You are already that for which you long.
Rupert Spira
I come back to this line often, because so much of my own searching has been a reaching outward for a peace I thought I had to earn. When I stop and simply notice the awareness that is already here, the one reading these words, the longing softens on its own.
Nothing needs to be added, and nothing needs to be found. Take a quiet breath with this one today.
With love,
Manu
I just published the next Lucid Leader essay on Substack.
It follows Why Mindfulness Matters. That piece was why presence matters; this one is how we live it through an ordinary day: NASA in the morning, Zen in the meeting, Do on the commute.
Read the full essay:
https://bezendo.substack.com/p/living-belucidnow-practices-to-engage
With presence,
Manu
I just published the next Lucid Leader essay on Substack.
It follows Demystifying Mindfulness. This one is why reclaimed presence matters in the corporate arena, how it multiplies impact, and what BeLucidNow feels like when the day is still full.
Read the full essay:
https://bezendo.substack.com/p/why-mindfulness-matters-relevance
With presence,
Manu
I just published a longer essay on Substack — the opening of the Lucid Leader series.
It’s about BeZenDo, BeLucidNow, and something I’ve lived for a long time: the deepest rest isn’t only a leave form or a plane ticket. It can be touched in the middle of the day, in the body, while the inbox is still there.
Read the full essay:
https://bezendo.substack.com/p/demystifying-mindfulness-the-true
With presence,
Manu
I don’t get jet lag.
Not a trick. A quiet choice: stay hydrated, sleep when the body wants rest, find daylight when you land — and refuse to rehearse how bad you’re supposed to feel. Don’t keep mental score of what time it is back home. Stay as present as you can. Breathe. Notice the seat. Rest in the now.
The body is remarkably willing to follow when the mind stops creating stories.
Expectation of jet lag can predict the fog more strongly than the number of time zones crossed. The mind’s story about the body often becomes the body’s reality. Outer conditions still exist. They no longer have to dictate the whole experience.
This is not magical thinking. It is practical spirituality.
What small shift in your own story could you make today?
Be, Here, Now…
This teaching appeared in more detail in Anandda magazine.
What is no-mind? And why have it?
A mind that is always seeking, or always resisting, never actually meets this moment. It is busy becoming, fixing, getting away. Practical thought can still find the keys and answer the person in front of you. That kind is a tool. The rest is a loop.
No-mind is not emptiness for its own sake. It is room. Room to sit. Room to see. Room to act without the argument running underneath.
Zero resistance + zero desire = no-mind (meditation).
Our minds can only be still, i.e. entertain no thoughts when we’re not seeking or resisting anything. Such a point of stillness is meditation. Which is why meditation is simple to understand but not so easy to practice.
What are you seeking, or resisting, right now?
Be, Here, Now…
More: https://namastenow.com/how-to-achieve-no-mind-aka-meditation/
I had this picture on the desk for a while. It was drawn to look like a cigarette, with the orange filter and a little smoke at the end, and a warning in letters that seemed to drip: THINKING IS INJURIOUS TO MENTAL HEALTH.
I kept returning to it, not because thought is the enemy. There is a kind of thinking that simply runs the day, and we would be lost without it. The rest of what the mind does is another matter. I wrote this years ago, and I still mean all of it:
Most thinking is useless. The only kind that’s necessary is the kind where we’re using thought to run the practicalities of life. More than 95% of thought is where we seek to change what already is or desire and scheme for what appears to be missing in our lives. Such thoughts aren’t necessary. Only action may be necessary, not actively thinking about what we might or might not do. Just be.
“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.” – Eckhart Tolle
The warning on that pack is the smoke you cannot put down, the loop that argues with this moment, invents a future to repair it, and then argues with that too. Our minds can only be still when we are not seeking or resisting anything. That point of stillness is meditation, which is simple to understand and not so easy to practice. Zero resistance plus zero desire is the whole formula.
Think not, just be.
Be, Here, Now…
