We Are Already Enlightened!

There is nothing whatsoever which needs to or can be done to improve our basic nature, which is already complete openness, natural perfection and absolute spontaneity. This is like the sun itself which just shines.

This intrinsic positive quality is called basic goodness. Every single being from bug to businessman possesses basic goodness in full measure. Basic goodness cannot be destroyed or lost, but it can be seemingly obscured by obsessive thinking.

When our awakened nature is not obscured, our natural positive qualities manifest themselves without any effort on our part. Compassion, insight, wisdom, humor, joy and other positive qualities bring spontaneous benefit to oneself and everyone one has contact with.

It is possible to experience this everpresent inherent wakefulness at any time and under any circumstance.

We are already buddhas. Our basic nature is primordial wisdom, radiant emptiness, at peace, and totally free. Why then do we all experience confusion, conflicting emotions and suffering on such a regular basis?

Ego

Ego is the temporary confusion which can obscure our experience of basic goodness. Ego makes us feel separate, alienated, confused and is the cause of suffering. Ego is based on duality: awareness is in "here", space is out "there", subject and object, I and other, thinker and thought, me and mine, us and them.

Ego consists of a seemingly endless stream of self centered conceptualizations. This is the undercurrent of thoughts and running commentary that we maintain, sometimes referred to as subconscious gossip or "the noise in our head".

This stream of conceptualizations keeps us from experiencing the raw freshness of our awakened nature. We are distracted from our own enlightenment, thought by thought, moment by moment. This is like clouds obscuring the sun.

Subconscious gossip, the ongoing grip of our ego, makes for a rather claustrophobic experience. This claustrophobia is felt as a continuous subtle suffering. Most of us are not really aware of this dull ache. We think of it as "me" and simply take it for granted.

Sometimes ego causes strong conflicting emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy and other self centered dramas. But what really grinds us down hour by hour and day by day is the repetitive predictability of our habitual thought loops. We are sleep walking through our own life!

Are we stuck with our ego forever?

Egolessness

Since it requires effort to maintain our ego games, ego is a temporary, fickle and insubstantial phenomena. It is mind's magic trick on itself. Ego is the illusion of duality based on a simple misunderstanding. Our unchanging essential nature is egoless openness.

Non dual awareness has no "I" and no "other", just a single inclusive experience. Our experience is like an image reflected on the mirror of our mind. Images appear but the mirror of basic awareness itself remains unbiased and totally open to whatever appears. Our basic nature is primordial purity unstained by duality or confusion.

In order to become enlightened we need to loosen the grip of our own ego. We *can* let go of our obsessive fixations! With no ego obscuration, our basic goodness shines forth unobstructedly like the sun in a cloudless sky.

The flip side of ego is enlightenment. The spiritual path represents a conscious commitment to abandon confusion and suffering by choosing to connect with openness and basic goodness moment by moment.

The nice thing about the spiritual path is that it is a gradual process which brings benefit and is meaningful at every stage, from beginner to full enlightenment. We can begin to feel more open and alive starting right now.

The first step is to clearly identify the difference between the ego state and the non-ego state in the stream our own being. Once we clearly see the contrast between ego and egolessness we can choose between them.

How can we experience basic goodness?