It occurrs to me that with all the shit going on in the world, especially with the US leadership, that kind of thing, that Brendon and Victor and the other guy, I apologize for not remembering his name, are doing this work to better the world as a functional expansion of Cheng Hsin principles. Apprenticeship for the masses? I want to support that!

Most of the trouble and suffering I've experienced around the desire to know the truth, the desire for enlightenment, has come from following the same paths I knew to satisfy other desires (shelter, food, relationships, power, knowledge), which all involved doing, learning, disciplining myself into some form of activity or control. Desire automatically assumes a future that's other, different than now. The exercises from two Sundays ago included anchoring focus in "what is" and that brought to light this continuous mistake, assuming I have to and can do something to find the source of everything. Maybe the best I can do is notice what I do to keep myself from it. Which is a lot, a lot. As we keep being reminded, we already are what we seek at all times. And as far as I can tell, direct experiences or insights are neither concerned with me doing, nor not doing. They remain mysterious to me even after they occur. So I keep reminding myself that wanting to know more, or deeper, brings me instantly into the future, into desire again and I'm wondering if I can learn to live a question and stay open and not fall into suffering or exhilaration as I do in most dyads and inquiries? And as I ask that, here I am falling into the doing something again. Also, I keep thinking I need to shut up the incessant internal reporter that has no quit; I am constantly telling the story of what I'm experiencing, I am continuously telling the story of this self and making it real. In a very brief insight today, as the insane chattering continued, I experienced how the never ending awareness that carried me, the reporter, the world unfurling around me, the present, and all thoughts of past and future, is an unknowable and empty nothing that remains untouched and unmoved by any of it, and I just write a continuously vanishing story in sand at the edge of the waves. Nothing wrong with the mind, with its awesome powers, it is truly holy, but the entire focus of my life being in service of building a better self is a misdirection. I am whole. In the past, I knew that and I tried to stay "there" like it was a thing or a place. Now I'm seeing the wizard behind the curtain, and I get a sense it is exhausted. With any luck.

You can also access all past meeting in the Consciousness Community Session Archive here - http://chenghsin.com/consciousness-weekly-archive/ All the best, Brendan