Is There a Tree?

At the age of 24, after years of intense internal suffering and an intuition that something about the way we interact with our thoughts causes a lot of unnecessary suffering, Angelo had a fundamental shift in the way he experiences reality. This was a pervasive transformation and was life-altering at every level. It suddenly became clear that thoughts, and the way they "paint" our experience of ourselves, time, and space, are essentially unreal, something like ghosts. What replaced this world of thought, struggle, and suffering, was boundless clarity and intimacy with all immediate textures of phenomena. It became clear that this is simply the natural state of things and that it is true for everyone, even if there is some distortion in experience caused by thoughts. It became exquisitely clear that suffering is unnecessary among humans and that any human being who has a genuine yearning to wake up to their true nature has the capacity to wake up to this boundless (non-separation) living truth. This led to the writing of the book, "Awake: It's Your Turn." The book is a combination of practical advice to help anyone who is on this pathless path, practice pointers and inquiry tips, and direct pointing (transmission) through language. Book: Awake: It's Your Turn Simply Always Awake YouTube channel Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded April 2, 2022. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction and Background 00:05:38 - The Shift in Perception: From Suffering to Enlightenment 00:10:20 - Becoming Home 00:14:56 - Suffering and Awakening 00:19:21 - The Paradox of Authenticity 00:23:32 - Finding the Gap in Thoughts 00:28:07 - The Structure of the Mind and Perception 00:32:54 - The Unbound Consciousness 00:37:27 - The Natural State of Mind 00:41:59 - Embracing Pain and Sensory Input 00:46:51 - Overwhelming Sensory Experience 00:51:43 - The Nature of Experience 00:56:39 - The Dance of Nature and the Nature of "Ocean-ness" 01:01:06 - The non-dualistic nature of perception 01:05:29 - The Subtlety of the Spiritual Journey 01:10:39 - Shifting Gears, Changing Expectations and Enjoying the Moment 01:15:30 - The Meaning of Awakening 01:19:44 - Attuning to Your Instincts and Embracing Your Awakening 01:24:05 - Investigating the Relational Self 01:29:08 - Escaping Suffering and Dissolving into Reality 01:33:47 - Dissolving Boundaries of Perception 01:38:00 - The Importance of Focus while Driving 01:42:12 - Love for All Beings 01:47:04 - The Paradox of Enlightenment 01:51:51 - Trusting Yourself and the Unborn 01:56:26 - The Length of the Book 02:00:41 - Uncovering and holding discomfort in the body 02:05:12 - Going into the Contracted Area and Feeling Helplessness 02:09:47 - Investigating God, Death, and Reincarnation 02:14:12 - Energetic Realizations and Past Lives 02:18:34 - Wrapping Up the Conversation