad that it's you know and so on so recognizing the ultimate if your ultimate realization is recognizing that things are just mere appearances and that's an ultimate realization according to Nagarjuna anyway. Beautiful, certainly. I would like to just highlight and thank you everyone for... You can be there, Zina. Thank you for super valuable contribution because every one of you had really, really important point and hint in that. What you say, Sebastian, is so true. All feelings, all emotions, all sensations appear as ever Because when you realize there is no self, there is just an emptiness and there are just things appearing, you also realize that there have never been a self.
There haven't been a self 10, 15, 20 years ago before the realization. So as much as the pain used to arise, the same way it will arise because this is not that all suddenly the self ceased to exist and the suffering ceased to exist because there is no one to take ownership of it. Yes and no, but the self didn't exist back then either. So whatever have been the case back then, and that's when he was saying that it is the same and it is different at the same time. It's just not special. It's not personal. Because it's not personal, it's absolutely not special. I Am the One I Am That, Ramana Maharshi, I Nchagiri, Dzogchen, Veda, Vedanta, presence-awareness, Mahavakya.
The The meaning of suffering is as if suffering is an entity
The following message is for those who want to know how to get started. The I want to say something. I've got the microphone here. Thank you. It's my turn. Talking stick. For fuck's sake. Whoa. You know, I come here to visit Bob every week. And there's an experience of love that I get in that connectivity. And I'm not feeling that here. I hear a lot of conceptual I come here to Bob with that, but what I get is a dissolving of that and an experience of joy, an experience of ease, which allows me to experience the suffering, the pain, but also lets me celebrate it all.
And within that there's just a common denominator of love. And I don't want to lose sight of that in some conceptual bullshit debate. That's just, sorry, I don't mean this personally, but that's just a me grasping for something. I'm just not hearing love. I'm just not feeling love here. And I come here to Bob for that experience of love. And is it I? I'm not sure. I think it's love seeking love. It's heart to heart. When I hear Bob speak, I melt because there's something soft and open and expansive. And really nuanced. And really sensitive. And really acute. What I'm hearing here is very sharp, kind of loveless talk.
It's quite empty. Okay, let me just try and... Yeah, thank you, Taz, for your honesty and... Yes, it's a little bit heated. Sometimes energy just plays out and arises this way. And I think there was a lot of value in what everybody contributed. But you're right, the energy is a little bit on the kind of more of a passionate side rather than the gentle one. Yeah, I can use my energy too, just to kind of... Yeah, of course, yeah, and the energy is just impersonal. I'm not negating what you're saying, I just... I get it. Sometimes I just sort of take it and I kind of don't speak and something here now is finding its voice and the voice is connected to the heart.
This voice and it has something to contribute like everyone else. So it's a little bit kind of new for this, you know, body mind to kind of speak its voice. So, so yeah. Honor it. And, and absolutely this is, this is something that should never be forgotten in those type of meetings because we are actually looking into that nonduality to be of help and service to The following is a video of a conversation between two people who are in a relationship. The question is, what is the difference between the energy of the energy and the energy of the energy? Because of the broken heart, what he pointed out, he says, you know it's not going to last.
You know it's just a passing phenomena. You've been in that place before and where is it now? So it is also important that very therapeutic remembering that everything is impermanent and nothing is going to last in the heat of suffering. But is it an ultimate truth? Not always as Tass is saying we have the access to remembering of that therapeutic statements Sometimes in the heat of that hard energy or that sadness or that cry there is no remembering The I Am That, Ramana Maharshi, I Nchagiri, Dzogchen, Veda, Veda, presence-awareness, Mahavakya. The energy is the contraction in the throat, it is closed chest, it is shallow breathing.
That's what we call sadness and we don't have to label it. But the label comes up, the energy comes up and the label comes up. And the judgement comes up also that oh yeah this is terrifying or this is whatever. And yes it happens to no one but being in that recognition that yes this is the open field of that witnessing presence And in that witnessing presence the rose arises, the poetry arises, the loneliness, the sadness, the beauty, the ugliness. All energies arise and the labels arise with them, but the labels are just another layer of arising. Energy moves, label comes, the resistance to the label comes.
None of it is any of my concern because there is no separate me that is taking ownership. So now the same pain, the same sadness, the same energy is not gonna bring me to a devastation because there is no me to be devastated. Now it is totally embraced, can't even say it is loved or accepted because there is no one to love it or accept it. But it is totally allowed and there is no one to allow it. But it is what is and there is no one to object to it. I am a person who is not enough. And now in the absence of me there is no one who is not enough.
There is no one that is wrong. And if the feeling arises there is no one who has objection towards it. So it is the same feeling. But now the illusion of self relating to that feeling is not there anymore. So the feeling is all there is. And it is appropriate and as adequate and as allowed as the poetry or the rose or the night sky or anything. This understanding allows you to... the joy springs and even in the sadness there is joy, there is that connectivity with the heart which allows it to be as it is and appreciate it for what it is. That I appreciate.
There's something, a resonance in there that really, when you're talking about, you know, feeling arises when the conceptual mind or the bondage of self is seen for what it is. Life is there. Life is like the curtain comes up and then life expresses itself in whatever shape and form. The mind wants to quickly label it as this and this and that. But it's kind of, oh, there's such a fullness that I'm experiencing now. It seems the curtains come up and I get to be myself. I get to be whatever this is coming through. It's the most beautiful celebration of all of it, of the whole experience.
I am new to this group but not new to the ideas. I've been in all the swamps that you're discussing and had the same yearning. Probably where I'm at in my journey now is more fully heart-based, I'm a nature lover. I'm not looking to people. I lean against a tree and I get loved by the tree because I feel that profoundly. So thank God for that. But I was trying to think, well, what have I learnt so far? A bit like you discovered stuff tossed it out said oh shit that doesn work and oh God I thought I knew this but now I back at that dead end So I suppose where I arrived at now and it not the end is just you know allowing observing detaching accepting and just being just witnessing presence So that yesterday I was really acutely into the whole emptiness and I was getting into this labelling.
I was told, this is bad, this is yak yak yak. So I thought, no, just don't do that. Go for a walk. And lean against a tree and just be filled with love. And so there's the transmuting. It's just the emptiness instead of me attaching to the emptiness. I just got the love and I said, and I worked on just that, just breathe in love. I was very much in the space of half an hour. I didn't attach to anything. There wasn't any emptiness. I didn't judge it. I just came home feeling loved by a tree. I don't know whether that's right or wrong or how it fits in with the theories.
I'm just interested in practical application. I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. I've done the Buddhist retreats for 10 days where you contemplate the weed garden of your mind and you go home aghast that this is what you are. But I'm interested in practical application. So very much identify with the heart. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, and this is, I just want to wrap it up. It is beautiful. Thank you for saying it. Because when there is an attachment to emptiness and attachment to deconstruction, the joy is gone. And life is empty. It's like, what the heck? There is no self, so what? I mean, it is almost depressing.
While I love that part where Nisargadatta was actually showing up how the emptiness is wisdom. What do you Tony says? Yes, you can, everything can be deconstructed and found that its nature is not to be found. It's no separate, like Bob has this beautiful line, one liner that nothing has any independent nature, nothing can stand on its own. That is wisdom. But at the same time, we have that magnificent world of beauty and love. And this is Maya. This is illusion. And this illusion is love because the stillness, the emptiness is wisdom and the movement, the expression is love. Now, is the suffering love? Doesn't really feel like it.
Is the sadness love? Doesn't really feel like it. But when you really look deeper into it, you find the beauty, you find even the desire for completeness. Love for the Self, whatever the Self is constructed to be. If I'm a spiritual seeker, I want to stop suffering, I want to experience fullness and union. What's that if not love? If I am angry because someone disrespected me, I want to be respected, I value for honoring that miracle that I am. What's that if not love? Anything that is happening in the Maya, in the illusion, in the expression, the movement of energy, the movement creating atoms, the movement creating light, the sound, the solids, they are all empty.
Absolutely, that's wisdom, we all know it. But at the same time, they appear to be in that magnificent dance, in that absolutely lovable invitation to recognize the miraculousness, The beauty, the mystery. Like Julia was quoting Julia, there could have been nothing. And we have this nature, we have the animals, we have the trees, we have the skies, we have the bodies. Incredible machinery looking after itself. And whatever this machinery is complaining about, oh yeah, but I don't have a car the way Julia has. I don't care. But even if that would be appearing there, why? Why? There is something in the narrative that is well-wishing.
It wants the best for you. One black one there. Even the desire, even the attachment, even the resistance to what is, is the part of the software designed for getting you the best out of the dream. I want you to have the best, I want you to have the money, the safety, the shelter, all of it. If you see that this is just an expression, the Maya, the movement, the dance of life, designed to express love, and you learn to read that love out of it, you learn to read that love. We had a really, really hostile situation whole last year, where we were sued and chased and so on.
I knew that behind those selfish actions of those selfish people there was self-love that they couldn't translate in any other way. And I could just bow down, that's how life has it. When you imagine that you are a separate self, poor me, that needs to fix itself and medicate itself, that self-love is expressed as taking from others, hurting others, doing something to just fix oneself. I Am That Ramana Maharshi I Nchagiri Dzogchen Veda Veda Veda There is no constructed self but there is just this magnificent field of open witnessing consciousness that is love itself Then it meets itself and it recognizes itself and it serves itself in everything that appears even though everything that appears is empty It still is totally lovable because every action of that appearance is the demonstration, is the flow of love.
This magnificent quote of Nisargadatta that when I'm nothing this is wisdom, when I'm everything this is love and my life flows. He even says my even though I'm nothing, he just said I'm nothing and it flows. The movement of life is love. The loving to be, the wanting the best, the desire, the aversion, the resistance, resistance to pain is love. Of course, on top goes the construction, the narrative. This is the part of resistance which narrates that love which can be recognized. And in the recognition of it, it is recognized as love. You hear the narrative, oh you stupid bitch, why would you say that to myself?
Why would that call me a bitch? Why would that voice in my head be abusing me? Well, how easy, how simple. It doesn't want me to look stupid. It cares. Even if I have abusive voice in the head saying me, ah, you're worthless, you're nothing, it kind of hopes that I will prove it otherwise. Don't we know it? The parents who loves us and always says things that are not right because they hope we will prove them wrong. It is love. It's just to be recognized. So on that token, yes, we can completely switch from focusing on emptiness, which is equally important to realize the emptiness of things, the emptiness of self, the emptiness of the appearances, but we can't stay there.
Because there is no one even to stay there. But if the attention stays in that wisdom, it stays in the head. That's not full realization. In that realization in the head, now the ideas come up like, okay, so I'm still perceiving things, so I'm not there yet. Now you see, there is I again, that is perceiving things. I is not perceiving anything, there is no I. The body has the means to hear sounds and perceive objects, but I'm totally so beyond the body. Body is my glasses. So my glasses look, if I have tinted glasses, the glasses see tinted world, but I'm not. I know better.
The body will see the things, the body will experience the feelings the way it did, but I know better. I'm beyond the body, I'm beyond the emptiness of things. And now we can say, okay, we can assert that love or movement is real and we can get trapped. Who is saying that? The head. The head again. Because when we drop down to that heart of essence and we are amazed, resting, relaxing completely in the joy of being, there is no question there. Oh, is love real or is it empty or is it not empty? There's no one to ask this question. It's just relaxation. The head doesn't come up and if it does, nobody listens.
It's just... If you are not the body, are you separate from the body? Oh yeah, yeah. Am I separate? If you are not the body, are you separate from the body? Tony, it's a good question. The question is for those who are online and didn't hear it. If I'm not the body, am I separate from the body? There is no me to be in the body, with the body, outside the body, separate of the body. There is no me to be joined with it or separated with it. So if there is something that ask a question and want to distinguish, okay, are you separated or are you united or are you here, are you here, there is an assumption there is a you that is somewhere in this.
And we've already obtained that the nature of the self, joined, separated or not, is empty. So there is no one to be in the body with the body outside the body. There is a with... I'm just making the point that the body is not inferior. No. I Am the body, neither are we separate. Absolutely, middle way which says that you can't assert or deny anything because assertion and denial are two ends of the stick and they are all in concepts. And this is non-conceptual. So if I say there is a self or there is no self or there is an existence, there is no existence, there is a world, there is no world, there is love, there is no love.
The middle way is cut between. Don't take any extremes anywhere. Nothing can be said about it. You can't say there is existence or there isn't because who is saying that? And what does it even mean? Now you go into the definition. And even to say there is
What you're saying here with love and that is very appropriate. I'm not sure what the meaning of this is. So the Buddha's teachings look totally contradictory. Then he'll say, it's all in the mind. And the reason he would do that is because people were so obsessed in their bodies and in the appearance of things, in order to get them out of that, he would say, it's all in the mind.
But then now we have a doctrine, it's all in the mind, there's only mind. You know, and now a whole doctrine comes out all misreading what he was meaning. Generally speaking, as I say, love is quite appropriate. I mean, that's what we all want. But it is like an affirmation. And the stuff that I was talking about is a negation. Now, you might think, no, I don't want that. He negates all conceptualization. When we affirm an affirmation of love, then we start to get into substantialism. There is something to affirm. There is something there. That's why he always stuck with more of a negation aspect.
I'm just going to be reading from the online, our Facebook community. So, Tanya said, Beautiful cat, yes, even in sadness there is joy, there is love, there is emptiness and fullness spontaneously. Sometimes thoughts appear, talking of resistance to thoughts and energies, but those just pass, as has been mentioned here, nothing to resist, but so much to love. And, um, let's see, Amrit was replying to Pramali, he said, exactly, nothing is happening at all, no creation, no dissolution. Vivek said, emptiness brings in anxiety, how to accept it? I can babble on that myself, I can talk about that. That's where I can contribute. Yes, out of the emptiness flows sweetness, don't sit in the emptiness as a dead concept, is what John, Christopher John Blackwell said, he said, I love your nuanced expression, Kat, beautiful, the mystery of it all.
Amaranth has added, replying to Vivek, he wrote, there's no one is there to accept or reject. We are missing emptiness with fullness. Both are the same. Acceptor is an illusion. Illusion is nothing but fear. Christopher John Blackwell said exquisite take on self-love cat. William has added, William Tyson said no point in pretending or imagining anything, no point in criticism. Accepting, I'm sorry, everything arises spontaneously. Anger, laughter, personal love or whatever. Love is no thing the mind can grasp. It's not a feeling or a thing. It has no attributes. It is universal. It is attributeless. It is, it's you, but do not try to label it.
Thinking and labeling is sadness is what Amruth wrote and William added, Can you live a second ago? Can you live a second into the future? No. There is just this spontaneous immediacy. Both of these are from William. Tanya's added, the labeling was purely for communication purposes. 100% agree, William, that everything arises spontaneously and that the mind can't grasp love. Thank you. Amrit had added, thanks, Kat. We are headless and heartful. Body is just a thought only. William added, do this investigation earnestly. Job done. William wrote, is seeing happening? It's not a trick question. He added And then the answer is yes Is seeing happening The mind makes no contribution to the seeing.
Seeing is there and just happening. So the body nor the mind makes any contribution to seeing. If the body and mind are not responsible for seeing, then it must be something else. You are that something else. Amrit said nonduality expresses through duality both are labels or appearances only. He also wrote, um, seer is a notion of seeing happens in non-happening and Jane, or sorry, Tanya Jane Williams wrote, wonderful. This is so helpful to investigate. Um, and she was replying, I think to William, um, not that there's someone, um, to that needs help. Okay. The only place I would be able to... What is it? One of the questions here...
was how to accept the anxiety that emptiness brings in. Yeah, go on. Ask Julia. You said you could crumble about it. That's... well, first off, who's got the anxiety? Who can accept anything? That was the first thing that came to mind. But another thing that can, the alternative is love your anxiety. I mean, if you're going to love everything or nothing, the idea of loving nothing just doesn't appeal to me. I mean, just can, can, yeah, and can you hate it? Can you be even more anxious? Can you just get, just like make it happen even more? I think that'll just fall away all by itself.
That's all. But also if you drop the label of anxiety, it's energy. It's clearly energy. I've got the mic somewhere as well. What you were saying just before, I didn't hear what you said. I didn't hear it, but I fully experienced all of it in my daily life. Even what we're discussing, it's quite incredible. You can speak about the impermanence, and conceptually there was a character that developed an understanding of impermanence, The This is the true meaning of emptiness. We are very grateful that all of you have been here and have this whole show experienced. And it's quite incredible, and ordinary, ordinarily incredible, because nothing's really changed.
Everything's still the same bullshits going on. But it's also like this discussion today, like, somehow there's these little things reminding me of, it possibly could have made me uptight or made me think a lot once upon a time. Today's discussion is like this big comical show, not to play down anyone's seriousness, like total seriousness accepted, but it's almost like this comedy and I don't know who's speaking and what, because the boundaries of the skin don't really, so it's like, who am I? What the hell am I? What the hell is this? I'm a It's empty filled with all this stuff that's going on and it's like Miraculous like I find that I can be really intelligent like Tony or really stupid like Tess Love you Ted no no, but but all of them Um, but experience like like a gamut of the extremities I'm all in one like and then and then there's even time and it's like hang on a minute this is that not even this is like this snippet this little this flash that just gone and and and then when the mind stops there no time either There this show appearing in an empty space of timelessness appearing to be with time And what we were saying before about the wheel, I don't know, but I was just picturing like there's a wheel, I think there's some dharma wheel that turns and then but then the middle way.
Yeah, yeah, the middle way is when the wheel when you and or it doesn't stop you find yourself in the middle or you are at the middle and the middle has to include the whole show and the whole show is seen from the middle which means that there's nothing and everything and You are the eye of the cyclone. Yes, yes, yes, and the whole show is love. It's nothing but love. Like the emptiness is love in itself and the fullness... Beautiful, thank you. There was a question asked that, you know, if we could swap, you were saying you wanted a smart person or something, We could swap our mind for say Einstein's mind or we could swap our body for Usain Bolt's body or something other just for a moment.
Now would we do that? Would we prefer to swap over our puny body to Usain Bolt's body or something or other? And the very fact that if we answer yes or no, doesn't matter, yes, I would be happy to swap over, even if it was just for a moment, indicates that we believe there is a self behind there that can actually make that decision to choose to swap over into Usain Bolt's body. There's still the assumption of that there is a self that actually can make that decision behind it. Thank you. Yeah, totally. And when I asked that question, it's like, there's no, like, everything is the body, you could say, like the whole universe, any, the mind is the body and the body is the mind.
And you're going to say something. Nothing really important just to before I forget that tomorrow morning, we're going to continue this lovely dialogue on zoom. So you can find the website or the link for the Zoom meeting at Bob's website and it's at 9.30 tomorrow. So that's it. Okay. And I just wanted to highlight because I think this was really nice what Sue was saying, that it is to be practical. And then Tony said that very often Buddhist teachers are contradicting themselves because they are meeting the one they're guiding where the one is. And that's also been a big criticism of Nisargadatta and Bob and anyone who points.
That is the heart of the teaching, the compassion. To meet someone where they are, if they are stuck in the identification with the body, tell them they are not the body. If they are stuck with the emptiness, tell them they are not the emptiness, they are everything, they are the form. So that is the application, the practicality of it. Like you say, anxiety, take breathing or really watch it, really feel where is that anxiety. Because everything that appears, that's an appearance, but it will have the echo in the whole system. It will have some sort of a physical appearance. Perhaps the breath will be shallow.
Perhaps the chest will close down. Perhaps there will be some knot in the gut or something. And just investigating, looking at it without any judgment with the childlike curiosity. What is it? What is appearing right now? In that empty space that I am there is an appearance rather than resistance. And with that investigation you are curious, oh, okay, wait, wait, wait, anxiety, don't go, don't go, I didn't actually investigate you well enough, and poof, gone. Because that is really that way of the quality seeing, seeing without judgement. Everyone wants to be seen this way. If I see you in that unconditional field with the curiosity, Ah, wow, who are you?
We call it love. And when we actually see something on that deep level, we can't help but love it because we do see the miracle in that. That's really what the dance of love is, that non-judgmental curious attention in which things are letting to be known as the form, even though they're empty. They let you sneak a peek on it. Like you see a gorgeous rose with a wonderful fragrance, with a beautiful dewdrop where the sun is reflected. And oh gosh, I love it because you see it, you know it, you see. And this is a reflection of that emptiness in form. This is who you are reflected in the form.
Everything that you are able to see in that manner, you can't help but love. You see a reflection of yourself. But if there is a constructed narrative speaking from the perspective of relationship to the body then we also have things that we don like and we don love and we don respect We love the fragrance of the rose but we don't like the fragrance of the rotten egg and that's appropriate for the survival of the body. And it is to be distinguished from the... it is part of the survival instinct and it is to be appreciated as a survival instinct. Because the hatred to the smell of a rotten egg is a love for the safety of the body.
So I'm not going to latch onto it and eat it or do something. So that really, the recognizing, and what Jane was saying before, I love that too. You know, the moment, the more you recognize, the more there is a lightness, there is a joy, lightness in the recognition. But what you said, Sebastian, This thought like truth also, there is no lightness if the recognition is only the emptiness part, if there is no joy. But you were also saying the joy... There can be lightness, it's just... There can be. Yes, that's right. Because it seems to be a natural state. If you look at the nature, and you look at the animal that is not in danger, doesn't have to care for itself, doesn't need the The shelter is not hungry or a little baby is lying basking in the sun.
There is joy. Joy is a natural state. So that joy and that lightness and that love for being and that recognizing the beauty and recognizing beauty in ugliness also. Because the ugliness or the danger or the fear or the anxiety is also love for being, for safety. It brings us to the point in which the emptiness is not denied at all. As you say, Dean, you can see the whole dance of the emptiness. You don't have to remember that things are impermanent. Initially, it might need to be reminded. Like I was reminded when I was in the most devastating moment in my life, which soon after flipped to the other side and was the most freeing.
But at this point, the reminder was there. The compassionate, loving Bob looked at me being completely torn apart in the lowest point of my life and he says, you know, this is not going to last. And reminding that because I was, of course, to suffer to that extent, I was so locked in the mind, like you have no idea, no light was coming. I was so locked in the mind. Oh, look, you know, I was so disrespected, rejected. I was nothing for this. Yeah. And funny enough, I soon discovered that, yeah, I was nothing and I am nothing. And that's the greatest thing ever. But in this moment, that conceptual ideas, they serve their purpose.
And Yudin, you also highlighted that. You don't need to remember that anymore because it is obvious. Everything you see is just too obvious that it is just here now. That it is not something that is permanent through time because the time is not... It's non-existence, it's a concept, it's a conceptual cloud. Even to say that things have the beginning and then they rot and then they have end, that's nonsense. Nothing has ended, it's just the energy changing, it's just the constant flux of the change, like a flow of the song, or the Aborigines say that life is singing, or the Course in Miracles, that it is a dreaming going on.
And there's no beginning, no end, there's no existence, and there's no non-existence. Everything appears to be and it is to be appreciated and it is to be loved as it appears to be because there is a potentiality in every moment to recognize underlying love for being. And if that potentiality is not realized, well that's okay, look again and it will, it will because... Thank you. I'm really grateful that you all showed up and you had such a beautiful input. Everything that shows up is totally perfect and is showing up to be appreciated. So thank you everyone for everything that you added. And for your call for love as well, for bringing the other side.
That's how life expresses through everyone. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just add one last comment from William. He says, kick back, drink beer and eat pizza. Who said that? William. Is that Bill? Yes. Yes. And that's Bob. Which is what we're doing next. This is what we're doing next. You can say bye to everyone, Bob. You can wave your hand if you like. Bye, Bob. Love you. Love you, Bob. Love to all!