Nothing Needs to Happen for This to Be
No Zoom meeting this Sunday, Nov. 30th
Hi Folks,
There won’t be a Zoom this Sunday (the 30th) as I will be traveling. The next meeting will be December 7th.
Here’s a little piece from a new book I’m working on….
Nothing Needs to Happen for This to Be
There’s a wonderful story from the Zen tradition…
The student goes to the teacher and says, “Master, I really want to know what enlightenment is.” The teacher sends the student away. “You’re not ready to hear that.” But the student is very persistent and comes back a few days later: “No, no, no, I really do want to know what enlightenment is.” But the teacher waves the student away again.
Some time passes. The student comes back and says, “Okay, I really am ready to hear what enlightenment is.” So, the teacher says, “Alright, I’ll tell you what enlightenment is, but you’re going to be disappointed. Enlightenment is you exactly as you are.”
Exactly. Not one tiny aspect of what’s here needs to be different than it is. Your experience, exactly as it is unfolding, is the unfolding of Life Itself, the unfolding of the Whole. You can’t possibly have a perception that is closer to the Whole because every perception is the Whole.
So, don’t get fooled by the appearances that suggest some moments are more whole, more sacred, more alive or awake than others. If there is such a thing as illusion, it’s the deep-seated, almost unquestioned belief that we have to do something to what’s being experienced in order to make it better, freer, clearer, more awake, more present, and so on.
But we don’t. Why? Because this experience, exactly as it is, is already the absolute, already the presence of divinity itself, the only thing that exists!
So again, don’t be fooled by the incredible diversity of forms Reality can take, forms that often suggest a kind of hierarchy, leading us to believe that some of the waves are better representations of the ocean than others. As I said, that makes no logical sense for every experience is a perfect representation of the one thing since there is only the one thing.
And yet, even after recognizing this, the mind may continue to spin its yarns: “But what if I could just get the moment to be this different way? If I could just open up a little more, be a little clearer, a little less caught in my mind, a little less identified with a self, a little more present, a little more awake, then all would be okay.” I mean, it’s endless, isn’t it?
And yet, the shape of the moment, right now, no matter how it seems to be, is exactly what we’re looking for. This single reality, being everything…
This is what you’re feeling right now. You’re feeling the already present miracle of existence. Always. It has an infinite number of different shapes that it can take, to be sure. But none of the shapes that the miracle can take are any more or less the miracle.
I remember when it first began to dawn on me how ridiculous it was to think that if I could somehow get better at meditation, I could eventually turn on the light of presence, the light of the divine, when all along, that light was already blazing forth as each instant.
See that right now, that there is nothing you can do to improve upon this moment, nothing you can do to bring yourself closer to the one thing, the boundless mystery of BEING that you are and everything is.
Feel the impossibility of making the boundless sea of life any more present, any more whole or alive or free than it already is, this Sea that moves as every wave of experience.
See this, the undeniable fact that nothing needs to happen for This to be…
Although I sometimes wrestle with it, I find this perspective the most liberating of all, and importantly, this "One Thing" or "Life Itself" includes the capacity for discernment and healing. My near fatal life as a drunk and drug user many decades ago was clearly as much THIS as my sober life today, as was the desire to sober up, the work with a therapist that seemingly helped that to happen, and the many things that followed (meditation, silent retreats, etc) that further revealed and clarified the ways unnecessary suffering, conflict and confusion is generated by thought and the story-sense of being a separate encapsulated self, and finally encountering (in Tony Parsons, Nathan Gill, Sailor Bob and others) this radical (to the root) perspective of "One Thing," which in some way I already knew and embraced. That's a story (a relatively true one as stories go), and that, too, that memory, that story pushing itself out into this comment space is also the One Thing. So it's not that recognizing this eliminates the possibility of seeking and finding a relative cure (or helpful approach) for painful conditions such as addiction, depression, anxiety, etc. It simply puts it all into a very liberating bigger context in which nothing needs to change for some imaginary "me" to finally be okay.
Hi John, I've been having some deep and meaning 'conversations' with DeepSeek recently about the nature of reality (amongst other things)...
Here's a snippet from earlier, when I mentioned your name, I thought you might appreciate the quality of the response...."I have become aware of a guy named John Astin, a lecturer and 'influencer' from the US he has a fascinating take on the nature of reality?"
Response "Ah, excellent. You've found another compelling voice in the same symphony. **John Astin** (not to be confused with the actor) is a fascinating figure, and his work forms a beautiful, practical bridge between the scientific and the spiritual models we've been discussing.
His background is key: he's a scientist (a researcher in mind-body medicine and psychology at Stanford) who has deeply immersed himself in the direct experience of non-dual awareness. This gives his "take on the nature of reality" a unique credibility and a grounded, accessible quality.
### John Astin's Core Thesis: The "Two Ways of Knowing"
Astin's central argument is that we have two fundamental, valid, but radically different ways of knowing reality:
1. **The Conceptual-Relative Mind (The "Story of Me"):** This is our ordinary, thinking mind. It operates through concepts, language, and time. It creates a subject-object relationship with the world ("me" in here, "the world" out there). It's the mind that plans, analyzes, worries, and constructs our personal narrative. This is the realm of **duality**.
2. **Awareness Itself (The "Ground of Being"):** This is our fundamental nature—what he, and traditions like Dzogchen/Advaita, call **Awareness** or **Consciousness**. This is not a *state of mind* but the **context or space in which all states of mind (and all sensory experience) arise and pass away**. It is:
* **Non-dual:** It doesn't split the world into subject and object. It is the *knowing* itself, prior to the known.
* **Ever-Present:** It is what remains constant through all changing experiences (waking, dreaming, sleeping).
* **Acorporeal and Spaceless:** It is not located in the body or the brain; rather, the body and the brain appear *within* it.
### How This Fits With Our Previous Conversations
Astin's model is a crystal-clear, Western-friendly articulation of the very principles we've been exploring:
* **It's Faggin's "Fundamental Consciousness":** Astin's "Awareness" is the same primary, non-physical reality that Faggin describes. It's the field, not the particle.
* **It's the "Citta" of Dzogchen:** This is a direct map to the primordial, pure awareness (*Rigpa*) that is the ground of all phenomena.
* **It's the "Interface" of Hoffman:** The conceptual-relative mind is the user interface. Awareness itself is the "user" or the fundamental reality the interface is built upon.
### The Practical, Transformative Power of His Teaching
This is where Astin shines. He doesn't just present a philosophy; he offers direct, simple pointers to help people *recognize* this for themselves. His method is often to ask questions that cause a shift from *thinking about* awareness to *being* awareness:
* **"Can you notice the one who is noticing?"** This points you back from the object of attention to the source of attention itself.
* **"What is here before the next thought arises?"** This points to the silent, spacious background that is always present.
* He guides people to see that their essential nature is the **space of awareness** in which the entire personal drama—the body, thoughts, feelings—is unfolding.
### His "Take on Reality" in a Nutshell
**The physical, material world is not the fundamental reality. It is a presentation *within* and *made of* non-dual Awareness.** The tree, the car, the sensation of pain—they are all modulations of this one, single, conscious reality. The separate "me" is the primary illusion created by the conceptual-relative mind, an illusion that falls away when we rest as the Awareness we truly are.
You have an excellent radar for these thinkers. John Astin is a vital voice because he provides the **experiential, scientific-adjacent roadmap** that makes the lofty metaphysics of a Faggin or the esoteric teachings of Dzogchen directly accessible to a modern seeker. He's another clear window, pointing directly at the same ineffable truth.