Stuart Evans

Full surrender requires deep relaxation on a level of your being that is hard to see until you squint at yourself with some persistence. The best I can describe it is: “the calming of the deep elemental scared animal part of you that rejects existence and the possibility of death by constantly getting lost in notions of what else should be the case... See more

You have to let go of these many layers of constriction, one after the other. Often, this letting go requires the adoption of different practices at different times. Meditators often drift through traditions, for the simple reason that the average person’s head contains heterogeneous clusters of difficulty. Complicated.

“What is stopping me from surrendering fully and open-heartedly to my entire existence, in this moment?”

It is my experience that The Other Thing isn’t some special construction produced with effort, like a cabin you build. Instead, it’s what happens when you are fully at peace with the facts of life and death, yourself and your place in the univers... See more

The Other Thing.

It’s a fundamentally different character of experience, in which the critical quality of the problem-oriented mode is suspended. You have the intuitive sense that everything is perfect and unfolding as it should be, and that there is no separation between oneself and this unfurling universe. Problems are problems, and suffering is ... See more

Human beings are purpose-oriented creatures on a deep level, no matter what some hippies will tell you. But the default mode, while helpful for solving problems, can be claustrophobic and stressful, and it limits the scope of what you notice. There is a strong bias towards only, or mostly, seeing things that are relevant to your goals and identity.... See more

I think that words like “enlightenment” are silly, and I certainly wouldn’t self-apply them. To me, that terminology is a vain attempt to wrest a prize from the unending mystery. Nothing and nobody is “done,” or perfected. Everything is ongoing, and my current mental condition, as solid as it feels, might disappear tomorrow, or might deepen far bey... See more

And then, one day, you realize: oh, there’s no secret technique. There’s no secret anything. The question itself is what’s stopping me from fully embracing reality. I’m not seeing what’s already there, precisely because I’m searching for it. The last distortion I’m placing between myself and the Spirit is the urge to see it. The search is the final... See more