Week #7 (5/26/2010)

In the midst of a reactive pattern - a thought structure that, in the past, may have held you tightly bound within its grasp through identification/engagement for minutes, hours or longer, with no apparent freedom from its grip - in the midst of that pattern, focus with equanimity on just this breath.

It's simple. And not always easy because of the emotional component! But doing it extricates you for that one breath from the burden of identification with/ engagement in/ reaction to, the “story” being created by the thought structure. It also shows you without doubt that there is a perspective in that equanimity that makes it possible for you to acknowledge the thought pattern, but not engage in it… it’s possible to not react – “not scratch the itch.”

Keeping the focus on the sensation of breath with equanimity, it can be "seen" that the habitual thought structure is simply thought, running on by itself, creating a story of “you.” It is seen as only a thought story, not reality, not who you are. The apparent grip that the mental/emotional thought structure had on you is dissolved: no identification with the “you” story, no grip! And in the absence of identification with the “you” story, what remains is awareness. Then, whatever happens next happens from that perspective of awareness and not from the perspective of a story of “you.” (“When the experiencer falls away, then there is total equanimity with whatever arises…” - Jeff Foster, The Revelation of Oneness)

Focusing on just this breath with equanimity loosens the identification as a personal sense-of-self and “opens the door” to focusing in awareness. Being focused in awareness can “open the door” to just Beingness. Beingness is Life living itself without the “middleman” thought filter of the separate-seeming, personal sense-of-self: without the "you," the “me.” It's Life living itself without being a “someone” or “something.” It’s liberation, freedom. It's being in the world, but not of the world.