Being Just This Moment, Joan Tollifson

www.scienceandn...
Everything is dissolving instant by instant like snowflakes in a fire. And every night in deep sleep, the whole show vanishes completely along with the phantom observer. What remains? Any answer (anything perceivable or conceivable) is absent in deep sleep. And yet, what remains in deep sleep is Here / Now, showing up as dogs and cats, beaver dams and skyscrapers, hurricanes and torrid love affairs, thoughts and sensations. Are we separate from this ever-present, ever-changing happening? Are we in control of it? Is anything that shows up actually a distraction or a mistake? Is anything lacking or in excess? Do we really know what anything is? Is this event we call the universe made of atoms and molecules or is it pure consciousness? Is it physical matter or a dream without substance? Is consciousness an experience of the brain, or is the brain an appearance in consciousness? Perhaps our debates about
which comes first‚the chicken or the egg, mind or matter‚ assume divisions and entities that don‚ actually exist in the ways we think they do. The bare actuality of present experiencing is immediate and impossible to doubt. What we can doubt and argue about are all the ideas, interpretations and explanations of this living reality‚the maps and models drawn by conceptual thought. In the openness and simplicity of being just this moment, we may discover that nothing is missing, that we are free to be just as we are, and that we are always already home.
Joan Tollifson invites us to wake up to the aliveness and freedom of open, aware presence, and to discover the simplicity of being this moment, just as it is. Joan has an affinity with Buddhism and Advaita but belongs to no particular tradition. She holds meetings on nonduality and living in presence and is the author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life, Awake in the Heartland, Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs about Nonduality, Nothing to Grasp, and a forthcoming book about aging and death. Joan lives in southern Oregon.
www.joantollifs...

[@anoshya]

She has a great smile and laugh..like a child...very nice to see

[@darrenfromla]

For me, the most valuable thing I take away from Tollifson is that we have no idea what any of this is. 28:00 We use words to try to capture it like "consciousness" or "reality" or "truth" but these are abstractions. All we know is the knowing of this moment, whatever it holds and for me, that gets me off the non dual treadmill of trying to conceptualize and define what the heck is going on.

[@bob9732]

Great relaxing talk. Thanks Joan!

[@LOV3CRAF7]

Refreshing. Namaste

[@joseignacioarceluscalamend4104]

Many thanks, Milla esker Nice Joan and very helpful

[@dparansky]

❤️❤️❤️Joan

[@thegodsquad9279]

wonderful.

[@milanhamilton9126]

We are bringing Joan into our Tuesday night sangha via UTube. Thanks. MM We are bringing Joan into our Tuesday night sangha via UTube. Thanks. MM

[@50870133]

24:23 on quitting smoking "technique".

[@laisa.]

I feel like if we didn't have sleep we wouldn't have quite so many questions.. idk. 🙂

[@purumr]

For the lady asking question on what's the difference between consciousness/awareness and experience, both are technically one and the same right.

[@TheNeilDarby]

om.. . . . . . .

[@nikan4now]

If there was no "me", nobody would be responsible for their actions. You could just say certain urges arose and actions were taken! You could justify any wrongdoing with this.

[@jesuisravi]

+Nikan RT Peole who justify shitty behavior on the grounds that actions are spontaneous and inevitable eventually learn that guilt and remorse are also spontaneous and inevitable.

[@sbklein]

"guilt and remorse are also spontaneous and inevitable." why?

[@jesuisravi]

if you are capable of remorse and guilt (some aren't) and if you see the truth of universal spontaneity, and you start behaving in ways that hurt others and your mind says, " All this is just happening, how can I be to blame" and you go on like this...eventually you will find out what I meant in the above comment about the spontaneity of guilt and remorse. It is ALL spontaneous, the crime and the punishment. .

[@sbklein]

Sorry -- now totally confused by the language being adopted. As one example, what is spontaneity? It is described as inevitable. If so, is this an adoption of some form of Laplacian determinism -- i.e., no free will? If it is (and I cannot be sure from the explanation offered), how can anyone demonstrate the absence of X (e.g., free will)? If it is not, then I am totally lost by your comments (i.e., for me at least, the words on display do not communicate the sentiments they presumably are meant to convey).

[@jesuisravi]

a good way to discover what is spontaneity is to meditate. Just watch what happens when you sit still and shut up. Sooner or later it may suddenly occur to you that it is all just happening by itself--all includes your thought, feelings, decisions, resolutions etc. Might take a couple of years, maybe longer even. Most folks aren't interested in this kind of outlay of time for a discovery that isn't guaranteed. Well, that's how it is. It's not the only way.