The “distance” we hold is often in direct proportion to how much emotional pain we were exposed to with emotional connections earlier in our lives.

Just be willing to look. And keep looking. Don’t judge. Don’t pick and choose. Don’t throw anything out. Don’t try to add anything. Keep looking until the looking is all that’s left, and that looking is nondualistic, meaning intimate beyond compare and thoroughly satisfying. This is not a complicated process.

If you find yourself in that pure looking-seeing-being but landing nowhere specific and there are no thoughts, you are doing pure self-inquiry. Just keep at it. Stay in the gap.

Encountering people who trigger various emotional responses in you is valuable beyond measure when approached with openness and a willingness to let the situation reveal what it has to offer.

Over time it will become clearer. What happens is the openness and the nonjudgmental investigation of our immediate experience becomes deeply enjoyable. When this enjoyment comes, you will start to sense the natural curious innocence that inquiry is touching into. This curious innocence as we surrender to this sacred rite is the exact set of

When a painful or recurring thought pattern occurs, try speaking directly to and assure it that it is perfectly welcome in your experience right now.

take any belief and ask yourself, “Can I find any evidence of this belief being true in my immediate (direct) experience?” For instance, we might notice the belief, “The experience of presence and clarity that was here yesterday seems to be gone today.” Then we put our attention fully into the sounds in our environment. Is there evidence here for

So, what to do with an emotion once we recognize its presence? Is it enough to simply notice, acknowledge, and experience the emotion to the best of your ability? Yes, it is. It always is. This is great news.

Our ability to run off into thoughts and stories that used to offer us false comfort in the form of distraction is now waning. At other times, there is peace, timelessness, and flow. It becomes obvious that we are not in control of when we feel peace and clarity, and when we feel resistance patterns and disorientation. With this recognition, a