Home > Work > Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogues About Non-Duality
1 " So there are different experiences – every individual has a completely unique experience. But it is all one energy, one whole seeing, one whole being. Unicity is all there is, and unicity does not belong to me or you. We belong to it. It is what “we” are. "
― , Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogues About Non-Duality
2 " The wonder of life is in presence, it’s not in the scenery that happens to be showing up. That’s why you can be looking at the Grand Canyon and feel miserable, or you can be looking at trash blowing down the street and feel ecstasy. The wonder, the ecstasy, the joy, the beauty is in the quality of the looking. It’s in the presence. If you’re looking at the Grand Canyon and thinking that you’ve wasted your whole life, you’ll probably feel miserable. If you’re looking at trash in the gutter and you’re totally present and open and not caught up in thinking, you’ll feel wonderfully alive. "
3 " Awakening is simply waking up from, or seeing through, thoughts such as these and the imaginary situations they create in the mind like mirages. Above all, awakening is seeing through the “me” at the center of this whole train of thought, the “me” who wonders if “I” have had an awakening or not. This waking up is very simple. It is not some fantastic, spectacular, one-time event with trumpets blaring and fireworks exploding. Nor is it a personal achievement. We miss it because we’re looking for something extraordinary, something that will enhance “me. "
4 " Awakening is simply waking up from, or seeing through, thoughts such as these [of having awakened or not] and the imaginary situations they create in the mind like mirages. Above all, awakening is seeing through the “me” at the center of this whole train of thought, the “me” who wonders if “I” have had an awakening or not. This waking up is very simple. It is not some fantastic, spectacular, one-time event with trumpets blaring and fireworks exploding. Nor is it a personal achievement. We miss it because we’re looking for something extraordinary, something that will enhance “me. "
5 " One of the more sophisticated dramas that consciousness produces is “me” trying to step out of “my story,” the character trying to free itself from itself. This is like a mirage trying to eliminate a mirage, or a phantom trying to pull itself up by its own imaginary bootstraps, or a dog chasing its own tail. "
6 " Unlike some who claim that a line in the sand was forever crossed on a particular date in time, no such final event has happened in Joan’s story. And, in fact, true enlightenment is not concerned at all with “me” being enlightened. "
7 " In enlightenment, there is no separation between “me” and “you.” So in enlightenment, there is no impulse to say that “I” no longer identify as “me,” but “you” still do identify as “you,” or that all desire and fear have completely vanished “for me,” but “you” are still stuck with them, or that “I” am like Ramana Maharshi and “you” are just another bozo on the bus. In enlightenment, it all happens Here / Now and none of it is personal. "
8 " We know in our deepest heart of hearts that unconditional love is somehow more true – more fundamental, more real, more radical (at the root) – than hate, which always seems to be confused, deluded, reactive, divisive and false. Love breeds love, and hate breeds hate. We all experience this. "
