Horse

My friend has two horses. They run around the paddock. I feel no need to restrain them. Instead, I watch them. While I watch them, my mind wanders off like the horses. It runs away, and so I might watch that too. Let the horse be the horse. Let the mind be the mind. I won’t waste my energy trying to restrain them. I’m too lazy for that. So, I watch the horses as they play and see how my mind runs. These things occur in my presence. I am the witness. I am in the world but not of it. I observe the mirror, but I am not in it.

What if I had an idea about what enlightenment looks like? The concept comes from my mind. My mind got the idea from assembling bits and pieces of other ideas it picked up here and there from the television and books. How else would my mind know? It has no ideas of its own. It just mixes and repeats. How would a ripple in the stream of consciousness understand what the depth of the ocean is like?

My mind is saying this IS NOT what enlightenment looks like and that over there IS what enlightenment looks like. What qualification does my mind have to define enlightenment if it is not enlightened itself? Can my mind pick up a leaf? No. It can only think about it. So it has limitations. But what about me? I can pick up the leaf while having my mind imagine Donald Duck dancing. So, I can do two things while the mind can only do one. Why rely on the mind to tell me what enlightenment is when I’m more powerful than it? I can laugh and dance and cry and make the mind think about supper. The mind can only think thoughts like a horse chewing grass. I am the source of understanding. It can only wander around the paddock. Whereas I am on the outside looking at it. I see the mind wander off, but it does not see me. When I sleep, my mind disappears. When THE MIND sleeps, I DO NOT disappear.

The acceptance that I do not know is the act of listening to the silence.

Listening is sacred.

Listening is prayer.

ALL of my objections are the mind just chewing thoughts. The reasons why I am not what I seek belong to the mind. The mind cannot even tie my laces, but I am allowing it to define me.

So what can I do?

Anytime I hear myself say, ‘I am not enlightened,’ I can identify that statement as the mind thinking thoughts because that’s what it does, like a horse chewing grass on one end and blowing out gas from the other.

When my friend needs the horse to do something, she’ll harness it up to do the job. When the job is finished, she lets the horse go, and it can wander where it will. When I need the mind to do my bidding, I’ll harness it up to the task, and when it is done, let the mind go. It will take care of itself. It doesn’t matter where it wanders. I will not take its advice on what it cannot know. My friend does not ask her horse what kind of paint she should buy for the kitchen. Her horse is good at being a horse, and that is where it ends. The mind is good at being the mind. Why should I take its advice on what colour scheme suits my enlightenment?

I am aware that I can still my thoughts, even if it is for a moment. They go, and I am aware they have gone. Thoughts come back to spread doubt, but I am aware they have returned. I sleep, and my thoughts disappear. I know this because I am aware they had gone. I wake, my thoughts return, and I am aware of them. I feel positive, and I am aware that my thoughts have turned toward inquiry. I am reading a book and suddenly become aware that my mind has drifted. I am, therefore, aware that I was unaware.

What is the consistent thread?

It is this awareness.

I cannot turn this awareness off. I cannot push it, pull it, eat it, burn it, tickle it, change it, frighten it, surprise it, cut it, turn up before it, arrive after it, seduce it, cover it in marmalade, drop it, pick it up, fall over it, slap it with a banana, hurry it along, measure it, define it, fold it, hold it or roll it down a hill. I can do nothing with it, but nothing happens without it.

This is what I am. I am not the things that happen but the awareness through which these things are noticed. So it does not matter if my mind says I am not enlightened! What matters is that I noticed the mind talking. I noticed the noise of it, disturbing the silence.

For those who are sleeping, what matters is the noise they hear. For those who are waking up, what matters is WHO is listening?

Who in the Silence of my listening is listening, my friend?

The need for me to answer the question is just my mind chewing the grass in the paddock.

The acceptance that I do not know is the act of me listening to the silence.

Listening is sacred.

Listening is prayer.

Listening and knowing there will be no answer is …