Awakening to the Dharma

 In order to understand the Dharma, you have to see it. It has to be present within your consciousness. I think we can have a fairly good understanding of, but understanding does not suffice to explain it or to know it. It is only known through direct experience. Regardless of whatever intellectual foray we make, the results will be the same: dry knowledge and a lack of any real experience. It is a subtle transformation of consciousness rather than a detail of knowledge learned. You can't know it in the ordinary sense. To know it, you must realize it for yourself. Thus it can only be understood or described by people who have thoroughly experienced it. To belong to this circle, you cannot go about learning in the ordinary way, you have to learn in a different way that suits this particular venture. Even to approach the Dharma, you must have some vague sense of what it really is, it must be awake to a slight extent within you already. You really wouldn't be interested in really knowing it unless it stirred within you. It is important to clearly understand this because so much effort is wasted on incorrect ways of realizing it. Our society is so mentally, intellectually focused, that it is difficult to get outside of this way of behaving to do something different. So until this changes it is likely that often only sheer stubbornness and blind doggedness will allow many to break out into the correct terrain. To know the dharma intimately is to transform one's own consciousness from the mental/conceptual/intellectual dominated mind to the presence dominated mind that is born of direct intimate awareness of reality. The Dharma is presence, they are one and the same. To know the Dharma is to go beyond ordinary knowing into a wider landscape of consciousness that is the Dharma itself. Until your mind dissolves in this greater solution, you will not understand. 

Yet, the Dharma is here, right now. All you have to do is look to see. To see right where you are, right now. It is this simple. Bring your attention to the present moment. The Dharma is the present moment. Your true nature is only hidden in your own consciousness. In reality it stands in plain sight. It is the distractions that we call our selves that are not real. The Jewel is already awake within us. Who we call us is not awake because it is not real. It is a temporary set of ideas passing through unobstructed mind. Dropping these ideas is dropping the self and remembering one's true nature. This is like leaving a cluttered room that you have been stuck in. You open the door and walk out into fresh air, trees and plants, and open sky. How quickly you may forget your earlier predicament. The Dharma is awake and alive, right now. 

The more we bring our attention to the present, the less power our conditioned mind will have to draw us back into delusion. This is the simple task of one seeking enlightenment. It is this simple. Regardless of what form or forms this takes, it is always this simple. To overcomplicate this is a mistake, it is delusion getting the better of us, it is forgetting ourselves. Yet this is ok. The dharma winds are constantly changing. Nothing, not even enlightenment, is worth clinging to. It is natural to be immersed in conditioned consciousness, to thirst after the forms of maya, it is natural to seek enlightenment, and it is natural to let go of everything, including enlightenment. All of this unfolds in the same space that is the present moment. 

Our life is here, right now. It is not anywhere else, this is the only place we are. And, the only place we may find ourself. This is why it is so important to be mindful of what we are doing. We only have so much time in this life to realize the truth, and so much can go wrong and get in our way. In each moment we have the opportunity to make an effort to awaken, and we have the opportunity to do nothing. I can see clearly now that this world that we call our home, will not bring us happiness unless we are awake in it. We cannot be awake if we are constantly seeking sense fulfillment. Enlightenment does bring us peace and fulfillment, in a way that nothing else can. If you are seeking, keep on seeking until you realize it is right before you and always has been. Trust in your feelings and keep on moving forward. Pick yourself up when you fall and take another step. Try anything rather than give up. You have to move forward to clear the landscape of your mind. The Dharma is alive within you. If you persist, you will find it. You can do it because you are golden. Your true nature is the incomparable dharma. It's will drives you, it's nature lies within all your motivations. It is unstoppable victory. It will surface and clear your mind. Regardless of how defeated we may be or become, the Dharma is untarnished, ready to go. Rejuvenation, redemption are within reach. Hold on, hold on tight and have the courage to take that next step, and the next one, and the next one. High into the hills, reaching out ever so for the Golden Sun. Some day you will grow wings and fly high in Heaven.