Welcome.

Lovely to be with you,
and to be.

Being is.

So for the duration of this meeting,
we invite ourselves to suspend, the past,
and to simply be freshly,
and knowingly a complete availability
without knowing what is it
that is available
and what are we being available to.

So that this moment is not a slice in time,
but rather, it is the fullness of being.

When there is no separate anyone doing anything.
Which is so beautiful and so freeing from the me-illusion.

Notice how everything appears to you effortlessly:
A bodily sensation, a thought.

They arise out of the vastness,
out of the mystery of being.
They arise in awareness.

Which is always on.
And is unaffected, untouched, unaltered
by whatever is appearing on the screen.

So we sink deeper and deeper into presence.
Every cell of our body,
every impression that appears,
is invited to this still, silent,
alive vastness, beingness.

It’s sort of eternal vastness.

No one is trying to achieve anything,
get somewhere.

In presence and as presence
there is clarity, peace, aliveness.
No complication.

Notice the gentle breath.

A gentle movement appearing
in the vastness,
in the stillness.

This still presence.

And there is no judgment,
because there is no one,
no personal Self
with a personal purpose.

And in the absence of this illusory me,
in the absence of the impression of separation,
the belief in separation,
everything is myself.

There is nothing which is not the Self.
So there is no opposition,
because opposition and judgment
require the belief that there is a personal self
that there is something at stake
for that illusionary me.

So we defend,
we struggle,
we object just to maintain the me-narrative,
which is unhappy.

It’s an old habit.
The ‘me’ cocoon;
a belief structure
that has infested the mind and the body.

But here we are,
this transparent beingness,
the certainty of being,
the certainty of awareness.

That which knows itself to be the I am.
Without knowing itself to be something or somebody.

Before adding the qualification,
before adding the definition,
I am is undefined,
unlabeled,
not in time and space,
not time bound.

The impression of time appears to you.
The belief and the feeling that you are somebody appears to you.

You are not that which appears to you.
You are not defined by any mind narrative.

Although, at times, we play the game of identification.
It appears as if it sticks, but it does not stick.
It needs constant maintenance, constant dropping.

When you are judging,
you are running away,
hiding behind the judgment.

There is fear in the background,
and the tendency to defend and protect.

What is it that we’re defending and protecting?
And for how long are we gonna do that?
This exhausting activity of defending, protecting, and judging.

The glimpse into the transparency of being and
the reality of being is always available to us.

Right now.
What is it that is and cannot not be.

The aroma from the burning stick of incense fills the room.
The perfume evokes serenity, tranquility.

Does the serenity arise
from the burning incense.

That’s your Zen Koan.
You are the Koan.

That which IS precedes the mind
and permeates the mind.
Like the wind and the flag,
which is moving.