The problem is YOU
I’ll tell you like it is and I won’t hold back.
The problem is that you desire to control and to image-pad and to prevent nature from showing its true teeth.
You desire to not be who and where you are as you are.
You feel that it’s not amenable and pleasurable and desirable and inline with this fantastic image you imagine to be in your head.
But you’re just as confused as the rest of them.
You run and run and seek and desire for this thing to happen as you believe it will bring you happiness but it won’t and if it does it will last a minute compared to the years of misery that are essentially non-negotiable as long as there’s a negotiation.
So what is the point of all of this?
The problem is you don’t do what you really want to do, because you’re always getting in your own way.
It always has to be a certain way. It always needs to happen, or at least it should, and therefore when it doesn’t you will necessarily feel ill and get sick and be tortured by the mind and feel horrible about life.
You’re enslaved to the image of being someone special or great or worthy of being looked up to; to seem like you’ve got it all figured out BUT YOU DON’T.
There isn’t a single soul in this world who does.
You may be on your way. It may be yours one day. But you do not have it figured out and because you don’t like to see this you cannot move forward as you cannot even acknowledge where you stand now.
The one who writes to me now is the one who’s main priority is to protect and fix and bolster; the one who’s weight on your life is so heavy that you’re only able to breathe when he’s gone.
So how can all of this go away? By living in reality of course. But you avoid reality because you abhor it and will do anything and everything to avoid it.
You do not see reality as a tool and an effective foothold as you’re too addicted to abstraction and the need to think.
What you don’t realize is that you don’t need to think at all, and that to overthink is to aim a shotgun filled with flowers at your head and unload because the fragrances have blinded you to what follows.
It’s not about becoming something, it’s about becoming nothing.
It’s about learning what this really means, and the necessity of it.
The necessity to abandon the world of abstraction and become fully automatic.
This is what would make things more “fun”. This is what you really want, whether you realize it or not.
It’s not pleasurable per se but it’s certainly an escape from the Hell that is your domestic life, trapped in abstraction after abstraction after abstraction.
You can’t use abstractions to escape it, that’s all the mind is. It’s all the same.
You want to be free and you want to really see and you want to really be?
If that’s true then why do you continue to ask questions? Why do you continue to live in the world of abstractions? Does this not simply perpetuate the problem?
I understand the desire to learn, I most certainly do. It’s all I ever really do.
But you must be careful because if this is all you do you begin to forget why you’re doing so in the first place.
And if it’s truly to escape the mind, well . . . what percentage of your life is lived outside of this mind? And on what day will you decide to truly exit it?
Man’s greatest problem is that he does not know what he wants and then he begins to think he does when he does not. He then embarks on a pursuit of something he doesn’t really want, in ways that are completely ineffective at arriving at this want.
But this is okay with him and rarely does he examine this because it’s not really about arriving at his coveted want, it’s about pursuing the things he’s pushed back into the far corners of his mind.
The realm of mind is littered with paradox and trap doors and halls of mirrors. The irony is it can all be so simple but it’s just too damn tempting to question this simplicity; to insist that complications are necessary.
If it’s possible to complicate things can you really resist poking the hornets’ nest when you know not the consequences of doing so, nor truly desire living without a swarm of stingers parading in your head?
You find yourself frustrated and angry because of your unfulfilled desire to stop desiring. Even as you read these very words you will begin desiring to stop desiring the end of desire, and if you really see this you will understand the mess you’ve been creating for yourself; that this endless loop is inescapable.
All you can do is live within it and learn by becoming intimate with these patterns; as soon as you see the desire to escape this loop you’ll know you’re doing it again. This is the crux of everything. This is the problem that rears its ugly head, again and again.
There’s nothing to fix, only everything to see. Most importantly, the desire to fix something that can’t really be fixed, and that if you happen to plug a leak, another will spring immediately after.
If you really want to unleash your talent and make an impact then you must understand that this can only be done by letting the thing happen. Not by resorting to abstractions and rules, and all these things you’ve convinced yourself you must do, or know.
These words are not a war on knowledge or the desire to learn. Far from it. But you must understand that after a while these things become a sort of entertainment and entrainment that keeps you locked square away in the mind.
You may be able to persist in this world for a while but eventually you will break. Eventually you will feel that something is amiss here and you haven’t the slightest clue as to what. It’s available for you to see of course, but it’s far more enticing to keep seeking that little piece of information you hope will change you or your circumstances instead.
If you were born on a desert island with no books, nobody to preach to you, and nobody to help you — you’d already be enlightened because you would have never been encumbered in the first place.
If you understand this, then you will understand that the answer cannot be to pile on more and more.
You may certainly expose yourself to the truth, but at some point you’ve got to see that your mind continues to chew it up and spit it out.
If this wasn’t the case and you truly understood then you’d already be at peace because you would know of your impending doom. You would know what is effective and you wouldn’t strive to conquer. You’d simply do what you please without taking a moment to check the scorecard or bank balance or investment portfolio. None of it.
You would understand that doing so can only lead to two outcomes: feeling good, or feeling bad. You can feel good, and you can feel bad, but it will change nothing. It’s simply another wave, another vibration you’ve allowed to come over yourself because without it you wouldn’t know who you are.
Your greatest problem will always be the belief that you have problems that ought to be solved, and if you don’t you’re going to have even greater problems on your hands. This belief has been subtlety and not so subtlety preached to you for so long that you have no doubt grown addicted and reliant upon it, as the idea of an alternative simply doesn’t exist.
If it does it will no doubt take the form of a solution to this problem that will not last, because there is no one-size-fits-all solution; there is no quick fix.
The only way out of this mess is years of seeing; years of unlearning, with the possibility of spontaneous bursts that can change your life in mere seconds.
And so if you cannot chase, but you must chase all the same, what could you possibly do with yourself? What wise action could you possibly take? No such action exists, and this is why the path is meandering, leading through forests vast, valleys deep, and caves dark.
To forget about yourself is the most effective thing you could do for yourself. To simply watch yourself take steps if you happen to take them. To simply watch yourself do nothing if you do nothing.
But if any of these are forced decisions, made with the hope of a “positive” outcome or solution to your problems lurking in the background, you’re doomed to live in a purgatory which you cannot see, simply because you’re unable to imagine not living there.
To be “okay” with not knowing, is to know far more than the one stuck in endless loops of abstraction. To live as a modern shaman. To “go with the flow”. To tap into your humanity; to retreat into it, and to become it. To abandon the world of symbols and canned messages, cookie-cutter paths and things that would be “good for you”.
The dumb man is wisest of all, for he has not gone ahead and made an ocean of problems for himself. The ignorant and “intelligent” experience problems all the same. The dumb man’s salvation lies in his genuine understanding that he is indeed dumb. Not in comparison to others, but in comparison to the true intelligence that lies beyond all things.
The ignorant man thinks he can conquer nature and others, sending him crashing into brick wall after brick wall. The intelligent man is lullabied until he’s paralyzed by the seduction of prowess of thought, coaxing him into a trap far more painful than the dumb man could imagine.
The “dumb man” therefore lives a superior life in many ways. He is the shaman; the Zen master. He does not think he is clever in his ignorance. Nor does he believe in his own hype, like the intellectual, even when life has proved a constant contradiction. And yet, he is privy to things neither of these men will ever be.
This is why this way of life is entirely practical. This is why there’s no digging yourself out of this hole by continuing to dig.