Good morning! Welcome to the DKos Sangha weekly open thread.
This is an open thread for members of the DKos Sangha and interested visitors who happen by. Each of us has our own path; we come here by way of many different traditions, and of no particular tradition. While the language we use may differ depending on the traditions, teachers, practices, and teachings that have shaped our journeys, we find in common, generally, a search for who we truly are, our true nature, and to bring the peace and compassion born of that search into the greater world of which we are a part. If you wish to share, or if you seek support, or if you simply want to say hello, please do; this space is for you.
Conditioning. More specifically, the conditioning born of egoic separate self.
Through inquiry, through the internal investigation into the nature of who we really are, what we find is that egoic separate self is just a collection of thoughts and beliefs. When our identification with egoic separate self falls away, conditioning begins to dissipate.
Some patterns will dissipate quickly; some may take a lifetime. Some patterns are hidden deep within, only arising in response to stimuli that occur rarely. Others arise frequently. Each pattern has its own energy and momentum, its own knots to untangle.
Some conditioning is felt in the body as stress; some arises in response to stress in the body.
When conditioning arises, it should not be ignored or pushed away. When conditioning arises, it is met with compassion, with patience, understanding, and love.
Egoic separate self creates duality; it creates a wall between itself and everything else. Our natural state is non-dual. There is no separation between a me and anything else.
When conditioning is met, there is no practice; there is no me to do a practice. The meeting of conditioning is a natural movement.
The process of awakening includes not only the falling away of identification with egoic separate self, but the opening of the heart as well. And it is through the heart that conditioning is met. It is through the heart that we are healed.
As conditioning is met, it dissipates. As it is met, gently, tenderly, patiently, compassionately, its knots are loosened, its energy weakened, its momentum slowed.
This is a path of healing ourselves. This is a path of awakening to our natural state.
Who we really are is not stressed out; who we are is not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude. Who we are is not greedy or selfish; who we are is not hurtful to ourselves or others.
It takes time to heal. It takes time for conditioning to dissipate. It can take time to see through the veil of separation that egoic separate self has created; to see that these patterns of thought are arising within awareness just as the sounds that we hear are arising within awareness.
When identification with egoic separate self has fallen away, we abide in and as awareness. When the heart opens, we abide as compassion and truth. Conditioning arises, but it is met when it does; and as it is met, it dissipates.
And as conditioning is met, our day to day moment to moment lives become more peaceful, more balanced; we move more in harmony with the unfolding of events.
For each of us, the path is unique; how identification with egoic separate self falls away, how the heart opens, how conditioning dissipates, for each of us these will be unique. There is no one size fits all teaching to guide us.
The teachings that we find helpful are but guideposts pointing in the general direction. We each must do the work of inquiry into the nature of who we are, to discover for ourselves our natural state of being.
This is the path. Or a path; or no path at all. For our natural state of being is always already here, just waiting to be uncovered, waiting for the veil to be lifted.
~~
Breathe
Notice the thoughts as they arise and fall away
Notice the sounds as they arise and fall away
Notice the awareness within which thoughts and sounds arise and fall away
Abide in and as this awareness, this stillness of being,
This ocean of peace
~~~
Namaste