At this stage I understand this article on an intellectual level and not on a being level, which itself establishes that I’m still buying in the concepts of past, present & future, and not in the NOW. I still have some more travelling to do, I guess.

Excellent article.

It seems like a lot of what I have been attempting to do is desribed above particularly with the matter of mind wandering and letting thought go or even being present to what’s arising in my mind and letting my concepts go - like I’m not seeing the cup as it is - only my ideas about the cup. Sometimes spontaneously thoughts about the “cup” release and there’s something exquisite I feel joined with and then it’s covered over again. The mental constructs - or concepts veil seeing or perceiving past the concepts to what lies “beyond”.

You both have noticed the way our ‘thinking’ seems to get in the way of direct perception. It’s easy to find ourselves in a place where we feel we can ‘understand’ these ideas, but we can’t ‘feel’ them. Often, a shift comes when we see that the thinking is just as much a part of ‘reality’ as anything else. There is a purity in seeing a cup without thought, but there is just as much purity in seeing our thought of a cup. Awareness is key — just being able to see what’s there, without our constant habits of discriminating and deciding that one way of seeing is ‘right’ and another ‘wrong’. In this sense, trying to discover something beyond our usual dualistic mindset is a fruitless quest — because our dualistic mindset itself is an intimate part of the unfolding reality.

Hugs to you both,
Kenton