The happiness, the fruit, and the sky

Naomi: That feeling of being inordinately happy for no apparent
reason seems to be the deep ocean and the dhukka feels like surface waves.

Kenneth: This is the real fruit of the practice we do, Naomi, and I'm so glad you are tasting it.

Naomi: I'm glad to be tasting it, too. Does it stabilize at some point or does it come and go?

Kenneth: It's like the sky. It's always there, but you may not be looking up. But the more you settle in as a sky-gazer, the more the confidence grows that the sky will always be there for you anytime you look up, that in fact you *are* the sky; and then the confidence suffuses every waking moment. There's no longer such a tendency to spiral downward into negativity. When scary or dangerous thoughts come, you can be with them a little better, secure in the knowledge that at any moment you could choose to see them as the wisps of smoke they are. Paradoxically, this makes it easier to face up to the consequences of karma. Facing up to karma happens when you deliberately choose to stay with the smoke instead of being the sky because you see the suffering in the smoke and would like to help the smokers raise their eyes.

May you awaken in this lifetime.

Ahhhh. Yes. Always there. Always beautiful, Always solid. What used to be the real world, the only world I once knew, becomes like smoke against the sky.

Thanks for posting this.