Dear James:

First thing this morning, I want to meditate a bit on something you wrote on Sept 1, in your thread “When Consciousness Wears the Face of a Lover”:

“Love is the highest and purest service we can offer to humanity. It’s not about recognition, reward, or doing things for show—it’s about giving, understanding, and being fully present for others. When we act from love, every small gesture, every word, every act of kindness becomes meaningful. Helping others with love is not just about changing their lives, it transforms us as well.

“Love sees beyond faults, beyond appearances, beyond judgment. It connects us to the essence of people, to their struggles, their joys, their humanity. When we serve from love, we serve without expectation, without ego, without thinking “I am doing something great.” The act itself becomes the gift, and the impact spreads silently, like a ripple in water.”-

Beautifully said. “Being fully present for others”- how do you do it, in practical ways?

I am not good at being fully present for others , and I want to get better or more skillful at it. I just looked it up (AI). It says that among other things, it means “Holding space without rushing to fix, explain, or bypass”, which means…

“Holding space: Creating a safe, nonjudgmental container for someone to feel, speak, or process — without interruption or agenda.

“Without rushing to fix: Not jumping in with solutions, advice, or action. Trusting that the person’s feelings are valid, even if unresolved.

“Without rushing to explain: Not intellectualizing or rationalizing their pain. Avoiding phrases like ‘It’s probably just stress’ or ‘This happens to everyone.’

“Without bypassing: Not skipping over the hard feelings with positivity or spiritual platitudes. No ‘Everything happens for a reason’ or ‘Just stay grateful.’

“Emotionally attuned example: ‘I hear you. That sounds really heavy. I’m here with you.’ (Instead of: ‘You should try yoga’ or ‘Maybe it’s not that bad.’)

“Why it matters: When someone is in pain, they don’t always need a fix — they need to feel seen, held, and honored. Holding space is a form of emotional sovereignty: it trusts the other person’s process without hijacking it.” (AI).

James, on Aug 30, you wrote something in your thread “Not me”, that stayed with me ever since, something I repeat to myself every day. You wrote:

“Radical Acceptance is not just about accepting situations outside of you, it’s about accepting what is happening inside you/ your thoughts, emotions, fears, and impulses without resistance. It’s a full acknowledgment that life, including all feelings, is unfolding exactly as it is.

“When I say, ‘When fear comes, you don’t resist it; you let it be seen,’ what I mean is: notice the fear fully, without trying to push it away, judge it, or fix it. In practice, this looks like allowing yourself to feel the sensation of fear in the body, observing the racing thoughts, the tension, the urge to control without identifying with it. You don’t become ‘ the fear”; you simply let it appear and pass through. Pure Consciousness itself watches, and the fear begins to lose its power because there is no resistance feeding it.

“Similarly, ‘When anger arises, you don’t judge it; you allow it to pass like a cloud’ means that you stay with the moment, letting the emotion move through your body and mind without clinging. The inner dialogue is simple: ‘This is here, it is happening, and it is passing.’ There is no need to argue with it, suppress it, or attach meaning to it. Pure Consciousness supports the release because you see clearly that the anger is temporary, not you, and has no ground once you let it be.

“… When you allow yourself to fully face that fear, without trying to flee, control, or resist, it transforms… In essence, radical acceptance is… allowing every feeling, thought, or uncertainty to rise and fall without clinging. In doing so, the ego loses its grip, and the mind and body act naturally, smoothly, and intelligently.”-

So, the Ego is the part of a human that resists reality (the what-is), suppresses it, tries to ignore it, or magnify it, or make it.. go away.. or desperately, unintelligently try to change it?

In the original post in this thread (Sept 25), you wrote: “Spirituality is the complete death of the self, therefore your experiences, beliefs, ideas, and everything you ‘think’ you are”-

Is it also the complete death of your beautiful thoughts about Love and Radical Acceptance..?

* Peter, and everyone who may be reading this post, your thoughts on the above are welcome 🙂

🤍🌿 Anita

Hi everyone – Before the Dance: A dialogue on silence, source, and the question that dissolves

Anita: In the original post, James wrote: “Spirituality is the complete death of the self, therefore your experiences, beliefs, ideas, and everything you ‘think’ you are.” And you ask – Is it also the complete death of your beautiful thoughts about Love and Radical Acceptance..?

As I sat with your question, Anita, I found myself not answering, but contemplating. I turned toward the dance of Yin and Yang… and in that turning, the question dissolved. Held in silence and stillness, nothing was lost. I wondered: Could that be a answer?

Contemplation on Yin and Yang
Yin and Yang flow in and out of each other – ceaselessly, seamlessly.
Their dance gives rise to all movement, all contrast, all becoming.
Yet we rarely notice the canvas upon which their play unfolds:
The stillness that allows motion,
The silence from which sound arises.

It is easy to chase the changing, the light and dark, the thought and deed…
Believing that by following their paths we might arrive at the source.
But the source is never reached through what comes from it.
It is already here, before the doing and the thinking,
The quiet canvas on which Yin and Yang paint their eternal circle.

Anita, the question you ask arises from the interplay of Yin and Yang, the movement, the contrast, the becoming. James points not to the dance, but to the canvas: the silence and stillness from which Yin, Yang, and the question itself emerge and are tenderly held.

Imagine being held in a warm embrace where no words or measure is necessary.
The invitation is not to answer, but to remember… To remember that all is held in such embrace, always.
To rest in the source before the dance… and return… Where nothing is lost, and all is already known.

Thank you James and Peter, I very much appreciate your time and attention.

I want to try to.. not know non-duality, James (“And that’s what non duality is, genuinely not knowing.”), and to consider that leaning into the embrace, Peter (“You said the warm embrace caught your eye… what if you leaned into it..”) tomorrow morning.

Best regards to both of you!

Anita

Dear Anita,

I sense a quiet hesitation. Not a rejection of the embrace, but a trembling at what it might ask of you. Maybe not because it demands anything, but because it invites a soft undoing, a loosening of the self you’ve so carefully tended, shaped, and protected.

What I point toward isn’t a task or a teaching. It’s not something to fix, achieve, or transcend. It’s something more ancient and intimate, a remembering. Not of a moment in time, but of essence of the canvas that holds creation yet remains untouched by its unfolding. It does not precede the beginning, nor follow the end. It is the stillness beneath the breath, the silence behind the sound, the unlit flame from which light dreams itself into being. A canvas always empty yet never so… It is not known by thought, but felt in the hush between thoughts. Not a place, not a moment… an isness, veiled in every moment, waiting to be remembered.

You wrote: “The ‘In the Beginning’ of non-duality, something to remember…” And yes, there is something to remember but not as a concept or destination. Even “non-duality” is part of the dance: Yin naming Yang, Yang naming Yin. But the canvas doesn’t name. It simply holds.

AUM — the breath of creation – rises and falls, surrendered to the silence that cradles it. Every breath, every longing, every thought… held. Not chased. Not judged. Just met…

You mentioned craving and expectation. Perhaps that’s the ego reaching for the changing, the light and the shadow, the thought and the deed…believing that by following their paths, it might arrive at the source. But the source isn’t reached through what comes from it. It simply is. This is what we forget… and what we might remember. Not through effort, not through will, but through quiet recognition. Ego, Yin, Yang… playing, and now and again, pausing to remember they are held.

The Zen tradition speaks of the turning point of the breath, the moment where the inhale hangs weightless before becoming the exhale. That subtle transition isn’t the breath itself, but the awareness resting in it. And in that resting, the nature of mind beyond perception can be glimpsed.

So perhaps the invitation isn’t to let go of the self, but to rest in the space where the self is quietly held. Not erased. Not corrected. Simply met. And in that meeting, something tender unfolds… not as a task, but as a return. A return not to what was, but to what always is. The breath turns. The veil thins. And in the stillness between, we are home…

AUM rests held in the arms of what always is… You are not outside the embrace, Anita… Your are, we are that.

correction to the line – It is not the practice that leads to remembrance
– It is not the practice that leads to the source… let me try again

The Quiet Error
We often enter wisdom traditions with reverence, seeking truth, healing, or transcendence. But somewhere along the way, a quiet error slips in: we begin to treat the practice as the path, the ritual as the revelation. We follow the teachings as if they were ladders to grace, believing that if we meditate enough, love enough, surrender enough, we will earn our way into the sacred.

But the source is never reached through what comes from it. The river does not return to its spring by flowing forward.

It is not the practice that leads to the source… but to the remembrance of the source. And in that remembrance, something shifts. Compassion arises not as a rule, but naturally. From that compassion, a deeper law reveals itself which is not imposed, not constructed, but unfolding like breath from silence.

Grace is not the reward for effort. It is the ground from which all true effort flows. The sacred does not demand perfection. It waits quietly, patiently, in the stillness beneath all striving.

We do not reach the source by chasing the changing. We return by softening. By listening. By remembering… We are that

Dear Peter:

* I am adding this comment 2 hours and 20 minutes into typing this post, right before submitting it, to let you know that it felt like having a back and forth conversation with you, almost as if we were sitting here together, this early Thursday morning. I wrote whatever came to mind (no editing), just like we were talking in real-life. It was dark out when I started, totally light now. I wish you could read this message in a similar spirit, relaxed, conversational.. So here it goes:

“When we rest in what is already whole, compassion arises as a natural fragrance, not as a commandment.”- you write so beautifully. I can almost smell a pleasant fragrance rising from a blank canvas.

“The sacred does not demand perfection. It waits in the stillness beneath all striving. It is the silence behind the sound, the breath between the breaths,”- again, beautiful.

“the presence that was never absent.”- it’s not a presence that protects people from cruelty, disasters and such, or a presence that lets itself be known in countless personal, national and global disasters.

I remember walking at night, looking up to the sky and praying to the stars: “Help me. PLEASE help me!”-

Nothing.

The stars/ the presence.. if it was present, it didn’t mind staying silent night after night, year after year.

Now, if you counter this, Peter, with.. it being my Ego praying to the stars, and transcending the ego (as a child) would have led me to “rest in what is already whole” night after night.. Well, would you suggest this to me, retroactively, imagining me praying to the stars?

I am trying to understand the “presence”: is it indifferent to human suffering? (I am asking the same question people ask in regard to God)

“We do not reach the source by chasing the changing. We return by softening. By listening. By remembering… We are that”- We are Presence/ Source/ Canvas, aka God?

“Dear Anita,”- I think that this is the 2nd time you addressed me with a “Dear”. The first was 2 days ago, and I just noticed today. This is the softening you are talking about (“We return by softening”), is it? If so, I am touched.. moved by your softening.

“I sense a quiet hesitation. Not a rejection of the embrace, but a trembling at what it might ask of you. Maybe not because it demands anything, but because it invites a soft undoing, a loosening of the self you’ve so carefully tended, shaped, and protected.”-

A loosening of the self created by circumstances and other people in my early life, during those Formative Years, the years when the self/ ego is formed in physical ways (brain/body).

Where was the source, the presence, the embrace when I- and others- needed it so desperately? It was there sometimes, here and there. Often it wasn’t there.. so, not a dependable presence.

What I point toward is… something more ancient and intimate, a remembering. Not of a moment in time, but of essence of the canvas that holds creation yet remains untouched by its unfolding.”-

Oh, here it is, “untouched” by human pain and struggle, including that of babies who didn’t yet choose anything. Untouched, indifferent.

An Embrace by an Untouched.. is it possible?

“So perhaps the invitation isn’t to let go of the self, but to rest in the space where the self is quietly held. Not erased. Not corrected. Simply met. And in that meeting, something tender unfolds.. not as a task, but as a return. A return not to what was, but to what always is. The breath turns. The veil thins. And in the stillness between, we are home..”-

I feel like I am home this morning as I’m sitting by the computer, now hours of talking with you right here, in this post. I quote your words (that’s you saying something to me) and then I respond (that’s me saying something to you).. then you say and I say.. we’re talking. Connecting (that’s my experience here), and I like it.

“You are not outside the embrace, Anita… Your are, we are that.”- It’s the Connecting itself, not the topic discussed, that is the Embrace I am experiencing right now.

And I’ve known you- in context of the forums for so long: my first post on tiny buddha was sometime in May 2015, yours.. on May 27 the year after, 2016. Interestingly (to me), you posted 4 times on Oct 30, 2016, exactly 9 years ago. In the 1st of the four (thread: “Do you believe in God?”, you wrote:

“I think that when religion views God as an alien being that exists out there as a watcher and judge, they have missed the target.. Others also mistake the organization and religious teaching as being God. They mistake the map for the territory…

“The problem with being so angry at a God you don’t experience as existing is that you’re shaking your fist at empty air.

“Believe me I relate to your experience. There is a part of me that so badly wanted to belong to the community I was raised in. but unable to experience this God they claimed was so loving, just and worthy of praise. All I felt and saw was injustice and pain all of which left me feeling I must have failed and didn’t belong.

“Yet no matter how hard I tried I have never been able to deny G_d’s existence and like you in a way that had me shaking my fist.

“One day I got tired of shaking my fist and fighting this something that I apparently didn’t believe in. If I was shaking my fist, I was shaking it at something, so I set out to work out what this something was. I began a long journey of separating my experience of G_d from my experience of family, community, church, religion

“I began to look past the words, allowing the words to be transparent to transcendence and when I did began to feel that there was a something that ‘binds us all’. A definition of religion is that which binds us, not the rules not the words but something greater than the sum of all parts, that transcends the rules and words that can only point.

“We tend to use the word God when we talk about this experience but the word God is not God.”-

The word God is Source, Presence, Canvas, Embrace..?

So, you too noticed (of course) the “injustice and pain” in our world, and you too were angry at the not “so loving, just and worthy of praise” God.

But.. wait.. The Source, Presence, etc., is not so loving, or just.. is it? I mean, it’s the same painful and unjust world. Isn’t the proof in the pudding..?

✨ 🌟 ⭐ 💫 Anita

Dear Peter:

Thank you for your thoughtful, kind and patient response. I will process and reply tomorrow.

For now, I just read this (elsewhere) and it resonates:

“Non-dual teachers say the separate self is like a wave forgetting it’s part of the ocean.”

Back to you Fri morning.

🌊 Anita