This has been a year of staggering change for me.  On the level of the story that is.
On the level of BEING… everything is exactly as it ever was, nothing has changed at all.

Have you ever noticed that?

That in the midst of all seeming chaos or even all seeming loveliness, there is something in you that is unmoved.  It’s that very same thing that makes you say things like, “I’m _____ age? I don’t feel ____ age!”. Because there is something of you that knows nothing of that.  It knows nothing of “time” or of “age” or of “beauty”.  It knows nothing of “richness” or “poorness” or “bad” or “good”.

It knows, simply, undeniably, that it IS.
As it is.

Then thought comes in and paints a grand drama, an epic saga of life for “me”!! ;)  With lots of plot twists and turns, and lots of reasons, and meanings and who’s and why’s and what-for’s.  And that is every bit a part of what IS, but it’s just the play, it overlays the BEING that is always here, knowing itself as this play.

I used to believe I was the “thinker”, that I was somehow affecting this play, and that I could change my thoughts, and fix “myself” by choosing different thoughts, that I could be “better” or “wiser” or more “successful” or what have you.  And then one day I saw that that was a belief that was simply not true.

Can you stop thoughts from coming?  Can you stop them in their tracks?  Can you choose to only think comforting pink fluffy happy thoughts?  If you could, why on earth wouldn’t you? Of course we all would if we could!  Can you choose what thoughts you believe and don’t believe, or do you just believe certain thoughts until you DON’T (and then you say, why did I believe that so long?). Can you predict your next thoughts?  Can you choose to never think an unhappy thought again?  Check it out for yourself.  I mean really look.

At this point thought might say something like, “yah, but sometimes I can control it and sometimes not” — and if you look again, isn’t that just another thought that is saying that sometimes thoughts match up with what (another) thought says is “right”, and sometimes it does not?  Isn’t “sometimes I can control, and sometimes I can’t control” really actually mean no control?  For example: if NASA built a test rocket ship and said “We absolutely control this ship. Sometimes it does what we want, and sometimes it bursts into flames, we have no way of knowing which it will be at what time” – would that be considered control?

Is it not true that thoughts just show up, seemingly out of nowhere, and no “control” over them can truly be found?  Check this out. Really check this out. It is a tough pill to swallow, I know,  but it’s the most liberating thing I’ve ever seen.

This belief that we are somehow deciding what thoughts show up to us, and whether or not they are believed, is the dirt on the back of this elephant.  Sure, it seems to be cooling, and quite needed for awhile, but eventually… it has to come off.

When I believed this I was a constant failure to myself. Why couldn’t I stop or change the thoughts that came?  What was wrong with me??  Why had I done this or that??  What was I “thinking”??  Why couldn’t I eat the way they eat?  Why couldn’t I choose a career like they did?  Just look at the immense SHAME this belief creates, when you believe you are the thinker of thoughts, and the thoughts and subsequent actions don’t match up with the picture thought says is “best”, there is a great deal of pain and a feeling of unworthiness that continues no matter how much “self-help” you do.

Really and sincerely looking into the nature of thought is like shaking the elephant.  When the elephant shakes hard enough… you begin to see the ghost.

The ghost of something you thought you were, or could do.  The ghost of thought, and its constant stories.  It’s utterly insubstantial, those thoughts… but the elephant (that which you are) is the beauty that is always here… even as the ghost swirls around it.

The difference is that when you truly see this, you realize you are always free… no matter what thoughts are visiting, and no matter what the thoughts are saying, and no matter what emotions are felt as a seeming result, there is never a time when you are not whole or free. They can say what they will, they can play out their story, they are just part of the unfolding grand EXPERIENCE of life.

You are not a “thing” IN life, YOU ARE LIFE… this sweet unrepeatable ride of the tides, with all its hardship and all its glory.   It will break your heart to a thousand pieces, and make it shine like a thousand suns.  You can’t hang on to any of it. It’s constantly slipping through your fingers, and that is what makes it so absolutely precious.  This incredibly astounding, utterly amazing, absolute privilege of an ORDINARY LIFE.

It takes a great deal of courage to shake the elephant.  To see if this really works the way you thought it worked. To see if you really are who you believed yourself to be.  You should NEVER take anyone’s word for ANYTHING, you should always look for yourself.

Yours is the heart that has the answers… every answer you’ve ever looked for… you’re the ONE.
What do you find in the still of your being?  What does it know, beyond concepts?

That is where the veil burns thin, and life becomes
truly, (madly, deeply) alive.

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1. I wish I would have worried more about stuff.

2. I wish I would have worn a smaller pants size.

3. I wish I would have been harder on myself for everything.

4. I wish I would have toned my abs.

5. I wish I would have spent more time regretting the past.

6. I wish I would have spent more time fearing and/or chasing the future.

7. I wish I would have achieved more, so I could have, well… achievement, I guess.

8. I wish I would have gotten more peoples approval, admiration and Facebook likes.

9. I wish I would have made more money.

10. I wish I would have spent more time blaming my parents / spouse / ex-boyfriend / girlfriend / children / friends and/or boss.

11. I wish I would have bought that five thousand dollar coffee table.

12. I wish I would have never made any mistakes.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

No, when you’re dying you don’t wish any of those things, because the only thing in the world you could possibly want, is to be ALIVE.

Full-to-the-tilt, ass-bitingly, unabashedly, ablazedly… ALIVE.
And guess what folks?

YOU ALREADY ARE.

Life… it’s all you ever really wanted in the first place…
and it turns out, not only do you “have it”

You ARE it.

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{ “ablazedly” may not be a word, but it should be. That is part of being ass-bitingly alive I guess, making up words and such. ;) }

” I found the secret to life…  I’m okay when everything is not okay.” — Tori Amos, Upside Down

Hello Beautiful’s,

I’ve been meaning to write a post for ever-so-long, but between the launch of The Book, and a plate-full of work, the moment hasn’t come… until now.

Oh, now.
You are so sweet in all your nowness. ;)

Always surprising me with some delicious experience to be savored…
even the awful and infuriating ones, they are always a friend.

Not so I can change anything about it,
but so that I can continually see that ALL experience is

utterly free.

And so am I.
And so are you.

And this has always been the case.
And it always will be.

Because you are experience.
An entire universe of senses.

Utterly free to be
ITSELF.

It doesn’t always seem like that, sometimes it feels cramped and terribly confusing,
and guess what… that’s it too.

It’s not something to use as fuel to further “fix” yourself,
it just IS yourself….

being yourself.

It’s this universe of sense-U-all experience,
it’s having its life.

There isn’t a thing to do.
Not even “surrender”  — cause guess what?

In case you hadn’t noticed,
it’s already here.

And if it’s here…
then it’s already having its way, isn’t it?

mmmmm… isn’t that wonderful to notice?
It’s wonderful because it means “you” were never in the “way“.

You NEVER have been.
You’ve been perfect the whole flippin’ time.

;)

For the majority of my life I simultaneously feared/rejected and yet mentally chased-after
the desires that appeared to me, and well…

that hurt.

Then one day new teachings arrived, and I began radically embracing all desires and
no rejection of them would be tolerated.  But there was a belief in control running, and after a time,
I couldn’t help but notice… I didn’t have any.

and that hurt too, at first.

Then, through a seemingly astonishing chain of events, I saw who and what I truly am, and always have been.  So clearly so in fact, that the desires sloughed off like a long days dirt and swirled down the drain of human longing—along with any ideas of “future” or some “later fulfillment”.

And that felt so wonderful.
but it still hurt a little.

And then one day, it was seen that the desires were never any less an expression of this beauty, and though they could no longer be believed in, they were also perfectly allowed to BE.  They were never “mine”.

They were not “mine” to behold, or to reject.
Not “mine” to keep, or to deny.

They simply are, what IS.

And I saw that day, the desires were birds.
Birds I had locked in a cage.

Needing them was a cage, just as much as not-needing them was a cage.
Owning them was a cage just as much as dis-owning them was a cage.
Whether I believed IN them, or AGAINST them…
it was every bit as rigid.

That is when it all became astonishingly clear,
and the bars fell away and dissolved into
nothing.

And now, a little girl sits in the soft of a dawn,
and watches her caged birds all fly,
fly away.

The beauty of their freedom is so much, it overwhelms her,
and she sobs great heaving joyful sobs at the miraculousness that they…
and she… can exist at all.

She watched them scatter to the wind, dissolving to the knowledge they had never belonged to anyone,
and the freedom of it was so immense…

that she, herself, dissolved
as well.

All that was left was love.

In fact, that’s all there had ever been
to begin with.

Oh how I admire the real wave riders of this world.
Those who break the dawn on the powerful swell of the sea;
those who merge, fearlessly, with the rise and fall of the brutal and beautiful depths;
those that know the grace that’s hidden in the challenge.

But I am not a real wave rider… just a metaphorical one.
And I love that.

I love that just as their physicality expresses the rarity of this precious adventure, so do these words.  There is a place for real wave riding, and a place for reflecting on this wave riding that is Life.

Just as the surfer plunges into the abyss, so does this experience.
Just as there are those who do not understand the surfers risk for it’s reward,
there are those who do not understand the risk of these writings, and the
magnitude of the gift that I receive from them.

This looking into the nature of reality, this dropping of all assumptions
in the name of what is real and true, is a love like
no other.

It requires a certain fearlessness, or rather, a willingness to use that fear
like the surfer uses that inkling of the swell… as a power that propels them to their feet,
and joins their body with the curl of the tide.

That is what these words do for me.
They plunge into the depths and bring out
freedom.

They go where I never before dared to go,
and they show me what ALIVE really feels like.

And just like the surfer sliding down that wave,
the joy is purely my own.

It can never be transferred or explained to another,
they must see it for themselves.  It is the surfers freedom that inspires
others to jump in—and test the waters edge for themselves.

Just as the surfer lures onlookers out of their comfort zone,
so does this looking lead me out of mine.

And now that I’ve tasted the crest of the ocean,
I know—

there can never be any comfort that is
greater than being
free.

As you may have noticed if you are a regular reader here,

I like to write about ONE.  About the total lack of separation anywhere.
About the undeniable THIS-ness of THIS…all of this.

Not about the connectedness of all things, because connectedness is still separation on some level, and I can’t find that anymore. I used to, don’t get me wrong, but now that I’ve seen otherwise I can never go back to seeing it the same way again.

When John Lennon sings about One, people cry and they are filled with overwhelming love, humility and gratitude…but when this oneness is pointed to directly those same people often run and shut the door in fear.  Fear of the implications of a total lack of separation from any other being or expression of life anywhere.  Yes, it’s a lot to swallow.  And yes, it’s not for sissies. ;)

But nothing I have ever seen has been more worthwhile to see.
No matter what trials may have come with it.

It is with this in mind that I want to share this pointer, so that it may shed the light of understanding on what I mean when I say “seamlessness of Life” or “THIS-ness of THIS”, or “utterly inseparable oneness” or “thought is the only thing that divides”.

Picture a baby, an infant to this world, wrapped in a blanket laying in a baby seat. Conditioned thought has not yet happened in the baby, there are no labels, no names, no assigning of meaning to things, none of that.  There is pure immutable presence. Pure being-ness.  Without thought constructions such as names and labels and applied meanings (including the concept of time and space), the baby opens it’s eyes and see’s nothing but THIS.  THIS that it IS.  LIFE itself.

If you put a homeless man and a billionaire in front of the baby, the baby will see NO DIFFERENCE.  NONE.

Because thought is the only thing that would divide them, and the baby has no belief in such a thought.  In fact the baby does not see a division between the homeless man, the billionaire, the air between them, the seat it’s laying in, and itself.  Because there is no thought to divide that either.

To the baby, there is no homeless man, and there is no billionaire; there is no room, or seat, or even it’s own body. The baby cannot know itself as anything other than what’s seen, because there IS NO thought that says “my name is ______, I have a body that’s right here, and there are 2 bodies in front of me and that means ______.“  There is only pure undivided EXPERIENCE of that which it IS.  Life itself. Love itself. Call it what you want, call it God or call it Science, there is NO division. zero.

There is no black or white, gay or straight, rich or poor, fat or thin, male or female, beautiful or ugly. There are NO opposites for the baby, no splitting apart of the beauty that it is.

The baby may cry and scream and wail, and be totally at ease with all of that because a thought of “SHOULD” or “SHOULDN’T” has never entered its mind.  To them, crying and screaming is no less THIS-that-it-IS, than smiling and laughing. It is no less “right” either.

There is no “self” awareness, the baby does not exist as a “self”.  And you may notice that we adults find them totally adorable in that lack of self-awareness. And we wonder why that is!  It’s because they’re reflecting back to us that which we ARE before thought cuts this up. Their wonder, is our wonder.  Their un-knowing, is our un-knowing. Their preciousness, is our preciousness.

But then at some point thought comes in and spins its story, and the whole seamless beauty of it all is fragmented into a million pieces. Everything is given meaning and assignments of “good” and “bad” and “unacceptable” and “righteous”.  And the thing is, that’s fine, it’s the story, and it’s all part of THIS too.

But the clear truth of it all is that there is NEVER any REAL separation except in THOUGHT.  Because before thought, there is only this, this-that-IS.

It requires no belief. None whatsoever. Just LOOK.
It’s your own undeniable existence staring you in the face at all times. That subtle sense of aliveness that is here UNCONDITIONALLY, no matter what seems to be going on on the surface.

It’s the absolute fullness of experience that has no discernible beginning or end.
It’s a play, it’s a gift, and it appears as myriad and ever-shifting things,

this is what you are.

So revel in it baby…
see that there is room enough in you for it ALL.

This is a sense-ual universe. And if you haven’t noticed yet, it’s CONSTANTLY changing, and can’t be held onto—this is it.

this is it.
this is it.

<3

One morning I awoke before dawn and padded out into a frozen field,
wrapped in a winters blanket. The ice was fierce on my naked feet,

but I wanted to know the cold.

When I reached the center of the field, I sat in its darkness
and waited… until even the sound of my breath was a hush
that couldn’t be found.

I waited until the emptiness grew so achingly vivid
that it broke my heart
wide open.

Hot tears pooled the well of my eyes, and spilled down icy cheeks,
and words poured out into sound like a child to this looming silence…

“Why do you hurt yourself like this? When you are the only ONE? Why if there is only THIS, would you ever cause yourself pain? Why??  Why would you hurt, and steal, and call yourself names? Why would you be so cruel when it is only ever you?”

And the grief broke my heart open wider

until there was no heart that remained, but an ocean of grief that was somehow
more beautiful than anything that has ever
been known.

And the silence began to gleam
as the dawn broke the blackness of the sky into light,
and a knowing arose in that silence that had no use of words.

But the fullness of it grew so thick,
that it could not help but bubble up into language—

“It is for the full of experience, my love. It is for the full of yours. It is so that I may know the taste and texture of kindness—so that I may revel in love and compassion, having known their bitter opposites.  This ineffable grey can only be defined by the contrast of experience, and without it, nothing would be known at all. No struggle, no story, no adventure, no life. Experiences you call “bad” and “good” are the threads in this infinite tapestry, they are a beauty you will not know the sweetness of until opposites cease to exist.”

The words hung in the air for a moment
and evaporated into the mist of the morning sun…and with them went the idea that there was ever
a voice that was separate from the one who was spoken to.

It was on that day that WONDER took the place of should-ing and regret,
a wonder so gut-wrenchingly alive and free that it constantly burns itself down to the ground,
just so it can see what is left.

What is left is something only the word ‘Love’
can even begin to capture,

but it will do.

It will do until words are seen to be play-clothes
for this fullness that has no beginning

or

end.

First, let’s clear something up.

Everything I write is written for me. To me, as me. When I say “you“, I mean me. When I say “me“, I mean “you“.  Somewhere in the middle of all that, is LIFE —without need of any of those goofy labels — just playing it’s wonderful play.

There is no teller, and no told. No writer, and no reader. No teacher, and no student.  There is just a stream of words that somehow resolve in their own clarity.  And other times, their own confusion. ;)

This is what I have come to see.

The minute that I think I need to share that with “you”, or that “someone” needs to know this, this ONE splits into “the many” and the expression becomes diluted and inevitably riddled with confusion. These words try to speak about the ONE from the position of spit-apartness, and that, of course, is impossible (not to mention frustrating as all hell).

This writing is for clarity, not confusion.
This writing is to grind out the remnants of “me” and “you” and reveal the seamless whole
that masquerades as daily life and it’s ten-zillion appearances.

This writing is to reveal that
there is nothing you are, that is not okay.

Do you get this?  How could it not be okay, when it IS?
What IS, is Reality.
Reality, is The One.

The One is ALL THERE IS.
Is it clearer now?

“Mistake” is but a word that is slapped on reality, as if it were a separate thing, but even the WORD, even the WORD “mistake” is nothing but this ONE that’s all that IS.  The word is applied in thought and it gives the illusion that something or someone: SHOULDN’T BE.

Take just one thing that you think shouldn’t be, just one example out of the ten-zillion should’s and shouldn’ts that are constantly running in thought.  Now imagine you had never heard of the concept of separate selves, imagine you are freshly born and have never even entertained the concept of anything but ONE, and look again at this “shouldn’t” or this “should”…

how can it be?

How can there be something that goes against something else if there is only-ever ONE?  People talk about enlightenment and they say “all is Universe, all is God, all is consciousness…. but not THIS, this is a mistake! and not THEM, they are a mistake!”

It can’t be both ways, my love.

Nobody is “lost” in this, and neither are “you”.
This alone IS.

In all of it’s grandeur and wonder and beauty,
and all of it’s madness and chaos and pain.
It was all you, all along.

It was all THIS unnameable presence that IS.

The whole was never fragmented.
The whole has never split, even one tiny iota.
There are no “pieces” of the whole.  There is only the whole.  Life is inexplicably full at all times and “fragments” are only an appearance created by thought.

Thoughts are like vapor.  They take the shape of solidity,
and build castles in the sky.  Castles that shine like heavenly fables.
Castles that pour down darkness and rain.

They seem so substantial.
But they are constantly morphing and dispersing.
The moment they’re noticed, they’re gone.
Changed forever. In an instant.

And all that is left is this ineffable blue.

This absolute openness to the risings and fallings.
This brightness so full and blinding,

it leaves nothing
but Love
in it’s
wake.

Do you feel it??

This infinite
ALIVE?

That is
what
you

are.

but enveloped
and experienced.

You broke the pane,
and I came through.

I am that place in your belly
that smolders, hot as ash
and rises in a spiral

to the heart
place.

It is here we send
smoke signals to that
brain of yours,

and torch the brick house
of your ideology

That’s when you are mine.

The sinewy flex of your form
gone soft

The arc of your breath
in the hollow

All that is dark
and light

CONVERGE

and collapse
into the still-point
bright.

and a name is given
for this grace
unknown

that makes it taste sweeter
on our tongues,

but it is that.
Only that…

a taste.

© 2012 Sunni Chapman