Recently, one of my clients gave one of the best descriptions I have heard for the felt-sense of Awakeness awake to itself. She had been upset talking about an issue she was having with her boyfriend when she suddenly fell silent. Our eyes had met, and the looking itself, that is neither hers nor mine, seemed to be spontaneously inviting itself to meet itself, to be aware of itself. We sat quietly together for some time, just softly gazing a one another. After awhile I asked, “So, what is here now?” She began to talk about the situation with her boyfriend again. I said, “No, I mean what is here?” She sat silently a few more moments, looking a bit stunned, then answered, “It seems like a bare nothingness that feels very intimate.”

     I nodded in agreement, saying, “Yes.” Then I asked if this intimate nothingness she was experiencing now was concerned about the issue with her boyfriend. Did it have a point of view? She said, “No, not at all.” In this moment, nothing had changed in the situation with her boyfriend, and yet she was no longer suffering. She was visibly calm and seemed deeply touched. Nothing was analyzed, solved, fixed, or changed in any way about life as it was, and yet she sat transformed in the experience of simply being this “bare nothingness that feels very intimate.” The invitation came spontaneously to meet her own being, and in this particular moment, suffering ceased.

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pp. 164-165