Henry Shukman

Hello?

The first thing actually I've got to say about realization is it's actually not contingent on practice.

which is a pretty radical thing, you don't need to have practiced in order to have realization or awakening.

You don't even, you can practice a lot and not have realization slash awakening.

It's a different order.

Now, I'm going to just, can I tell you a quick story, personal?

Again, no.

Yeah, let her rip.

You know, when I was 19, before I'd done any practice at all, I had a moment of quite significant realization, awakening, that landed on me.

And I had no idea what it was, except that it was the truth.

It was the truth of my life.

And I was, yeah, I was standing on a beach watching the sun go down.

And I was looking at the light on the water.

And I noticed that

It wasn't just one brightness.

It was like pieces of brightness, scales of brightness on the water moving over this totally black surface of the water, bright and black.

And I couldn't, is it bright?

Is it dark?

I couldn't, I was trying to figure it out.

And all of a sudden, me and what I was looking at stopped being two things.