You are in conflict with Nothing

by Brian Thompson.

When any personalized thoughts regarding ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘mine’ happen to arise within the mind, give them no attention. The stories the mind tells you about yourself are not true—they can’t be. You are not a thing that is separate and limited, or that is static and dormant. You cannot be defined by any concept created by the mind—so stop trying.

You have no characteristics whatsoever; you are absolute emptiness. You are a vacant space of knowing in which all forms of phenomena seem to move in and out. You are an infinite field of consciousness in which the spontaneity of thought appears, but your truth remains unaffected and unchanged by its projections.

Know yourself as pure presence, not as a bundle of thoughts, and allow all things to pass effortlessly through your endless expanse of awareness.

Whatever shows itself within this vast, open space of intimate knowingness that you are is just a visitor. So, welcome and accept each thing that appears within your presence—every thought, emotion, and physical sensation—knowing that all things are harmless. Just allow them each to flow through your silent and empty consciousness, without resistance.

All things pass through awareness, but none can ever remain. This is self-evident. Despite all things that seem to come and go, nothing remains—nothing but you. Your presence allows everything to be perceived, without which, nothing could be known.

Awareness can hold onto nothing, despite the mind’s best attempts to keep something alive within its mental grasp. Any effort to sustain any experience, sensation, or thing will prove to be a detriment to one’s mental well-being, because you cannot keep that which does not exist. To attempt to do so will only result in suffering.

If you attempt to separate one mental impression from all the rest by isolating it and focussing the energy of your attention on it, you unknowingly identify yourself by your estimated relativity to it. If you trust the thoughts appear to you through this emotional attachment, then without further inquiry into the thought’s true nature their concepts will seem real.

Another word for this activity of the mind is ignorance.

Through a persistent practice of self-inquiry however, all such self-reflecting thoughts are revealed to be inherently untrue. “To whom do these thoughts come?” is the question one must continually ask, which will then dissolve their false appearance. Prove to yourself that the questions only seem to exist through the attention and importance you place onto them. Notice their appearance only, but do not react. Realize they belong to no one. They are like bubbles that spontaneously form atop the foam of wave in the ocean. As soon as one appears it is gone. It doesn’t truly exist—it was only a temporary appearance. Thoughts are no different. They are like momentary illusions created by the egoic mind.

[More…]

Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat http://philosophers-stone.co.uk