'Sailor' Bob Adamson
Hsin Hsin Ming
Third Zen Patriarch [606AD]
Endless Thinking
The Answer is NOT in the Mind
Your very nature is Awareness and it is 'no-thing'.
The Mind ( thoughts, concepts) are objects that appear in that Awareness.
Thoughts and concepts are objects and it is not possible to represent 'no-thing' by the use of objects.
Your very nature cannot be expressed in words, or concepts. It is ineffable. It cannot be known with the mind. It cannot be defined, categorized, analyzed, compared or judged.
Any attempt to define it, analyze it, compare it, or categorize it means that first it has to be conceptualized. It is only the conceptualization that can be defined, categorized, analyzed, compared or judged.
Looking in the mind for the answers about our True Nature is looking 100% in the wrong direction.
There is no answer in the mind, there is no test for the mind that will tell you that you understand. The mind cannot run a 'supervisory' role over what is arising in you. It cannot grasp what is happening and will say nothing is happening - as it is 'no thing'. There is nothing that the mind can possibly 'know' that will tell you that you have 'got it'. No confirmation is available from there.
We are the one 'who is looking at those thoughts'.
"What you are looking for ... is what is looking."
"You already are what you seek."
At this moment you cannot negate that you exist (you are Present) and that you are aware.
Your essential nature is this Presence / Awareness.
The answer is not an object, not found in thought, not in the mind
The real answer lies in the re-cognition of your own true nature.
Seeing the True as True and the False as False.
See that and seeking ends.
Jean Klein
"The timeless non-state cannot be achieved because the mind cannot evolve towards it. The mind can only bring you to the threshold. "
Nisargadatta
Written by Mike Graham, 19 Jan 2008, last edited 29 November 2009
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Alan Watts