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“EVERYTHING IS AN OPPORTUNITY”

Every moment is an opportunity for self-observation and self-inquiry—an opportunity to practice simply being as awareness.

Realize that thoughts, emotions, or sensations are merely things that arise and naturally fade away.

Realize that experiences, too, are transient and can never truly become “mine.”

Also, realize that the memories associated with them—that is, the mind’s interpretations of those experiences—shift and change as insight deepens for awareness.

Recognize the fact that, in other words, memories are always distorted by the projections and interpretations of the “I” at that specific moment.

Recognize, too, that when the “I” react to “what is here and now”—such as resistance or control—the underlying thought driving that reaction (a thought that serves as one of cause for dependent origination) follows a pattern shaped within the environment as the condition in which you lived before awareness began to awaken.

Recognize that many emotions are generated by concepts and beliefs, including those that operate unconsciously.

Recognize, too, that sensations can vary depending on physical characteristics.

See through what the “I” am unconsciously trying to gain—or avoid—by assigning special meaning to these things, and that also they do not align with awareness in its divine nature at all.

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Additionally, direct the following crucial question deep within the self:

“Who, exactly, is aware of these things?”

It is not the story of “I.”
It is not “my” body.

In this process, focus not on thinking, but on seeing, seeing through the facts.

And be aware of the mind (the “I,” thoughts, the ego) attentively as it vigilantly attempts to become someone, or tries to interpret the situation with known knowledge, and of the awareness when it unknowingly identifies with that mind by confusion.

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If awareness realizes that thoughts, emotions, sensations, experiences, and even memories are merely transient phenomena that arise and pass away, then every moment becomes an opportunity to simply abide as the awareness that witnesses them coming and going.

If there are moments when you are not as awareness but as “I,” recognize the presence of attachment as ownership born from unresolved issues, unsublimated pain, to “my” experiences and the memories formed by interpreting them.

If realization is genuine—a true insight born of surrendering all resistance—then in that moment, the pain will be fully felt and thereby sublimated, and so the attachment will naturally be let go without any effort.

Furthermore, once awareness realizes that it is awareness itself rather than the narrative of the “I,” try setting aside a few days or few weeks to spend with people who are psychologically very close to you, and practice “being in the now.”

Even if they were previously relationships that easily stir up emotions or trigger psychological pain and suffering, when abiding as awareness, it can easily witness that thoughts, emotions, sensations, experiences, and memories are merely transient phenomena, which come and go. Awareness can also naturally sublimate an emotion by feeling it fully without clinging to a specific thought that might amplify anger, or without controlling or suppressing. Furthermore, when it sees through—regardless of how the other person treats you—there is no need to look down on them or place them above itself, and that even their expressions, just as they are, are merely transient events arising and passing away, awareness will find no need to offer any resistance to reality as it is.

If, through self-observation and self-inquiry, awareness has been effortlessly dismantling the various narratives of the “I” by seeing through their lack of substance, awareness will come to understand the following: however others treat you is simply a reflection of how they treat themselves. While it represents the best of their understanding of the world and the self at the moment, it does not define who they are; rather, it is merely a temporary phenomenon—arising from the convergence of various conditions and the concepts they consciously or unconsciously hold—in other words, it is simply dependent origination.

Furthermore, when the awareness perceives the absolute lack of separation or division in the quiet, serene awareness even through others physically, that lies beneath it all, it will naturally become an opportunity for compassion to deepen.

When there is no “I” left to defend, there is no urge to demand for the awareness that they change their attitude, nor is there any need for conflict; naturally, awareness will not lose itself in thoughts aimed at trying to alter them.

Awareness will simply witness and let even those thoughts to arise and pass away on their own.

Inner serenity remains undisturbed as pure presence; even experience or the memory of the “I” being belittled can become an opportunity—by seeing through to its root such as interpretation, assumption, or bias—to be let go of it without effort, it can inevitably liberate Awareness from unconscious attachment which has been held onto.

In time, awareness may finally come to see that the life lived as a narrative of the I” or “we” was neither irrelevant nor unnecessary to it. It may realize that the very suffering born of identifying with “I” was essential for awakening to the “Self”—that is, the divinity that is awareness itself. And it comes to know that all these aspects and pure presence are merely two sides of the same coin in perception; that each holds precious value, and that they all arise exactly as they are. (OM 🙏)