All is perfect regardless of how things appear.

What the basic teaching of the mystics and sages is saying points beyond logic and rationality. It comes from a direct realization concerning the nature of THIS.

Yes, when the body/mind drove the car to work today, it wasn't being driven by a person. Ha ha.

ATA and emotions/feelings

The goal isn't to be a robot, so if emotions and feelings arise, simply feel them. It's the reflective self-referential function of mind that starts thinking about feelings after they arise. It's what makes us second-guess what's going on. Stick with what's real, and give the imaginary a wide berth.

We all know how thinking can generate feelings (ie. "Every time I think about (remember) what he said to me, I get mad!), but one of Jan's points was that feelings often precede thinking and result from a direct interaction with reality. IOW, feelings are real, and what happens afterwards depends upon whether the feelings are simply felt or the mind decides to get into the game. I'll write more about this later, and try to give a lot of specific examples.

Ram Dass's advice, somewhat modified, seems applicable, "Be here now, non-reflectively." Imagine living the same life you're living now without any thought of yourself. Pure action, pure awareness, pure being, pure love--watching your children play, playing with your children, going to work, interacting with people at work, looking at the world while driving home, walking into the house, helping your wife in the kitchen, talking to her, loving her, ---just being what you are without reflection. No Max at all; just THIS! If life is lived like this, feelings and emotions will definitely arise and be expressed through the body/mind (probably with greater intensity than usual).

Who we THINK we are

...has nothing at all to do with what's going on, but who we REALLY are is what's doing everything. Even the shifting of attention from thoughts to seeing is not being done by a person.

When attention shifts away from thoughts, it becomes increasingly likely that the True Attender will discover Itself because it is then alone with Itself and no longer distracted by the content of thoughts.

The Value of an Insane Level of Attentiveness

Niz discovered the truth in only three years by spending all of his free time focused on the thought/or sense of "I AM." By contrast, most of us take a lackadaisical approach to shifting attention away from thoughts. A typical Zen student may spend an hour each day attending the breath, and a hard-core Zen student may spend two hours per day doing shikantaza (pure non-conceptual awareness without content). Meanwhile, the house is burning down.

The question that any seeker might find worthwhile considering is, "What is the body/mind doing 16/7?" How much time is spent lost in needless thought versus how much time is spent attending isness?" How much time is spent repeating old tape loops, story-telling, and/or thinking self-referentially? Is the body/mind spending most of its time in an action-oriented mode or reflection-oriented mode?

For anyone who is serious about discovering the truth (not just fooling around) Niz's example is worth considering. He was a simple man and trusted his teacher, so he adopted a fanatical attitude toward attentiveness. He later told a seeker, in essence, "Yes, the mind rebelled at first, but then it settled down, and attentiveness became easier. Eventually, attentiveness dominated every waking moment."

This same story is repeated by many people who found the truth fast. Watch what's going on, and be aware that if attention stays focused upon thoughts, philosophical analysis, judgments about other peoples' views, arguments about rightness or wrongness, and other forms of useless reflectiveness, the truth will remain an elusive pipedream.

The more insane one's level of attentiveness and focus upon isness becomes, the faster illusions will fall away and the truth will appear.

What can be seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelled this moment? What is happening HERE and NOW? Where is attention focused?
Leave TMT to other people. If finding the truth is important, become insane in the pursuit of it.

As Byron Katie would ask

"How would you feel without this imagined story of endless struggle?" Would you have a problem if you weren't thinking any thoughts about the future? Stop for a moment and be still. Look around in silence. Does any problem exist in the absence of thoughts?

Existential issues and kids

This is how I explained the situation to a fourth grade science class:

I am going to ask you two kinds of questions. The first kind of question has to do with knowledge ABOUT reality; the second kind of question has to do with the direct experience of reality. If I ask you, "What is this?" (while holding up a glass of water), you can give me a conventional answer. You can say, "It's a glass of water." But if I ask you, "What is this, REALLY?" you will have to answer me in a way that shows me you understand what this IS before words or thoughts.

The first kind of question is conventional and can be answered by thinking and dredging up memorized distinctions. The second kind of question in existential and can only answered through the body using direct perception and the body's innate intelligence.

When we ask "What IS some thing, REALLY?" we are not asking, "How may this thing be distinguished or imagined?" We are asking what it IS? "Is" is a verb, not a noun, so no noun will suffice as an answer. After a bit more explanation, the kids understood the issue even though their teachers did not.

I would ask, "What is gravity?" and the kids would answer something like, "It's a force of attraction between things" or something similar. When I asked, "What is gravity, REALLY?" the room would go wild. Kids would stand up and jump off of their desks onto the floor or lift up books and drop them. Ha ha. They understood the difference between the idea of gravity and what gravity IS. "What is gravity, REALLY?" is an existential question. Other existential questions include:

Is there a God?
Where did I come from and where am I going?
Who (or what) am I?
What is the meaning of life?
What is my role in life?
What is time or space?

At some level everyone knows the answers to these questions, but they often don't know that they know. Thinking is useless for answering existential questions. The answers come from beyond mind, and when the mind becomes sufficiently silent, the answers automagically appear.

Thinking is useful

...but it helps to understand the limits of its usefulness. When applied to existential issues, it is known to induce spinning.  

Spinning: To be transfixed on a relatively insignificant thought or event and unhealthily or unnecessarily dwelling on it attaching a more elaborate meaning and emotion to it.

In G. Spencer Brown's book, "Law of Form"

...he shows how a single distinction almost inevitably leads to an imagined universe of incredible complexity. IOW, one act of distinction artificially divides THIS into two abstract states, and the process continues from there as mind continues chopping up THIS into finer and finer bits and pieces related to one another through increasingly abstract (imaginary) ways.

After we divide THIS, psychologically, into two imaginary states (self and other), we then usually divide what is "other" into the "ten-thousand things." What is a rock? What is a star? What is time, space, color, density, gravity, electricity, magnetism, etc? All of these questions have very humorous matter-of-fact answers if the illusion of separateness is penetrated. The physicist, lost in the dream of separateness, constantly mistakes ideas for the truth. The most basic assumptions that the physicist makes (which underlie everything else) are almost never examined.

A primary illusion is imagining that one is born.

A secondary illusion is imagining future re-birthings. When all separateness ceases to be imagined, what remains? All that is necessary is to become free from the illusions created by thought.

Most folks start off attached to a wide range of illusions

...including selfhood, thingness, time and space, causality, meaning, and so forth. Typically, these illusions collapse one-by-one discontinuously and intermittenly. "Passing through the gateless gate" is seeing through the illusion of conventional reality (what is sometimes called "the consensus trance") and discovering that reality is alive and whole. It is possible to see through one particular illusion while remaining unable to see through others.

Typically, a person on this path gradually sees through more and more illusions as attention is shifted away from thoughts to "what is." Selfhood is usually one of the last illusions to go. Seeing through illusions takes one out of samsara and the wheel of life and death because even those things are seen to be illusions. It is realized that there was never a separate person in any sense who could have been bound to a cycle of life and death. "Life," "death," "cycles," and all other thoughts collapse into a little greasy spot, and then...........well, this is where all words laughingly fail. 

Ox herding pictures

Over the weekend I reviewed the ten ox-herding pictures, and wanted to make a few comments. Although there are no distinct boundaries between the various stages of spiritual evolution represented by the pictures, they roughly correspond to what happens on what we might humorously refer to as "the STANDARD MODEL of the trip around Mt. Woo woo." I use the words "standard model" to distinguish between the usual kind of spiritual sequential attainment (sequential collapse of illusions) and the rare cases when everything collapses all-at-once and forever.

After the sense of selfhood collapses, there usually still remains a reflecting function of consciousness. There is freedom of action, and although the old sense of there being someone behind the action is absent, the mind still hangs around making distinctions and creating some obscuration. There is no longer an effort to control the mind because the imagined controller has disappeared, but there is still mental reflectivity occurring. This is roughly equivalent to the eighth ox-herding picture of "No ox, no man." Emptiness reigns, but it isn't yet fully alive.

The ninth ox-herding picture, "Returning to the Source," is a positive samadhi where the whole world comes alive, and the reflective function of mind is barely perceptible.

The tenth ox-herding picture "Entering the marketplace with helping hands," represents a state of such profound oneness that thoughts are incapable of any disturbance whatsoever. There is a free flow of energy in which being, itself, is joyous in the wondrous expression of its own isness. There is no thought of self, and helping others (which are indistinguishable from oneself) becomes a form of pure play. Indeed, all of life is play. The idea of being right about something, or needing something, or wanting something, or having attained something becomes laughable. There is no "me" who knows anything important, and there is no "you" needing to be taught anything. Perfection pervades everything, and the entire universe is then like a flower blooming in emptiness.

In searching for the ox, one is primarily concerned with attaining enlightenment (realizing the fictional nature of the searcher). After this point is reached, the Zen tradition then goes on to highlight what happens after enlightenment. Tozan's Five Ranks, for example, deal exclusively with stages of evolution following enlightenment, and some Buddhist schools break down those five ranks into fifty-two stages through which the enlightened person passes before reaching ultimate maturity.

In general, there are two major breakthroughs on the pathless path of non-duality. The first occurs when one catches a glimpse of non-duality. Zen calls this "passing through the gateless gate." It can be a cosmic-consciousness experience or a sudden insight into the nature of reality. Afterwards, one knows that the universe is not the conventional place of things and events that it previously appeared to be. One knows, without any doubt, that the universe is a unified whole even if it continues to appear otherwise.

The second breakthrough occurs when the sense of selfhood collapses and the universe is then seen as one's true self. Beyond that point, there is only an infinite unfolding of Self-discovery as oneness revels in the joy of its own beingness.

On the web virtually all discussions deal only with the path from the sense of selfhood to the sense of oneness, but it is worth pointing out that the pathless path doesn't need to stop there. What happens as ATA, shikantaza, attentiveness to the sense of "I Am," or any other form of attentiveness continues beyond the collapse of selfhood? The invitation to find out is always open.

Many seekers seem to think that when the sense of selfhood collapses, that's the end of the transformative process, but although it can stop there, it can also continue in ways that are quite subtle. Tozan's Five Ranks point to that continuing unfoldment, and Tozan's fifth rank and the tenth ox-herding picture point to the end result.

House of cards

I have a friend who, at the age of 7, had an incredibly frightening experience. He was sitting on a toilet, when a strange thought occurred: "I am supported by the toilet, and the toilet is supported by the floor, and the floor is supported by the earth, but what supports the earth?" All of a sudden, his mind, confronted by this seemingly infinite regression, fell away and he found himself confronting an emptiness/void so vast that it scared the bejeebers out of him. This is the same void that Tolle fell into when he had a similarly-strange thought, "Who is it that can't stand another moment of me? There can't be two inside here. Maybe one of them isn't real."

One crazy thought is capable of bringing down the whole house of cards.

The concept/idea of non-duality

...is just that--an idea. The word "non-duality" is pointing to something that is NOT an idea.

Like the idea of non-duality, the idea of balance is also an idea. The living truth is beyond ALL ideas.

Jesus said, "I am the truth"

...and he was executed for blasphemy. Almost a thousand years later, the great Muslim sage, Mansur al Hallaj, said, "I am the truth," and he, too, was executed for blasphemy. I enjoy telling people, "I am the truth and so are you," and so far I haven't been executed. Ha ha. Of course, you never know what may happen five minutes from now.

The path of non-duality leads in two directions. First, it leads within, to self-realization. Then, it leads outward into the world. When the Buddha realized the truth, he reportedly said, "Wonder of wonders, in all the universe I am the only one." Jesus said, "My Father and I are one." Kabir said, "Behold, but one in all things; it is the second that leads you astray."

Zen has ten pictures that represent the spiritual path of non-duality. The tenth picture shows a little old man with a big grin on his face wearing sandals and carrying a bag over his shoulder. The title of the picture says, "Entering the marketplace with helping hands."

The sage does not see self or other. She helps without helping and has no thoughts about helping. Her life is lived in service to THIS without any thoughts ABOUT this. She is the living truth in action. For her, there is no self that needs improvement, and there are no thoughts about attachment or non-attachment. She is as incomprehensible as the truth, itself. Anyone who wishes to find the truth must leave the ordinary world behind, and, in the words of the Christian mystic, Jacob Boehm, "Enter THAT in which no creature dwelleth."

Seriousness

A person goes to a sage and states his observations, judgments, and opinions.
The sage remains silent.
(Seriousness is often seriously lacking.)

Another person goes to a sage and asks how to find the truth.
The sage points the way, and the person follows the pointer.
(Seriousness of intent is everything.)

It's not in the future

In the case of this body/mind, reading "Collision With the Infinite" for the seventh time generated a certain kind of intellectual realization. I realized that whatever I was looking for had to be right in front of me--in the here and now. Until that realization, there was a subtle sense that what I was looking for was in the future somewhere. That realization, which was intellectual, was important because it focused attention more strongly on what exists in the present moment.

That is the state of mind I stayed in for several months, and during that time I spent as much of that time as possible looking at the world in a state of quiet alertness. When the sense of selfhood collapsed, it wasn't immediately apparent. I felt light and buoyant that day, and there was the vague sense that something was missing, but that missingness had not risen to the level of consciousness. Then, about two hours later it was suddenly realized that the missing something was the old sense of selfhood. It was simply gone, and it was simultaneously seen that the entire sense of selfhood had been nothing more than a silly idea. The body/mind looked around, and it was then obvious that THIS is all there is, and that THIS is the only reality, whole, complete, and alive.

Took too long!

A young friend made fun of me recently by saying that it took me way too long to see through the illusion of selfhood. I agreed with him, but explained that there were good reasons for that.

First, the body/mind wasted (not really, but you know what I mean) twenty years trying to answer its questions by thinking. At that time there were no books by people like Tolle in bookstores, so there was no one recommending anything like ATA or even breath awareness meditation.

Second, by the time a path to truth was found (Zen meditation methodologies) thinking habits and intense intellectuality was well established. I think it is much easier for young people to wake up because they aren't yet experiencing what Tolle calls "the compulsion of incessant thought."

Third, I didn't understand, at first, the importance of becoming INSANELY focused on what is here and now. I never had the interest in doing sitting meditation for days on end (because of the leg pain and also because of my work schedule), and I had not yet realized that ATA throughout the day could function in the same way as breath awareness but without the pain and formality of specific time periods.


I've heard about a fellow in prison who woke up because of his alert state 24/7 (being surrounded by dangerous inmates), and I think that the same sort of attentiveness would have the same sort of effect in any life situation. Without being placed in a situation that causes automatic alertness the usual person has to be strongly motivated and also realize the importance of sustained attentiveness. IOW, THIS must have a strong desire to find the truth of its being, and this desire does not come from the imagined person; it comes from THIS. This is what I call "the fundamental mystery." Some body/minds feel compelled to "get to the bottom of things," so to speak, and others don't.

In my case, the body/mind was motivated by curiosity and intuition. Neither the religious nor scientific explanation of reality seemed correct, and I intuited that some other explanation or understanding was being overlooked. other people are more motivated by a need to find happiness or a way to end psychological suffering. Tolle, for example, found the truth as a result of extreme despair.

In any event, an intense desire to find the truth is most important, and if that is present, then one only needs to be told in a clear way HOW to find the truth. When one first begins shifting attention away from the imaginary to the real, it is hard to see progress, but as time goes by, and attention becomes more and more often focused upon the real, one sees how one's interaction with the world is gradually changing. Of course, after the illusion of selfhood collapses, then it is realized that the entire journey was like an undulation in THIS and that no separate person was ever involved. Ha ha. That's the cosmic joke.

The journey from imagination to reality is definitely the most interesting journey that THIS can take in the form of a particular human being!

Different paths for everyone

How this plays out in a particular life is different for each individual. Some folks get it all in one big blast (Tolle, the Buddha, etc), and some folks get it piecemeal (moi).

I was lucky because I got a big glimpse of the truth followed by a second big glimpse. This added enormous motivation because it was then obvious that reality was not what it had seemed to be. I then knew that thought processes and cognitive filters were keeping me from being psychologically unified with "what is," but at that time I still thought that there was a "me" who needed to get unified (the cosmic joke).

Gradually, as I kept doing Zen breath awareness meditation, ATA, and koan contemplation, the body/mind became an action-oriented mechanism rather than a reflection-oriented mechanism. At the age of 40, when I first began meditating, I'm guessing that more than 95% of my time was spent thinking. During that first month of meditation I spent about an hour each day trying to count breath inhalations. During the next two months I spent an hour with that practice and added a second hour of ATA, just walking along country roads looking and listening (despite the internal dialogue still going full speed). During the next two months I added a third hour of breath-following awareness at night. So, by the fifth month, when I began falling into states of samadhi, I was spending about three hours each day focusing upon what is real rather than what is imaginary.

After the first big cosmic consciousness experience occurred, I was intimately connected to reality for about two days. Selfhood was gone, and I only wanted to spend time helping people. Ha ha! During that time I tried to give away our family-owned construction company (a very funny story all by itself), and had no interest in anything personal. I even lost all interest in meditation. Of course, on the third day mind re-entered the picture and my intimate union with reality began to dissipate. It was quite horrifying because it was tangibly viscerally clear that "I" was being pulled back into a state of psychological separation. I remember lying in bed at night and trying to hear sounds in the same way that I had heard sounds during the previous two days, but the sense that I was a "someone" hearing externalized sounds was returning, and there was nothing I could do about it. Selfhood came back and tried to coopt everything that had happened. It literally felt like "I" was pulled out of a living heaven-on-earth and returned to a dead world of "me in here" psychologically separated from the truth.

Ironically, during the six months following that first big CC experience, I went around telling everyone that they should meditate (thinking that that was the only way someone could gain psychological unity), but I was unable to do so myself. Ha ha. That was really funny, and I remember thinking how strange that was at the time. I was running around telling people to meditate, and I couldn't make myself do it! This proves that THIS has a great sense of humor.

At that point I learned about the Kwan Um Zen group in Kentucky and went to my first three-day silent retreat. There, I had another big breakthrough realization, got interested in koans, and began going on regular retreats. As time went by, my interest in ATA increased, even though I had no name for it at the time, and when I went on retreats, I began to combine ATA with the meditation sessions.

Zen retreats are very intense, as I described in my book, but added even more intensity. In between sitting sessions, I would spend all of the free time walking in the area of the retreat center while trying to look and listen without thinking. You know the rest of the story. I began to realize that ATA was just as important as formal meditation, and I began to realize that what mattered most was sustaining awareness of what is real. That's when I began writing notes to remind myself to re-focus on what could be seen or heard rather that thoughts.

The insight that I had while pouring concrete was the next big realization I had, because I then clearly saw how ideas separate us from THIS, and I began using the question "What must I be doing this moment" to break the habit of fantasizing about running away to a mountaintop and escaping what I perceived as my irritating work and family responsibilities. That's when I realized that the path to truth, for me, was right through the middle of pouring concrete and all of my existing relationships.

In the same way, your path is probably right through the middle of exactly what you're doing now. There are no rules, and each person's situation is completely different. The key is simply doing whatever must be done in this moment with as much attentiveness as possible, and spending as much free time as possible interacting with the world like a little child--non-reflectively.

In essence, what you're doing is turning your back on self-referential thinking and unnecessary thought, and becoming now-oriented. This, alone, is what will lead to psychological unification with THIS.

Several people have complained that I am opposed to thought, but this is not true. I simply suggest that most abstract thought is unnecessary and usually functions like a set of blinders. The ultimate goal is to become psychologically unified with THIS and then mind can function freely, more like a servant than a master.

Zen Masters make one good point that is rarely discussed on the ST website. Even after the illusion of selfhood has collapsed, there is no end to Self-discovery and what can be realized. They, and teachers like Gangaji and Tolle, advise continued vigilance. As attentiveness continues without the illusion that there is someone doing anything, the mind grows increasingly silent and the sense of aliveness and poignancy increases also. Zen Masters continue to do zazen after satori, but walking in the woods or driving a car while looking and listening throughout the day has the same effect; it leads to a deepening appreciation and sense of gratitude for THIS that we are.

IOW, even satori has to be left behind so that THIS can function most optimally. The tenth ox-herding picture of Zen shows a little old man with a big grin on his face wearing sandals and carrying a sack over his shoulder. The title of that picture is "Entering the marketplace with helping hands." The sage no longer thinks in terms of self or other. S/he is full of joy and helps wherever help is needed. The world then becomes empty and self-illuminating, and it is impossible to even describe what that is like.

Last night I was one of seven speakers at a symposium on religion and social service at a local university. There was a Christian minister, a Muslim Imam, a Jewish rabbi, a Unitarian Universalist, a Hindu priest, and me. I was invited to represent all of the non-duality spiritual traditions. All of the speakers other than the Hindu priest and me were living in their heads. They talked about duties and obligations and all kinds of abstract religious stuff, but the 87 year old Hindu priest was DEEP. He sat beside me on the stage and we whispered back and forth. He said, "I don;t know what they're talking about, do you?" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. He hadn't experienced full realization, but it didn't matter. He was full of love and joy, and he had enormous humility and gratitude. I just wanted to hug him because he was so lovable. When it was his turn to speak, he related some wonderful stories from his childhood that illustrated the importance of an open heart, and he explained that all of his grandchildren were agnostics who had got him interested in looking at his religion and spirituality with new eyes. He had discovered how little he knew, and he was now starting to understand for the first time that all of his priestly education was pointing far beyond the conventional ideas that he had once believed. He was such a joy to be with that I hope to go visit him soon (he lives in another city). I'm not sure that we'll even need to say anything to each other. We may just want to sit and look into each others eyes. The only other person I've ever felt that way around was the Dalai Lama.

The mountain climber

...focuses attention so strongly upon what is happening, that s/he often disappears into the action. When we live life like that, who we think we are also disappears into the action. When attention is regularly shifted away from self-referential thoughts to what is real, the illusion of separateness ceases to be reinforced, and eventually it simply collapses. There is nothing gradual about it except the continual shifting of attention away from thoughts. When the illusion collapses, it happens suddenly and completely.

The most important koans

There tons of what Zen would call "formal" koans, such as:

1. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
2. What was your original face before your mother and father were born?
3. What is mu? (you have to understand the story to appreciate this koan)

but the most important koans, IMO, are the existential questions that matter to you.

After many years of contemplation, going on silent retreats, and taking solo hikes in the mountains, I knew with 100% intellectual certainty that selfhood was an illusion, but I continued to feel vaguely discontented. I was still a seeker even though all of my original existential questions had been answered. I got to a point where I only had one remaining question. I had had many experiences of unity consciousness, samadhi, cosmic consciousness, etc, but I always seemed to come back to a "me in here" looking at "a world out there." I wanted to if it was possible to remain in a unity consciousness state of mind all the time. What I was really asking is, "How can I become enlightened and remain enlightened permanently?" I knew what it felt like to be in an enlightened state of mind with no sense of selfhood, and I also knew what it was like to come back to "normal." So, that was my last big koan.

When I suddenly saw the answer to that question on the afternoon of Aug 17, 1999, I had a big laugh. I suddenly saw that the one who was trying to get enlightened had never existed and there was only THIS. The body/mind had THOUGHT that there was a person who was sometimes having experiences of unity consciousness and sometimes coming back to normal, but there wasn't. Who I had thought I was was a thought, only. Seeing through the illusion on that day ended my spiritual search, because I then realized who and what the searcher is---THIS. No separate person had ever existed. Ha ha. It was a very funny realization, but that ended all discontentment and led to a feeling of total freedom.

The answer to every question that a body/mind can imagine is already standing in front of our eyes, but the answer is usually obscured by thoughts. This is why I suggest shifting attention away from thoughts to what can be seen, heard, felt, etc, again and again, until THIS is no longer obscured by thoughts.

Koan percolation

Sometimes, even today, I'll be driving along on a trip looking at the world in silence, and suddenly an old koan that I heard twenty years ago will pop into my head and I'll see the answer for the first time. To some degree this illustrates the difference between living the life of a monk and that of a businessperson.

If I were drawn to meditate all day, I'm sure that there would be very few "uncracked" koans left on my plate. As it is, I lead a very busy life, and I have dozens of interests, all of which I find enjoyable. Consequently, I rarely spend any time contemplating koans. Nevertheless, every koan that I've encountered that remains unanswered is still percolating in the system, so to speak, and every now and then one will pop to the surface. I always get a big laugh when one surfaces, and the obvious becomes obvious. LOL

Koans: One on one

The reason that people work on koans 1:1 is that the answers to formal koans are not made public (so as not to ruin other people's fun). Finding the answer to a koan for yourself is much more powerful than someone telling you the answer.

A koan can be answered verbally, or with a physical action, or with silence. Most koans are answered with a physical action. Some koans are very easy to answer, and some require a lot of contemplation. Koans contain a "mind hook"--something that hooks the intellect and stimulates thinking, but the answer to all koans comes from something deeper than mind. Thinking is therefore useless for answering koans. You have to perceive the answer instantly and respond appropriately. Here are some koans:

1. If you should meet an enlightened woman on the road, how can you greet her with neither words nor silence?

2. (Holding out a bell) What is this?

3. What is a glass of water, existentially?

4. Answer yes or no. Have you stopped beating your spouse?

5. If you believe in the Buddha, you can pray to the Buddha, but if you have killed the Buddha and realized oneness and fundamental emptiness, to whom can you pray?

In my Pouring Concrete book I describe some Zen 1:1 interviews which I think you'll enjoy reading about.


Koans help cut through our usual verbiage to the concrete reality of "what is."

When we meditate

...we are changing the way the brain is used. We are focusing upon the actual rather than staying lost in imagination. There is really no difference between focusing upon the witness, focusing upon the breath, shifting attention away from thoughts to what can be seen or heard, or even focusing upon thoughts. That which sees and hears is detaching from the usual roofbrain chatter. It is like staying in the train station and watching thought trains go by without jumping on board. The more often this is done the easier it becomes to stay in the station.

When you become aware of what is happening, you might begin to reflect upon it and imagination and internal speech might get revved up again. Yes, you can sometimes make certain experiences come back, but don't try to do that! The very effort to get anything back will keep you from being present, and put you back in the mind. As soon as you realize that reflectivity has returned, put your attention back upon the actual. IOW, don't check on "your" progress because that reinforces the illusion that there is a "you" making progress. There isn't.

In essence, the path of non-duality is a path of leaving selfhood behind by becoming so involved in life that selfhood gets lost. Eventually, the structures of mind that support the illusion of selfhood simply collapse from disuse (the illusion is seen for what it is).

Nisargadatta discovered the truth because he trusted his guru totally, and he single-mindedly did what his guru told him to do. His guru told him to focus on the I am every minute of the day. If his guru had told him to put his attention upon what he could see or hear every minute of the day, he would have been just as successful because the same process would have unfolded.

As we shift our attention to the actual more and more often, an incredible variety of strange things can happen. This is because attentiveness (or noticing) puts pressure on the conventional structure of reality conceived by the mind. The psychological paradigm literally begins to crumble under the onslaught of the actual. If we stay with the actual, belief in the imaginary world of the mind must eventually disintegrate.

Go watch young children at play. If you follow the path of non-duality, that is where you are going. You will return to a child-like state of mind while retaining the full functionality of the intellect. The intellect will then be a servant rather than a master.

The danger that all serious seekers confront is getting attached to the extraordinary experiences that often occur as the meta-reality of the consensus trance starts to collapse. The best advice is to watch, but don't touch! The seeker is going somewhere that has no boundaries, so don't give up an old set of boundaries for a new set. Stay with not-knowing, and the marvelous truth will naturally unfold. It is alive, intimate, poignant, profound, wonderfully ordinary, and bursting with love. It is curious, playful, compassionate, thankful, and intuitive. The truth never knows what its doing, but it has a joyous time exploring the collosal wonder of its infinite being. To be awake is to be everlastingly amazed.

One last warning: don't forget that the ordinary is just as extraordinary as the extraordinary. When you're walking around during the day, bring the same attentiveness to everything you see that you brought to focusing on the witness. As young Frankenstein said, "It's alive, Igor. It's alive!" LOL

Why do I advise what I advise?

I advise what I advise because that is what THIS does. Other people respond however they respond because that is what THIS does. Some people see through illusions generated by mind and some don't. Some people perpetually abide in mind and some don't. THIS is a unified whole, so nothing is required. Do I think that most people who find the truth do so because attention is shifted away from the imaginary to that which is not imaginary? Yes.

Memories (past lives, being born...)

Last year I experienced a vivid example of how memory shifts and morphs over time. I revisited a fairly famous geological site where I had spent three days collecting rare fossils about fifty years ago. My memory of the place was extremely clear because my brothers and I had gotten a new car stuck in the mud there, and I remembered (or thought I remembered) the road, the hills, the low area where the car got stuck, the slope of the grade upon which we had placed wooden planks for the car to get traction, an old abandoned farmhouse where we had spent the night, the intersection of roads leading to the site, and the entrance to the fossil-collecting gorge--a miniature grand canyon in the middle of a corn field. I had a very clear picture in my mind of what the entire area looked like, so I was shocked when I returned to the site and couldn't find a single thing that looked familiar. Nothing. Nada. Nil. There were no hills where I remembered them, no curves in the road where I remembered them, no intersection of roads where I remembered it or in the configuration I remembered, and the entrance to the gorge looked entirely different than I remembered it. I spent two hours walking around trying to find something--anything--that looked familiar, without success.

I had read studies concerning how memory changes with time, but that experience confirmed for me how radically memory can change, and how unreliable it is. I have also had the experience where other people and I remembered a particular event in completely different ways. Consequently, I am extremely suspicious of stories that people tell about memories dating from their first five years of life. I suspect that their memories are primarily things that their imagination has constructed, projected, or morphed based upon both the original events and susequent ideas and images dating from that time (such as old photographs, parental remembrances, etc).

"Should one bit of the illusion be regarded as more significant than any other?"

It is like asking, "In the mirage of an oasis in the desert, which part of the mirage is more significant?" An illusion is an illusion. Leave it all behind, and what is the case? THIS, here, now, doing whatever IT does. THIS can either BE what it is or reflect ABOUT what it is. BEING is alive and present; reflection is a collection of dead mental snapshots. Jump into life with both feet, never look back, and see if any understanding is necessary.

Clear space for ten-thousand miles.

Children gradually shift from attending THIS to attending thoughts

...and the process is gradual and cumulative. This is why some writers say that self-awareness becomes "crystallized" on the way from childhood to adulthood.

In the same way, a child lives in the present moment with minimal thoughts of past or future, but as they grow up and spend more and more time attending to thoughts, the idea of time and a time-bound separate self becomes increasingly dominant.

The operative descriptive term for sages is "child-like"--innocent, free, playful, now-oriented, and psychologically unified.

"All there is is THIS"

...s a pointer to the truth, which is inconceivable.

An enlightenment experience is a state of mind, but it is not enlightenment. A person can have a hundred enlightenment experiences, but as long as a person is thought to be having those experiences, there is no enlightenment. Enlightenment is the realization that the one seeking enlightenment does not exist. The search for enlightenment is motivated by the illusion of selfhood, but when the illusion is penetrated, no self or other can be found. What then?

Who could possibly help another? Do you see two here? The idea of help or service to others is another illusion. The sage helps without helping, and she does so without any idea of helping. If there is any idea, such as, "I am helping someone," the illusion of selfhood is still extant. The truth is beyond ideation.

Teachers

Seekers should ask questions, read books, remain skeptical, use intuition and common sense, and run like crazy if a teacher asks for money or sex.

Some sages are thinkers and can clearly explain what's going on and how to escape illusions created by thought, but others are feelers and teach more intuitively. One good indicator of clarity is a teacher's sense of humor and whether s/he can laugh at him/herself.

The best teachers tell seekers to look within themselves and not to depend upon any outside sources because they know that all answers to all questions are contained within the seeker. They constantly point away from imagination to the aliveness of being. They constantly cut the ground out from under seekers, and leave them with nothing ideationally solid to stand on.

The descriptive nature of language

...is only useful for helping people understand why the prescriptive or injunctive nature of language is most important. The sage says, in essence, "Attend THIS rather than imagine things ABOUT this." If the seeker follows the injunction, s/he has realizations and acquires embodied understanding.

If the seeker doesn't see the importance of following the injunction, then the sage may need to explain in greater detail what's going on or ask the seeker to inquire into the nature of various assumptions underlying the seeker's beliefs (that are obvious to the sage but not obvious to the seeker).

"Balance"

...is simply another idea like "karma," "causation," "duality," "oneness," or "suffering." Let them all go. Shift attention away from imagination to THIS. What do you see when the mind is silent? Don't try to understand. Just look.

Thought and the path

One thing that we haven't discussed too much is the role of logic and rational thought on this path. Once we realize that there is only this moment, and that past and future are abstractions, we see the futility of spending much time fantasizing or reflecting, and attention is naturally turned away from those activities. Sure, we make plans for a future trip or look at the past in order to learn from it, but we see that a great deal of fantasization and reflection are nothing more than distractions from THIS.

In the same way, we see patterns of behavior and thought that are counterproductive, and we simply stop engaging in those activities. For example, some people have thoughts of jealousy in their relationships, but once it is seen that these ideas and feelings usually produce the opposite effects from what is desired, they are released. It is like opening a tightly-closed fist. We say to our beloved, in effect, "I love you, but you are free to do whatever you must do and be who you are. Whether you leave or stay, it will not affect my love. I love you, so I want you to be happy, but I do not NEED you. If you wish to be with someone else, I may not be able to stay with you, but I will still love you." By giving the beloved total freedom, it is more likely that the beloved will reciprocate love because freedom is a wonderful gift. This cannot be a strategy of control, of course; we have to be willing to let go completely and trust THIS. In this kind of willingness to be totally vulnerable lies great power. It is the mind of a warrior--fearless and open. It arises from the logic of seeing that any other way of being leads to constriction and limitation.

Similarly, once we see that a "comparing mind" leads to thoughts that often generate negative feelings, we turn attention away from ideas of comparison, because we realize that they usually cause psychological suffering. I had a good friend who did not feel sufficiently successful. Although he was highly talented, and was a wonderful person, he compared himself to several of his friends who had achieved greater financial success. Although he had a beautiful and unique personal home that he had built himself, and although he had a close loving family, and although his material success was vastly greater than the "average" person in America, he felt like he was a relative failure. One day an old friend from another city called him to say hello and arrange a visit. In the course of the conversation my friend learned that his old friend had been very successful in business and had accumulated a lot of money. One day after that conversation my friend committed suicide. This is what a comparing mind can do.

A woman once came to a sage and said, "I have many fears. How can I get rid of them?" The sage said, "Okay, summarize all of your fears in just one sentence." The woman thought for a moment and said, "I'm afraid that I will be one day be old, ugly, poor, and alone--a total failure." The sage replied, "Excellent, but why wait for the future? Be that person now, and accept it fully. Feel it completely throughout your entire body. Be old, ugly, poor, alone, and a total failure. Do it now!" The woman was shocked into silence, but after a few moments, she suddenly burst out laughing. If we see that our headtrips are just headtrips, it becomes possible to turn attention away from fearful thoughts to THIS, which is beyond all headtrips. We see the logic of letting go of our ideas and relaxing into THIS, as THIS.

Finally, as we see that life is only alive in the present moment, intelligence turns attention to the place of life--NOW--and there is only the clinking sound of ice cubes (this is written while sitting at a McD typing on a laptop), the sip of hot coffee, the birds eating crumbs in the parking lot. There is only THIS, and THIS is more intelligent than can be imagined.

Have a great day, and remember to periodically stop and look around. Look at the wonder of your being. You are THIS.

Mindfulness tar baby

There are people who practice mindfulness for twenty years and never see through the illusion that there is someone who is practicing mindfulness. Turning attention away from thoughts completely avoids the "stickiness" of thoughts altogether. Rather than attend a thought, such as "I need to remember to practice more mindfulness," which reinforces the idea that a separate someone is doing something, attention can be shifted to what's seen or heard, or to what's going on, or to pure awareness without content, etc. Shifting attention completely away from thoughts instantly cuts through the idea that someone is doing something, and stops the reinforcement of that idea. This may lead to realization more quickly than would otherwise be the case.

Turn attention away

What would happen if you turned attention away from thoughts, again and again, to what you could hear? Some people have awakened as a result of doing nothing other than listening. What can be heard during every moment of the day? If the body/mind simply listened, would there be any problems? Why not do an experiment and find out? Just for curiosity's sake, why not spend one day listening to every sound that can be heard, and find out what happens?

At this moment the computer is humming, water is running in a nearby sink, fluorescent lights are humming, computer keys are clicking, universal sound is softly ringing in the ears, etc. Listen! What can be heard this instant? The moment attention turns to acute listening, feel what happens. The breath becomes shallow--almost motionless, and the body becomes highly alert. If a thought arises and is recognized, return to what can be heard.

Listening, alone, has the power to free the mind's grip on attention to thoughts.

Suffering, in the sense of psychological suffering

...is caused by believing the content of thoughts to be true. Thoughts can either be deconstructed or turned away from.

Byron Katie tells people to question their thoughts and find out whether they are true. Other approaches involve shifting attention away from thoughts to what can be seen, heard, or felt (ATA minus thoughts), shifting attention away from thoughts to the sense of "I Am" (a la Nisargadatta), shifting attention away from thoughts to pure awareness with no focus (Soto Zen's shikantaza), shifting attention away from thoughts to adoration (the path of worship), shifting attention away from thoughts to pure action ("the zone" or "just do it"), etc. All of these approaches lead to the same child-like state of non-reflective present-moment awareness and the collapse of thought-structures.

All really means all; there is only THIS, oneness without twoness. There is no such thing as "distance" because there is no separation. Who we are is "what is"--whole, complete, free, and at peace.

It is possible to understand, intellectually

...that there is only oneness, and that wherever one looks one is only looking at oneself, but this is not sufficient. Only when the structure of thought supporting the illusion of separateness totally collapses does the search for truth come to an end, and this is not an intellectual event.

Too simple

Most people/THIS cannot hear "nothing required." It is too simple to believe. This is why many teachers/THIS say, "Stop and be still," or why Adyashanti/THIS says "Be as you are." There is nothing to do, and when the mind comes to a stop, the illusion of separation is seen through.

SIG Retreat October 6 morning presentation

...(this is from memory because it was not written down). I remember only a few of the questions that were asked during the question/answer session afterward because I talked to lots of people at the retreat, and I can no longer remember the context of all the different conversations. )

"Fifty years ago this body/mind began searching for the truth. At that time there were no books about non-duality in the local bookstore, and I don't remember even hearing the phrase 'non-duality' until ten years later. There was no Eckhart Tolle on the New York Times bestseller list, and there was no internet, so there were no video satsangs on youtube with people like Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Gangaji, or Tolle available. No one I knew at that time understood what I was searching for or could understand why it was important to me. People understood why someone might ask "Is there a God?" or "What is the meaning of life?" but not many people understood why someone would ask, "What is a subatomic particle, really?" or "What is time and space?" or "What could explain the observer paradoxes in quantum mechanics and other fields of science?" I was like a man in a pitch-black room fumbling around for a light switch and not even knowing if there was a light-switch in the room.

After twenty years of reading and thinking, I had not found a single answer to the hundreds of existential questions that consumed me. Then, I stumbled onto a path to truth. Five months later I had a mind-blowing experience that included many realizations. That experience answered seven of my questions, and showed me that the answers to all of my other questions were inside myself. After that experience I felt just like Kabir, the fifteenth-century Hindu/Muslim sage who said, "I glimpsed the truth for fifteen seconds and became a servant for life."

During the next fifteen years, as a result of becoming internally silent and attending THIS ('what is") all of my questions were answered, and on Aug 17, 1999 the search came to an end when I saw that my last question was based upon a monumental illusion. Afterwards, life went on just as before, but without the searching and without the vague sense of discontent.

I could talk about non-duality all day long, but I'm going to try to limit my comments this morning to about twenty-five or thirty minutes, and then I'll stop and we can discuss whatever issues interest you. I'm going to explain in simple terms how to find the truth, and also explain why it is so hard to see something that is always right in front of our eyes.

Nisargadatta once said something to a seeker that struck me as funny, interesting, and insightful. He said, "You know, you didn't get into this mess overnight." Nisargadatta was a feisty little guy, and I can see him poking his finger in the seeker's chest and saying that with a lot of emphasis and animation. What he meant was, "You didn't get into the mess of thinking you're a somebody 'in here' looking at a world 'out there' overnight. It happened gradually, so gradually that you didn't realize what was happening."

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus reportedly told his disciples a parable related to this issue. He said, "A certain woman was carrying a jar of meal from the market to her home. The jar broke, and sprung a leak, and the meal slowly spilled out behind her on the road as she walked along. The woman didn't notice that anything was wrong. When she got to her home, she set the jar down and was surprised to find that it was empty."

In other words, what Nisargadatta and Jesus were saying is that something happens between childhood and adulthood that makes us think we're separate from THIS (gestures with hands to include the entire room). Something happens that makes us think we're Bob, or Betty, or John, or Jill rather than THIS (gestures again). What is it that happens?

Little children interact with the world directly. They look, listen, smell, taste, feel and attend "what is." They are one-with THIS (gestures) and are not psychologically separated from it. A small child can sit and watch a column of ants for twenty minutes without thinking anything. A child can lie in the grass and watch clouds drift overhead without imagining that they look like something else. They live in the present moment and are unconcerned about either the past or future.

As we grow up, however, we begin to think and imagine all kinds of things ABOUT the world. We gradually shift our attention from THIS to ideas ABOUT this. This shift in attention is so gradual that we don't realize the effect that it has.

By the time we are adults, we have an internal dialogue going on that jabbers all day long about "me, me, me, me, me, me." The voice in our head says, "I think, I want, I need, I hope, I wish, I expect, I believe" incessantly. These kinds of thoughts reinforce the idea that we are someone separate--a person-- looking at an externalized world. It creates what I call "a thought structure" so powerful that it evokes a visceral feeling of separateness--what we call a "sense of selfhood."

The truth is THIS (gestures); the illusion is separation. There is nothing but THIS (gestures). You are not a person; you are THIS (gestures). THIS is unified, alive, conscious, and intelligent. It is who and what we ARE.

When people get interested in non-duality, they think, "I need to find the truth," or "I need to become free." This is extremely funny. The truth is saying, "I need to find the truth," and THIS, which is eternally free, is saying, "I need to become free." Who we are IS the truth saying, "I need to find the truth," and who we are IS freedom saying, I need to become free."

So, all seekers are in a big mess caused by their thinking. The question is how to get out of the mess and realize the truth? How can it be realized that we're NOT John or Jane or Betty, or Bill, but THIS (gestures)?

The easiest way to get out of the mess is to reverse the process that created the mess in the first place. Attention is shifted away from thoughts and back to what can be seen or heard or felt. We quit doing what adults do, and return to what little children do. I like to call it "attending the actual" or ATA. To be precise, it is ATA minus thoughts.

ATA is slightly different than mindfulness, and I recommend it because it keeps things as simple as possible. Mindfulness is okay, but mindfulness is usually thought of as a practice, and it includes the practice of attending thoughts as well as what can be seen or heard. Thoughts, however, are sticky, and lots of people practicing mindfulness get lost in the content of the thoughts they're watching. People practicing mindfulness often think, "I need to be more mindful," or "I'm making progress because I'm spending x amount of time being mindful." They rarely escape these kinds of deeply self-referential thoughts, and it is not uncommon to meet people who have practiced mindfulness for twenty years who have never seen through the illusion that there is someone practicing mindfulness.

ATA minus thoughts has several advantages over mindfulness. First, attention is turned away from ALL thoughts, so the "stickiness" of thoughts is avoided completely. Second, ATA helps break through the idea that someone is "doing ATA" because it shifts attention away from all self-referential thoughts. If someone thinks, "I need to practice more ATA," as soon as this thought is seen, attention is shifted back to what can be seen or heard. This shift in attention stops reinforcing the habit of self-centered thoughts. Because attention stays on direct sensory perception, the thoughts that create and maintain the illusion of selfhood are not reinforced, and the structure of thought supporting a sense of selfhood ultimately collapses. The third big advantage of ATA is that it is not special, and is not as likely to foster thoughts of specialness. It can be pursued anywhere and at any time, and is not a "formal" kind of practice. Zen students often become proud of what they call "hard sitting," (as though they are achieving something special by sitting with a lot of pain), but there is no "hard" ATA.

A Zen student who sits on a meditation cushion watching the breathing process is doing ATA, but because it is a formal practice, it often enhances a sense of formality and specialness. During such formal meditation, attention is shifted away from thoughts to what is being directly experienced through the body. This is ATA minus thoughts. If we go for a walk in the woods and look at the world without naming what we're looking at, or thinking about what we're looking at, or commenting upon what we're looking at, that's also ATA, but its relaxed and pain-free. If we're driving our car down the road while looking or listening, that's also ATA.

It is worth remembering that little children do not do mindfulness. They never spend any time watching thoughts because they haven't yet invested in a lot of thoughts and ideas about the world. Their interaction with the world is much simpler and totally direct.

The problem (the mess we're in) is that when we begin ATA'ing, we think there's a "me" who is "doing ATA," but there isn't. That's just part of the mess we're in. Who we are is THIS; who we think we are is imaginary, and an imaginary person can't do anything. All there is is THIS, and THIS does everything. THIS can imagine separation, but it can also see through the illusion of separation. THIS is the only actor on the stage.

If you ask, "What can I do to become free or find the truth?" the answer is "Nothing," because an imaginary person can't do anything, and who you think you are is imaginary. Asking "How can I find the truth?" is like asking, "How can an imaginary person climb Mt. Everest?" Ha ha. Only in imagination!

It is for this reason that every seeker starts off searching for the truth under a big illusion and in a big mess. We think that we're a person who needs to get enlightened, but enlightenment is the realization that the one seeking enlightenment does not exist, and has never existed. The person who we think we are is nothing more than a figment of imagination (albeit a very powerful figment).

ATA dispels the illusion of separation by interrupting the cycle of self-reflection that maintains the illusion. If we do not think of ourselves, our sense of selfhood eventually evaporates. This is why any other spiritual path that takes us out of the self-reinforcing cycle of self-reflection also "works." Some people follow a path of social service, and if reflective thought is not a major component of that activity, that, too, can lead to realization. Several other paths lead to the same thing, but ATA, from my POV, seems to be the cleanest and simplest approach. ATA does not require any understanding. Although the nature and functionality of mind may be subsequently understood, it is not necessary. The only requirement is to do what we automatically and unconsciously did as little children--look, listen, feel, etc.

Because adults usually stay lost in thoughts, they think that thinking is necessary, but it is not. Thinking is a useful tool, and it is required for planning a trip or designing an electronic circuit, but it is not necessary during everyday life. It has been said that the average adult thinks between 30,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day, but most of those thoughts are unncessary and self-referential. In the total absence of thoughts it is possible to get out of bed in the morning, go to the bathroom, brush teeth, shave or shower, get dressed, fix and eat breakfast, drive to work, and so forth.

There's nothing inherently wrong with thinking, but self-referential thinking creates and maintains the illusion that we are separate from THIS. Thinking creates lots of other illusions as well, such as time, space, causality, identity, meaning, etc. Freedom from the compulsion of incessant thought, or non-abidance in mind, keeps thought in its proper place. The goal is not to stop thought, but to become free of thought long enough to see through the illusions created and maintained by thought.

I'm now going to tell three stories that illustrate these issues.

Nisargadatta was an uneducated Indian businessman. He went to his guru and asked, "How can I find or realize the truth?" His guru said, "Shift attention away from thoughts to the sense of 'I Am.'" Nisargadatta later said, "I was a simple man, and I trusted my teacher totally. I therefore did what he said, and I spent all of my spare time attending to the sense of 'I am.'" Nisargadatta realized the truth in three years.

A particular Zen Master, when he was a young monk, went to his teacher and asked the same question as Nisargadatta. His teacher told him that he had a "monkey mind" and to use breath-counting to create some mental "space." After a while, his teacher told him to use a breath-awareness meditation (shifting attention from thoughts to the breathing process--ATA) to create more mental space. Later, his teacher told him, in essence, to shift attention away from thoughts to pure awareness (shikantaza). He told him to sit in a thoughtless state of high alertness, as if he were sitting in a jungle at night surrounded by wild animals. He did what he teacher told him to do, and he realized the truth in about three years.

Both Nisargadatta and the monk were intensely motivated and persistent, and they spent as much of their time as possible free of self-referential thought. (It is no accident that Jesus taught two parables about the importance of persistence.)

The third story I'm going to tell you is very funny. It contains many funny sub-stories, and is probably more typical of what you have experienced than either Nisargadatta or the Zen Master I talked about. (I then told the story of my own search for truth and some of the funniest things that happened along the way. I included the story of, and emphasized, my concrete-pouring realization, and explained how asking, "What must I be doing this moment?" helped free me from the fantasy that was dominating my thinking at that time (the escapist fantasy of running off to a mountaintop and getting enlightened). I explained how that question can help reveal the truth, and I recommended that people use that question to pull themselves away from thoughts to the reality of this moment. I then asked the audience, "What must you be doing this moment?" Several people responded, "Sitting here listening to you." I replied, "That's right, and what must I be doing this moment?" They replied, "Talking to us." Yes. The truth is very simple, and it is always here and now manifesting "just like this." By shifting attention away from thoughts to what can be seen and heard, the mesmerizing power of self-referential thoughts is broken, and the truth becomes obvious.)

At a later time I'll post some of the questions that were subsequently asked, and some of the interesting conversations I overheard or participated in. Other people who attended the retreat may want to share some of their experiences and observations as well.