existence is a perception

  We could say that there is nothing called the mind. We could also say that the mind is all there is. The mind pretends to be a person having a life. The mind pretends to be a person who is seeking enlightenment. The mind pretends to be a person trying to get rid of a person. The mind tries to be present in order to become presence. The mind realizes there never was a person and that it could never be a person. The mind recognizes wholeness. No one gets enlightened. Simply the mind recognizes truth. We are already this truth so we do not need the mind to realize it....

what is thought?

  Fundamentally, thought is movement; movement within the brain. It’s the movement of language registered in the mind without the medium of sound. Through some neurological vibration, the mind seems to create and register (“hear”) thought simultaneously. So the mind registers this movement as inside sound and distinguishes it from outside sound. It seems the mind creates and perceives thought simultaneously. Is there any distance or separation between the mind creating thought and perceiving it? Seems like creation and perception are simultaneous...

spiritual reference points

Directing attention into the body creates a nice experience of feeling grounded. For me, it also perpetuated a belief that I am a separate person doing well with my practice of being more grounded in life. Sometimes attention would attend to thought more and I would feel like a person who was not doing well with my spiritual practice. So I was either a person getting closer to spiritual enlightenment or a person who had regressed and lost progress. This was my new reference point, another way of identifying who I was. Our minds are trained so well at finding identity and...

attachment is not a problem

First off, lets unpack the term attachment. In other words I want to investigate the term attachment in a clean open way, “what is attachment?” as if we are looking at this term for the first time. My mind has been drawn to this “unpacking” movement since it seemed to “unravel” as a result of the direct experiential recognition of what the terms nonduality and enlightenment point to. I could say that the direct realization of nonduality (as who I am) was like a deep unpacking of the idea of an individual separate self. Since the...

identification is not a problem

We often come to believe that identification is a major obstacle to realizing nonduality or enlightenment. Surely it is necessary to recognize that identification with the body, personality, cultural setting (actually all identification) is only a temporary appearance. It is also necessary to realize that there is a nondual reality that cannot be temporary and is who we are “before, throughout, and after” all identifications. But it is a mistake to believe that enlightenment or nonduality is about losing individual identification or shedding personality, which...

the secret to no-separation

What is thought? … Where does thought come from? … Where is thought located and where does it go? … Is it possible to have any identity without thought? …. Can you see that all identification is thought? There is a sense of I Am but without thought there is no label for who I am. What about the “outside” world without thought? … Aren’t both “outside” and “inside” concepts, labels, simply mental movements? … What if forms in the outside world had no labels? I’m sitting looking at my dog....

social progress & nonduality

I received a really well thought out series of questions from a reader and friend. She has allowed me to share her questions and my response here: “Can spirituality inform collective social progress? In some ways I think it must and that that is the very nature of spirituality – to impact spiritual and consequently, in this life, material evolution – but on the other hand I also feel that our contemporary sense of spirituality is as atomistically individualistic as our economic system, and that it’s impossible for individual enlightenment, or even...

individuality & nonduality

I received a really well thought out series of questions from a reader and friend. She has allowed me to share her questions and my response here: “One of the reasons why I think I’ve separated my spiritual side from my academic/economic side is that to me spirituality seems to be fundamentally individual – it’s all about the person coming to terms with their self and everything else, and no one’s path is ever exactly the same as another’s.” Do you really know that you have separated these things? From this perspective it seems...

pain & nonduality

I received a really well thought out series of questions from a reader and friend. She has allowed me to share her questions and my response here: “This may be a crude way to put it, but in your entry you say that you’re ok with experiencing pain – but can you accept that “others” (who are probably far less prepared to embrace it) are undoubtedly experiencing vastly more material pain than “Tammy” because of an unjust socio-economic system that forces them into the task of bearing the brunt of others’ excess?” I...

capitalism & nonduality

I received a really well thought out series of questions from a reader and friend. She has allowed me to share her questions and my response here: “I’m super liberal and completely against neoliberalism and capitalism. There is a HUGE duality here in that neoliberalism & capitalism is “over there” and me and all my anti-neoliberal pals and policies are “over here”, and ne’er the twain shall meet. ever. I’m curious to know your nondual thoughts on neoliberalism. I can’t really accept the “surrender”...

being present

The practice of “being present” contains an illusion, a trap. Being present is often considered a practice of shifting attention away from thought and onto the present moment. In other words attention lands on some other appearance or sensation happening in this moment. This practice inevitably contains a belief of a separate self. “I” am shifting attention away from thought, “I” am being present. So thought is actually at the core of this practice, believing it is a person who is being present. This is the irony about being present and...

becoming enlightened

There is no process of becoming enlightened but there can be a realizing and surrendering to the reality that we are already whole and completely free. This is a realization that all is well, I am already free, and I am already enlightenment itself. Enlightenment is not a process of becoming, in fact it is the opposite of becoming. Enlightenment is the seeing through of all processes of becoming including the process of becoming enlightened. When we stop completely it can be seen simply and beautifully that what is already here, now, is already complete and beyond all...

love

You’ve heard the saying “you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself”. Yes in a sense, because there actually is no other and only self. From nonduality it seems that there is actually nothing separate from love, like all appearances are made of love and all sensations are movements of love. Even pain, fear, and anger seem to be made of love. As if love is able to transfigure itself to look like all the appearances and sensations of life. As if all of life (you, me, everything) is literally love shifting itself into different looking images...

more deep sleep

I am in love with this topic right now. Deep sleep is not what we think it is. It is not a state that comes and goes. It is not a place that holds our dreams. It could be described as that which holds everything, all our dreams, all of waking life and the entire universe. But it doesn’t really “hold” anything because it is everything. It has no location, no center, and no boundaries so it cannot hold anything. It’s more like everything appears as a reflection on deep sleep. Like light reflecting on a pool of water or ripples appearing on the...

deep sleep is simply “who” w...

Where is the separate self in deep sleep? Does consciousness exist in deep sleep? It seems that consciousness is required for memories and we don’t “remember” deep sleep. So it seems that what “goes to sleep” is consciousness. But how do we know that there is deep sleep? Without any objective data, we have a direct sense or knowing of deep sleep. When someone asks, “how did you sleep?” we automatically have an answer. For example, “I didn’t sleep very well” or “I slept like a baby”. How do we know...

no reference point

Many of us are familiar with shifting attention away from thought and into the present moment. This is called being present or being mindful. This often means that attention has shifted from thought to the body. This is a natural tool for grounding attention in the body which is always in the present moment. But it is even more natural to have no reference at all. In other words, let attention rest on no-thing. Shift attention off of all external and all internal. This can seem like attention is actually resting on nothingness, but it’s more like attention...

what is the meaning of life?

During one of the first times I sat in meditation, my mind created a wall of unanswerable questions. There was a sense of deep acceptance and the mind wanted to relax along but first it had to know, “If separation is an illusion, WHY would separation appear at all? WHY does life happen at all?” My mind was saying, “I will not let go unless I have this answer!” This question, ultimately “WHY?!” was thrust deep inside and I had a powerful experience that felt like all the energy was sucked away leaving a deep sense of expansiveness and...

a separate self is like a fist

There are a lot of beautiful ways to describe awakening to nondual reality, for example “there is no self, there is only self, I am nothing, I am everything, the self falls away, the self becomes everything”. While I appreciate and use these pointers, they all seem off the mark from this perspective. It’s more like a contraction relaxed and Tammy is still here but not seen to be or experienced to be something other than a reflection on this moment. Like if you make a fist and release the fist. Nothing fundamentally changes, the hand is still there but...

death is simply “who” we are...

There is something beyond conscious awareness. In other words, conscious awareness can be an experience or sense of oneness. Something beyond oneness is required to notice that oneness (present consciousness) looks through these eyes and is the substance of all appearances. Something must be beyond in order for me to recognize and speak about oneness, existence, consciousness, or presence. How are we able to recognize oneness. Awakening experiences are powerful recognitions of no separation. But in order for oneness to exist there must be something even beyond oneness,...

enlightenment stories

The funny thing about stories is that they only seem to have a connection with realizing truth or enlightenment. It may seem at first that an individual person is seeking enlightenment. Early in my story, I wanted so intensely to “wake up” and there was a strong belief that I was doing something to stay on path and make enlightenment happen. At a point it became evident that I (as an individual) was never controlling the path and what I actually wanted had nothing to do with enlightenment. This realization was very disturbing. It revealed that I was never a...