October 9, 2024
This Is It: Waking Up and Growing Up
Esto Es: Despertar y Madurar
This session explores the distinction between psychological growth and spiritual awakening, centered on the pointer 'this is it' as a direct indication that what we seek is already present. Through dialogues, the teacher addresses the literalness of direct pointing, the role of meditation and willpower, energetic experience in shared presence, and the recognition that peace is prior to both thought and identification.
teaching
This Is It
A reflection on the distinction between growing up and waking up, and why both matter even though they point in fundamentally different directions.
dialogue
Whatever Is Happening Is It
A student asks what the teacher means by "this is it," and whether it simply refers to whatever is happening right now.
teaching
This Is It
A reflection on the teaching that what we are looking for is already here, and why that is so easy to overlook.
dialogue
The Literal and the Poetic
A student reflects on the deepening of presence and the merging of waking up and growing up, leading into a discussion about how a teacher's words, once heard as abstract poetry, reveal themselves to be startlingly literal and direct.
dialogue
The Literal Truth
A student shares experiences of sensing subtle energetic presence in another person, leading to a discussion about the nature of literalness in spiritual teaching and why direct pointing is so often misunderstood.
teaching
Energetics and the Mystery of Shared Presence
A reflection on how energetic experience intensifies through practice and shared gathering, and how even bliss must be held without preference.
dialogue
The Peace That Knows Both Sides
A student explores the trap of choosing between thoughtless peace and identification, and the teacher points to that which is prior to both.
dialogue
The Mirror in Another Person
A student reflects on an experience of profound recognition that arises in the presence of a particular teacher, and what it means that the source of that recognition is oneself.
dialogue
The Radicalness of Not Being Anyone
A student revisits a previous exchange about chronic irritability and struggles with how literal and radical the teacher's pointer really is: that the discomfort is not a psychological problem to fix, but a direct consequence of identifying as a separate self.
dialogue
The Habit You're Fighting Is the One You're Choosing
A student describes clearly seeing through the sense of self in direct investigation, yet struggles with the persistent habit of identification in everyday life. The teacher points to a subtler layer: the sense that this habit is "happening to me" is itself the identification, and the dynamic is being chosen, not merely endured.