The art of presence

The beauty of Buddhism is being repackaged and sold. Yes, it takes practice to stay in the moment of now to experience life and heal ourselves, but there is no substitute for practice, and buying books and audio material isn’t going to get you further along on the path. The seller’s offer is that with his personal guidance, you will learn how to break free from the illusion of separation from the outside world, and how to work with the accumulation of past suffering and remove its grip (and much more as the sales pitch goes). I’ll give you the secret, and it can be found in much better works (it can be found in books that are fifty years old or older), and that secret is: The feeling of separation is the source of anxiety in life. How have great literary works and teachers/students of existence answered the concept of separation? Love – but not love in the modern or popular sense; love as a state of giving to others, without limiting itself to those we know and like – love for all. Wherever this active form of love is, separation disappears or lessens. And as for dealing with the accumulation of suffering, that is nothing more than accepting that life offers us it, and so is a natural part of existence, while false suffering are the burdens that we place on ourselves that do not actually exist, other than the weight we give them in our mind. An interesting example of the futility of enhancing our presence and the joy of unraveling the simple act of being is found in the No Expert book.

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