Silence is what the thoughts are appearing in.
Michael Jeffreys
Silence is what the thoughts are appearing in.
Michael Jeffreys
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, which is why looking to the mind to tell you what you are leads to confusion and suffering.
Michael Jeffreys
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
…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.
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
“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
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.