Most spiritual advice is about fixing yourself. This essay explores why real transformation doesn’t come from effort or mindfulness techniques, but from a single, honest moment of seeing—and why that moment quietly changes everything.
Speechless so here’s a go - feeling so much resonance with every single piece of those simple, common, everyday life experiences & there’ve been those (what feel to me miraculous) moments where everything changed once i became aware. Presence. And perception shifted while action may not yet, but the entire moment(s) connected me with a new way of existing. Beautiful & so so helpful in guidance when this happens & itz an out-of-the-blue ( or seems so) shift…..I’ll stop there with describing (or failing to). Landed with perfect timing before fun at the pain management doctor’s office & some extra corporeal shock wave therapy that i actually can enjoy sometimes. I need this almost as much as coffee (wink). Throwing gratitude randomly hoping the wind sends most to you for teaching changing ways of being from what the world teaches.
Oh, I didn't know there was actually a book called "Living Presence." I'm learning this now but I've been using the same term for what I believe is what you have clearly articulated here. This Is It. Always. Never Not Here.
I used to challenge the Yoga world, nonduality, and Buddhist enlightenment (the world I had immersed myself in for many years) because there was, what I deem as misunderstanding of this, as if only advanced meditators could 'reach' this 'state' but there is nothing to get to.
The seeing takes you over. Or at least, in my multiple experiences of it, it takes over and I never knew when it would, whether I was in despair, or just strolling down 3rd Street Promenade and standing at Palisades Park bluff, or eating ice cream, it would just take over. Long before I entered the Yoga path, nonduality, 'mystical worlds'.
"The moment you see, everything changes. Not because the moment itself is different, but because you are no longer hiding from it. And that, quietly and unmistakably, is the power of being." << and that's exactly the power I'm talking about. It's not a fixed identity or a personality. It's the whole field, the Living Presence, always here now. There's no way to it. It is the way.
The recognition makes me feel... less crazy. 😅
Thank you for sharing this seeing in the way you do it. 🙏🏾
I see you VMB. Seeing without narration sounds good but, gosh, not easy even though it is simple. If you notice yourself seeing and being does this become narration? It does sound like deep level stuff, I'm mostly on the surface - today cursing the dog for shedding hair (just being a dog) all over the bathroom floor that I'm cleaning.
Yes, it's difficult. Speaking for a recent experience where some real survival level reactions emerged, I did my best to see, but was mostly overwhelmed by the gale force of self protection that emerged. I guess that was seeing. And then, as you say, the little things like dog hair...I have a husky, so....
More and more, I’m realizing that I don’t need to be fixed or improved. I am whole, now. That just means, all I have left is to decide which choices I want to make when choice arrives.
Just cause people use a word doesn't mean much. I use doctrine in so far as it is an accurate representation of experience. To say what you are describing is not mindfulness which is inseparable is just misleading, so I do appreciate your openness to dialog. Framework is to support the raw moment, it is not something different from it. Especially given that everything is the moment, it's only our perception that is disconnected.
This seems to point out how some survive circumstances that would destroy many: they only look at what is happening even when they are unable to do much to “fix” the situation. In this sense, it’s not “merely” spiritual but a way of living that allows possibilities and not just reactions.
This is beautifully expressed and something very close to the heart of what I’ve come to live after years of wandering through more prescribed paths of practice.
We are the mirror, the reflection and the light.
Thank you my friend, I am sure these insights will leave your readers with much to carry home.
I'd say that is a bit what one can call open awareness. The term "Seeing" reminds me too of Krishnamurtis teachings, though it sounded more radical, like a scalpel at times. I think the word he used was "Inquiring".
Great read and non-practice or pathless path! Thank you!
I’m curious: if or how does your “seeing” relate to the idea of my “0bserver Self?” The one that is “Not l”? Many years ago I established a coaching practice which I named “Notitia,” . Latin for “Deep looking,” I would coach individuals to simply notice their own behaviors, thoughts, whatever without judgment. I used a similar process at the conclusion of small groups I was facilitating: a Process Check, I put on a wall chart everyone’s comments, unedited, no discussion allowed, of what they liked about our session, and what they would like to see improved. I typed them out without edits and sent out to each of the group members along with notes and action items. An example was when someone said for Need’s Improvement List, “I noticed several of us would interrupt others when they were talking.” That was all. We never discussed it, never named offenders. The next week, if there were still a few interruptions or talking over, someone would mention it, it’d go on the list. By the third session people were listening to one another. If someone wanted to jump in, they’d ask the former speaker if they were done. In my mind I was coaching people to notice their own (or others’) behavior without judgment…and before long the individuals were changing behavior that hat led to ever-improving groups. They became self-managing groups, didn’t need me to facilitate.
My dilemma is my “noticing” was intended to help individuals and groups improve their communication skills. Which sounds like “fixing.” Could you elaborate? Thank you.❤️😊
Sandra, this is a really good question, and your example actually sits very close to what I’m pointing at.
What made your process work is that you weren’t trying to correct or manage behavior. You were creating a space where the group could see itself without judgment. Once that happened, behavior reorganized on its own. That’s not fixing. That’s awareness doing its work.
The kind of fixing I’m critiquing is when we act before seeing has done its job, when improvement is driven by control or agenda rather than clarity. Your noticing didn’t tell anyone what to do. It let reality register.
That’s the difference. When seeing is clean, change doesn’t feel like effort. It feels like alignment.
And I think that’s why your groups became self-managing.
Question: is there a SS space (thread?) to discuss “Whispers of Silence?” Or, @your email? I’m learning so much about me as result of the reflection questions and scripture quotes! Am I correct that MM gave you the content for these seven days of prayers and reflections? Am I the only one stunned by how each day’s readings connect to me personally with so much meaning and heart?
I’m being triggered to remember so much of what I’ve learned before! I’m anxious to start afresh in my second week pass-through! For example, today, Day Six, Noon, Journaling Prompt: “what part of my soul has been waiting for recognition?” I immediately jumped to Marianne Williamson’s “Our Deepest Fear…”. * Early 90’s, repeated by Nelson Mandela in his Inauguration (1994?). I kept this as a frontispiece of my notebook of notable quotes that touched my Soul. I used it as often as I could in personal growth workshops, or spiritual retreats co-led with my husband. Just now I am filled again with pure joy as I grow in my comfort becoming and being everything I’m intended by God (the Divine, the Universe) to become. Add to this my thrill at learning that February 17th we welcome the Fire Horse into the coming Chinese New Year! I’ve been connected to the hearts of horses since I could walk, and more recently when I learned how to listen to their wisdom from the Divine. Like you, they have been present to me as teachers. Little did I know they’ve been around on the planet waiting for us “to see them!” No wonder I keep signing up for courses in Animal Communication, listening to my intuitions…in a new paragraph I will recite the full poem:
*Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerfully beyond all measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves: ‘Whom am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
Thank you! I’ve always had wonderful outcomes for coachees and groups…a life work mission of bringing the more “feminine” elements of leadership into large hierarchical status-driven (who has the corner office has more power.) No. that person only has more power if you give it to him. Every human being on the planet is equal in God’s eyes: God doesn’t make junk. Some have more money, have more responsibility or certain knowledge expertise…all our blood runs red. Seems humanity may be going backwards, at least for awhile. I think I’ve always seen myself working on the leading edge of the next Renaissance of Consciousness. Life lived to the edge of all my possibilities. I’m spending more time with Mary and Thomas and starting the Whispers from the Silence daily practice. I want to stay grounded as I prepare for major changes, and I’m trusting Mary and you to support me in my quest. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. You are being incredibly helpful in my one-day-at-a-time journey. I can’t imagine living full-out any other way.❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
One more question: do you offer personal spiritual counseling? I feel you are a teacher to we, who have ears to hear, and eyes to see. And I welcome the group conversations. And, I also have a need for an individual wisdom figure to walk alongside me…someone with whom I can ask anything. Are there really ever any questions that are heretical? Does “heretical” even exist in your lexicon? Or, in reality? Now that I say it out loud, I realize it’s one of your attributes that I adore most about you! Your outrageous heresy! OF COURSE! The very concept is meant to control, not enliven, not inspire. Think I just answered my own question! Thanks for the chat!❤️😎🐶😉
I don’t offer counseling or position myself as a “wisdom authority.” What I do is speak from the edge and leave the door open for people to trust their own seeing.
“Heresy” is almost always a control mechanism. Honest questioning is how life stays alive.
Well, since I always appreciate your questions, and since my life search, has been to “live life to the edge of all my possibilities…” Think I’m in the right playground for me, now. ❤️😉
Speechless so here’s a go - feeling so much resonance with every single piece of those simple, common, everyday life experiences & there’ve been those (what feel to me miraculous) moments where everything changed once i became aware. Presence. And perception shifted while action may not yet, but the entire moment(s) connected me with a new way of existing. Beautiful & so so helpful in guidance when this happens & itz an out-of-the-blue ( or seems so) shift…..I’ll stop there with describing (or failing to). Landed with perfect timing before fun at the pain management doctor’s office & some extra corporeal shock wave therapy that i actually can enjoy sometimes. I need this almost as much as coffee (wink). Throwing gratitude randomly hoping the wind sends most to you for teaching changing ways of being from what the world teaches.
Oh, I didn't know there was actually a book called "Living Presence." I'm learning this now but I've been using the same term for what I believe is what you have clearly articulated here. This Is It. Always. Never Not Here.
I used to challenge the Yoga world, nonduality, and Buddhist enlightenment (the world I had immersed myself in for many years) because there was, what I deem as misunderstanding of this, as if only advanced meditators could 'reach' this 'state' but there is nothing to get to.
The seeing takes you over. Or at least, in my multiple experiences of it, it takes over and I never knew when it would, whether I was in despair, or just strolling down 3rd Street Promenade and standing at Palisades Park bluff, or eating ice cream, it would just take over. Long before I entered the Yoga path, nonduality, 'mystical worlds'.
"The moment you see, everything changes. Not because the moment itself is different, but because you are no longer hiding from it. And that, quietly and unmistakably, is the power of being." << and that's exactly the power I'm talking about. It's not a fixed identity or a personality. It's the whole field, the Living Presence, always here now. There's no way to it. It is the way.
The recognition makes me feel... less crazy. 😅
Thank you for sharing this seeing in the way you do it. 🙏🏾
I see you VMB. Seeing without narration sounds good but, gosh, not easy even though it is simple. If you notice yourself seeing and being does this become narration? It does sound like deep level stuff, I'm mostly on the surface - today cursing the dog for shedding hair (just being a dog) all over the bathroom floor that I'm cleaning.
Yes, it's difficult. Speaking for a recent experience where some real survival level reactions emerged, I did my best to see, but was mostly overwhelmed by the gale force of self protection that emerged. I guess that was seeing. And then, as you say, the little things like dog hair...I have a husky, so....
More and more, I’m realizing that I don’t need to be fixed or improved. I am whole, now. That just means, all I have left is to decide which choices I want to make when choice arrives.
Whenever I feel a conflict I know it’s a matter of seeing. That I’m not seeing something. That I need a shift in perception. 👌🏼
I love this: spiritual life is not a fixing project at all. It is a seeing project.
good stuff
Just cause people use a word doesn't mean much. I use doctrine in so far as it is an accurate representation of experience. To say what you are describing is not mindfulness which is inseparable is just misleading, so I do appreciate your openness to dialog. Framework is to support the raw moment, it is not something different from it. Especially given that everything is the moment, it's only our perception that is disconnected.
This seems to point out how some survive circumstances that would destroy many: they only look at what is happening even when they are unable to do much to “fix” the situation. In this sense, it’s not “merely” spiritual but a way of living that allows possibilities and not just reactions.
Transformation is a river,
and not an airless swamp.
It causes reeds to shiver,
invites the stones to romp
down the frothing rapid
in the sparkling light of day,
and not hold to their vapid
impression in the clay.
The roaring gorge, it beckons
with voice both wild and mild
for it rightly reckons
that you are yet a child
now headed for a destination
of enlightenment, illumination.
It sounds like grace to me. All we need to see is a willing heart.
This is beautifully expressed and something very close to the heart of what I’ve come to live after years of wandering through more prescribed paths of practice.
We are the mirror, the reflection and the light.
Thank you my friend, I am sure these insights will leave your readers with much to carry home.
Reverence
🙏
I'd say that is a bit what one can call open awareness. The term "Seeing" reminds me too of Krishnamurtis teachings, though it sounded more radical, like a scalpel at times. I think the word he used was "Inquiring".
Great read and non-practice or pathless path! Thank you!
This is stunning- exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you
Your wrap up struck me into thinking how much we are trained not to see as we grow up. So when grown we add our own touches to it.
Also there are many people or institutions that warn you not to see . Don't trust your eyes or ears they say.
I think all of this adds to the shattering when someone starts to see and be open to presence.
We could do with much better training as we grow up.
I’m curious: if or how does your “seeing” relate to the idea of my “0bserver Self?” The one that is “Not l”? Many years ago I established a coaching practice which I named “Notitia,” . Latin for “Deep looking,” I would coach individuals to simply notice their own behaviors, thoughts, whatever without judgment. I used a similar process at the conclusion of small groups I was facilitating: a Process Check, I put on a wall chart everyone’s comments, unedited, no discussion allowed, of what they liked about our session, and what they would like to see improved. I typed them out without edits and sent out to each of the group members along with notes and action items. An example was when someone said for Need’s Improvement List, “I noticed several of us would interrupt others when they were talking.” That was all. We never discussed it, never named offenders. The next week, if there were still a few interruptions or talking over, someone would mention it, it’d go on the list. By the third session people were listening to one another. If someone wanted to jump in, they’d ask the former speaker if they were done. In my mind I was coaching people to notice their own (or others’) behavior without judgment…and before long the individuals were changing behavior that hat led to ever-improving groups. They became self-managing groups, didn’t need me to facilitate.
My dilemma is my “noticing” was intended to help individuals and groups improve their communication skills. Which sounds like “fixing.” Could you elaborate? Thank you.❤️😊
Sandra, this is a really good question, and your example actually sits very close to what I’m pointing at.
What made your process work is that you weren’t trying to correct or manage behavior. You were creating a space where the group could see itself without judgment. Once that happened, behavior reorganized on its own. That’s not fixing. That’s awareness doing its work.
The kind of fixing I’m critiquing is when we act before seeing has done its job, when improvement is driven by control or agenda rather than clarity. Your noticing didn’t tell anyone what to do. It let reality register.
That’s the difference. When seeing is clean, change doesn’t feel like effort. It feels like alignment.
And I think that’s why your groups became self-managing.
Thank you!
Question: is there a SS space (thread?) to discuss “Whispers of Silence?” Or, @your email? I’m learning so much about me as result of the reflection questions and scripture quotes! Am I correct that MM gave you the content for these seven days of prayers and reflections? Am I the only one stunned by how each day’s readings connect to me personally with so much meaning and heart?
I’m being triggered to remember so much of what I’ve learned before! I’m anxious to start afresh in my second week pass-through! For example, today, Day Six, Noon, Journaling Prompt: “what part of my soul has been waiting for recognition?” I immediately jumped to Marianne Williamson’s “Our Deepest Fear…”. * Early 90’s, repeated by Nelson Mandela in his Inauguration (1994?). I kept this as a frontispiece of my notebook of notable quotes that touched my Soul. I used it as often as I could in personal growth workshops, or spiritual retreats co-led with my husband. Just now I am filled again with pure joy as I grow in my comfort becoming and being everything I’m intended by God (the Divine, the Universe) to become. Add to this my thrill at learning that February 17th we welcome the Fire Horse into the coming Chinese New Year! I’ve been connected to the hearts of horses since I could walk, and more recently when I learned how to listen to their wisdom from the Divine. Like you, they have been present to me as teachers. Little did I know they’ve been around on the planet waiting for us “to see them!” No wonder I keep signing up for courses in Animal Communication, listening to my intuitions…in a new paragraph I will recite the full poem:
*Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerfully beyond all measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves: ‘Whom am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”
Amen.
Thank you! I’ve always had wonderful outcomes for coachees and groups…a life work mission of bringing the more “feminine” elements of leadership into large hierarchical status-driven (who has the corner office has more power.) No. that person only has more power if you give it to him. Every human being on the planet is equal in God’s eyes: God doesn’t make junk. Some have more money, have more responsibility or certain knowledge expertise…all our blood runs red. Seems humanity may be going backwards, at least for awhile. I think I’ve always seen myself working on the leading edge of the next Renaissance of Consciousness. Life lived to the edge of all my possibilities. I’m spending more time with Mary and Thomas and starting the Whispers from the Silence daily practice. I want to stay grounded as I prepare for major changes, and I’m trusting Mary and you to support me in my quest. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. You are being incredibly helpful in my one-day-at-a-time journey. I can’t imagine living full-out any other way.❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
One more question: do you offer personal spiritual counseling? I feel you are a teacher to we, who have ears to hear, and eyes to see. And I welcome the group conversations. And, I also have a need for an individual wisdom figure to walk alongside me…someone with whom I can ask anything. Are there really ever any questions that are heretical? Does “heretical” even exist in your lexicon? Or, in reality? Now that I say it out loud, I realize it’s one of your attributes that I adore most about you! Your outrageous heresy! OF COURSE! The very concept is meant to control, not enliven, not inspire. Think I just answered my own question! Thanks for the chat!❤️😎🐶😉
You answered your own question beautifully.
I don’t offer counseling or position myself as a “wisdom authority.” What I do is speak from the edge and leave the door open for people to trust their own seeing.
“Heresy” is almost always a control mechanism. Honest questioning is how life stays alive.
And yes, your instincts there are solid. ❤️
Well, since I always appreciate your questions, and since my life search, has been to “live life to the edge of all my possibilities…” Think I’m in the right playground for me, now. ❤️😉