What is Silence? New MJ Awakening Blog May 12, 2020

Silence is what the thoughts are appearing in.

Michael Jeffreys

Become totally empty… -Tao Te Ching. New MJ Awakening Blog December 15, 2019

Become totally empty

Quiet the restlessness of the mind

Only then will you witness everything unfolding from
emptiness

See all things flourish and dance in endless variation

And once again merge back into perfect emptiness –

Their true repose

Their true nature Emerging

Flourishing, dissolving back again

This is the eternal process of return

To know this process brings enlightenment

To miss this process brings disaster

Be still

Stillness reveals the secret of eternity.

 

-Tao Te Ching

YOU are not any thought… New MJ Awakening Blog December 13, 2019

YOU are not any thought, which is why looking to the mind to tell you what you are leads to confusion and suffering.

Michael Jeffreys

Neither the voice in the head or what hears it is the real you. New MJ Awakening Blog November 16, 2019

What you fundamentally are is deeper than

both the voice in the head and what hears it,

which are still the “surface” persona you.

Michael Jeffreys

 

 

What You are is not a label or a story. New MJ Awakening Blog September 29, 2019

…there is no labeling the unspeakable.

-David Carse

Michael: All stories are labels. You are neither. What You are can’t be put into words. What You are can’t be spoken.

As much as we try, there are no words… New MJ Awakening Blog August 25, 2019

Words to describe words to describe words, ad infinitum… New MJ Awakening Blog August 2, 2019

WORDS TO DESCRIBE WORDS TO DESCRIBE WORDS, AD INFINITUM…

And yet, is there any word what-so-ever that can actually adequately explain ANY of this?

The birth, the pain, the laughter, the heart breaks, the love, the horror, the joy, the sadness, the fulfillment, the confusion, the suffering, the insights, the peace, the disappointments, the triumphs, the tragedies, the contentment, the death?

“The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
-Muriel Rukeyser

Like many, I used to use words like “consciousness” and “awareness” and “nonduality” as if I actually knew what they meant, but now I realize I haven’t a clue. For example, we often hear the expression, “My awareness.” So there is this me that has something called awareness? Really? But if I look now, directly into this moment, I cannot locate an actual “me” anywhere nor can I locate an actual “awareness” that it possesses.

It seems that ALL words (including these) are inherently empty.

Thus “The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao” suddenly deeply resonates.

And that leaves nothing to say about any of this that could possibly be true.

Therefore, SILENCE seems the most honest thing I can “say” in this moment.

Michael Jeffreys

Silent Illumination. New MJ Awakening Blog July 17, 2019

SILENT ILLUMINATION

“Quiescence refers to the practice of silencing the mind,
and clarity refers to contemplation, illuminating the mind
with the light of awareness.

Hongzhi himself described the “silent sitting” as
thus: ‘Your body sits silently; your mind is quiescent,
unmoving. This is genuine effort in practice. Body and
mind are at complete rest. The mouth is so still that
moss grows around it. Grass sprouts from the tongue.
Do this without ceasing, cleansing the mind until it
gains the clarity of an autumn pool, bright as the moon
illuminating the evening sky.’

In this state, the mind is without form or feature. Power is
present, but its function is to fill the mind with illumination,
like the sun shining everywhere. Hence, Silent llumination
is the practice in which there is nothing moving, but
the mind is bright and illuminating.”

-Ven. Sheng Yen

The “me” is noise and noise will never find… New MJ Awakening Blog July 12, 2019

The “me” is noise and noise will never find Silence.

-Michael Jeffreys

The story is always old. The Silence is always brand new.

-Jeff Foster

What agenda does SILENCE have? New MJ Awakening Blog May 15, 2019

What agenda does SILENCE have?

Michael Jeffreys

 

AGENDA (noun): a list, plan, outline, or the like, of things to be done, matters to be acted or voted upon, etc. -Dictionarydotcom

MICHAEL: Noise is Silence forgetting itself. It’s what it means to be ignorant. I am ignoring myself, Silence, because I am involved with Noise 24/7.

The tendency is to go right into story (noise) and not even notice/be aware of the Silence in which the noise appears.
No Silence, no noise.