West LA Satsang

June 15 2016

Q: Is there a difference between

THOUGHTS and THINKING?
MICHAEL: Thoughts are an appearance. Thinking is an activity.

Are you trying to create an experience, or are you experiencing Creation?

-Atreya Thomas

DANIEL: This question is the simple essence of the whole teaching. Are you trying to create an
experience? This is what suffering is. This activity of "trying to create an experience" has become a
habit, but it is useless and unnecessary--it does nothing but make us suffer. Experience is already
perfect and complete--just as it is arising in this moment. The 'Me' arises along with experience--as
part of experience--in the form of an attempt to add its own creation to what is simply here. It tries
to help, fix, control, change, fight, improve, etc., whatever is simply here. THIS DOES NOTHING
except add an element of apparent stress and suffering to our experience of the moment. When you
notice this, you will stop trying to create experience--and you will simply abide as you are, as the
witness of all experience. Then no problem or limitation of any kind will be found in your
experience. It's impossible and unnecessary to create experience.

MICHAEL: Your not creating your experience, your experiencing creation.

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." -Lao Tzu

MICHAEL: You can't get out of the dream because you were never in the dream. The dream is for
the dream character, the "action figure," not You. If you are what is seeing the movie, then you
know you are not the movie.

West LA Satsang June 15 2016 pg. 2

Even if a character dies in a movie, what has that got to do with You who is observing the movie?
Nothing. There's nobody, no separate entity actually in the movie and there never has been. It's all

the uncontrollable play of light/color/sound... for no "one"! The "one" that imagines it's a separate
self is also part of the dream, part of the appearance, part of the movie.

We suffer when we take ourselves to be something we are not. An appearance can only ever be an
appearance. You are prior to ALL appearances, regardless if it's a "positive" or "negative"
appearance.

That which perceives an appearance cannot be the appearance. That which perceives an
appearance isn't anything. For if it were something, it would be an appearance to what?? ALL
thoughts are an appearance in what you are, but that which you are cannot be named.

Alan Watt's son on the Tao:

"One sees the wisdom of not interfering with the course of life, and of letting things go their way.
This is the wisdom that also tells us not to get in our own way, and to paddle with the current, split
wood along the grain, and seek to understand the workings of our nature instead of trying to
change it." -Mark Watts

MICHAEL: Why would you be thinking except to try to change something??

The Miracle is always prior to you

MICHAEL: The miracle was in play before you ever showed up! Prior to the bodies first breath it
was already up and running. The miracle was already here and in full operation before your body appeared or else what
would know of your body?

DANIEL: It's a good thing that the miracle was already up and running before you got here
because otherwise it would be up to the "me" to construct it. "Me," can you make freedom??
 West LA Satsang June 15 2016 pg. 3

So relaxing is the only thing to do. It's the only job you're suited or needed for.

You have to be impressed with the me to make you completely disregard the miracle and take
credit for it. That's a pretty good trick.

What if this moment doesn't need your help?

You open the box called Life and the directions say, "Don't add anything." And that's why you
come to satsang, to learn not to add anything. To learn to keep your grubs off the experience, to
keep your paws off of THIS moment. To experience creation AS IT IS without attempting to fiddle
with it in any way. Leave perfection alone.

The moment is perfect as it is. It doesn't need our help. It's only the fictitious ego that thinks it can
improve perfection.

Love

i LOVE you. Drop the "i" and the "you"... what's left? -Michael Jeffreys

The Me gives you access to past-future

"This 'Me' is an idea, a concept. 'Me' is a story, woven from the string of experiences gone by and
the potential for experiences to come." -Randall Friend

MICHAEL: There's no "Me" now (And if it doesnt exist now, it doesnt exist.)