Sunday Roundup #2
Last Week's Notes
Hi all,
Here’s this week’s roundup of my Substack Notes from this last week.
A note on Notes: many of these short posts are their own particular spiritual pointings who's purpose is to reflect or resonate with something essential in your experience. So I invite you to take your time and read each mindfully (if you feel to) and if something resonates then let it in, stay with it a bit, see where it goes. Pay attention to your experience and see if something opens up in you.
And you’ve probably noticed I use a variety of spiritual ‘lenses’ in my writing and speech (End of Seeking Podcast). I tend to freely and unapologetically use whatever perennially points to the ineffable ground and substance of Being/True Nature.
“I'll quote the truth wherever I find it, thank you.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions
So I might reference Buddhism, contemplative and mystic Christianity, Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, mythology and more. Even literature and poetry. But really these all serve perhaps as confirmation (if it were needed) of the verifiable liberating truth of our own direct experience when earnestly observed, inquired into, and reflected upon.
Anyway, enjoy,
- Martyn
Less mythmaxxing and theology, more silent practice.
Drop all thoughts
To see what’s true and real
Silence is the great instructor
The true Guru
That dispels the darkness
Of ignorance and delusion
The trouble with theology is that you can’t think your way into union with God.
The secret is to not lose the subject(ive) when attending to the object(ive).
To do that, you have to discover the true nature of the subject.
But then the true nature of the object also becomes known.
Nonduality refers to the not-two-ness of subject and object, the essential unity beyond the nominal 'self' and ' other'.
Which is the lived experience when the discursive, conceptual mind is transcended.
It's important to not instrumentalise meditation. It's not about getting somewhere. It is its own goal.
It is the 'unity of practice and enlightenment' (shushō-ittō). You don't meditate to get enlightened; meditation is the practice of enlightenment.
So let meditation be total ease. Make no effort, think no thought, rest as awareness.
In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, “I have arrived, I am home.”
A nondual understanding of karma is beyond notions of cause and effect or ideas of the 'personal', because all phenomena are 'effects' of the one transcendental primordial 'cause'.
For many spiritual seekers the goal is the direct experience of the transcendental aspect of being, pure consciousness. But the discovery and Realization of this foundational reality isn’t the end of the story. The inclusion and integration of the relative aspect of life, including welcoming our humanness as part of the Wholeness, is critical. Else the work is only half-done.