It helps to have a focus for your attention, an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders. The breath serves this purpose exceedingly well. It can be a true ally. Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.
Our breathing can help us in capturing our moments. It’s surprising that more people don’t know about this. After all, the breath is always here, right under our noses. You would think just by chance we might have come across its usefulness at one point or another. We even have the phrase, “I didn’t have a moment to breathe” (or “to catch my breath”) to give us a hint that moments and breathing might be connected in an interesting way.
To use your breathing to nurture mindfulness, just tune in to the feeling of it… the feeling of the breath coming into your body and the feeling of the breath leaving your body. That’s all. Just feeling the breath. Breathing and knowing that you’re breathing. This doesn’t mean deep breathing or forcing your breathing, or trying to feel something special, or wondering whether you’re doing it right. It doesn’t mean thinking about your breathing, either. It’s just a bare bones awareness of the breath moving in and the breath moving out.
It doesn’t have to be for a long time at any one stretch. Using the breath to bring us back to the present moment takes no time at all, only a shift in attention. But great adventures await you if you give yourself a little time to string moments of awareness together, breath by breath, moment to moment.
TRY: Staying with one full inbreath as it comes in, one full outbreath as it goes out, keeping your mind open and free for just this moment, just this breath. Abandon all ideas of getting somewhere or having anything happen. Just keep returning to the breath when the mind wanders, stringing moments of mindfulness together, breath by breath. Try it every once in a while as you read this book.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.
KABIR
💜🙏
… as you read this book (whereof this is page 21) … or during any activity.
Luciana: [reading from her letter] “I finally understood, God does not seek happiness. She is already happiness and she’s sitting with that eternally. So all her spontaneous manifestations are just doing that. Celebrating happiness. But even to speak about manifestations or creation, is not right. If all is one, and if creation is nothing apart from its Creator, we cannot speak at the same time about both of them without falling into paradoxes or circular logic. The like of, when you understand the truth about happiness, you understand that you’ve always been happy. And this can be confusing. But now it’s much clearer. So thank you.”
Yes… Ah… Paradoxes or circular logic
sometimes are that which is to be kōan… kōans in ancient China.
You see… If you say something like: “The totality is in everything”; to one who is open to it,
these words may trigger some understanding;
may trigger a revelation; deep revelation.
But to somebody else, who analyses them logically, he says,
“Well, that’s obvious” or “That’s trivial” or “That’s circular”
or “That’s a tautology”… Or, just as Voltaire once quipped upon hearing that the totality is in everything,or something like that…
he quipped:
“And conversely!”
To make fun of it!
And to show that logically it didn’t make sense.
And yes, if you remain at the logical level,
I’m fully aware of the circularity of it, or of the triviality of it…
But, nevertheless, that may also… these words like that may also go…
… penetrate deeper, and trigger some understanding.
OK. So then she goes: “When you say that ultimately we all seek happiness, is that but a pedagogical use of language?”
[Looking at the letter in gentle disbelief for a short while, then abruptly looking up]
No!
It’s the truth!
It’s obvious!
Ask yourself what it is that you seek…
And, can you say that you seek anything else in every day,
than happiness? In every of your action…
Even when you clear your throat…
And she goes: “And could you speak about the role of Pointing, when considered in the context of God’s hide-and-seek celebratory game?”
[sweetly amused]
It’s part of it…!
That’s the role of Pointing.
It’s part of “God’s hide-and-seek celebratory game”.
Ehm… The Pointing is like… … when you played hide-and-seek
with your little sister, or little friend, or little boyfriend… Aaand… he or she was hiding somewhere, and you were to seek her… … sometimes you hear a little giggle… [childlike laughter from Francis and audience] that reveals their position. So, the Pointing is the giggle of God.
I know I’m not the body, I know I’m not the mind,
yet I seem to have this… perceiver; of this… [gesturing around himself] that has a reference. And… that seems to be evidence that Consciousness is here; in this body, in this perceiving… thing. And I’m trying to see how… What do I do to dispute that? To show that this is not evidence.
Yes. But what I don’t understand is, how it is evidence.
For instance, I can understand that what we see,is perceived through the eyes. That is not in contention… And that these images are transmitted to the brain through the optical nerve… No problem. And that the brain processes these images… the image on the retina is upside down, and the brain just puts it… rotates it by 180 degrees, right? And I’ve no problem with that.
What is the reality that perceives?
Is the human body a reality onto itself? Even if we make the assumption that Consciousness is an imagined property of this human body… Well… This human body doesn’t exist in separation! In and by itself!
For myself, as a physicist, you see, I see quantum fields; you know? The electronic fields, the electrons, the gluons, the mesons… the neutrinos, the quarks… They are dancing! It’s a dance! It’s a ballet; it’s a universal ballet!
So, Consciousness is therefore an emanation from this universal ballet. And therefore, it is… The reality, the universal reality is that there is a perceiving. I’m not saying that there is no local entity through which the perceiving takes place. It’s obvious, that there are such local entities with eyes, and brains. But, what I’m saying is, that the reality that those are perceiving, is universal.
Because the human body is not a reality unto itself.
So then, Consciousness is not a reality unto itself.
No; no…
… Within the limited concept of objects…
No; no… The reality a person…
Once we have understood that our real identity is Consciousness; right?
M-hm.
The question is; Is our real identity this bodymind?
Or is it bigger than that?
The moment we move beyond the borders of the bodymind, the notion of a separate entity collapses.
There has never been a separate entity.
To take an analogy.
It’s like… Take the analogy with the Internet.
And let’s assume someone asks the question:
“Where is the Internet located?”
It’s the same!
“Where is Consciousness located?”
Someone could say, “Oh, the Internet is located here! In this computer; it’s connected, and…”
But, even if the computer –which is a node, whatever…– is switched off, the Internet doesn’t disappear.
The mistake we made, is to conceive Consciousness as being a local phenomenon, and an emergent property of the human body.
We did that because we denied Consciousness reality.
So the first thing is to understand that there is an element of Reality which belongs to Consciousness. There’s always… We know that we’re not making it up, that there is Consciousness. And we know that, for instance, if we dream, or if we hallucinate, whatever is perceived, is an illusion, but nevertheless, that the Consciousness of this illusion is real. In other words, that Consciousness is at least as real, as whatever it perceives.
[Barely audibly]Mm. OK.
You see? We have deprived Consciousness of the Reality that belong to it – I’m just trying to give it back to Consciousness. Because if Consciousness were an illusion, how could we possibly be certain of ANYthing? That which is an illusion, cannot perceive Reality! How could it be possible? Only Reality can perceive Reality.
So, an illusory Consciousness could not possibly perceive the Real.
So. Consciousness is real. Ah… I tend to use the word awareness; it feels more… ah…
Fine. No trouble.
Yeah. Ah… It’s real… It’s… It’s… maybe better, an aspect of reality…
Ah… I just don’t get past the localized part.
Well. Ahm…
I don’t know how to conduct the experiment to show that there’s no evidence that it’s localized.
You don’t need an experiment; you have to bring the evidence that it is localized.
And… scrutinize it.
Let me try to help you with the global argument; that is the nuclear argument, right?
Whatever appears in Consciousness, cannot give us any information about Consciousness.
Would you agree with that?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Because whatever appears in Consciousness, doesn’t perceive Consciousness.
Aha!
[With sweet compassion] Right? In order to get some information about Consciousness, we need to see it! When it’s something that we can see, to say “Consciousness is red”, or “Consciousness is round”, or “Consciousness is big”, or “Consciousness is small”; right?
Now. That which is seen by Consciousness, doesn’t see Consciousness.
Would you agree with that?
Yes.
Hm?
Yes.
Therefore, that which is seen by Consciousness; I call it the content of Consciousness… Therefore, the content of Consciousness cannot give us any information; on Consciousness.
Consciousness can’t be less than what it sees.
Consciousness can’t be…?
I… I just had this sense, Consciousness cannot be anything less than what it sees; than what it perceives. What it perceives is within Consciousness.
So all this… is within Consciousness.
I am saying… I am trying to say something a little bit different… I am trying to say that whatever… that the content of Consciousness cannot give us any information on Consciousness.
It can only give us information about the content; not about…
Yes!
Not about the background…
The content is whatever it is. You see a yellow flower…
So the experience of me rotat… turning my whole body around and seeing this whole world around me, doesn’t tell me anything about Me…
Right!!!
It tells me about what is seen…
Right!!!
… to some extent.
Right!!! But what I’ve said is even more general than that, as you understand.
There is nothing that we perceive phenomenally, objectively, that can give us any information about Consciousness.
Yeah.
[Whispering] Wow… [man is in awe; visibly deeply moved]
Wow…
Wow…
Oh, wow! That’s a whole subset…!
Holy cow! [Breathing with emotion]
Oh… [Very sweetly] Thank you… [eyes glistening with tears]
I feel released. Don’t know how long that will last… But I feel released… Thank you…
in God's peace 