Member-only story
To Live Spontaneously
If there’s a goal of mindfulness, this is it.
To live spontaneously is to be in the present, beyond the past, and free of the future. It is to respond to what arises now, without hesitation, without self-doubt, without conflict.
To live spontaneously is not to be free of thought, but to be at peace with it. It is to notice thoughts as they arise, allowing them to share in the space of awareness without resistance, like the passing clouds and growing trees. As such, thoughts take their place as appearances in consciousness, not reflections of identity.
To live spontaneously is to be at peace with emotion. It is to accept the arrival of negative emotions, without rejection. It is to allow such feelings, like thoughts, to share the space of awareness, and to fade in their natural course as the river of time flows.
To live spontaneously is to be free of the concept, and married to the essence. It is to see through the abstraction of the chair, into its essential nature. It is to realize that even the chair is not a “chair”, but rather an undivided manifestation of the whole thing, of all that is. And it is to experience the infinite significance infused with that Whole, a significance arising from the triumphant fact of Being.
