All is Buddha, Within and Without

   I have gone into a kind of caffeine remission for a few days now, having decided to cut it out from my life. When I meditated tonight, I felt a sense of clarity but also the sense of missing caffeine. Perhaps there is something in it that gives me a boost of energy in the brain. But in any case, I simply rested in the sense of "this is what is", without trying to compare it to a better state of mind that I imagine exists. 

   What I have observed in the process of doing this "experiment" of sorts is that the ordinary mind seems to always be involved in a sense of dukkha, or dissatisfaction with "what is". I am always feeling that things are never enough, because my mind is in this state of movement. Only through meditation can I get a taste, if only for a moment, of what life is like when we are no longer striving for things, nor rejecting things either. Things are the way they are, much like a cluttered room can have a lot of things, but these things don't have an impact on the actual space itself.

   Meditation is a kind of special turning toward "what is" that can only happen when we initially apply a method of calming our mind. But when this happens, we can get a sense of spaciousness. I begin to realize that I am no longer a prisoner to my thoughts. The thoughts are coming and going, and I don't need to hold onto any sense of self. This is the meditation on "simply let go".

    I was editing an article tonight for DDM which talks about the "original face" before there is good and evil, right and wrong etc. As soon as I observe something I dislike, I immediately start to go to these default labels of right and wrong, not realizing that this kind of incessant judgment only implicates me in more bad karma. It's always best to drop all judgments of what is happening, but to hold to a high standard within oneself. By refraining from adding to the bustle of the world, I can go back to my original face at any time and realize that everything is just a manifestation of Buddha nature.

 Everything has the basic essence of impermanence, emptiness and no-self.  There is nothing that lasts forever. Even a very sharp pain in our bodies will not stay in our minds forever, because it's fundamental truth lies in its fleeting, conditional nature. Emptiness, similarly, entails that all we experience is the arising of cause and conditions that interconnect. The pain, frustration or agitation that we feel can never be attributed to simply one thing, but is the result of momentary coinciding of many factors. No-self means that we experience the lack of a stable reference point in anything. A rose is a rose--or is it? If you look very carefully, you will find an agglomerate of many things, such as petals, thorns, soil, and a stem. These elements make up the form that we then refer to as a "rose" (name) after which we derive many sensations (smell, sight, touch), perceptions, likes, dislikes and mental associations (a rose symbolizes love, for instance). All of these come together to make what appears to be a solid, enduring body, when in fact, there is nothing whatsoever there that is called a rose that we can point to as its essence.

With this in mind, I shouldn't waste a moment feeling frustrated when things don't go my way, or a sense of loss when I lose an opportunity, or even a sense of despair at a "lack of purpose". In the end, all is Buddha, within and without. all is suchness. There is nothing to attain. It's all the fundamental nature of all being reflected in individual beings.  And each and every thought is a reminder that we are here, and this "here" is all there ever is.