Sometimes the deepest doubt isn’t dramatic. It’s flat, tired, and convincing: This can’t happen. I’ve tried. I’ve inquired. It’s impossible.
And the more you think about it, the more you hit the same wall—like thought itself is a circular prison you can’t reason your way out of.
This talk doesn’t offer a better argument. It points to something simpler than argument: the moment you notice you’re grabbing thoughts—voluntarily, habitually—and the moment you don’t.
That shift is small. It’s also the door.
When Someone Says “I Don’t Think Awakening Is Possible”
Occasionally someone leaves a comment under one of my videos that says something like, “I don’t even think awakening is possible,” or “It just seems impossible.”
“I’ve tried, I’ve inquired… it seems insurmountable. Like it can’t happen.”
I understand. I get that degree of doubt, because I had it for sure.
And the resolution is actually pretty simple.
But it takes a kind of leap of faith.
Why Thinking Your Way Into It Fails
If you try to think your way into it—if you try to imagine what awakening is ahead of time—sometimes I call that negotiating:
“What will it really be like?”
“What will it mean to me if I can do this?”
“If I can just think about how it is, then I can get to it somehow.”
All of those approaches are the wrong approach for genuine awakening, by definition.
You have to come to the end of what thought can do for you.
I’m not even sure “kind of” is the right way to say it.
But it’s common to feel: “I’ve thought my way as far as I can go, and I always hit a wall. I always hit a wall with thought.”
The Wall Shows Up Everywhere: Infinity, Physics, Limits of Mind
This dawns on people way before awakening, sometimes in other areas.
You try to think about infinity. The size of the universe. Extreme physics principles.
You try with your mind and your mind gets bound up.
Then something feels like: “I wish I could go beyond that a little bit.”
It feels like there’s something beyond that confine of thought, but you don’t know how to get there.
Sometimes it’s scary. Existential fear hits.
Often it just feels like a limit: “I wish I could go past that, but I can’t. I get stuck back in my thoughts.”
Like you hit a wall and turn back around, and the next thing you know, you’re back in thought.
It can become a circular prison—thoughts about the limits of thought, limits of knowledge.
And it’s not bad that it’s uncomfortable.
That doubt, that dysphoria, that frustration—mixed with the instinct that there is something beyond this—that’s not bad.
What Do You Do Next? Look Where Thought Doesn’t Touch
So what do you do next?
When you see thoughts are not going to get you through the barrier—thinking isn’t going to get you through—it’s frustrating.
What to do to go beyond that?
It’s actually very simple:
Look where thoughts don’t touch.
Or more accurately: don’t grab onto a thought.
Now, if you analyze that statement, that’s not what I mean. I mean looking closely at your own experience—moment to moment—maybe meditatively, closing your eyes, watching what your mind actually does.
Where Voluntary and Involuntary Meet
The mind offers thoughts to you.
And what you realize in real time—right as awakening starts to approach—is that you’ve been voluntarily grabbing those thoughts.
You haven’t realized it because it becomes habit, where voluntary and involuntary meet.
It’s like breathing:
If you don’t think about it, breathing happens.
If you do think about it, you can control it.
It’s sort of like that.
You can choose to focus attention on a certain thought. You can choose to push or pull on a thought with your attention. You can choose to redirect attention.
But you don’t notice that by default, attention keeps grabbing thought after thought after thought.
The Critical Moment: “Oh, I Don’t Have to Grab the Next Thought”
The moment you see this—the moment you see, “Oh, I don’t actually have to grab onto a thought”—that moment is critical.
That’s what gets the awakening ball rolling: realizing you don’t have to grab the next thought at all.
Of any kind.
For instance, the thought that says “awakening can’t happen.”
Seeing that it’s a thought.
“Awakening can’t happen.” That’s a thought.
“Awakening won’t happen.” That’s a thought.
“I don’t understand how awakening could happen.” That’s another thought.
Don’t grab that thought.
Just see you don’t have to get entangled.
Maybe “grab” isn’t the best word. It’s not like you physically grab a thought.
It’s more like you get entangled. Identified. Enmeshed.
It’s like you put the thought on like a piece of clothing. You wear the thought. You become the thought.
However you say it, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is seeing it happens and realizing you don’t have to do it.
The Leap That Isn’t a Leap
You can stand here in simple conscious experience—simple aware experience—and not identify with one single thought.
Seeing a thought as such is fine.
You don’t have to suppress thoughts.
A thought says, “Oh, I can’t do this.”
It’s a thought.
Don’t grab it.
See what comes next.
If anything, just stay right here.
Notice you don’t have to scratch the itch of grabbing thought.
You don’t have to give in to the tendency to grab the next thought and get entangled.
This is the leap of faith.
Sometimes I say leap of faith or letting go, and you can turn that into a thought. You can imagine that.
I don’t mean imagine it. I mean this right here.
You’re not leaping anywhere.
You just don’t grab a thought, and that’s a kind of leap.
You’re leaping into pure consciousness—into the pure experience of being awake—without grabbing a thought, without getting enticed, without getting sucked into it, without feeling like the thought is about you.
That’s the key.
The moment you get entangled, you feel like it’s about you.
The moment you don’t, something changes.
Purely awake. Purely clear. Purely here.
And conscious with no need to grab a thought.
Let them come. Let them go.
Let Even the “Progress” Thoughts Go
Including the thoughts that say:
“Oh, I get it. When’s it going to happen now?” — It’s a thought. Let it go.
“I’m not awake yet.” — It’s a thought. Let it go.
Any thought about how you’re feeling: “Oh, I feel so expansive.” Let it go. It’s a thought.
“I’m so far away from this.” Thought.
“I’m so close to this.” Thought.
Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.
Let them go.
Don’t get entangled.
That’s it.
That’s the leap.
It’s a leap into right now.
It’s kind of an anti-leap.
It’s like you don’t leap into a next thought.