The various forms appearing in life can’t be the reality, because all of them are changing; they’re nothing more than false appearances. If we watch a cloud and it takes on the shape of a person, a house, or a mountain, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, we always know it’s a cloud. The appearance of form is not the reality; the unformed cloud is.
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The same is true of everything: bodies, objects, sensations, moods, thoughts, activities, states of mind, relationships, and so on. All things are changing, flowing. They’re the passing appearances of a great, unformed, and inexplicable happening – an event, a presence – call it whatever you have to.
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If we sit quietly, making no effort, life expresses itself clearly; it simply happens on its own. There’s nothing else to get. The great truth is obvious. The heart beats; the breath comes and goes. Vibrations, pulsations, twinges, feelings, thoughts, and emotions rise and fall. Urges rise and pass; some become actions, others do not; and so life flows.
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There can be no sense of peace until we realize we’re an indefinable activity. All things, all actions, all thoughts, words, and deeds, are the passing appearances and expressions of a great unformed, indefinable event.
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Sitting quietly, making no effort, all is revealed: a vibrant, pulsing, formless happening, simply happening. There is no goal in this, no final point; there is only what expresses itself in this moment, and whatever it appears to be now is unavoidably on its way to some other appearance. (from Essence Revisited)
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There are many ways of pointing to this vibrant, formless happening. Some have called it the Great Spirit. Some call it the river of life, or the ocean of existence. Some call it the flow of nature. It’s been compared to clouds and water, having no particular shape. Some say it’s formless and some call it “un-form.” Some say it’s energy and some say it’s movement. Some call it God, Tao, or Atman. Some call it Mind. Some call it “original nature.” And some just call it the universe, which literally means “undivided turning.”

Realization

Even the most extreme spiritual statements are easy to understand. Phrases such as “there is no self,” or “there is only God,” are very simple descriptions of your ordinary, everyday life. Understanding these statements does not require blind belief or new learning or thirty years to achieve. You simply need to acknowledge the life experience you already have. Most people do not acknowledge, in any clear way, what their life experience is or has been.

This acknowledgment is not about coming to another idea or description. It’s not about a focus on new and complicated thoughts. It’s a simple acknowledgment of something we already know. It’s about realizing the vital, moving, shifting liveliness that this moment is.

The basic happening of this moment is a moving, shifting, dancing event presenting itself. Even if we don’t call it anything – if we make no attempt to do it – it still happens.

You don’t have the impression that you emerged from the womb thinking, “Oh there’s Mom and there’s the doctor and I’ve just been born and I can hardly wait to get a cookie.” We all know that it takes years to learn the various labels for existence and eventually string them together into a storyline.

But words have no intrinsic meaning. They’re just sounds, or symbols, that point to the many portions of life’s happening. One portion is called a chair, another a body, and another, consciousness.

In different countries, with different languages, they’re different sounds. If we all agreed, the sounds could just as easily be “blix,” “floot,” and “wozzle.”

If I speak to you of chairs, bodies, and consciousness you have the feeling of understanding existence, but if I speak to you of blix, floot, and wozzle, it’s gibberish; it has no meaning. The point is this: words like chair, body, and consciousness are also gibberish; they have no basic meaning.

It’s also obvious that life has no form. Everything is changing. Whether it’s a body, a thought, a mood, a situation, a relationship, a career, and so on, everything is changing. Atoms, chairs, planets, galaxies – it doesn’t matter what it is – it has an apparent beginning, ageing, and ending. Even the sense of existing disappears every night. All forms that appear to exist are moving on to some other appearance. What is has no form.

Ask a newborn baby to describe existence, or to explain why she’s doing what she’s doing, and you’ll get no answer. There is no storyline. No one is doing the happening. It’s a formless, buzzing, pulsing and tingling – a streaming, flowing event. That’s all there is.

No matter how much you think you’ve created this basic happening, you haven’t. It doesn’t matter how many meaningless sounds get attached to illusions of form, all of this is formless and beyond any possible explanation. You can call it no-self, or God, or whatever you feel you have to; words really aren’t that important.

Without forms and labels what is there to question? Where is there any you to describe? There is only an inexplicable, formless dance presenting itself.
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