Instead of watching the Academy Awards… February 26, 2012

Since I don’t watch TV, no interest in the Academy Awards this evening. Instead, I took a walk for an hour in a nearby park here in LA while listening to an mp3 of a satsang by Jac O’keeffe. She is amazing and one of my favorite teachers!

As I was listening, a homeless guy came up behind me while I was on one of the park paths, and began talking to himself. I could hear his voice through my headphones, even though I was listening to Jac’s talk.

And suddenly, it hit me that his voice sounded just like the voice in my head!! In fact, I asked myself what the difference was between the homeless guy’s voice going on about “blah, blah” and my voice going on about “blah, blah”? And I realized there really wasn’t any difference! Both are just sounds. The words had meaning only because I had been taught that this sound means THIS, while another sound means something else.

The “mistake” we make is that we think there is correlation between the sounds in the head and reality. But there isn’t! You don’t need the sense of “I” (the commentator) to live life. Life is already living life. And you don’t have to do anything other than realize that the voice in the head is not you, meaning you don’t have to try to get rid of it. In fact, trying to get rid of it just enforces the belief in it. If something is not there, how can you get rid of it? In other words, it’s the trying to get rid of a thought or change it that reinforces the belief in it.

-Michael Jeffreys

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Meaning February 19, 2012

Look around you. Nothing you are looking at has any meaning whatsoever. None. All objects are “neutral.” Any meaning is “put” there by your mind. Superimposed onto the object and that’s what gives that object whatever meaning it has for you. Something that has great meaning for you means nothing to someone else and vice/versa. This lets you know that the meaning is not contained within the object itself, but within the one viewing it. If it were truly within the object itself, everyone that came upon that object would feel the exact same way about it. But that isn’t what happens. Each of us doesn’t see that object “naked,” but rather through our “meaning” filters.

What would your experience be of the world if you stopped putting meaning on anyone or anything? Rather than let your mind try to guess at the answer, what if you actually tried it to have a direct experience of what it actually felt like?

–Michael Jeffreys

The Fire Chief and The Arsonist are one in the same February 15, 2012

The mind is constantly creating a problem and then trying to solve it. It suddenly proclaims it wants something and then decides it cannot be happy until it gets it. Or it suddenly proclaims it doesn’t want something and then decides it cannot be happy until it’s gotten rid of.

So the mind is both cop and thief, i.e. the arsonist and fire chief are the same person: it starts a fire and then says, “look, a fire!, omg, we have a problem, what are we going to do??!” Suffering occurs because we believe the cop, the fire chief, the mind. It never occurs to us that our mind would lie to us, just like we would never suspect the fire chief of starting a fire. And so many of us live in denial that our mind is lying to us. It takes courage to realize that that which we have been believing in our whole life hasn’t a clue what the truth is. When this childish game that the mind has been playing is clearly seen, there can be a letting go of it completely. And when the mind is dropped, what remains?

–Michael Jeffreys

A Toot in the Wind February 3, 2012

One of the sticking points on “the spiritual path” is the belief/feeling that you are the “I” thought. Let’s dig a little deeper. Can a thought EVER experience anything? No. Why? Because it itself is an arising. How can an arising experience another arising? Could one shadow “know” another shadow? Could one painting “know” another painting? No.

A thought does not receive info, it broadcasts it. It arises as it simultaneously tells whatever story it has to tell. And how does it do this? Via sound. You hear it (although precisely where is a mystery!).

Being clear that a sound cannot receive info; that it can only disperse it, and that is ALL it can ever do, can be extremely helpful in deconstructing the illusory “I.” As my cousin Dena Drucker Woods so beautifully said last night on facebook, a thought is a “toot in the wind.” You are what is Aware of or silently notices the “toot.” No YOU, no “toot.” However, no “toot” and yet you STILL ARE!! You are ALWAYS present, regardless of what is or is not arising. Rest peacefully in what you already are.

–Michael Jeffreys