Take any experience of separation, constriction, limitation, stress, or suffering. It’s always due to the interpretation by the mind, the selfing mechanism. Always.

So any inquiry, any clear noticing of what is really going on, can take us home.

Noticing the raw thoughts and sensations, and the mind’s interpretation relating them to a supposed separate me … if that is simply noticed, there’s a natural falling back into what is aware.

The trick is not to get stuck in more judgment, more thought about what is only happening spontaneously, without anyone’s control. Let the inquiry point all the way back to what knows, to the freedom and peace of pure being, before any mind.

Inquiries tend to work better with things we find stressful but really any experience at all points back to what experiences.

It seems difficult at first, to pull back from the mind, to fall back from selfing and into the freedom of being.

Inquiry, the way I share it, uses what the mind throws up as the way home. It uses the mind’s own bullshit to go beyond it, like following the breadcrumbs out of the forest you were lost in.

Then any situation, any experience, is the pointer to the peace and freedom of your true nature.

To know your true nature, no longer exclusively identified as a body or mind, means no longer buying into the supposed ego / free agent / self that humanity claims is who you are.

It’s the end of belief in the consensus, along with all its norms and expectations.

The human is a social animal, where being outcast means death. Even the idea of breaking from consensus can bring up existential fear.

The fear is that very same conditioning, doing its job, keeping you trapped.

And yes, stories of those who break free are shared. But they’re shared as though they’re highly exceptional. Poor you will never achieve it, not in this lifetime. You’re not advanced enough, too flawed, not cut out for it.

All of it ensures you remain identified as a personal self, who must own and live their life.

But you are already free, right now. Peace and ease are truly, completely available, exactly as things are right now.

The conditioning is stopping you from noticing, from even looking in this direction.

Because what YOU already are knows the entire, conditioned drama. And that knowing is unconditionally free. All it takes is noticing that.

YOU are without border or edges, without limits or constrictions, without separation or duality, without characteristics or traits, without story or identity, without body or mind.

YOU can effortlessly rediscover YOU in any moment.

YOU are already right here, it’s just that attention is narrowed down into a tiny fractal of YOU.

Notice that there is always YOU, aware of whatever is going on: all of the perceptions, sensations, thoughts. And just notice how expansive, spacious, and unencumbered YOU really are.

YOU are always this unencumbered expansiveness, no matter what is going on. YOU always already are. It all appears and happens in YOU.

Innocently, unavoidably YOU lose awareness of this expansiveness that you are, and become exclusively identified with the appearance of a body-and-story.

Effortlessly, spontaneously YOU rediscover this spaciousness and notice that limitation to a body and identification with a story never actually happens — only seems to happen.

It’s only a misunderstanding that never actually occurs except as the belief that it does.

There never is a separate self who needs to see they don’t exist. There never is a someone who needs to find their way back to truth.

Always, always there is only YOU and everything appearing as YOU.

Talking about the consequences of that doesn’t seem so helpful. It only creates more ideas about it instead of encouraging the direct recognition.

What I can say is that the compulsion to project, protect, and promote a “me” disappears.

There’s all the drama of living, but it’s no longer personal. The bodymind is more or less involved in that drama, like being more or less immersed in a movie. But it’s not about me — not my drama. If it sometimes feels that way, it never lasts long.

All of it is known, and that knowing is utterly without problems — untouched, free.

Is that Awareness? Source? The Self? Who cares?

The freedom is in knowing what I am not, and the resultant knowing of what I am — much too simple a proposition for the sophisticated mind.

No one is separate from what is or needed to do anything about it, although many things are done. None of it ever involves an imaginary character called “me.”

Until this ordinary fact of no-self is seen, it’s all very complicated and “I” desperately need to figure it out!

Relief is the discovery that there is no one.

You can think about awareness. You can have sensations that indicate you’re aware. Or there can simply be the knowing of awareness.

There can be attention going to thoughts. There can be attention going to various sensations. Or there can be the direct knowing of being, without resorting to thoughts or sensations about being.

For many years, I knew inquiry was the key to this realization. But all I did was think about inquiry. I pondered all the pointers to what I was not and all the pointers to what I was, from dry and technical to poetic and mystical.

In meditation, I felt what I believed were the correct sensations of inquiry: calmness, peace, expansion.

But inquiry, which is simply seeing what I am not and rediscovering what I truly am, doesn’t involve thinking or feeling at all.

It’s a “falling back” from thoughts and sensations and knowing what is aware.

Trying to think or feel inquiry isn’t even noticing what already is before, during, and after those thoughts and sensations about inquiry.

What already is knows all thought and sensation as objects.

It’s not a thought, not a feeling, but a transparent, undeniably aware presence.

It is what you are.

What’s on offer is knowing your true nature, which is not limited to the bodymind you’ve innocently identified with and shrunk your world down to.

Your true nature is unlimited, unconditional, total peace and freedom — and those are just words.

You have to recognize it. Whenever the mind shuts up, there can be the recognition of the naked fact of being. The mind doesn’t recognize it because “mind” is a thought happening in it.

There’s no problem at all there. It’s the problem aspect of life that disappears.

You need thought, the self, the ego to construct problems. I mean problem in the sense of an issue to solve, not in the sense of it’s all beautiful and fantastic.

No separate self, no problem, no limitation, no constriction, no suffering — we can know this in any moment if we just look without using the mind.

It’s freedom from this entire compulsion to do or fix or improve — completely gone. It’s the end of the need to fix the personal life, because it’s clear that I am what the entire apparent identity or dream of a separate person appears in.

Most people want to fix themselves and have a better life. And that’s fine. But that’s not on offer here.

(Adapted from an open meeting — details to join on katoudheusden.com)

Good. This isn’t about trying to make ourselves believe there is no self. But scepticism requires that we equally inquire into what we already assume to be true.

Instead of only demanding proof of no-self, we can turn it around and demand proof of the existence of a self.

Because maybe the assumption that there is a separate self, is what lacks evidence.

If we’re looking for a separate self as our identity, then we would need to find something that:

• is continuously present and never not present,

• exists independently of impermanent thoughts and perceptions or sensations — or else it would be nothing more than those,

• is directly findable and not just assumed or inferred.

Our concept of a self doesn’t meet any of these criteria!

If we really look instead of just assuming we already know, then no self is ever found.

All we find are recurring sensations and thoughts (or mental sensations) from which we infer the existence of a self — but none of which constitute an actual separate self.

This doesn’t prove anything. We can’t prove the absence of something. But it can be an invitation to further testing.

If the separate self can’t be found despite repeated looking, that absence can start to speak louder than the belief in one.

Such harmless, well-meant words. Said to yourself thousands of times. Learned from parents and teachers who said it to you thousands of times.

A fantastic example of how we innocently create our suffering.

With the tiny word “I” you create the concept of a “me” who supposedly controls and is responsible for the thoughts and actions of the bodymind.

This main character is given the impossible responsibility of living its life well while having no control over it whatsoever. It’s a disastrous set-up.

It’s the ultimate recipe for life-long frustration and disappointment, mixed in with just enough wins to keep you addicted to the idea that someday you’ll get it to work.

With the words “will do” you create the entire fallacy of free will. But life is the painful discovery that you don’t control what you will. And if you do happen to will the right thing, there’s no saying whether it will get done.

And with that tiny word “best,” you create an entire world of pain in the form of self-judgment. Who gets to determine what best is, or when it’s not enough?

You’re stuck in a self-made trap.

Until you discover that YOU are what has always been aware of the trap, and aware of the illusion of a someone stuck inside it.

A dog may hang around a dump, or a slum, and look for scraps. It’s a hard life but in a Buddhist country animals are usually treated with compassion.

A dog may get lucky, and find a temple complex. Here they are actively fed. They can stick around, live by the temples, and enjoy a relatively comfortable life among monks.

Humans too, can spend their lives looking for scraps. Some find them in a successful career, others in family and relationships, or in the beauty of the arts.

Or, the human can get lucky, and discover the spiritual complex. Here, the human is actively fed. It’s relatively comfortable, with beautiful teachings and community. There’s hope for vast improvement through dedication and purification.

Nonduality is not about the scraps in a dog’s life. But it also isn’t about human life.

It’s about “turning around” and knowing what knows the entire play of life.

So, turning away from the obsession with scraps is essential. To the human, that’s threatening. Bad things will happen if I ignore my life, material or spiritual, because it absolutely needs “me” to manage it.

But this isn’t about you or your life.

This is about discovering what knows life.

It is on full-volume, ultra-high-definition display.

All it takes is a little bit of attention to what is actually going on.

• Every day, trying and failing to control the body causes frustration.

• Every day, trying and failing to control thought causes stress.

• Every day, trying and failing to make better choices causes anxiety.

• Every day, trying and failing to uphold a coherent identity causes suffering: in relationships, at work, and in an utterly insane way, from the futile efforts of a constructed identity trying to uphold a coherent self towards itself.

All it takes is a little awareness of what is happening.

• In any moment, seeing how the body lives itself and moves to meet its authentic needs, produces relief.

• In any moment, noticing how thoughts are not mine or about a me, and so losing all interest in them, produces instant peace.

• In any moment, noticing how choices simply happen spontaneously without needing anyone to make them happen, brings instant freedom.

• In any moment, not needing to be a someone or construct any identity at all, is immediate liberation from any limitation.

All it takes is a little bit of noticing what is already going on and how things already are.

It doesn’t take anything at all …

For example, find out for yourself whether you can find an inside and outside, whether you can find any actual separation anywhere between what you call yourself and not-yourself.

Talking about it sounds conceptual because it is. A concept is not the direct knowing. It’s a mental representation of what may have been direct knowing. Concepts are useless.

The only thing that helps is the direct experience of not finding a border, for example, of looking and looking and not finding one anywhere.

We don’t trust our direct experience because we’ve been taught not to trust it.

As children, we saw the world as it was. But it was made very clear to us that we were naive, and what to see instead.

We were told our direct experience was not how things really are, and told exactly what to believe instead.

So now, when we actually look, we can’t find those things they told us, and we doubt our own seeing! The doubts are due to deep and successful conditioning, it’s normal.

And the only solution is to look again, like a child would.

Then you will know, and it won’t matter what anyone says.

If you’re supposedly awake to your true nature but still have human issues, then you are not awake, you’re only believing, hoping, pretending, or assuming you are awake.

If you’re supposedly awake to your true nature but don’t have human issues, then you are not awake, you’re simply bypassing, dissociating, or even suppressing your humanity.

In this “common sense” view of what it means to be awake, you can’t possibly win. You don’t have what it takes. You are not worthy. You are always losing.

But in the simple, direct recognition of your true nature — which is just knowing this reality as it is, and no longer believing the conditioned beliefs about who you supposedly are in this — there is no “you” and no game to win. There is no separate person who needs to have what it takes. There is no “me” who must be worthy.

The illusory “you” who supposedly needs to awaken to this, is not.
The “you” is only a thought-pattern on continuous repeat.

A bodymind doesn’t awaken.
The bodymind is noticed to be another experience.
(An experience that is undeniably felt and strongly sensed.)

This is already awake to itself, without a separate someone in it.
This can be noticed, right now.

Beliefs claiming otherwise lose their validity through inquiry.

photo by Dirk Van Oudheusden

Take a moment to appreciate just how deeply the idea of spiritual progression is rooted in our collective conditioning.

Liberation, happiness, awakening, salvation, nirvana: these must be earned and achieved, they’re not just floating around for the taking. Definitely not for poor, flawed, sinful me.

Heaven requires serious, dedicated, prolonged improvement and practice — we simply can’t hear anything else.

But the nondual message is that this already is the heaven we’re desiring. Heaven is what we are.

What makes this seem like not-heaven, are our deeply conditioned, false beliefs about what this is, and what we are.

There’s no stairway to what already is.

But then there must be a stairway to realizing that there is no stairway!

No, we’re simply too distracted by the conditioning that says this can’t be heaven.

Then there must be a stairway to stop believing the conditioning!

No, but belief in the thoughts that seem to produce not-heaven can and does end.

There’s no stairway to that. Even direct inquiry is not a path to that.

Inquiry tries to short-circuit or crash the belief system, so that a timeless moment of direct, thought-less, unfiltered experience occurs.

It’s this direct recognition of heaven that undoes the belief in a stairway to it.

Commenting is turned off, but if you have a sincere question or comment, I would love to hear from you via DM or email, or live in one of the frequent open meetings. The information is on katoudheusden.com.

This is where freedom is found:

This moment, as it is, is absolute peace.
It is the depth of the ocean: free, unlimited, and always there.

This is how freedom is lost:

Any movement away from this peace occurs as a thought believed. Any thought, no matter how logical or innocent, is the seed of conflict with what is.

Even the thought “I want to be the peace of the ocean” is conflict because there is now an “I” with a want to defend.

Peace can’t be created because it is already there. It can’t be found because it is never hidden. It can’t be deepened because it is total.

Any apparent disturbance is always only a thought, believed to be about a someone separate from the ocean.

Instantly a mental whirlpool forms, creating the illusion of a me who has to do something, even if it’s figuring out how to do nothing, keeping that whirlpool circling, upholding the illusion that there’s a real someone there with agency, separate from the rest of the ocean.

At any time, attention can “fall back” from the thought-vortex, and peace is still right there, having never left or been diminished in any way during this imaginary disturbance.

This peace, this unconditional freedom from identification with any disturbance, is the true nature of what is.

Comments have been turned off. If you have a sincere question or comment, I would love to hear from you via email anytime, or live in one of the open meetings that happen on Mondays and Thursdays. The information is on katoudheusden.com.

photo by Seval Torun

I don’t care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

— from the song Creep by Radiohead

I don’t care if it hurts.
The more it hurts, the more it feels like I’m making progress. I am willing to suffer deeply in order to end my suffering. Also, I don’t know who I am without my suffering.

I wanna have control.
Obviously. What’s the point without control? What is there for me to work on, fix, achieve? I am my very special project. And if I really want to consider no control, then explain to me how I can achieve that.

I want a perfect body.
That would’ve been nice, but I know I’m not the body. Let’s be real though, taking care of it is still essential. Imperfection is fine. And even that needs constant work.

I want a perfect soul.
Oh, I want this so much, I’ll do whatever it takes! I will commit, fast in the desert, meditate under the tree, achieve my own absence. _{But I won’t do that! — which is a different song for a different post. ;-)}

…

What if there is no one?

Not even anyone to achieve the extra special status of seeing they are no one?

What if there’s only freedom?

photo by Erik Eastman

This morning I woke up poorer than poor.
Once again, owning absolutely nothing.

I don’t own anything material. None of the things here are mine. It can all disappear in an instant.

I don’t own any relationships. They are not under my control. They can all appear, change, and end at any moment.

I don’t own this body I woke up with. It has its own biochemistry, its own mechanisms and processes that I don’t know how to influence.

I don’t own any thoughts, fantasies, or ideas, whether they appear intermittently, or continuously, or just lurk in the background, not obvious at all. They arrive and depart on their own schedule, with their own content, not subject to my will.

I don’t own my consciousness, that which woke up again this morning, allowing a world to appear. I don’t have the on/off switch, and there’s no knowing if there will still be a world in the next moment.

I don’t own life, given as this experience, also possibly ending before the next breath. Nor can I find a separate someone doing any of the experiencing, perceiving, thinking, choosing, deciding, or acting.

I own nothing, not even a self.
Because I own nothing at all, I don’t carry the weight of any of it.

And so, I am free.

A reminder: I’ll be in the U.S. in November for The Unbroken View, an in-person nonduality weekend in Sedona. We’ll be looking into no-self under the desert sky, away from all distractions. There are only a few days of early bird pricing left in case you’re considering it.

You can’t manage your awakening.

You can’t think, practice, surrender, purify, or serve your way to liberation. You can’t even inquire yourself to awakening.

Awakening has nothing at all to do with “you.”

Freedom from identification with a supposed controller of the bodymind can’t possibly be expedited by a controller who doesn’t exist.

It’s like an imaginary pilot trying to fly a plane that’s already flying on automatic pilot.

The one trying to fly the plane is a knot of learned thoughts, a very convincing but completely mentally constructed concept.

Seeing this total absence of pilot can elicit surrender — as the natural consequence of the realization of no control, not because anyone made anything happen.

This surrender ends looking to an imaginary pilot to fly the plane. It ends the idea that the plane can be piloted.

Even while the imaginary pilot believes they and their plane are “totally messed up” and “forever unenlightened”, all that is movement in a Sky that is completely free.

When there’s an actual looking out of the plane, holy shit, there’s an entire Sky there.

That Sky is discovered to be more real and present than any pilot of the plane-experience.

I recognize my Self as Sky and stop thinking of myself as a pilot.

The belief that planes have pilots ends. The flight continues.

To be, or to try to be a someone, that is the question.

To be is to rest as this.

This is constantly changing, appearing in endless shapes and forms that can’t be captured, but it most definitely is.

When known directly instead of thought about, this is missing nothing. There’s not a speck out of place or wrong in any way.

To try to be a someone is to pick a fight with this.

It’s the attempt to cordon off an imaginary part and decide it belongs to a separate me, responsible for the management of this imaginary island in an infinite sea.

This tiny island is not real, not even that lone palm tree with my name carved into it.

To try to be a someone is an insane struggle of imaginary island-building, where cups of sand are carried from the sea to fortify it, even as the sea reclaims it.

It’s exhausting and pointless.

But to be, is to be free.

No one has to understand or do anything at all to be.
Nothing has to be constructed, defended, optimized, or promoted.

To be is the wide-open sea.

The sea notices the recurring compulsion to build an island. And in the noticing, falls back into the depths of its own freedom to be.

photo by Katherine Kromberg

The search for awakening is pure ego. It was for me and for everyone I’ve spoken to about their search.

I wanted to be better, do better. Awakening was simply the highest way to achieve that. Even the idea that awakening would help me help others was all about me.

We have these conditioned thoughts, it’s normal. We innocently receive spiritual ideas through the lens of the individual self.

That’s why complete hopelessness and total giving up can be very powerful. It helps us see that no individual, including a me, can ever profit from nonduality.

I can’t become a better person due to it, because the realization is that there is no such person. I can’t help others with it, because the realization is that there is no me, nor others to help.

This can’t be instrumentalized. What people try to use on themselves and apply to others is spiritual self-improvement. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not freedom.

Nondual “liberation” gives the illusory individual nothing to benefit from or help others with. It’s the rediscovery of a freedom that is not owned, hidden, or gated, and already completely the case.

If there’s an attempt to point to this freedom, it is without personal agenda of any kind, even if it’s not perceived or received that way.

Everything there is to say about this has already been said.

It has been shared in the words, ideas, concepts, and culture of that time and place. It has been shared through the unique bodyminds and conditioning of those sharing it.

But however it is shared, it can never express what it is pointing to.

Stating it is the necessary distortion of it. The human expression is the filtering of it.

In every no-time and no-place, otherwise known as now, any recognition of the nondual is both older than old and newer than new.

The best sharing points as directly as possible to an unmediated recognition of this knowing, that is always a fresh happening — now — including for the body sharing it.

The most useful sharing doesn’t give any information but invites into this recognition, as it’s not actually hidden from anyone, or ever unavailable, because no one is separate from it.

The most helpful message is the one that, for whatever reason, rekindles this dormant knowing that is already present.

It can spark the desire for knowing to rediscover and explore itself.

Neither body (sensations) nor mind (thoughts) can do this, being inert conditioned appearances arising in this knowing.

And so this is never about a message at all.

photo by Peter Herrmann