Awaken delight

Dreams are just dreams. Thoughts are just thoughts, hitching posts for every little self-concept.

by Sundance Burke —

Ah ha! We are awake. We have discovered we are not our thoughts, an idea, a voice, belief or opinion; nor do we feel judgment. We have awakened from our dream of endless desire and fear.

We see the splinter in our mind: “Something needs to change in this moment for me to be happy.” What a funny and absurd idea. How can we possibly be happy when we are entranced by such a suggestion?

Obviously, we cannot be happy while chaining our being to a pre-condition for present contentment. Yet, now we are awake. We see the thought. We realize what it is saying, and we recognize the lie. This mind has always been speaking like this. However, now the trance is over, the splinter is gone and our eyes are crystal clear. Awareness is here, always here, and that is who we are.

We are awake in the light of knowing, without pretending to be something or someone. We are not sad, depressed, angry, bored or confused. We are not afraid or longing. We are not a splinter of the mind. We are awake. We see the thief sneaking in to take us away to its hiding place. We catch this thief red-handed. We enjoy this attempt to steal from us, because we know that our house is empty and no one is home. We release this thief, because there never was anything real to get or take. This plan for our takeover is just so ill conceived.

Dreams are just dreams. Thoughts are just thoughts, hitching posts for every little self-concept. We are not little or big. We are not an abstraction of being alive. We are simply awake and ever delighted to be so.

Sundance Burke is the author of Free Spirit: A Guide to Enlightened Being and a graduate of the University of Washington and the Gonzaga School of Law. www.SundanceBurke.org.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 27, Number 2, April/May 2008.