Blog Archives

The purpose of life...?

25/2/2020

Ever spent nights with thoughts racing through your mind, unable to sleep?

Ever spent time dreaming about writing a damning email to your boss's boss, shaming your boss for all the ways they've made your work-life miserable?

Ever WISHED you could leave 'now' and teleport yourself some place else?

Ever got so anxious that you've felt like you're losing your mind?

A client was just telling me how the thoughts going round and round in their head are driving them crazy; that they're tired of rehashing the past, and trying to envision the future; that they'd like to 'live more *now*.

We got to talking about the crazy space our minds can take us to with wishful, grass-is-greener - if *only* this situation/person/feeling were different I'd be happier - thinking.

And the peace that exists in presence. The peace that exists when seeking something else stops.

Oh, yes, ‘being present’: that's a good one when your mind is spinning out of control and everything about the present, seems unpleasant.

But what if there is actually ONLY presence? What if there is nowhere else?

What if we're trying to run from the present, but there is no difference between us and presence: we are it?

Well then.

0 Comments

Rest Here, Now.

12/2/2020

0 Comments

It’s tough realising there isn’t an idea, perspective or strategy that can once and for all stop the dissatisfaction, restlessness, the not feeling enough; the not feeling now is enough.

Sure, we can titivate. We can play with ideas and perspectives and strategies. We can talk about what you wish were different, how you’d like to be different, how you’d like others to be different.

And then, and then, and then....?

Will you ever find it? That which you seek?

Perhaps temporarily.

And then?

Will it be enough? Will it last?

... Back to ideas and perspectives and strategies and regimes and wishing things were different and not feeling enough.

And then, and then, and then....?

You ARE what you seek.

Sound new-agey?

Don’t look away.

This, Now, is what you seek.

Sound too hard to understand? Too simple to be of use?

Rest Here, Now.

It goes against everything you’ve been taught and everything you’ve been told needs to be done.

Rest here, now.

I’m with you.

0 Comments

A more steady version of me and you?

12/2/2020

0 Comments

I used to think there was a more steady version of me.

I used to long for less ups and downs, less anxiety, less rehashing of the past and trying to predict the future.

I realised that rehashing of the past and attempting to predict the future was all in an attempt to keep me safe.

From what?

I thought it was from what other people think of me, but actually, when I looked deeper it was from what I thought of me; from what I might think of me.

It was exhausting and ineffectual. I never became more steady or less anxious, or more perfect at doing the job of being me.

In fact, I eventually became ill.

I used to think there was a more steady version of me.

And I wasn't wrong. There is. And of you.

A more entire, complete version of you and I than you or I could ever imagine.

---

The biggest challenge we face is realising that what we think is us, isn't us at all. It's a tiny tiny piece of an infinitely massive completeness. And even that is a red herring.

The reason it's a red herring is that there is no end or beginning to who you are, so to say you're a tiny tiny piece of an infinitely massive completeness is contradictory and misleading.

----

There's no end or beginning to who you are thing might sound fanciful and/ or confusing. However, take a look at your experience and you may see something surprising. (And by the way, right now, I'm not talking about no end and beginning to Kate, well I am, but let's forget about Kate for a minute.)

When you look around you probably think that there's you, and then there's stuff - mugs, children, husband, walls, a door. And there are, but when you think about your experience of those things: none of them has ever been experienced by you without you. Or in other words, have you ever had an experience of any of those things without you being in the equation? Could you know any of those things independent from you? Could you experience any of those things without you being involved? The answer of course, is no. Experience of those things, knowing of those things, requires you.

Yes, I can think about my son at school right now, but that experience of him doesn't exist without me. He doesn't exist for me without me. (And let's not get into the yes buts: ‘Does he exist for other people without me?’ The only way I'll ever get an answer about that is with me in the equation experiencing asking the question to, for example, my mum, so again, my experience of him is via my experience of her experience of him….)

There's no getting away from the fact that I can't experience anything without me there.

No distance between me and everything I experience?

Then who I am IS experience; the space in which experience arises, the space in which it is known. All of it. None of it.

0 Comments

The purpose of life...?

Rest Here, Now.

A more steady version of me and you?

Kate Barsby

Archives

Categories