I know you want to succeed in everything you do.
And the way you’ve succeeded at everything else is to try harder, longer, or both.
But that won’t work here.
Because when you try, you’re saying “I have to MAKE peace happen.”
You’re saying “I’m not good enough as I am.”
You’re saying “Awakening is in the future.”
The beginner can get away with these faulty assumptions, but you’re not a beginner any more.
What you must recognize is that peace is your default mode; that who you really are is perfect; that Awakening is now.
So forcing meditation into your life isn’t just difficult; it isn’t just diverting your energy from your mission; it isn’t just treating it like a to-do item…
Any kind of “forcing” is, by definition, not peace.
What you need to do, instead of forcing meditation in your life, is make your life a meditation.
In doing so, you’ll recognize that meditative stability is, in fact, your default mode.
If that sounds too good to be true, consider these 3 questions…
1. How do you know you’re meditating?
2. How do you know your mind is calm?
3. How do you know your mind is busy?
You know because you’re aware.
And this awareness does not need to be “turned on” or cultivated.
Nor does it discriminate regarding what it’s aware of.
It is “always on”: knowing everything, just as it is, without interpreting, judging, labelling or describing it.
Interpretations, judgements, labels, descriptions are “downstream”: they come after the moment of bare perception.
And in awareness, an interpretation, judgement, label or description is no different to any other “stuff”.
But due to our attachment to our interpretations; due to our reification of our concepts—which are also nothing more than mental processes—we fall into reactivity.
We forget that everything comes and goes naturally; we cling to some things and reject others.
And based on these preferences, we try to arrange things to our liking. Then, when things are not to our liking, we become dissatisfied. But even this dissatisfaction, itself, is nothing more than an appearance, drifting like a cloud through the sky-like space of awareness!
Recognizing this is the only “meditation” you need.
Though to even call it a practice is a stretch: it’s not something you do.
Thus, we arrive at the term “non-meditation”.
Nothing need be done to be your own nature!
It’s the relentless “doing” we engage in that is the whole problem.
If you insist that enlightenment is something you must twist yourself into with rituals and practices, good luck. (By the way, the folks on that other Subreddit have a different concept of enlightenment, which requires a different set of rituals and practices, and they’ll debate you on it endlessly.)
I spent years deliberating over which “enlightenment” was the “enlightenment”. And I realized that here in the 21st century there’ll always be another teacher with another interpretation making the case for their model of enlightenment.
It was exhausting.
By contrast, the teachings of nonduality have always said, “stop interpreting; stop talking; stop thinking; stop trying, and simply recognize what IS.”
And now that’s my encouragement to you.
You do not need to join a lineage.
You do not need to adopt a philosophy.
You do not need to do a practice.
These are all inventions!
What was true before lineages, philosophies and practices were dreamt up? What was true before language, even? That’s what I call “capital T Truth”, and it’s the only truth that isn’t subjective.
All lineages, all philosophies, all practices; all teachers, all philosophers, all practitioners occur within the fundamental space of awareness. When you recognize this, all the debate among sects and sub-sects about what enlightenment is looks absurd. You laugh at how you or anyone else ever made it so complex.
I had a student who would dial in and tell me what was bothering him that week—often something about his role as a high-ticket closer. He’d heard what I’ve shared with you in this video many times already, but I’d just start riffing on it, making it relevant to his present issues. Inside 10 minutes he was cracking up: howling with laughter at how absurd his reifications were. You ever heard of “contagious laughter”? I’d start howling right along with him, and we’d just giggle like schoolkids, sometimes for half-an-hour at a time!
Eventually, this student would start expressing some other question or problem, but he wouldn’t make it even halfway through his sentence before he started howling again!
Everything the thinking mind reifies is truly absurd.
All our concepts and all the words we build them out of are completely made-up; imagined; fabricated. How can our stories about ourselves and our world have any absolute meaning?
Seeing through all of this is the ultimate freedom.
Everything becomes a joke; a dance; a dream.
And you’re finally at peace.
But this doesn’t make you some kind of maniac. Quite the opposite: that student of mine, after a good laughing fit, was a much more effective salesman!
If you want that laughter, the first thing to do is take my 1-minute quiz. I’ll tell you what’s blocking your peace right now, and how to dissolve it. Then—if appropriate—I’ll offer you the chance to connect with me for a casual chat about where you’re at in this whole picture.
With love from my sofa,
Dan 💙