Transcription
Do you remember choose your own adventure books? I think I was about uh maybe eight years old, nine years old, something like that. They came out with these books, if you're not old enough to remember, called Choose Your Own Adventure where you would read the book. There'd be like a a stem story at the beginning, and then you'd have a choice you could make, and it would say if you choose to go left, you turn to this page. If you choose to go right, you turn to this page. So, the adventure would change based on where you wanted to go and which choices you made in the book, which was really fun. I really enjoyed them. A lot of people kind of dug this. I don't know if they have them anymore. They probably do.
But anyway, uh the thing that struck me that's happening over the last couple of videos is that the comments of one video are leading me to make another video about the next um the next person's comment and so forth. So, this is kind of a um bit of a choose your own adventure, uh interaction with me doing these videos. So, uh what happened was I made this video in response to another comment essentially yesterday, and the video is called uh do you want the truth? You can't handle the truth.
And I'm really pointing for people who are right at that edge of awakening or either that or they're just really frustrated with awakening. Uh, can't quite figure out how to how to push beyond that mindscape or that seeking apparatus or um the frustration of trying to understand it, but understanding it doesn't really do do the trick, and you know that but you don't really know what else to do other than try to understand it or how do you work with thoughts and so forth. So, so in the last video I was pretty direct and pointing in a certain way. So, check that video out if you haven't seen it.
But then somebody made this comment under that video which made me um interested to make a a follow-up. And the comment is uh let me read it to you. It's really good. It says, "I don't even know what is here if I don't cling to thoughts. It feels like an impossibility, like a huge no. I don't even know what is left if I don't follow the story. except it's so hard to stay there. What do I stay with?"
Okay. So, first I I'll take this bit by bit. All right. The first part says, I don't even know what is here if I don't cling to thoughts. In in a sense, that's true, right? Because we're so used to looking through the filtering apparatus of thought that something in us says, well, if I stop looking at thoughts, I don't even know what will be here. Well, guess what? You won't. But so what? Who cares? In the way that thoughts are trying to filter everything, it's kind of like saying it's like like if I'm looking through a filter, like say I'm looking through rose-colored glasses or like a filter that turns the world blue or something and I've just been looking through it and looking through it as long as I can remember. And I say, "Just take that filter away, right? Stop looking through it." And then the concern is like, "Well, if I stop looking through it, I don't even know what'll be here." I know you don't because you've been looking through that filter for so long, you've forgotten. You actually do know. Um but but you won't regain that kind of knowing, which is a different kind of knowing. It's not a filtered knowing. You won't regain that kind of knowing until you pull the lens away. So, it's a bit of an act of faith. It's a big that's why I say sometimes it feels like a jump. You're stepping off a cliff, right? Feels like you're plunging into the unknown. It will feel like that often times. This is why you don't know what's going to happen when you stop clinging to thoughts. But why is that a problem? Really look at that. Why is it a problem that you won't know what'll happen when you stop looking at thoughts? The only thing that makes it a problem, and I'm not saying to to disregard that, I'm saying to look at the concern you have about it. The only thing that makes it a problem is the fear that without thoughts like reality is just not here or something. It's like it's that kind of a thing. Like if I don't look through this lens, it's almost like you're afraid if you stop looking through the the lens that makes the world look blue or rose-colored or whatever. The fear is like if I take that lens away, reality just ceases to be or something, right? Like so what? So what if you have to enter the unknown to do this? So what if you have to let go of everything you think you know? And you kind of do. I guess people don't always realize how tall that order is when they take this process up that you're going to let go of everything you think you know. And at first that may sound like cool an adventure or something, right? But when you are really pushed to the edge with this can be fearful. It can be scary. I get it. I know that it's scary. I understand. And you can also still step off the edge even though you feel fear. You definitely can. Pretty much everyone does. What I mean by that is most people feel some form of fear as they're doing this. And often right as they're doing that step into the unknown, like right as they're taking that or the backward step if you want to put it in a sort of Zen terminology almost everyone feels some form of fear, right? So the again this is all about beliefs. There's a belief that kind of says, "Well, if I don't know what's going to happen when I let go of thoughts, then blank, right? Complete the thought. What do you think's going to happen? The world's going to come to an end. Your world's going to come to an end. Things are going to look totally different than you thought they did, maybe."
So, why would you do it? Well, that's why I say this really is born of suffering. The reason you would do this is because it hasn't worked the other way. The way of thought, the way of thought has failed you, right? It's made you miserable. It's made you anxious. It's made you depressed. It's made you question yourself all the time. It's on and on and on and on. It's made you build this whole identity based on shame and fear and so forth. That's failed. Failed to to to make you feel deeply satisfied. But here's the good news, and this is why I do what I do. You can feel deeply satisfied. You can live with this deep instinctual synergistic trust in in life itself and experience itself. So those are the those are the kind of components of awakening, right? The the recognition of suffering or unsatisfactoriness or that living in the internal prison of your own mind is just not doing it. It's not cutting it. That's part of it. And the other part is some part of you trusting that you can move beyond that. You can take the plunge. Step off the thought train. Yeah. Um yeah.
So that's the the first part where it says I don't even know what's here if I don't cling to thoughts. Slow down and think about what you're actually saying to yourself. Right? You don't have to know what's here. Find out. That's what you're here to do. You're here to discover. Truly discover. not rearrange thoughts and beliefs like we've been doing our whole life, right? No, to truly discover something revolutionary. I'm not gonna say new because it's not new. It's revolutionary though. Okay. All right. Cool.
And then it feels like an impossibility, a huge no with a capital N, capital O. It feels like a huge possibility, a huge no. The only I can tell you from my own direct experience, the only thing that can make it feel like an impossibility is a thought. Because I promise you this isn't impossible. This is right here. It's glaring, obvious, bright, clear, intimate, and it's right there for you too in the in the way of speaking. I'm speaking like it's not there for anyone. It's just there. But when I say it, I'm not saying it's my experience. I'm saying it's everyone's experience. It's there for you. So there's nothing impossible about this. In fact, it's it's in a sense it's impossible to miss it, which is really strange to hear, right? When it feels like you've been struggling to find it, but the reason is because all you've been doing is rearranging thoughts. Rearranging thoughts, rearranging thoughts. When you stop rearranging thoughts, you stop clinging to thoughts. You stop being enticed by thoughts. Um, you'll realize like impossible, impossible, impossible, and possible are thoughts, right? Those are perceptions. Those are constructs, concepts, however you want to say it. Do you see this? Possible and impossible. What we're talking about here has nothing to do with possible or impossible. Those are concepts. Those are comparisons, right? If you compare, I don't know, building a house to building a skyscraper. One sounds a lot more impossible than the other or something or whatever. However you look at the world and and think certain things seem possible or easy, some things seem difficult. It's a comparison type of thing, but it's definitely cognitive and it's reflective, right? There's nothing there's no there's nothing called impossibility intrinsic to an experience. It's a concept. So that's a thought, right? When your mind says, "Oh, it seems impossible." Notice that that's a thought. When you notice that that's a thought, where are you? Where do you go? Do you go anywhere? Does anything change? If nothing changes when you release the thought that says this is impossible and I have a big no. If you release that thought for a moment, just let it go and nothing changes at all. Like literally nothing changes. How meaningful was that thought? How real was that thought? How important was that thought? Was a thought. Yeah. Let's keep going. It's important to slow down though as I'm doing. I'm looking at your thoughts, your perceptions, your beliefs one by one. You can do the same thing.
I don't even know what is left if I don't follow the story. So again, a similar concern to the first sentence. And the answer is the same. You don't know. In a certain sense, you don't know. You won't you can't know from here. You're looking at the world through a narrative. Like another lens, right? If you're looking at the world through a narrative and a timeline, the the person you took yourself to be within that timeline can't know what's outside that timeline. No. Because it's made up. The you that believes it thinks all these thoughts are true is made up. The you that believes it actually believes that it these thoughts are real for it that it that you know that's just totally made up. The you that could be bound by a single thought or a belief or anything is a made-up that itself is a belief. Can you see that? That can't know what it's like outside the story. But there is an outside of the story and it's right here. Cool.
And then here's another one. Except it's so hard to stay there. Is it? Is it hard to stay there? Is it hard to stay here? It's I'm just going to straight discount that because it's not hard. You've never gone anywhere. It's actually impossible to leave this. It's it's it's hard to to go into the mind again and again and again. It actually takes effort. It's frustrating. It's uncomfortable, right? What's hard is to constantly think think and recreate a reality that doesn't exist. That's hard. And and the reason it's hard or not the reason, um the effect of it being hard is that it makes it uncomfortable for you. The discomfort you're feeling isn't because you haven't found something you think you're going to find through the lens of that mind, because that's just a daydream. What's uncomfortable is the lens of the mind itself. That's what's uncomfortable, and that's waking you up. So, it's grace. It's your greatest gift. This feeling of doubt you have is your greatest gift, right? Because it's saying something's not quite right with the way I'm perceiving this. So, all I'm saying is stop perceiving it. Stop grabbing those thoughts. Notice a thought coming and going, staying those will see, right? To just stay here is so heavy, right? When you believe that thought, when you believe the thought that says to stay here is so hard. How does it make you feel? What do you do when you feel that? You run. Where do you run into thoughts? I'm just saying stop running. And you'll realize it's total that you can't stay here. You can't leave here. That's the truth. That's the realization of I am, right? Now, you will sometimes have intense sensations here. Those don't indicate that you that it's hard to stay here. Those don't indicate anything other than there's intense sensations. Call it fear, call it what you want, but they come and go and they change all the time. Those are actually evidence you are here. The sensations are evidence that this is just here. Here is here. There's no nowhere. There's nowhere else to go. You've never gone anywhere ever. The mind's playing games with itself. Okay.
Then the question is, what do I stay with? Different kind of question here. Again, though, you're looking for it's as if you're looking at an array of thoughts, right? First of all, you're on that thought train. Thought, thought, thought, identified, identified. You believe in time. You believe in yourself moving through time. It's starting to break down for you for sure. No doubt about it. because you're you're sort of seeing it now from a bit more of a distance. The thoughts themselves, you're seeing that the mental apparatus is doing what it's doing. But the question, what do I stay with is really good, right? What do I stay with if I don't grab on to the next thought and the next thought and the next thought? Well, similar to the first statement or question you made, you can't really know this. What to stay with, but here's the thing. You don't have to figure that out. You don't have to stay or go. Staying and go going are thoughts, right? Um so really to ask the question what do I stay with um is kind of looking for another thought answer right in my book somewhere I said I at least at first I don't recommend using a lot of why questions because they lead to more thoughts right this is kind of something that can lead to more thoughts even though it's not a why question it's like what do I stay with if I let go of thoughts you don't need to figure that out cognitively if you try to figure it out cognitively that's just giving you another thought like you're throwing yourself a life preserver Give yourself something to think about so you don't have to let go. Um, so you don't have to know what to stay with. It's what you don't stay with that's the key. And that's the next thought. Can you feel into this feels like a stopping? You're stopping something. You're stopping something. You're stopping reidentifying with thought. A thought thought. You may experience an intense experience and then you'll have a different set of thoughts that are tagged to that that say, "Oh, when I feel this intense feeling, that's fear. So then I need to whatever." Right? But again, if we're conditioned to use thoughts as our life preservers when we feel fear, then this then this goes too quickly and you don't see what you're doing, slow it down. See that when you're feeling that intense sensation, just notice it. Oh, there's fear here. Okay. What are the thoughts about it? What thoughts suddenly emerge in my mind when I when there's fear? Okay, those are thoughts. Let them go. Feel the sensations. You never gone anywhere. You're not going anywhere. You're here. It's here. It's all here. Mhm.
And for the next chapter of the choose your own adventure, watch tomorrow. If I make it tomorrow. I don't know if I'll make another one like this tomorrow, but who knows? The comments are good enough. I might.