The Stillness That Moves

The mind is ephemeral. It comes and goes, and therefore it can never take you to the ever-present Here that Reality already is.

In your pursuit of the essential Here of Reality, allow the mind and the idea of 'a pursuit' to be the passing show that it is.

You are already Here, as that ever-presence of Reality for which your mind is in search. You are already experiencing that Reality, as that Reality which the mind is trying to find.

Reality is really the only Presence that we are Conscious of. Only Reality is. The word Reality is rooted in the latin res, meaning ‘the fundamental somethingness of things’ or ‘the essential, irreducible Substance of things.’ It is in this sense that I use the word; to refer to the essential Substance of Being. There is only one such Substance. All there is in Being is Being. Its essential Substance or Reality is itself.

Reality is Conscious of only its Presence. There is only its Presence.

Ultimately, the 'I' to which we refer when we say 'I am Conscious' is, in fact, this one and only, omnipresent Reality, Being Conscious of itself.

There is no 'we' or 'I' that exists independently of Reality that would render Reality known. It knows itself, by itself, through itself, as the only Substance Here.

And of course! This Here is the Substance of Reality itself. It is always at itself.

This omnipresent Here is all that is Real, Substantial and Conscious.

These words are not offered Here for the mind to hold to a conceptual framework of how things are. Rather, they are like koans, inviting attention to relax into the experiential Reality of Here, which stands under the mind, where understanding one's own intrinsic nature is silently clear. Let them do their work, beyond the grasp of the mind. Simply listen and read in the effortless openness of Consciousness.

'Here', 'Reality' and 'Consciousness' are all equally representations in language of one experientially self-evident Presence, all-pervasive and timeless, known in its simplicity as the alive silence that precedes the arising of the mind.

When the mind arises from this silence, saturated with the knowingness of its Source, these three words carry the ineffable magnificence of purely experiencing the truth that they signify; Here, Reality, Consciousness. These words are exquisite mantras to reveal their underlying Substance. They indicate that Substance out of which they are made, not something separate from them.

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Here is always, changelessly Here.

If Consciousness looks for where the Here is, where it is, it doesn't find itself in a particular place. The experience of 'Being Here' is not a location in physical space. Rather it is that all-pervasive Presence in which every apparent location takes place. Whatever we point to, it is Here. It is at the experience of 'Being Here'. As such, the Here is not limited to locality.

Here is Consciousness tasting its own omnipresence without distance, movement, or beginning.

Consciousness never experiences itself arising from Here, enduring a temporary existence, and subsequently subsiding from Here. Indeed it is precisely impossible for Consciousness to be Conscious of the disappearance of the Here, that is, of itself. It would have to be present Here, as itself, after the disappearance of itself, to be Conscious of its disappearance. Such a disappearance is never an experiential possibility.

The fact of Being Conscious is ever-present and immutable. We are always Conscious of Being Conscious. That ever-present always-here-ness is the absolute ground of our experience.

Consciousness effortlessly allows the dance of apparent change to unfold within it. Just as physical space remains untouched and unmoved by the comings and goings of the objects that appear within it, the ever-present space of Consciousness remains undisturbed and unmoved by the flux of thoughts, sensations, and perceptions.

These movements arise in Consciousness, yet never alter its still, changeless nature. Therefore, in its own experience of itself, the intrinsic nature of Consciousness is absolute Peace. It never experiences itself becoming changed or perturbed by the perceptual activity of the moment. Its Peace is not dependent upon any circumstance or event. It is unconditional.

This discovery that unconditional Peace is the very nature of Consciousness, our Self, is the greatest discovery one can experience in a human lifetime. And it is immediately available Now, Ever-Here.

This space-like Presence of Consciousness is not only the container of all experience, but its very Substance. As such, Peace is not merely found in the background of experience, but as the Substance of every thought, sensation and perception that constitutes our entire human adventure. Peace is showing up as these very words Now, as the sensations of the body, as the thoughts that float by, as everything we have ever experienced. There is only Peace, Here.

And yet, even as Peace pervades every facet of our experience, the mind cannot recognise it. Accustomed to dividing, naming, and analysing, the mind searches for Peace as if it were an object apart, something to be attained, achieved, or apprehended perceptually. But how can the mind grasp what is not separate from itself? The very movement of thought that seeks Peace is already made of it, just as a current in the ocean is only made of water. Can a current grasp water? This is the wrong question, for it seemingly legitimatises the possibility of 'grasping' water. Water need not be grasped, for water is already utterly one with itself. The question is rather; what is the current made of? What is the movement of mind made of?

In truth, there is no gap between what is moving and what is still, no division between the ocean and its currents, between Consciousness and its apparent creations. It is only when the mind stops believing it can find Peace elsewhere, when its effort momentarily subsides, that Peace reveals itself as the ever-present, unbroken context and Substance of all things. This is not a discovery made by thought, but a recognition made by Conscious Peace itself.

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The experience of an ever-still Substance assuming the form of all movement is forever ungraspable by the mind that beholds only movement. For the mind, this seems like an unpalatable paradox. But to Consciousness, there is no contradiction.

The mind cannot transcend its own limitations. It cannot use its movement to apprehend the essential, unmoving Reality of itself. If the mind continues its attempt to seek this union of duality by using duality, it will inevitably become frustrated. Only through a shift of grace are its efforts exhausted, leaving only one option remaining; the dissolution into the silence of its Source, the indivisible oneness of Reality. It is Here, as the Source of the mind, that all seeming paradoxes are resolved in the non-dual experience of Consciousness itself.

The play of experience is not two things, appearance and Substance, just as there is not the wave and the ocean. There is only one Substance modulating itself into a multiplicity of forms, while never ceasing to be itself. In the same way that the ocean creates waves, currents, and storms within itself without ever ceasing to be ocean. Similarly, the movements of thought, sensation, and perception arise as dynamic modulations within the stillness of Here.

As such, there is nothing that need be done with the phenomena of experience to be established as our intrinsic Peace. We are that already.

Yet, why does it seem for some of us that unconditional Peace is absent?

Instead of Being Conscious of Consciousness as it essentially is, we have formulated the belief that Consciousness is bound within or defined by a moving object, such as a thought, sensation or perception. From the perspective of this belief, the ever-still Reality of our experience seems to be obscured.

But Reality, to itself, is not obscured. Reality is always Reality. Thusly, all that is necessary for Reality to be laid bare is for Consciousness to be Conscious of itself, as it is, without the belief that it is essentially limited to a particular moving object.

There is no evidence, as we have seen, to support or validate such a belief. Consciousness is the ever-still, changeless, Substance of Reality. Just see this clearly and unify all experience in a timeless instant.

In the intimacy of the Now, it is clear that the stillness of Peace and the movement of experience are not opposed: movement is the way ever-still Peace expresses.

To rest knowingly as this non-duality is to recognise that all experience is a unified field of expression; nothing solid, nothing fixed in its display, yet profoundly solid and fixed as present, substantial Infinity.

Ever Peace-Full.