being enlightened

The two words in the title go very well together. In some ways, they are the entirety of the teaching about the ultimate truth. We might imagine the space between them, that single press of the space bar, as an equals sign. But remember the blank space too.

The blank space is what the first word is all about. The word Being is all about experiencing ourselves as a blank space, permitting the emptiness aspect of us to have our attention and remain blank for a while, even as things come and go within it. That's Being.

The word Enlightened is what we might call a big word. Big words are wonderful, but we have to sustain our understanding that big words are also only words. What makes a word big is how much potential it contains for evoking the wordless truth of Being.

The point of the big words, and really the point of all words, is to evoke the wordless truth of Being. The point is not to get attached to the words themselves, but to use them as stepping stones into the wordless source from which they arise. Go there.

Stay there. Spend some time there. Experience for yourself how mysterious life is, and how wonderful, when we extend our capacity to remain in the wordless source from which all life arises, and into which all life always returns. We are that source.

That source does not arise or return. That source simply and always is. Everything happens within in, on account of it. I do. You do. The trees do. The wind does. The entire content of our inner life does. Everything comes and goes owing to that source.

It can be very hard to believe, after or amid a lifetime of seeking, that the thing you are looking for is not actually a thing in any way, but the invisible thing-less-ness that gives rise to all the rest. The first taste of it is often surprising and strange.

What makes it strange is how different it is to our regular mode of operation. We tend to go after the truth as something you can really go after and get. Then we discover our ability to be in contact with the truth is about not going after and not getting.

The better we are at not seeking, the more truth we make contact with. The better we are not needing to get anything, the more truth makes contact with us. It's a two- way street, and it merges into nothingness. When we favor nothingness, we shine.

We can all favor nothingness, although our minds become uppity about doing so. We can all see our minds assail us with that reaction and remain in the nothingness anyway, telling ourselves it's only the mind, arising and subsiding in the source of Being.

If we want to be enlightened, that's the way. Devotion to the source of Being rather than anything within in it is the way. Abiding in the source of Being is enlightenment. Everything else is distraction from enlightenment, including our minds.

It's because a major paradigm shift is required that being enlightened is so difficult for many people. They don't have a knack for existing in the new way. They don't have a knack for simply existing. It isn't anyone's fault. It's the way it is.

It's also less of a problem than it seems when it's difficult. Because the fact is a knack for simply existing is everyone's birthright. It's the most natural thing in the world. Far more natural than how we proceed when we sacrifice existing to existing as something.

Existing as something, as anything, is a massive energy drain. It has to be. When the source of Being separates from itself and insists on emphasizing the separation more than the underlying unity, it has to use energy to persist in that orientation over time.

The main reason for that price tag is that the source of Being cannot really separate from itself at all, since everything traces back to it. If everything is really the source underneath, how can the source become other than itself? It can only pretend to.

Pretending to be other than the source of Being is what humans do. They disregard the most important thing: not to. They consider themselves human beings more than they regard themselves as expressions of the source. It happens in a blink.

Being enlightened is about transforming that habit. We admit we operate from that habit. We don't beat ourselves up about it because that just perpetuates the habit. Instead we admit it and rearrange our priorities. We re-emphasize simply Being.

We may need to do it millions of times. We may need to train ourselves to reorient our sense of who we are from endless mental grasping at things to silent residence in simply existing. But we can do it right now. We always do it right now. That's how.

When our emphasis is on simply existing, for that moment we are fully enlightened. Any one of us. If our emphasis remains there, on simply existing, we remain fully enlightened. It's that easy and that straightforward. It's not shamanic art. It's attention span and values.

Why not try it right now? Would you like to be enlightened. Does being enlightened sound worthy of your interest and time? Simply take off the big word enlightened and step through the smaller word being into the wordless space of existing as you are right now.

While you are doing that, and whenever you do that, you are enlightened. If you do that amid your activities in life, you are deeply enlightened. You are enlightened right now. But you have to value it to sustain it. Watch what takes it away until you don't let it anymore. See those things as the same source as you.