Falling in Love with Where You Are

by Jeff Foster

– Albert Einstein.

  YOUR OTHER HALF

  Stop looking for your ‘other half’, your ‘soul mate’, the one who will ‘complete’ you – they’re already here. As awareness itself, your perfect partner is the world, exactly as it appears. The vast and spacious Room of You is already full to the brim with your beloved content: Thoughts, sensations, feelings, images, sounds, all dancing and singing within you in this moment. Emptiness and form – you were made for each other. This is the perfect union of that which was never divided.

  Marry yourself, and let the wedding bells ring.

  IT’S NEVER AS BAD AS YOU THINK

  The worst thing you’ll ever have to face in life is a thought, a sensation, an emotion, a sound, a smell, happening in this moment.

  However intense or unexpected that happening is, however much it destroys your dreams of what should have been, as consciousness itself, as the vast ocean in which every wave of thought, sensation and feeling is deeply allowed to arise and fall, there is always enough space in you, always enough room for life. You are limitless in your embrace.

  Whatever is appearing – thought, sensation, feeling, image, sound – you have already said yes to it. That is why it is already here – because there was no separate, solid ‘you’ to block it out. The absence of a separate ‘you’ is the constant and timeless yes to life, however paradoxical that sounds.

  In simple language, you will never have to face anything in present experience that you haven’t already said yes to at the very depths of your being, however uncomfortable or intense or unexpected that wave of experience is. This knowing brings deep relaxation and trust in the face of what is to come. Then we can open to life rather than shutting ourselves off.

  Knowing yourself as the boundless ocean of acceptance, as consciousness itself, fearlessly rest in your changeless and immutable nature.

  Bring it on.

  ON STRESS

  Stress is the tension between ‘what is’ in this moment, and your image of how this moment should be. Stress is a narrow focus on a mental list of ‘things to do’, an imaginary burden of ‘all the things that haven’t been done yet’. Stress always involves future-thinking, premature fast-forwarding, a focus on what’s not here right now.

  When the focus shifts away from what is not present to what is present, from lack to what is fully here, from fast-forward to play, and instead of trying to complete a seemingly endless list of a thousand things, you simply do the next thing with your full attention and passion, lists get completed effortlessly, without stress, and even if they don’t, creative solutions are found.

  Relax. The only thing you ever have to do is to remember that you are not the doer.

  A CONVERSATION WITH LONELINESS

  “I feel lonely.”

  “Wonderful. An invitation to get intimate with loneliness.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Try this. Drop the word ‘loneliness’ for a moment. Feel the raw sensations directly in the body. Where do you feel them? Feel the prickles, the tickles, the vibrations…”

  “In my stomach. Like a lonely, empty feeling...”

  “Great. So now drop the words ‘lonely’ and ‘empty’. Connect with what’s actually here without those second-hand descriptions”.

  “Okay. It feels................. alive. Tingly. Warm.”

  “Yes. Good. Stay with it.”

  “It feels soft. Tender. Vulnerable. It feels like... life.”

  “Good. Let’s stay there awhile. Let’s give these sensations the gift of kind attention, without trying to change or delete them. Allow all thoughts and images, all judgements and stories, to come and go as well, in your warm presence. Let them float like clouds in the sky. What else do you notice where you are? You can place your hand on the part of you that feels lonely, if you like...”

  [Places hands on stomach]

  “It’s strange. As I give it attention, the tightness is easing. There’s more room around the lonely feeling. Like it’s held by something... something large, spacious…”

  “Does that sense of spaciousness itself feel lonely?”

  “No. It feels... intimate. Open. Alive. Not lonely. I feel like I can breathe...”

  When we stop distracting ourselves, and courageously dive into the heart of any feeling, positive or negative, right or wrong, comfortable or uncomfortable, we rediscover the vast ocean of who we are. Every feeling is made of unspeakable intelligence, and every feeling contains a hidden message.

  THE PLAN

  With each of our breaths

  We plug the gaping void.

  We watch the eclipse of some other moon

  In some other sky.

  We don’t know each other’s names

  Yet we stay close.

  And against all advice to the contrary

  We ride out without a plan.

  We have nothing to hold onto anymore

  Except this awesome sense

  Of being alive.

  Nothing to follow

  Except this unmarked path of

  never needing to know.

  Nothing to speak of as ‘real’

  Except perhaps this love.

  This unexpected grace.

  You see my dear

  Every journey has a beginning and an end.

  Except this one.

  DOORWAYS OF GRACE

  The touch of a loved one’s hand. The warmth of a fresh mug of tea. A drop of morning dew quietly falling down a blade of grass, nearly unnoticed. These ordinary moments, given without asking.

  And yet, in truth, these are not ‘ordinary moments’ at all. These are only doorways of grace, gateless gates of morning dew and birdsong and tossed apple cores, portals into an unknown world much like our own, witnessed without a witness, prior to the upsurge of thought.

  “Enter here,” they whisper in unison, “and lose your cleverness...”

  YOUR THRILLING INCONSISTENCY

  You can tell all kinds of stories about yourself. “I am good”. “I am bad”. “I am kind”. “I am perfect”. “I am enlightened”. “I am unworthy”. “I am a failure”. “I am beautiful”. “I am ugly”. And so on.

  But these are all mental conclusions about something that is not a single ‘thing’ at all – something alive and always moving and forever renewing itself, something that is never, ever a conclusion. You are a vast ocean, a wild fire, dynamic and untameable and inconsistent, not anything static or fixed in time or space. Why come to conclusions about yourself at all? Any conclusion cannot be what you really are, for you are beyond all conclusions, even that one, and yet there is enough space in you for all conclusions.

  But life itself is not a conclusion – conclusions are only there to be swept away and burnt up in the fire of living. Why limit yourself to a concept? Why fix yourself in time and space? Be your thrilling inconsistent ‘self’ – not a ‘self’ limited to a word, concept, idea or image, or even limited in time itself, but the vast indefinable Self of the ocean, wildly open and deeply accepting of all its beloved waves yet defined by none of them, limited to none of them.

  BEYOND UP AND DOWN

  It’s exhausting, trying or pretending to be ‘up’ all the time. What a relief it is, to embrace ‘down’ too, and to see ‘up’ and ‘down’ as part of the great and perfect balance of life. And to know ourselves beyond both, as the vast open space that embraces these slings and arrows, these tribulations and triumphs of existence, and is trapped within neither. Ups and downs, highs and lows, tragedies and comedies, bliss and boredom and buses running late, birth and burials – the many faces of the One, moment to moment, shining brilliantly.

  THE HEART OF ANXIETY

  I was speaking to a young man who was dealing with severe anxiety. None of the ‘cures for anxiety’ he had been offered had worked for him. I invited him to stop trying to fix his anxiety, just for a moment. I invited him to stop imagining a future free from anxiety, or filled with anxiety, and to meet what was actually here,
right now, in this present scene. I invited him to drop the label ‘anxiety’, to let go of that word he had learned, to come out of his story of past and future and look at his present experience with fresh eyes and without history. What thoughts and sensations were appearing presently?

  Lots of thoughts buzzing around, he said. Lots of mental activity. What did he feel in his body? I invited him to contact the body directly. Intense fluttery sensations in the stomach and chest. I asked him if, just for a moment, he could allow all that activity – thoughts and sensations – to be there, something he had never tried before, because he had been too busy fighting his ‘anxiety’; a fight which, of course, had actually increased his anxiety! He had been making ‘anxiety’ his enemy, rejecting it, trying to delete it, without getting to know it intimately first! Instead of fighting the sensations in the stomach, could he drop all labels, all judgements, all descriptions, and recognise himself as the vast open space in which these sensations were allowed to come and go? Could he be friendly to these sensations, just for a moment? Could kindness be the way?

  He started to feel some space around what he had previously been calling ‘anxiety’. He was aware of the anxiety, he was conscious of it, so it couldn’t truly define who he was. He was no longer trapped in the feelings. He was bigger than the feelings. He could hold his anxiety, surround it, embrace it. And the thoughts and judgements too, he was bigger than those. He was not trapped inside them – he was the space for them. They didn’t define him.

  He had been able to turn towards his anxiety, and had used it as a wake-up call, to help him remember his true vastness. He had discovered that, in truth, there was no ‘anxious person’ – the anxiety could not define or limit the vastness of who he was – there were simply thoughts and sensations that had been labelled as ‘anxiety’ and then rejected. He was not a victim of anxiety – he was now its loving parent, able to hold it as it was born, expressed itself, and died. His anxiety didn’t need to be ‘cured’ – it needed to be met, touched, held, in the present moment. It didn’t need to be deleted, it needed to be understood. It didn’t want to destroy him, it wanted to wake him up. It wasn’t a mistake that he had felt anxious.

  Healing in the midst of anxiety – the last place you’d ever think to look!

  A DONE DEAL

  How can you allow this moment? How can you accept it? Wouldn’t you have to be separate from it, to accept it? How can you allow the air, the rain, the grass as it grows? How can you allow the planets to spin in their orbits? How can you allow the breath in your lungs? Isn’t all of this already allowed? Isn’t life already exactly as it is right now? How can you allow or disallow what is already here? Isn’t it already too late to accept or reject this moment? How can you surrender to something you were never separate from in the first place? Hasn’t The Deepest Acceptance already happened?

  ON LONELINESS

  Loneliness is the memory or imagination of past connection and companionship, a painful comparison between ‘what is now’ and ‘what was then’. It is an impossible homesickness, a longing to return Home, where Home is ‘not here anymore’, somewhere seemingly ‘far away’ from presence.

  Cease to focus on what is ‘missing’ – the absent presence of ‘another’ – and simply remember what is, and was, never missing – your own presence, timeless and full, your true Home – and you will never feel lonely again, since your presence is their presence.

  Loneliness will always arise, when it needs to, to remind you that you’ve forgotten to remember who you are. A brand new invitation every time.

  How can you be lonely when the entire universe purrs at your feet?

  THE LESSONS OF THE DYING

  When we die, we do not become infinite. We were always infinite, so we cannot die.

  Sitting with the dying is such a privilege. In the absence of a tomorrow, in the face of absolute uncertainty and ungroundedness in terms of the story, total intimacy is all that is left, total presence, profound hereness. Every moment is rendered absolutely sacred – as it always was. Every breath is precious. Every word is there to be deeply heard and savoured, every touch reverberates throughout the ages, every look, every glance, all that is said and unsaid, all that is remembered and all that is lost to time, all is held in the vast embrace of Now, the only place we truly meet, the only place we have ever met. What happens ‘next’ is secondary in the face of this fire-like intimacy, untouched by death and dying and the dreams of tomorrow.

  You cannot leave me, for we are each other, and where would we go? Come into my heart, where you always were, and I will take you with me.

  THE FURNACE OF THE BELOVED

  It emerges from the Womb with you.

  It sees the world for the first time.

  It has no other eyes but these.

  The world is its furnace, its playground of fire.

  It grows with you. Changes. Hurts. Rejoices.

  It learns exactly what you learn.

  All the conditioning in the world cannot condition it away.

  It goes through each rite of passage.

  First kiss. Wedding day. Graduation.

  It feels everything as intensely as you do.

  And on your retirement day, it retires with you.

  And when your loved ones die, it mourns with you.

  It misses them too.

  Its tears only dry when yours do.

  It falls asleep with you every night.

  It holds you as you go for chemo.

  It forgets its medication in perfect synchronicity.

  It does not know good and bad.

  It gives you just enough energy to stand where you stand.

  To sit where you sit. To lie where you lie.

  It does not know failure or success.

  It soils itself if it has to.

  And even when the pain becomes unbearable,

  It whispers “I am still here”.

  “I take unexpected forms”.

  Its heart stops when yours does.

  It takes its last breath with you.

  Not even in these moments can it leave.

  Not even in these moments.

  It does not know coming and going.

  You may cry out, “Where are You?”

  “Why have You forsaken me?”

  But at no point does this question go unanswered.

  For your cry is its cry,

  Your question is its question.

  It is forever calling Itself home in this way,

  Never, ever needing an answer.

  Listen, and you can hear it calling, always.

  Listen – it is there even when you cannot hear it call.

  For it hears exactly what you hear.

  No more and no less.

  We all burn in its fire.

  Our bones melt in its loving embrace.

  Do not fear the furnace of the Beloved.

  It has already taken you.

  NOVEMBER

  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,

  the more joy you can contain.

  – Kahlil Gibran

  THE REBEL ALLIANCE

  Who is willing to stare life in the face?

  Who is willing to abandon second-hand concepts about second-hand revelations, forge their own path, and neither cling to the paths of others nor reject a single one of them?

  Who is willing to never settle for easy answers, no matter how comforting those answers may sound in the midst of our pain?

  Who is willing to let go of those spiritual clichés – “there is no me”, “free will is an illusion”, “everything is a concept” – which once sounded so exciting and new and even controversial, but now just feel stale, overused, and a little sad?

  Who is willing to throw away their books, cease quoting endlessly from their favourite perceived authorities, find their own language and unique voice, and dive into a first-hand life that nobody else has ever lived or could live?

  Who is willing to sacrifice their cer
tainty, their credibility, their intellectual prowess and so-called ‘spiritual success’ for one shot at a life fully experienced?

  Who is willing to consider that this day may be their final day to experience anything at all?

  Who is ready to risk everything for the rapture of uncertainty, doubt, shattered dreams, mystery, and blood pumping through enlivened veins?

  Who will join me in this creative fire?

  THE MIRACLE

  There is no such thing as a miracle from God when you realise that everything in present experience is a miracle from God, every taste, every sound, every smell, each vibrantly alive feeling surging out of the vastness, and so the words ‘miracle’ and ‘God’ are unnecessary, and it is enough to simply be alive, here and now, breathing in and out, feeling the expansion and contraction of the chest, savouring the richness and immediacy of the moment, God or no God, miracle or otherwise...

  THE ENLIGHTENMENT GAMES

  So many spiritual teachers. So many teachings. So many words. So many flavours. Who to believe?

  Some speak of awakening as an event. It happens one day, and you’re never the same again.

  Some speak of awakening as a process. Events, states and experiences come and go, but the ever-deepening journey of awakening never ends.

  Some say there is nobody here, no person, no self, no entity that could experience an event, or go on any kind of journey, and there’s no point talking about it anyway, and yet they keep talking about it.

  Some stay silent. Some claim to be right, to have the truth, to know exactly what awakening is and what it is not. Some want you to join their ‘awakening club’, to be on their side. Some see awakening as a kind of competition, race or game. Some make fun of other teachings and teachers who don’t tow the party line.

  All of this is part of the great play of life. We rest as the witness of the play, and delight in the play’s myriad colours.