One problem that may lie near the root of all unnecessary problems… is that the aspect of awareness that is forged into what I will call the thinking mind has its absolute basis in the unthinkable ground of being itself. And it cannot think anything resembling its origin, which is, by nature, not thinking.

One of the truly peculiar aspects of our human interiority is this schism. Why a schism? Because the ground of consciousness is aware of and not entirely unfriendly to the aspect that becomes thinking. But the reverse is not true. Generally, the aspect that thinks is ‘really upset’ about the existence of anything else… and will happily attempt to kill its relationship with its own origin… and anything associated with it. We see this reflected in the inclination of commercial cultures to obliterate nature… while producing endless little toys and dolls of it for adoration.

My direct and carefully examined experience is, however, that the aspect that thinks is like the last digit of our pinky fingers… on a creature that is so astonishing that a few moments of exposure to it would obliterate all models. All ideas. All religions. All philosophies. Because, like strange shadows… those are flattened representations…

I suspect that death involves liberation from the dominance of this strange appendage… but I would certainly prefer another way of being liberated from it. And this is the only option with the potential to return it to the vocation of faithful servant, and relieve it of the terrible curse of its isolation from… and opposition to… its own origins.