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when a thought arises with a feeling in the body, it's impact often creates a deep sense of reality - whilst thoughts arise and pass, as is said, like clouds in the sky - the body somehow remembers the trace of all things, until even the body has to release and let go of its holding on. The body is the first and last refuge of all things, whilst awareness simply lingers in the mist.

 When I am immersed I lose my sense of my self in the experience of what's happening. Not thinking "oh this is happening to me" there is just this  "happening" which somehow merges this being here into the experience itself. Embodied, or "in my bones", for me means that direct experience doesn't require thinking about it or remembering, it's just awareness of being here beling alive.

 It takes a strong sense of self to be able to let go of attachment to identity, and to trust the fabrication and the fabricator as being one and the same so that compassion and altruism can naturally arise  as the outcome of social fabrication and conditioning. Anatta isn't a bypass to experience, any more than a solid sense of self can control experience. Direct experience is all we have, it simply happens and how it is received and integrated depends on the cultural meaning ascribed to it. There is no escape hatch,  only the mystery wonder and luminosity of consciousness being aware of itself  

 When I ask myself the question, "if you weren't the victim or heroine of your story, who might you be?" In the silence of an answer the follows I often feel as if I am both nothing and everything and any loneliness immediately somehow dissolves. I love this poem by David, I always have his poems close to hand, because from one poet to another, we both understand a need for aloneness, which at any given moment, can turn back on itself into a feeling of isolation

love is letting everything be as it is and everyone be as they are including self. Love is the only language of the sacred space in which we all arise in consciousness - there was never ever anything to take or lose, but that is so hard, takes great courage, trust and acceptance of truth - a good test of walking your talk often comes with the biggest challenge in the darkest hours - that's when we really rock up to life and truth - great story and even that isn't true - thanks for sharing x

 often I notice I get it wrong, my senses are not reliable, just as much as my thoughts and feelings, and it is only by stopping to go into the silence within to notice, to let go and reboot that self centred programming,  that a much wider opening onto the world occurs. It's as if I am looking through a small pin hole camera onto the world which sees very little of what is really out there

I do a lot of painting outside directly from nature, and normally I am lost in seeing and moving the paint around for several hours, not unlike when I sing and then once more I am lost in feeling and sound. So for me, for someone who has spent her life looking 'out there'  it is difficult to constantly be aware of the senses through the senses, as and when they arise, whilst I would also describe myself as a sensitive and aware person.  Mindfulness, when sitting, becomes a retrospective time of noticing how I am often responding and curious, about how I am always being pulled and tempted through the sense doors. It's a strong pull, but mindfulness, also shows me, retrospectively,  how inaccurate, insubstantial, transient and ultimately unimportant my sense experiences are. To be aware of the senses, through the senses as and when they arrive, seems to be a good thing to aim for, not just to be fully anchored, here now in the heart, but to glimpse that which is formless, both inside and out, that precious pot of gold that is at the end of all rainbows
 

there is relative business and ultimate business, just as there is relative truth and ultimate truth. Focusing on 'my business'  allows me to bring more to 'your business' if required and appropriate, knowing and familiir with what is ultimately true in 'my business', which comes down to two basic things, there is this life here now, and the I knows absolutely nothing. This means we can flow between  the two poles on the continuum which says 'we are in this world but not of it' with love