Welcome to Awakening Clarity

Hello and welcome.  I’m glad we found our way here, to this very first post of Awakening Clarity.  With so many things screaming for our attention, we might wonder what the odds were that we would meet here?  They seem completely infinitesimal, do they not?  Nonetheless, I suggest they were 100%.  

When there is just one thing, there is no room for randomness.  There is plenty of room for apparentrandomness, but no room at all for anything but perfectly united, centerless, borderless, beginning-less and endless being. You are that being.  So am I.  That’s what we’re doing here.  We’re being Being, one could say.

Now, let’s be clear.  I am not saying we are both part of this being.  There are no parts, just appearances, fluctuations in the field, as it were, that appear as parts.  Clearly there are differences,but there are no demarcations.

There is just one thing, and I am it and so are you.  We’ll get around to helping you check all of this out on your own later.  For now, just know that oneness is the central truth being presented here.  That is the frame upon which everything else will be hung.  We don’t have to be clear about this notion just yet, but it’s good if we are at least open to it.

So, in a quick review, the first teaching I am offering is that there is just one thing going on here.  I say “going on”, because there’s nothing static.  You’ll note that being is a verb, not a noun.  Let’s also be clear that I don’t mean this oneness simply expresses as physical universe.  One means one.  Just one.  So, I mean quite literally, that this one is everything, which includes the physical universe, but also includes the mental universe and the spiritual universe.  It’s every thought, every dream; every hope, every fear; every nickel, every squirrel.  Everything, when it’s said here, means everything.

Now, we want to quickly jump in and point out that this notion of oneness is a good teaching tool, but we certainly don’t want to hold it as if it is the truth.  Maddening, is it not?  Here I go to all the trouble to drum a thing into you, and just as I have about got that done, I go and take it away.

This “taking away” is our practice here, too.  We don’t want to hold onto anything as truth.  If we are holding onto something, anything, you can bet it’s not true.  Truth can’t be held.  It just is.  And it always is now.  Sometimes it feels like it isn’t now, but that’s never true.  If there’s just one, it has toalways be (and must always have been), and since there’s just this one, then by definition this one must be what’s right here right now, since there’s nowhere and nowhen else for it to be.

To restate it, here is our second teaching.  Hot on the heels of acknowledging that there is just one, we have to admit that we cannot say what this one everything is.   It defies description.  The first line of the Tao Te Ching is, “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”  They knew then just as we know now that there is something here registering the impressions these words are having on a certain body-mind.  I can’t say there’s nothing here, because something has to be saying that.  The conclusion is self-evident.

There is a sort of raw awareness here, a naked presence.  But what is it–really?   I don’t know.  You don’t know.  No one does.  We all know it’s here, and we have to settle for that.  However, we can say with absolute confidence where it is.  It’s right here, right now!  This part even makes sense.  Given that there is just one, then there is nowhere and nowhen else for it to be.  By definition it must be right here, right now.

Okay, I’m out of time for today.  So, do me a favor and don’t try to make a lot of sense out of this.  If you resonate with what’s written here, you won’t have to figure it all out.  That oneness will do all the heavy lifting and you’ll get all the credit!  I’m not saying you need to go without effort, but give it your best shot and then go forward without expectation. Those expectations will quickly morph into projections and they won’t be at all helpful.

However loaded down we may arrive here, we always want to try and leave empty-handed.  If we came with a sack we could fill with spiritual samples, let’s leave it by the door; let’s make that another easy practice.  We can pick it back up when we leave, and put something useful in it, like potatoes.  Potatoes are worth carrying around.  What we’re doing here is more like guerrilla warfare.  We hit your mind as hard as we can and then we run like hell.