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Also by Darryl BaileyDismantling the FantasyEssence RevisitedBuddhessence Finding Wholeness, Harmony and Rest“What the …”.

a summary ofexistencethe sense of here and now DARRYL BAILEYNew Sarum Press

A SUMMARY OF EXISTENCECopyright © New Sarum Press 2024Copyright © Darryl Bailey 2024First published September 2024www.newsarumpress.comISBN: 978-1-7385296-3-6

Foreword • viiAwakening • 1Realization • 5Let’s Get Real • 9e Course of Our Lives • 13A Gathering of Sages • 15Formless Functioning • 21Clarity Rests • 39Fin Agains Wake • 45Bibliography • 47With Gratitude • 49

DedicationFor those who can relate to it.

ixForewordI remember way back, to when I was fourteen years old and would wander for hours along the lakeshore in the prairie town where I grew up.I was overflowing with the big questions of life. What’s it all about? How do you live a good life? Where do you find happiness? Do I have what it takes to get through an entire lifetime? Is there a God? Those very big questions, along with many others.I wanted so desperately to understand existence.I would carry a notebook, to write down any possible insights that might emerge in my days of wandering and pondering … but nothing much emerged back then.That notebook never did get filled, and has long since disappeared.

x a summary of existenceHowever, all these many years later, after a lifetime of innumerable joys, sorrows, and confusions, along with countless periods of both hardship and ease, I find that those big early questions really have some very simple answers.As always, this is merely for your consideration.Darryl Bailey 2024

1AwakeningThe various forms appearing in life can’t be the reality, because all of them are changing; they’re nothing more than false appearances. If we watch a cloud and it takes on the shape of a person, a house, or a mountain, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, we always know it’s a cloud. The appearance of form is not the reality; the unformed cloud is.The same is true of everything: bodies, objects, sensations, moods, thoughts, activities, states of mind, relationships, and so on. All things are changing, flowing. They’re the passing appearances of a great, unformed, and inexplicable, happening—an event, a presence—call it whatever you have to.If we sit quietly, making no effort, life expresses itself clearly; it simply happens on its own. There’s nothing else to find. The heart beats; the breath comes and goes. Vibrations, pulsations,

2 a summary of existencetwinges, feelings, thoughts, and emotions rise and fall. Urges rise and pass; some become actions, others do not; and so life flows.There can be no sense of peace until we realize we’re an indefinable activity. All things, all actions, all thoughts, words, and deeds, are the passing appearances and expressions of a great unformed, indefinable event.Sitting quietly, making no effort, all is revealed: a vibrant, pulsing, formless happening, simply happening. There is no goal in this, no final point; there is only what expresses itself in this moment, and whatever it appears to be now is unavoidably on its way to some other appearance.There are many ways of pointing to this vibrant, formless happening. Some have called it the Great Spirit. Some call it the river of life, or the unformed ocean of existence. Some call it the flow of nature. It’s been compared to clouds and water, having no particular shape. Some say it’s

3 a summary of existenceformless and some call it “un-form.” Some say it’s energy and some say it’s movement. Some call it God, Tao, or Atman. Some call it Mind. Some call it “original nature.” And some just call it the universe, which literally means “undivided turning.”