Surrendering does not involve preparing for a soft landing; it means just landing on hard, ordinary ground, on rocky, wild countryside. Once we open ourselves, then we land on what is.

The lord of mind refers to the effort of consciousness to maintain awareness of itself.

Self-evaluation and self-criticism are, basically, neurotic tendencies which derive from our not having enough confidence in ourselves, confidence in the sense of seeing what we are, knowing what we are, knowing that we can afford to open. We can afford to surrender that raw and rugged neurotic quality of self and step out of fascination, step out

Or we might even succeed at some form of dualistic concentration practice and experience a kind of “mystical state.” In such cases we might appear quite tranquil and religious in the conventional sense. But we would constantly have to charge up and maintain our “mystical state” and there would be a continual sense of appreciation, the repeated act

The teachings are not passed along as information, handed down as a grandfather tells traditional folktales to his grandchildren. It does not work that way. It is a real experience.

the lords are constantly trying to activate these thoughts, trying to create a constant overlapping of thoughts so that nothing can be seen beyond them.

He discovered that struggling to find answers did not work. It was only when there were gaps in his struggle that insights came to him. He began to realize that there was a sane, awake quality within him which manifested itself only in the absence of struggle. So the practice of meditation involves “letting be.”

Once one is aware of the space between the situation and oneself, then anything can happen in that space.

You must accept yourself as you are, instead of as you would like to be, which means giving up self-deception and wishful thinking. Your whole makeup and personality characteristics must be recognized, accepted, and then you might find some inspiration.