[ not making it all up, dept. ]
“By thoughts, or mental words, we distinguish or ‘make’ things. Without thoughts, there are no ‘things’; there is just undefined reality.”
~ Alan Watts.
The mind – including mine – can get stuck on believing its ideas of opposites: good/bad, right/wrong, presence/absence, etc. Indeed, conclusions are the binary (0-1) either/or, ego-mind attempts to define, to know, to conclude and feel a little more secure. In fact – which is always non-personal and therefore, non-conceptual – there is no duality in awareness, in reality. Only the mind, when believed, creates its ‘contradictions’ and makes it seem otherwise. Beauty, love, joy and peace have no opposite, no opposition. In that fullness of being, there is no absence. There is only complete awareness; it is never, ever absent, it only seems to be veiled by the beliefs, by mind noise and conditioned feelings.
Mind labels; it tells its stories and the ‘me’ that apparently believes and ‘knows’ them is conjured out of thin air. Reality/awareness is not something one mentally narrates, or supposes as present or absent. It is, all else appears. To simply know that fullness there must be a total emptiness of an imaginary self, of a center that thinks, believes and concludes it knows. In emptiness alone, the fullness of what we are – love, beauty, peace and joy, arises to no-one. You are that.
Seeing without believing – the ending of the story – is the beginning of real delight and wonder, yes 🙂