The five Remembrances.

[Maisy]

I wake up agitated from dreams sometimes. Intense dreams with a lot going on. Dream memories and feelings and emotions and images fill my mind. I sometimes think why in the heck is my brain making all of these intense dreams for me to experience? I think "I don't like this content." I think I'd rather not dream at all. But not sure how one can control such a thing the brain does when I am unconscious. I think it was the philosopher and teacher Krishnamurti who said it's possible to not dream at all. No idea how he or anyone could accomplish such a thing.

But when I am awake, I can be aware of where my attention is and be aware if it is on thought or not. It's a bit deeper than that I think. One can "think about thought." What does that mean to me? Well awareness includes knowledge and understanding. Awareness is not like some blank slate. We are not a blank state. I think our true self and true nature has understanding and knowledge. I think we will increase in awareness (what we are aware of) and therefore knowledge and understanding forever. For eternity.

So as an awareness with understanding and knowledge, I can keep my interest and attention off of thought and thinking. So I wake up. Here are thoughts and memories about what I just experienced in the dream world. To say "I don't like these things" is a thought. To want to not dream is a thought. To not like dreams is a thought. I can see dreams like I see a flower on the side of a road I am passing in my car. It is just there, then gone.

Thoughts of others, sayings, slogans, repeated words and sentences here in these forums or from others talking in videos or such things recorded in books. Sentences or paragraphs or whole pages from books some claim are "holy" or "spiritual" or important or meaningful or whatever they say and think and assert or believe. More thought content. One can have no interest in all of this mind content. Ignore it all. See it as like dust blowing in the wind. Here now then gone. What importance is something that is here then gone? We can be discussing how true or important some sentences are then at lunch time we are thinking about our food instead.

Thích Nhất Hạnh said to "Meditate on the Buddha’s Five Remembrances and rediscover the magic of life just as it is." If one is meditating on thoughts and ideas, meaning their attention is wholly there, how are they discovering the magic of the here and now free of mind? Life "just as it is" is usually an awareness tangled up in thought and ideas. The "magic" to me happens when we transcend thought and thinking and "just be" as pure awareness itself, not encumbered with anything else. Infinity I think is felt and experienced in the here and now. Without a "self" with it's border, one expands into infinity.

I think to experience "heart" as the word one may use, or love or peace and joy, one stops preventing the experience of it. I think that is a quality of ones true self or ones true nature. It is always here and now. It is after all ourselves. It is always present. I think what prevents the experience of it and the experience of our true selves and true nature is a dependence and addiction on mind. No word or thought or idea or sentence can take the place of true emptiness. And I think in true emptiness, without a dependence on anyone or anything, is a fullness that can't be described. A completeness. A place there is no judgement or seeking or desire. Truly "the now as it is."

Always here, always present, rarely experienced.