Ian Grindey

Life is full of suffering. It’s unevenly distributed in tragic ways — I would never dispute that. But even the best and luckiest and most privileged life has an unfortunate share of suffering in it. And there are choices to be made: How much do we focus on it? How much do we dwell on it? How much do we speak of it? How do we speak of it? And how mu... See more

If you don’t take control of your own beliefs, values, and moral principles, then someone else will determine them for you .

The quiet knowledge ‘I am’ shines steadily, whatever the circumstances. When stripped of the qualities it temporarily seems to acquire from thoughts, feelings and sensations, being reveals itself as open, undivided, ever-present and deeply peaceful. It is not something you possess; it is what you are.

And just as changing the movie has no effect on the nature of the screen, so the changing content of experience has no effect on your essential being. Being remains in its own peaceful, luminous, unchanging condition. You cannot even say it is ‘your’ being. Being does not belong to you as a person. You, as a person, belong to being.

Being shines in the midst of all experience. In fact, you could say that all experience is a colouring of being, just as the movie is a colouring of the screen. Countless colours, yet always the same colourless screen; countless experiences, yet always the same transparent, silent, peaceful being.

When you say, ‘I am lonely’ or ‘I am anxious’, the ‘I am’ is present. When you say, ‘I am depressed’ or ‘I am upset’, the ‘I am’ is present. When you say, ‘I am married’ or ‘I am single’, ‘I am’ is still there. When you say, ‘I am healthy’ or ‘I am sick’, the same ‘I am’ remains.

And just as you don’t need to look away from the movie to notice the screen, you don’t need to turn away from experience to remain in touch with being. It takes only the smallest shift in attention, but that subtle shift is the difference between sorrow and peace.