The valley spirt never dies.
Call it the mystery, the woman.

The mystery, the Door of the Woman
is the root of earth and heaven.

Forever this endures, forever.
and all its uses are easy – Tao Te Ching

A Breath held in the Stillness
In the hush before the breath, where no wind stirs, no word is said,
the valley waits, void not empty, full of becoming.

From silence, the question rises, a cry from morning earth.
No answer comes, only quiet spinning in stillness.

The seeker kneels, aching for comfort, but finds only the hush.
Until the hush becomes the comfort, questions held, the ache resolves.

Nothing is born here, yet all things arise.
Nothing dies here, yet all things return.

Held in the stillness, the world turns without effort.
Held in the silence, the heart remembers its source.

Forever this endures. Forever it flows.
And all its uses are easy.

Hi Anita

On a side note, I judge wisdom traditions for not being clear and straightforward. If they were clear and straightforward, they wouldn’t be so easy to misinterpret..

I don’t disagree, however the inner monk wants me to point out that one the teaching are realized they are straightforward. ‘We work for which no work is required’.

Wisdom traditions carry the challenge of using language to speak about what ultimately can’t be named. They point beyond concepts toward direct experience. That’s tricky, because the moment we use words, we enter the realm of duality, this vs. that, subject vs. object.

From childhood, we learn to use words to survive and belong, a development rooted in the lower chakras (1–3), which focus on navigating the external world (includes religious training). Language is essential, but it replaces direct experience with symbols. Over time, we forget what we once knew before words: that life is a single, continuous unfolding, not a set of opposites.

In Jungian psychology, the final stage of individuation is to come to terms with the problem of opposites, the tension of duality. Jung emphasized the heart chakra as the heart’s way of knowing doesn’t speak in definitions, but in images, stories, and felt experience. The heart holds paradox rather than resolving it allowing our judgments to loosen.

When wisdom traditions become institutions, they often forget that the path is not the destination. Hence those provocative sayings: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” or “One must lose God to find G_d.” Such teachings are reminders that clinging to the form of wisdom can obscure its living truth.

At their best, when we hold language lightly, wisdom traditions invite us into a different way of seeing one that can’t be reduced to a formula. That’s why they often speak in metaphor, myth, and paradox: not to confuse, but to awaken us to the experience itself.

Beyond institutional constructs, these teachings don’t actually ask for belief, they invite participation. They’re not doctrines to accept, but mirrors reflecting us back into direct awareness.

For fun: find the simplicity with the Ask that we “love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself” and merge it to Buddhist teachings. Play with the word ‘God’ as a noun, and then as a symbol/verb and notice how everything changes.

Hi Anita

“There’s method to the madness when the wisdom traditions warn us not to judge. The truth is, we’re really not that great at it.”- maybe wisdom traditions would be wiser recommend less judging rather than no judging at all..?

I mean, what I read comes across as Thou Shall Not Judge! The hyena in me cannot not judge for long, can yours?

You’re right wisdom traditions, especially when codified, are often interpreted as saying “Do not judge.” But I think that’s a misreading. Look closer, and it’s less “Thou shalt not judge” and more “Judge with care.” as Jesus warns, “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and then goes on to teach how to judge with humility and self-awareness. That lands in a similar space to what you’re pointing toward.

For me, this aligns with the call to love our neighbors as ourselves. Through the lens of nonduality, everything is connected. So when we judge our neighbors, we’re also judging and revealing ourselves.

As for the hyena: if we’re speaking in Freudian terms, that sounds like the Id. But the Id doesn’t judge, it wants, it craves. It’s the Ego that judges, and the Superego that moralizes. The hyena doesn’t weigh morality; it just pounces.

Personally, I don’t see my Id as a hyena. I think of it more like a Labrador Retriever — enthusiastic, loyal, and occasionally getting itself into trouble. But judgment? That’s the job of the inner monk, not the inner puppy. And the puppy? It can be house trained 🙂

Its not always noticed but language has a huge role when it comes to duality and often creates much of our suffering. The “fall” into ego consciousness can’t be separated from language leaving me to wonder if language is the ego’s or ‘Life’ way of trying to explain and know itself.

Language is powerful, but it relies on duality, it needs opposites to make meaning. We say “light” because we know “dark.” We say “me” because we know “you.” In this way, language itself is born from the awakened awareness of separation and complicated things further. The moment we speak, have a thought, we divide and exit any pure non-dual state.

Think of the experience of AUM, surrounded by silence, the sound of Life itself, rising and returning to stillness. The rhythm of being. The breath of creation.

Contemplative traditions honor silence because silence remembers what came before words. It touches the unity that existed before we began to name and divide. God and silence… interconnected?

Last night I watched a show about a priest who left the Church after a tragedy. He had prayed and pleaded, but God’s response was silence. He judged silence as absence, as a non-response.

Today I wonder if the Priest understood… That perhaps silence was the only place God could still be found, not to give answers, but to offer a return to the whole… Beyond the noise of certainty. Beyond the language of explanation.
Maybe silence isn’t what remains after tragedy, it’s what holds it and us?

Hi Anita

I’ll try to answer the question simply. (you should see my initial response as I tried to sort though my thoughts which I may share after) 🙂

Imagine you’re a child playing with building blocks. At first, there’s just the blocks and the joy of playing. But then, you start sorting them: red blocks here, blue blocks there. You say, “This one is mine,” and “That one is not.”, “This one I like”, This one I don’t” That’s the moment the mind begins to divide into “me” and “not me,” “good” and “bad,” “us” and “them.”

Or imagine you’re a child standing in front of a mirror. At first you don’t know the difference between you and your reflection. You just see movement, light, presence. But as you grow, you learn to say “me” and “not me.” That’s the beginning of separation, of seeing yourself as one thing, and everything else as something else.

Hyenas, like you said, act from instinct. They haven’t “fallen” into consciousness. They flow with life as it is, responding from instinct protecting their space and chase away others. That’s nature doing its job. Life being Life. But humans have something extra: we can watch our thoughts. We can notice when we’re sorting the blocks too tightly, or when we’re afraid of a block just because it’s different.

Humans have a special kind of awareness. We think we name, we measure. We say “this is right,” “that is wrong,” “you are different from me.” This kind of thinking, what some call ego-consciousness is duality which helps us build language, culture, and meaning. But it also creates division and suffering. It can make us feel separate, alone, or afraid.

Non-duality doesn’t mean pretending everything is the same. It means remembering that before we started dividing the world into pieces, we were part of something whole. It’s like looking at a forest and seeing not just trees, but the life that connects them all and we are part of that All.

Mystics and contemplatives say that silence helps us remember this wholeness. Not because our thoughts our words are bad, but because silence touches what came before words, the deep unity beneath all our naming. In that light compassion naturally arisen.

So what do we do with this? We don’t need to undo nature or stop thinking. But we can soften our judgments. We can live with more presence. We can see others not as “not me,” but as part of the same light, the same life.

At the deepest level, there’s no “me” and “you,” no “inside” and “outside.” Just the dance of being.

Hi Tee,
I sense we’re landing in the same space, even if we’re using different language to get there. That said, when I read your statement -“Getting rid of all thought is not the goal. Getting rid of wrong thought…” the word “wrong” stood out. For me, it introduces a kind of tension, a grasping that clings, rather than the spaciousness that invites a more fluid relationship with thought.

As you noted, in Zen the goal isn’t to eliminate thought, though it also warns against categorizing thought as “right” or “wrong” in a moralistic or dualistic way. It’s the very act of labeling, of dividing, that often deepens suffering. Not because the thought itself is inherently problematic, but because of how we hold or reject it.

I’m reminded of the Genesis story where the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is often interpreted as granting divine clarity about what is good or evil. But “knowledge of” is not the same as “knowing what is.” That subtle difference matters (or should more then it tends to). In reaching for that knowledge, we stepped into separation, mistaking the capacity to judge for the wisdom to know. One is a burden; the other, a mystery that unfolds in relationship, in presence, in humility.

For me, and as you suggest, the invitation isn’t to get rid of thought, especially as a act of will, but to hold thoughts lightly creating flow and space for the ‘unknown’ to arise…

Beautifully said Thomas and as always Tee a great break down though I might gently push back on the idea that “the answer should always be hope, love, focusing on the positive.” In my experience, such an approach often turns back on itself, creating the very suffering we seek to release or allow to die.

The act of dying James speaks of I think points to something different: allowing space in our narratives to remain empty. Not rushing to fill the gap with positivity or certainty, but letting go of the compulsion to replace one story with another. Sometimes, the most compassionate move for ourselves is to leave room for silence, for unknowing because that space can become the doorway to freedom from the known, and to the joy of simply being.

In that light I agree with James though I might soften the intensity.

My observation and experience is that the “death” James speaks of isn’t a one-time event or a distant threshold, it’s a reality available in each breath. To die inwardly is to release the illusion of permanence and step into the eternal present, where life is not something to possess or defend but something to participate in. In that sense, death becomes renewal, a doorway to freedom from the known, as Krishnamurti says, and to the joy of simply being. And in that timeless stillness is where Campbell’s words echo: “That which you are was never born and will never die.”

At first, Krishnamurti’s call to “die now” and Campbell’s assurance that “you were never born and will never die” might sound like opposites. But they speak to different layers of reality. Krishnamurti addresses the psychological self, the bundle of desires, fears, hopes and stories we cling to. That must die for freedom to emerge. Campbell points to the essential being beneath those layers, the ground of existence that is timeless. That never dies because it was never born. So, the paradox resolves: what dies is the illusion, not the essence. And in letting go of the illusion, we awaken to the eternal present Campbell describes.

Perhaps the truth lives in the tension between these voices. To die psychologically is not to annihilate life but to awaken to its depth. And when we see that eternity is woven into the present, death becomes less a demand and more a rhythm, a letting go that happens moment by moment, breath by breath. In that rhythm, even the scent of roses changes, because there is no “you” smelling them, only life itself, playing, breathing, being.

Hi Everyone

“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die.” – Campbell

“If you think you’ve nailed down the self, you’ve missed the joke. The self is the dance, not the dancer.” – Watts

Both Campbell and Watts point to the same insight through different lenses. Campbell reminds us that eternity is not a distant realm or something that begins after death, it is a dimension of the present moment, a quality of being that reveals our essence as timeless: never truly born, never truly dying.

Watts, with his playful metaphysics, frames life as a cosmic game of hide-and-seek, where the universe forgets this truth in order to rediscover it through us. Forgetting means identifying with the separate self, bound by time and mortality; remembering is awakening to the dance, the realization that the self is not the dancer but the dance itself. In this way, both voices invite us to see that eternity, which is timeless and not a measurement, is here and now, and the game is not about escape but rediscovery.

For fun I thought I’d have Campbell and Watts join the dialog

Setting: A dimly lit circular room with mirrored walls. Four chairs face each other. A candle flickers at the center. The air hums with quiet tension and curiosity.

CHARACTERS:
Ariadne – poetic, intuitive, speaks in metaphors and fluid language
Theo – analytical, precise, favors definitions and logical clarity
Campbell – mythic, calm, speaks in archetypes and timeless truths
Watts – playful, irreverent, dances with paradox and cosmic humor

Ariadne: The self is a shimmer, a ripple in the stream. Try to grasp it, and it slips through your fingers. We are illusions dreaming of permanence.
Theo: Illusion implies something false. If we are to speak meaningfully, we must define what we mean by “self.” Is it consciousness? Memory? Identity?
Watts: Oh, definitions! Lovely toys. But don’t mistake the menu for the meal. The self is a role in the cosmic play. You’re not a noun, you’re a verb. You are the universe experiencing itself.
Theo: That’s poetic, but dangerously vague. If everything is everything, then nothing is anything. We need boundaries to think, to speak, to be.
Campbell: Boundaries are the bones of myth. But the truth lies beyond them. That which you are was never born and will never die. The hero’s journey begins with identity and ends in transcendence.
Ariadne: So, the game is to forget and then remember. To lose the self in the labyrinth and find it again in the center.
Watts: Exactly! And the punchline is there was never a labyrinth. Just the dance. Just the music. You took the game seriously, and that’s the joke.
Theo: So, all this… these realizations, these awakenings… they’re just… games?
Campbell: Yes. But sacred games. The myths we live by are not lies; they are metaphors pointing to truths too vast for logic.
Watts: And the best part? You don’t have to win. You just have to play.

Together, Campbell and Watts whisper: “Eternity is not later. It’s now.” – “You are the universe pretending to be a person.” – let us hold these words lightly.

Living isn’t about slaying dragons or finding treasure. It’s about waking up to the fact that you were never separate from the treasure to begin with. That the game was always rigged in favor of joy, if only we stop trying to win and start playing.

Today, I wonder what if. What if I try to live as if I were never born and will never die. What if… I dance. I play. I remember.