We Can’t Avoid Avoidance; That Would Be Avoidance

By Adam J. Pearson

We can’t avoid avoidance;
That would be avoidance.

If avoidance arises,
Simply note it–
“Hey look, avoidance is arising,
That’s interesting!”

If avoidance isn’t arising,
Note that too–
“There is openness now,
No avoidance. Great!”

Be radically honest
About what appears,
Radically open
To hold space for it,
Radically welcoming
Of whatever comes,
Radically at ease
When it goes.

If there’s avoidance to the coming,
Welcome it to simply be,
If there’s avoidance to the going,
Welcome it as well.

Welcoming avoidance
Isn’t avoiding avoidance;
Unavoided avoidance
Tends to go on its own!
How funny! Have you noticed?

Avoiding avoidance is work;
Not avoiding avoidance is easy;
Simply welcome what is,
When it is,
And welcome what isn’t,
When it isn’t,
And “what if the mind’s not welcoming?”
Then welcome the not-welcoming.
Voila, it’s done!

At peace with the coming,
At peace with the going,
Not avoiding avoidance,
Not avoiding non-avoidance,
Is abiding as a Buddha here and now.
Don’t let it go to your head,
But if it does, note that too;
What’s here is just what’s here
What would avoiding do?

It’s simple as simple can be–
To put the matter Yoda-ly,
We can’t avoid avoidance;
Because that would avoidance be!

Part of a series on Nonduality:

Everything You Experience “Now” is Remembered: Neuroscience and Nonduality

Willing the Way: Wanting What’s Happening

We Were Never Broken: Beyond the Sense of Lack, Incompleteness, and Deficiency

Emptiness and Radical Negation: Shifts in and Beyond the Story of “Me”

The Ultimate Surrender

true meditation

The Welcomeness Of Now

Beyond “I Am”

Remember To Be Unhappy!: The Unnecessary Root of Human Misery

The Remembered “Me”: Why Presence Implies “Your” Absence

The Vibrancy of Life and the Deadness of the “Story of Me”

The Futility of Sandcastling

The Difference Between Seeing A Thought or Emotion and Looking From It

Emptiness in Emptiness

Thoughts That Never Were

Haikus While Walking in the Rain

Read More from Adam Pearson at http://philosophadam.wordpress.com/