Meditation – Why do we suffer?
03/09/2025
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Transcript of the Meditation
So, welcome.
Somehow, everything that we need to to say, everything that we need to understand is said and understood in silent presence.
Because this, silent presence is not silence. It is. It speaks. It reveals the peace, the causeless peace.
When we sit by the river, we love it. We love to hear and see the river flowing or the stream gurgling. This movement. Somehow, this movement brings us to presence, brings us to to peace, because there is a listening which has no object.
And the listening that’s listening to the listening itself.
There are no objects.
No history. No mind. No past. No future.
So can we, in this moment, welcome ourself freshly?
Without a narrative.
The complete offering.
In presence, all is well. There are no personal stories.
And there is a complete availability to whatever is appearing.
There is no personal self onboard. Because what is it? What what is this… personal self?
When there is no time, no past, no future in this moment.
And yet there are images on the screen, sensations. But deep down, we don’t know what it is.
This sort of a knowing and a not-knowing, meeting each other.
There may be a personal image which we recognize, but simultaneously, there is being awareness which is not an image.
And somehow there is a meeting of the image and the non-image, like a wave meets the ocean.
The waking dream appears to you, and it seems that you are in the dream, that you are a character in the dream.
And simultaneously, you’re perceiving the dream. Of course, that which perceives is not a character. An object does not perceive itself.
Knowing that you’re not an object in the dream, and yet there is an object in the dream. Sometimes we refer to as the waking dream. We’re awake in the dream, awake in the dream.
So there is the awake the wakefulness, which has nothing to do with the dream, and there is the dream. Being knowingly the self, being knowingly consciousness. Why do we suffer?
If there are images on the screen appearing and you know yourself to be this aware presence, why would you suffer?
Only when you somehow overlook being, you overlook your reality as consciousness, completely identified with the dream character on the screen that you suffer.
So we take a look we take a look at what is suffering and what is it that suffers. What is the nature of suffering? We dig into it.
Because we want to help. We want to come to the assistance of whoever it is that is suffering. And it’s me who is suffering. So I search, I search for this me. It’s an act of love. We could call it self-love.
And in this search… You don’t find anyone separate from you, your being, that which is searching.
Because that was is searching is not suffering. It’s the rescue team. The rescue team is looking and searching for whoever it is that needs rescuing.
But you don’t find somebody else outside of yourself. Yourself being what? If you take a look in this moment, it is always this moment. Right?
You take a look in this moment and what is it that you are? Are you an object? You believe yourself to be. You feel yourself to be.
Why do we rely on the senses to know that which we are.
Why not rely on awareness itself?
Is a body-mind appearing to you? Thoughts and sensations. Very lovely.
Shapes and sounds. Various colors.
Why make a jump and identify with the body-mind? Why consider yourself to be a limited form?
Do you ever experience yourself beginning and ending? Have you ever experienced yourself ending or beginning?
Take a look.
Sensations begin and end thoughts, perceptions.
People appear and disappear in your life. But you, if you don’t identify yourself with a male or female form, you remain not-knowing, if you remain as being as presence, awareness.
Why not? After all, isn’t that your experience, the experience of awareness?
You are the perceiving factor, the dreamer of all dreams. Are you not?
Why do we resist? Why do we struggle with stuff when our survival, meaning the survival of the body-mind, is not at stake.
Defending an image, defending a structure, a ghost, or maintaining a story, maintaining a me story at any cost.
And so we have a lovely me-story, personal story. So what? What is the point of it?
Can you hold on to an image?
The me-image, the me-story, the me-narrative requires constant maintenance.
Are we in the maintenance business, the me-story maintenance business?
Now we belong to the tribe, the me-story tribe.
What about being? What about presence? What about peace? What about freedom? What about causeless joy? Why not?
It’s a good choice, a good option.
But maybe you want the cake. Your cake and eat it too.
You want… can I hold on to the me story how great or how miserable I am? And at the same time, celebrate causeless joy and causeless peace of being.
And I continue to live inside the jail cell and experience a freedom. Sometimes we’re waiting for the saving grace.
So then we play the waiting game, waiting game: oh I’m doing okay, but not there yet, which is more of the me-story, the misery, but soaked in spiritual narrative, spiritual misery. All of that is irrelevant. You’re you are that. No words for it. Being.
Awareness, presence, consciousness.
There’s no choice about it. It’s already been chosen. Boom. It’s a done deal.
Simply allow it. Meaning, relax the old tendencies of grasping everything with your mind or referring everything to some illusory personal self, which is nowhere to be found.
It is more of a non-doing.
If there is anything you would like to discuss, any questions, any discussion, You know the drill. Any questions?
