The ancients were very clear about one point: Cultivation is an unfolding of

reality, not fantasy. Prolonged meditation should not be used to indulge

ones ideas, beliefs, dreams, imagery, and visions. If used in that manner,
one better not meditate in the first place. It will only make you crazy.

Discover the light of life, and you'll know there is no room to be subnormal
or crazy. If you are serious about spiritual learning, you must go deeper,
then deeper, and then deeper -- until all the scenery of the mind dissolves
into a formless, colorless energy. The highest level of cultivation was often
called the white journey, or the white enterprise by the achieved
ones. This is the indescribable, imageless, non-verbal, non-conceptual
depth of universal life.

Practically speaking, this means that all you have to do is sit, maintain a
peaceful, sober and calm mind during the day, and youll reach the Tao.
Done. Finished. Simple.

But thats not the reality, is it? As long you are a little conflicted about or
partial to your race, gender, sex, and religion, lamenting the people who
have mistreated you in the past, fighting your lower emotions and desires,
or clinging to the golden light you saw in this or that meditation, or the
Buddha or some alien race that favors you -- you will be confined to the
lower astral realms for the rest of your cultivation. Little or no growth will
happen in ones lifetime. There is no benefit. The reason is that you have
framed yourself. And living in a frame is to be asleep.

Cultivation is the practice of wakefulness. The light of life is simply the
awakened mind. And the light must be lit at all the times. You cannot
afford to have any thieves to enter the mind. One must guard herself
diligently so as not to fall into the stupor and trance of ones own deception.


In our cultivation, we are rowing a boat in the murky water, inside a dark
cave. It is easy to be swallowed in the extreme darkness, but with the
fortitude of your clear spiritual vision, you keep on rowing towards the
subtle light.

What is the darkness? The mind. What is the subtle light? The spiritual
energy that enlightens the mind.

The natural reality of life is just the spiritual reality of life. The spiritual
reality of life expresses itself fully with three words: Normalcy, Natural, and
Non-interference. And these three words represent a singular and powerful
faith: The belief in mother nature's self-generation and self-healing. This
point is easy to understand: Our hearts beat without our control. We can
breath without voluntary action. No intent is required.

But we give always ourselves too much credit. We want to control
everything -- our parents, our loved ones, our jobs, our friends. Even in our
spiritual pursuits, we want to control the visions we see in our meditations.
Our mind conjures a bunch of fantasies and narratives to fulfill our inner
desires and emotions. In the end, all we do is cause our heart to beat
irregularly with our tense mind and constant misguided efforts. We choke
ourselves with our mental creations, until we cannot breath anymore. In
the end, no one can take care of the situation.

So what can we do? I always return to this quote:

If nature creates trouble for us, we can survive. If we create trouble for
ourselves, there is no one who can save us.

In our cultivation, we must watch out for any little deviation of our minds.
Simply put, we must avoid creating trouble for ourselves. We discipline
ourselves. In our cultivation, one step forward is difficult, but it is easy to
erase all your efforts in a blink of an eye. The easiest way to check oneself
is to sincerely and constantly say to oneself.

"I don't know."

This phrase represents the naivety of a childs heart. It is the most
powerful mantra I know. It will keep you grounded. For it contains a simple
truth:

Do not be afraid to live in minor mental contradictions in favor of the
frameless and pure spirit.

Indeed, it takes an experienced cultivator to be willing to hold "nothing" in
their head. For as long as you think you know something in your
meditation, there is a seed of trouble. A pernicious weed that will take over
your spiritual garden overnight. Indeed, spiritual health is freely given, as
the natural joy of life -- and because it is freely given, we must be even
more vigilant. Our minds always wants to have something that is hard to
attain.

I shared this with my best friend to explain the fruits of simple cultivation.

Pure Spirit

When you keep your awareness on your pure spirit,

You leave the post-heaven stage of something.
You enter the pre-heaven stage of nothingness.
You stop thinking.
You be.

When you keep your awareness on your pure spirit,

You are unobstructed, even if you feel obstructed in your daily life.
You are perfect, even if you regret many of your actions in the past.
You are centered, even if worries tear you in many directions.
You are beautiful, even if you feel self-conscious of the scars that you
wear.
You are unburdened, even if you have many responsibilities in the world.

When you keep your awareness on your spirit,

You live in the absolute,
where there is no contrast of obstruction or freedom, so you are free.
where there is no contrast of imperfection or perfection, so you are perfect.
where there is no contrast of scatteredness and centeredness, so you are
centered.
where there is no contrast of beauty and ugliness, so you are beautiful.
where there is no contrast of burden and lightness, so you are light.

This may feel like escape to the intellectual mind,
but in the freedom and no-limitation of the spirit,
there is nothing to escape from, or to escape to.
There are no stage or actors either.
There is no creator or creation.
There is no salvation or the saved.
There is no separation of past, present, future.
There are no ideas of stillness or movement.
You are just in the moment.
You can live your own life.

Where will we keep our awareness?
What will we choose to live with?