My goodness.
You know what's amazing?
Here we are right now in this space,
And there is a quality of this space that has been the same as far back as you can remember.
And of course,
What I'm speaking to is something that we might just call presence.
Do you notice this with me here?
And this is a great little mini exercise to invite yourself into that presence.
We can recognize that there is so obviously the noise in the mind,
And then there is so obviously that space before the mind even moves that holds space for all that arises and falls,
For every thought that comes and goes,
For every sound that emerges and melts away,
For every sensation in the body.
Just put your attention on that space that holds space for it all.
We might even call it an emptiness.
Do you see that it's always been there,
And it's always been the same?
Do you see that it's untouched by whatever we assume or imagine the commotion might be?
It doesn't care what you're watching on TV.
It doesn't care what argument you're lost in in your mind.
It doesn't care about your plans.
It's just holding space.
This is simultaneously incredibly deep and so profoundly simple and so immediate.
And of course,
The mind might ask,
Yeah,
But what's the big deal?
Well,
You start to see the big deal when you recognize how much of what appears to be the difficulty with being human is wrapped up in the noise and doesn't have anything to do with this presence,
Which is also like saying doesn't have anything to do with life.
Because you see,
Yeah,
That this space is the most real aspect of your entire existence.
It's the most unchanging aspect.
It's the most consistent aspect.
Everything else comes and goes.
Everything else is very much like a cloud,
Where in one way it looks like it's really there,
But you can simply reach out and pass your hand right through it.
It's only appearing.
All the conflict,
All the drama,
All the suffering held together by stories that are so ephemeral in nature.
There's such deep impact to this,
Where we simply look at what's actually true here.
And this space is so much more true than anything that passes through my mind.
And of course,
As I often point out,
This is what I consider to be the invitation of real spirituality – your capacity to discern the difference,
To discern between what we imagine to be happening and what's really happening,
Which is this emptiness that's holding space for it all.
Furthermore,
To go even deeper,
It can be quite accurate to say that this space is a deeper truth to what you actually are,
Because who we are thought to be is just more noise on the surface,
More thoughts that come and go.
Isn't that wild?
Now again,
We can look at this without any judgment.
There is this presence that is untouched by it all.
This presence that's actually quite peaceful.
There's no judgment in this space.
And then on top of that is this circus of thinking that has created this character called you,
And we're living a life from that imaginary character as if it's real.
And not to mention,
Every ounce of our emotional disturbances are wrapped around this character.
And of course,
Yes,
I get it.
When you're so wrapped up in the character,
It doesn't seem like a character.
It seems like who you really are.
But that is the fascinating thing about imagination.
We create worlds that really seem like worlds.
We create a self that really seems like a self,
And we believe it to be true.
And then we give our lives over to this creation,
A creation that's not really there.
We give our hearts over to this,
Which is like saying we give it over to a lie.
