Today I noticed the recommendations in my youtube account, and what I saw were a lot of "how-to" videos, or "what this means", or "(fill in the blank) is...." It dawned on me that there are millions of gurus, senseis, sifus, experts of all kinds to tell me what yoga is really about; the secret of real Taiji; the true meaning of Taoism, contemplative Christianity, Buddhism, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum. This is not a critique of youtube or any of the good people who create and post those videos. Those videos are in my feed because I have shown an interest in those subjects. Accordingly, I can look on my bookshelf and find much of the same thing. Those things are in my life because I have gone looking for them. I have been searching. I am still searching. But something has changed. Something inside snapped. Our minds are like elastic. If you stretch them enough they adapt and maintain their shape. If you stretch them a little more they snap. At that point they don't ever go back to where they were before.
I'm not really sure when it happened. Things kind of built up. Then one day I woke up with no beliefs, no patterns, no form, no format, no style, no system, no path, no floor, no ceiling, and no concern over losing all these pointers. I don't want to know the secrets of anything, or the true way according to anyone. I am not interested in those things anymore. And that's not because I read somewhere that letting all that go is a better way. Following someone's suggestion to that end would just be another "way". No, this is sincere. At another time in my life this would have been unsettling. Now it just feels right. But as I said above, I am still searching. But what I am searching for now is so deep within and personal that anyone else's experience is unrelated and irrelevant at best. The search now is not a means to an end, the search itself is the end. In fact it's not really a search so much as it is a process of remembering and moving on, of experience, of breathing, of living life without any structure, beliefs, requirements, disciplines, forms. My own mind is Buddha; every breath is Dharma; all sentient beings compose Sangha.
I'm not really sure when it happened. Things kind of built up. Then one day I woke up with no beliefs, no patterns, no form, no format, no style, no system, no path, no floor, no ceiling, and no concern over losing all these pointers. I don't want to know the secrets of anything, or the true way according to anyone. I am not interested in those things anymore. And that's not because I read somewhere that letting all that go is a better way. Following someone's suggestion to that end would just be another "way". No, this is sincere. At another time in my life this would have been unsettling. Now it just feels right. But as I said above, I am still searching. But what I am searching for now is so deep within and personal that anyone else's experience is unrelated and irrelevant at best. The search now is not a means to an end, the search itself is the end. In fact it's not really a search so much as it is a process of remembering and moving on, of experience, of breathing, of living life without any structure, beliefs, requirements, disciplines, forms. My own mind is Buddha; every breath is Dharma; all sentient beings compose Sangha.
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