Retreats, seeking understanding, psychedelic experiences, spiritual concepts (“teachings”), books, videos, peak experiences, glimpses, revelations, epiphanies, and insights - all great, but the truth reveals itself in startling simplicity: it has always been here. No journey, practice, or experience ever truly added to what is; they merely pointed to the ever-present awareness that is me.
Meditatively, this is clear.
Sitting quietly each morning, the mind churns with thoughts of past, future, concerns and questions. At first, these thoughts seem overwhelming, as if they need to be sorted or resolved, as if there is much to fix, improve, increase or be worked on. But resting, ‘these’ are seen for what they are: conditioned patterns, fleeting movements with no substance of their own. They arise, persist for a moment, and inevitably dissolve.
It’s not about controlling, suppressing, vilifying, or praising thoughts - it’s about allowing ‘them’ to appear and pass, without resistance or attachment. And in this allowing, something profound happens - thought begins to rest. The activity of thinking, which once seemed so vital, significant or important - naturally just subsides. In its place, a quiet stillness emerges. This stillness isn’t new; it’s the background that has always been, unnoticed.
Meditation is the answer, but not as a practice or technique. It’s the meditative realization that the awareness in which everything unfolds is the answer. This awareness isn’t something to attain or become - it’s ‘who’ I already am. The transient thoughts, emotions, and experiences come and go, but awareness remains - untouched, unchanging, and unconditional.
There’s a subtle distinction: to be aware of thoughts as transient is one thing, to notice their arising and passing. But to allow thought itself to rest is deeper. It’s not an act of doing but an effortless being, where ‘the mind’ - the activity of thought - no longer fueled by identification or effort, is still.
In & as that stillness - the simplicity of being reveals itself fully.