What is beyond doubt takes no effort to maintain.

“The entirety of practical spirituality consists of distinguishing fantasy from actuality.

Spirituality is the art of distinguishing fantasy from actuality

The entirety of practical spirituality consists of distinguishing fantasy from actuality. The spiritual problem consists of not being able to distinguish fantasy from actuality… It’s not that fantasy is bad, it’s not that fantasy is wrong, and it’s not that imagination needs to be squelched or repressed. It just needs to be seen as it is for what it is.

Peter Brown

This. This, that is utterly inconceivable and yet totally obvious and impossible to avoid.

Joan Tollifson

Thoughts are stories. Emotions are energy. Connect the two and cling to either or both creates suffering. To see through them and show their essential transient nature reveals the pristine neutral clarity of open empty awareness which precedes all experience.

Stories are sophisticated patterns and we have evolved to create patterns out of chaos to survive. What we haven’t learned to do, yet, is recognise how this behaviour confines and limits us.

We are constantly told that we love stories. I would amend that to; we are addicted to stories. Stories create meaning but meaning is comforting and comfort imprisons us. If we were truly free we would see (through) stories for the ephemera they are.

Nihilism is just another story. Open awareness is that which is prior to, and allows for, all stories to appear and disappear as they inevitably will.

The fewer stories and narratives we have running in our minds the freer we become.

As open awareness, walking along a deserted beach or a tranquil field is no different than being in the midst of the teeming cacophony of a busy city.