by Clare Dimond
Related: Ease: Getting Real with Work
Clare does a brilliant job of helping us see the truth:
Definition of sanity & insanity (and central theme this book):
Insanity? Believing our thoughts. "I think, therefore I am" has misguided us for too long.
Sanity? Realizing our attachment to our self-defeating judgements (both self and others), for "All beliefs will eventually dissolve in the face of new information."
The map is never the territory. Experience trumps knowledge.
More questions than answers...
While potential is limitless, how we utilize our potential is not. Ask yourself: What's the best use of my potential right now?
The weight of incomplete added to a mountain of incomplete is exhausting. If you never say no, you're opening the door to disappointment. Every consider that without expectation, disappointment can't exist? I believe my flaw to work through is in not discerning whether or not a request/idea/order aligns with my goals.
Acceptance: The next best thing is to work on the most obvious task next. It's not up to me to question it, rather I allow myself to get lost in task at hand and the doer dissolves into the doing. Separation between the doer and the done dissolves. What remains is pure awareness with the task at hand. A running clock serves to remind me that the work is happening. I make an entry in my logbook. I note the time and the task at hand. That's all the matters. What's important later will reveal itself in time.
Productivity: Like our concepts of everything else - it's subjective. The integrity question is "Am I living up to my potential?" And the answer is always yes. When it feels like 'no' it's a queue to refocus once again on the task at hand.
All of experience is created in thought. The world is ever changing, but created from our own minds.
We can use thought to improve or remain stuck. It's all experience. How do you bring the clarity of meditation into our waking hours?
The first hour of the day, before the noise, before thoughts become too loud... this is when I tune in to identify what is my most important work.
Everything is created in thought, so are we.
We let go of the idea of a fixed self.
When we lose ourself in what we are doing, we are in the flow. It's when we let go of the idea of our 'self.'
It's when we get lost in ourselves that the suffering is revealed. We worry. We resist what is. We 'think' things should be different than they are. In short, we think ourselves into a whole. And guess what - we can't dig ourselves out of the whole with more thought.
It's when we (the idea of the self) don't exist that we are in our prime.
Becoming self-conscious is when our problems begin. When we are worried about the outcome, we fail to make the most of this moment.
In a world that is so inauthentic, it's about 'seeing' our true selves. Our purest self - our higher self. Our original self. We act from a space of purity and 100% integrity.
When you are selfless, suffering falls away. Awareness without resistance. Words come without thought... they just flow. I can't force an outcome... instead, I allow the results to come organically.
The idea of any fixed identify is insane. Personality tests are a great example of the absurdity of defining ourselves in a fixed place in time.
From this place of inner resolve, when something occurs to us to do, write, or say... we proceed without restraint of our 'self' getting in the way. We know that any doubt to NOT do the thing our higher self wants to do is completely biased by the our selfs mission to protect us from a fictional world it has created based on a past storyline that has no influence on right now.
It's about pure doing and not listening to the voice in our head. We put it out there without fear.
Unconscious resolve.
It's like a volcano. The ideas HAVE to be manifested - like the lava from a volcano can't be kept in the ground - the creative flow erupts. It's what we know we CAN NOT 'Not' do. It's definitely NOT what we do for the money... unless that money is rooted in something we MUST have to get to the next level (and it very well could be).
Its about following the MUST DOs and discarding the SHOULD DOs. Shoulds are social constructs. The things we know MUST DO flow from this space of inner resolve.
We drop the comparisons - we stop asking the questions 'Is this the best use of my time' (this is one I'd ask her about).
More, better. More of... less of...
There is no point. The question itself stems from the left brain. The thinking fictional self wants to know the point, but the higher self knows there is no point. It's all about enjoying life for what it is... life. With all of it's drama, suffering, and awe of it all.
The only point of the higher self is to experience it all... to appreciate it all. To play along. To learn from experience. To make the most of the short time we are here.
The question 'whats the point' relates to a goal doesn't it? Goals stem from thoughts and concepts - they are subjective. So 'Whats the point' is ever changing and no two people will ever share the same point. It's nothing you can ever put your finger on.
The point is nothing you will ever grasp because the point is impermanent.
When you are in the midst of doing something you love, the moment you ask yourself 'whats the point,' your 'thinking egoic self' pulls you right out of the flow of creation. So don't go there!
If you want to know the point - it's to witness the mind blowing awe of it all.
It comes back to The Egg - when the man who dies asks god 'What was the point of it all' and he answers 'Well, you did it, didn't you?'
Be Kind and Have Fun.
In a nutshell...
‘Reality’ has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the filters of belief, concept and thought. The realization of that? Sanity.
We forget that actually what is experienced is simply a reflection of what has been learned and believed, the conditioning of the brain.
There are objects, people, events, circumstances, places, and even our self exist as objective truth. Whatever is perceived is the apparent verity of that object. The extent to which this seems true is the extent to which there is suffering, confusion and delusion.
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.
The way something (including the self) appears, sounds, feels and is experienced is not a function of the object. It is a function of the perceiver. It is a creation of thought, belief and conditioning. As David Bohm said, ‘Thought creates a world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it’. The extent to which this is realized is the extent to which freedom, ease and peacefulness are experienced. All suffering arises in the forgetting of how experience, particularly that of the self, is created.
Life is an endless manifestation of possibilities.
When it is realized that limitation is a product of the imagination and not a fixed reality, anything becomes possible. Even while this reality is happening, infinite other possibilities are also occurring. Infinite Possibilities collapse at the point of decision.
The only risk of experimenting, of putting things out there is a dent in our self image (and the sooner that goes the better)? Until we realize the form is never how it appears to be and reality is never reality...
Life is an endless manifestation of possibilities. When it is realized that limitation is a product of the imagination and not a fixed reality, anything becomes possible.
with that understanding, we go right into the form. Immerse ourselves in it. Explore it. Understand it. Embrace it. Love it until there is no us and no it. And as we do so it transforms and we transform. Both it and we become what we could never otherwise have been. The rules give themselves up. Predecessors send ideas through the eons and ether. Doors swing open. Sparks fly. Each moment a tiny miracle. Reality becomes less real while immersion in that apparent reality increases. This really is the definition of sanity and is the central core of this book.
With PMI (Present Moment Inspection), we ask ourselves if we are in a space of pure awareness and presence. Then, without the conflict and separation generated by an insecure mind and imaginary self, we are moved to action.
All beliefs will eventually dissolve in the face of new information.
The rightness of a belief only stands until more compelling information blows it out of the window.
After all, the world is only a creation of the same beliefs that form the idea of self.
End of chapter recaps with 5 definitions of 'Sanity'
A thought is harmless unless we believe it.
It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering.
Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring.
A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.
Conceptual limitations are no different from physical ones.
The acquisition and understanding of concepts create ease, opportunity, possibility, exploration.
Instead of being a holding space for possibility, a lightly held frame for exploration, an agreement for ease of living and expansion - they become tight, compressed, rigid and utterly misunderstood.
In all this misidentification, the quiet, simple, constant, loving, peaceful, ever-present aliveness of who we really are is overlooked.
There are objects, people, events, circumstances, places, ourself even that exist as objective truth.
Whatever is perceived is the apparent truth of that object.
The extent to which this seems true is the extent to which there is suffering, confusion and delusion.
The way something (including the self) appears, sounds, feels and is experienced is not a function of the object.
Our thoughts are a a function of the perceiver. A creation of thought, belief and conditioning.
Instead of being a holding space for possibility, a lightly held frame for exploration, an agreement for ease of living and expansion - they become tight, compressed, rigid and utterly misunderstood.
diligent trial, practice and attention.
True knowledge is experiential, not academic. They can cause us to create agreements that represent that which is not there, yet believed to be reality. This is much of the cause of our suffering.
As David Bohm said, ‘Thought creates a world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it’.
The extent to which this is realised is the extent to which freedom, ease and peacefulness are experienced.
All suffering arises in the forgetting of how experience, particularly that of the self, is created.
Categories are agreements, but the meaning it holds is always that of the perceiver.
We forget that actually what is experienced is simply a reflection of what has been learned and believed, the conditioning of the brain.
The map is never the territory.
‘Reality’ has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the filters of belief, concept and thought.
The realization of that? Sanity.
Life is an endless manifestation of possibilities.
When it is realized that limitation is a product of the imagination and not a fixed reality, anything becomes possible.
Even while this reality is happening, infinite other possibilities are also occurring.
Infinite Possibilities collapse at the point of decision.
naive writers, who, knowing nothing about the category in which they are attempting to write, stumble blindly around in it, inadvertently trampling on the unspoken conventions that hold consistency and meaning for the viewer.
pay deep homage to what has gone before.
This is the space of originality, of excitement, of transcendence.
the form, whatever it is - money, work, another person, life can appear as a fixed, real, daunting thing - impossible to understand or impossible to question.
the only risk of experimenting, of putting things out there is a dent in our self image (and the sooner that goes the better)?
Until we realize the form is never how it appears to be and reality is never reality.
with that understanding, we go right into the form.
For me - it begins with a clean workspace. I leave too many visual reminders.
Immerse ourselves in it.
Explore it.
Understand it.
Embrace it.
Love it until there is no us and no it.
And as we do so it transforms and we transform.
Both it and we become what we could never otherwise have been.
The rules give themselves up.
Predecessors send ideas through the eons and ether.
Doors swing open.
Sparks fly.
Each moment a tiny miracle.
Reality becomes less real while immersion in that apparent reality increases.
This really is the definition of sanity and is the central core of this book.
This is the essence of freedom, unconditional love and peace.
This is the essence of sanity.
So we resist the reality and push it away and try to make it something else and complain about it.
We suffer in it, believing all the time that we and the world need to change but we are completely unable to change it.
The reason we can’t change it is because the ‘I’ that is looking for something different is made of the same thought created perception as that which is being resisted.
And that’s the insanity of our time.
We have everything backwards.
We don’t enquire into the nature of that self and the reality it wants to change.
We don’t explore how it has arisen, what it is made of.
A body and mind that cannot be separated from the all-ness that is life.
With no self to separate itself out, there is only completeness.
Everything can be experienced.
Freedom.
Creation.
Sanity.
So what is the exit from this vicious circle of defending a self against itself?
Just to consider it, to be still with it, to hold up to the light the beliefs that create apparent separation.
Ultimately whatever is not true will fall away.
And in the falling away, the fundamental sanity of who we are is revealed.
Concepts lose their fixed meaning.
Judgement and blame cease.
Resistance to any experience falls away.
The need for anything other than what is right now disappears.
There is only openness, presence.
there is nothing to chase or resist is pure peace.
The truth of who we are, cannot be defined by what changes.
It can only be defined by what is continuous.
Imagine if we knew that thoughts weren’t personal.
That they are to our true nature what clouds are to the sky.
Momentary appearances that have no effect whatsoever on the space in which they appear.
In restless seeking there is no sense of what has gone before, what has accumulated already.
a lifetime in which one experience after another can take place.
This is time
As we realise we are the space in which all appears, separation between self and other, between other and other begins to fade.
In the absence of self we experience who we are.
In the disappearance of self we become more than we could ever imagine.
The only thing to do with a friend is honour them.
Notice everything about them.
No overriding, no arguing, no spiritualising away their experience or needs.
Just presence to whatever is right now.
Through the opening up to whatever is, we move into it.
An experience of tiredness, met with openness, flows simply into sleep.
An experience of inability to sleep flows simply into awakeness.
Sleep
when we fight reality, we lose.
But only 100% of the time.
)
As long as there is any vestige of need to change experience, to change self or other, of need to avoid the suffering, we remain an addict.
It keeps the concepts intact instead of remaining present enough for them to dissolve.
the dissolution that infinite possibilities reveal themselves.
Only in stillness, do we realise that what we have been looking for has always been us.
Only ever what is and what was.
Explore the reality of time
Two programmes, two robots,
Program Conflict
the miracle of unconditional love, freedom, peace, joy and beauty in form.
We need to die in the sense that our idea of who we are must disappear.
identity,
the death of a belief,
self blame, more judgement, more self.
The misunderstanding guarantees that whatever we are looking for we will not find.
The paradox of the seeker
If I think success depends on the right job, I will go from job to job trying to find THE job.
Why the honeymoon of a new job ALWAYS fades
There are three things to see.
Seeing this is the foundation of everything.
Awareness is untouched by anything that appears within it.
All experience can come in and be welcomed.
In this space there is nothing to resist.
This is step number one in having it all.
Because as this space of noticing we literally do have it all.
2.
Life is perfect right now exactly as it is.
Seeing that all experience is equal - equally made of thought, equally transient, equally insubstantial creates a whole new understanding.
There is no judgment.
No right or wrong.
No should or shouldn’t.
3.
Life lives itself
My 3 is saga prep: 1.
The mission of the mind for CANI, 2.
Trust in the pefection of the moment (whats important now is al that mattters, whats important later will reveal itself in time).
3.
Our born on and end on dates are pre determined.
Idea and execution are seamless.
when a friend or relative talks about everything that is wrong, all the ways they are limited, that there is a ghost of a trapped, stuck, inadequate person superimposed over their real self.
From the outside, this ghost is so obviously
We can see it in others (Joe), but we often fail to see it in ourselves.
So the secret to knowing who we are, to living life as it is here to be lived is to see this ghost for what it is - a nothing.
There is nothing there other than thoughts of ‘This should be different’.
opacity
When you code opacity where does it go?
we cannot find who we are by looking for it.
there is nothing to see.
Opacity 1
‘This is not about you.
’
And in seeing through the veil, we end the seeking, the desires, the resistance, the preferences, the demands for better.
You already were enough the moment you top your first breath.
Everything that looks real and fixed is only always 100% subjective.
A function of observation.
this means there is no longer that desperate need to secure the self, to defend and protect it, to project it into the future and to cling on to the mirage of the past.
As we drop any idea of who we are, the illusory trap of needing to be someone dissolves. In the dissolving our uniqueness shines through. We finally live as who we really are.
We all know people who shine with the freedom of no fixed, limited idea of self to defend. And we all know people trapped, muffled and dulled by self-consciousness, weighed down by imaginary limits, lost in the endless seeking of approval or affirmation. And we all know people bristling with self-protection, alert for any slight, quick to anger and rebuttal, defensiveness continually bubbling away under the surface smiles. As we see through the beliefs that create an idea of self, our true essence is freed up to shine so brightly it lights up the world.
The striving and the seeking come from an identity that can only assert itself in the need for something else. In those moments of no seeking and no striving there is just being and doing, just pure immersion in life and in what is. No thought of anything needed or anything to change. There is not even an identity there to want something else. There is just the pure presence of life in infinite abundance. And from this space, living the perfection and freedom of right now, anything is possible.
This one is quite paradoxical and also entirely logical. It is the search for happiness that makes us unhappy. It is the search for security that creates insecurity. When we realize that all emotions are simply part of life, that all experiences are welcome, then we live as we are – the space in which all of life appears and disappears. With no resistance and no fear there is simply the pure joy and love of life. We find ourselves more immersed in life than ever before. Our work expresses that understanding.
We find ourselves acting from the deepest honesty. Why wouldn’t we? We are only ever interacting with ourselves.
This is a good one for those who believe that we need to hold on to the idea of separate others in order to protect ourselves. It is impossible that other people are separate from us because the idea of every single person, ourselves included, is a creation of perception. And what is really cool is that, as we see this, we come into every interaction with curiosity, openness and integrity.
Freedom lies in seeing that ultimately we are consciousness, the space in which all this appears, in which there is nothing that has to be done, resisted or changed and in which there is unlimited potential for anything.
When we live an idea of ourselves as a separate individual believing our thoughts there is no possibility of freedom. Whatever thoughts are believed will create the reality experienced and the behavior that results – trapping us in the world of conditioned, repetitive, habitual thought. Freedom lies in seeing the nature of thought to create an idea of self, of life, of the world, of others, of things that must be done.