[ you are not what you think, dept.]

BELIEFS ARE STORIES ABOUT REALITY.
* All thoughts gain their power from our believing or not believing them. Of course, that power is given without awareness, from the totally conditioned unconsciousness we learned to think is ‘me’ and which operates – like a hand inside a glove – producing at least 85 percent of our daily, repeated reactions ie ‘experiences’.
Pay attention to the circus of thought; how certain thoughts ignite feelings and make the heart actually race with their invocation. Cease to believe, just for a few moments, and not only thoughts wither and fade away unsupported, but also we may see that a direct, label-less experiencing yields a certain sufficiency, an unlimited wonder and richness in simple, direct, being, founded on a fidelity to reality that limited, personal thoughts ie ‘opinions’ can never know. In fact.
In facts – free of desire and fear – we find that truth which concepts can only describe, measure, and re-present – however elegantly or inelegantly, with symbols and words. All of which is fine and useful within the realm of the mind and its ideas ABOUT reality.
Here’s Bardor Tulku Rinpoche: “Thoughts are the mind’s attribute; they are the mind’s ornament. They’re not going to stop, so we should not attempt to pin our practice or our spiritual development on some vain effort to stop thinking. That is not going to happen. Minds think. That’s what they do. So the only way to deal with thought — since thought is not only the mind’s ornament but also the source of our problems — is to embrace thought with awareness, which means recognition of the nature of thoughts.”
MOVING OUT OF STORYVILLE…HAPPENS
In sum, viewed from awareness, no belief means no believer. That recognition dawns and there’s an end to believing. Thoughts and feelings come and go in that loving awareness. We lose the need to believe in outside authority and find the truth of our inner, natural well-being, above and beyond the mind-made ‘experience’ we formerly thought was ‘reality.’
In gently being aware, we watch how the mind lives in Storyville; we wake up and discover that we have simply lost interest in more..daily…drama; that what we want is not a story, not a belief. We move into, and abide in, what we are: peace, love, beauty. We’re intensely, intimately, absorbed in the miracle, and we wonder about it all 🙂

[ photo courtesy Jonathan Beth Photography ]