Such harmless, well-meant words. Said to yourself thousands of times. Learned from parents and teachers who said it to you thousands of times.

A fantastic example of how we innocently create our suffering.

With the tiny word “I” you create the concept of a “me” who supposedly controls and is responsible for the thoughts and actions of the bodymind.

This main character is given the impossible responsibility of living its life well while having no control over it whatsoever. It’s a disastrous set-up.

It’s the ultimate recipe for life-long frustration and disappointment, mixed in with just enough wins to keep you addicted to the idea that someday you’ll get it to work.

With the words “will do” you create the entire fallacy of free will. But life is the painful discovery that you don’t control what you will. And if you do happen to will the right thing, there’s no saying whether it will get done.

And with that tiny word “best,” you create an entire world of pain in the form of self-judgment. Who gets to determine what best is, or when it’s not enough?

You’re stuck in a self-made trap.

Until you discover that YOU are what has always been aware of the trap, and aware of the illusion of a someone stuck inside it.

A dog may hang around a dump, or a slum, and look for scraps. It’s a hard life but in a Buddhist country animals are usually treated with compassion.

A dog may get lucky, and find a temple complex. Here they are actively fed. They can stick around, live by the temples, and enjoy a relatively comfortable life among monks.

Humans too, can spend their lives looking for scraps. Some find them in a successful career, others in family and relationships, or in the beauty of the arts.

Or, the human can get lucky, and discover the spiritual complex. Here, the human is actively fed. It’s relatively comfortable, with beautiful teachings and community. There’s hope for vast improvement through dedication and purification.

Nonduality is not about the scraps in a dog’s life. But it also isn’t about human life.

It’s about “turning around” and knowing what knows the entire play of life.

So, turning away from the obsession with scraps is essential. To the human, that’s threatening. Bad things will happen if I ignore my life, material or spiritual, because it absolutely needs “me” to manage it.

But this isn’t about you or your life.

This is about discovering what knows life.

It is on full-volume, ultra-high-definition display.

All it takes is a little bit of attention to what is actually going on.

Every day, trying and failing to control the body causes frustration.

Every day, trying and failing to control thought causes stress.

Every day, trying and failing to make better choices causes anxiety.

Every day, trying and failing to uphold a coherent identity causes suffering: in relationships, at work, and in an utterly insane way, from the futile efforts of a constructed identity trying to uphold a coherent self towards itself.

All it takes is a little awareness of what is happening.

In any moment, seeing how the body lives itself and moves to meet its authentic needs, produces relief.

In any moment, noticing how thoughts are not mine or about a me, and so losing all interest in them, produces instant peace.

In any moment, noticing how choices simply happen spontaneously without needing anyone to make them happen, brings instant freedom.

In any moment, not needing to be a someone or construct any identity at all, is immediate liberation from any limitation.

All it takes is a little bit of noticing what is already going on and how things already are.

It doesn’t take anything at all …

For example, find out for yourself whether you can find an inside and outside, whether you can find any actual separation anywhere between what you call yourself and not-yourself.

Talking about it sounds conceptual because it is. A concept is not the direct knowing. It’s a mental representation of what may have been direct knowing. Concepts are useless.

The only thing that helps is the direct experience of not finding a border, for example, of looking and looking and not finding one anywhere.

We don’t trust our direct experience because we’ve been taught not to trust it.

As children, we saw the world as it was. But it was made very clear to us that we were naive, and what to see instead.

We were told our direct experience was not how things really are, and told exactly what to believe instead.

So now, when we actually look, we can’t find those things they told us, and we doubt our own seeing! The doubts are due to deep and successful conditioning, it’s normal.

And the only solution is to look again, like a child would.

Then you will know, and it won’t matter what anyone says.