Spontaneity

What is spontaneity?

Spontaneity occurs only when we are fully engaged in the present. It cannot arise if the mind is attending to past or future concerns, which block spontaneity. This is why children are naturally spontaneous — until they learn to regard themselves as a being, their sense of being remains entirely rooted in present-moment awareness.

Spontaneity is the natural feature of the Samantabhadra — the level of awareness consisting only of the first three types of awareness, which we might recognize as Kether, Chokmah, and Binah in Kabbalistic terms. Although in truth, one cannot precisely describe this as spontaneity, it is nevertheless exactly this — as at this level, concepts become increasingly diffuse and indistinct.

We call it spontaneity from our temporally bound perspective. But for a Buddha, or arahant, who lack attachment to mental concepts — and thus to ideas of past and future — it is their natural state of being. Each moment arises freshly; yet in the timeless expanse of dharmakaya, the essence of Buddhic mind, there is only an eternal sameness out of which everything arises, spontaneously, within an omniscient present.

As there is only spontaneity, there can be no real confusion. Confusion arises only in beings who, through division in being — the conceptualising of a self — become tangled in time-bound cognition. In the boundless sameness of Samantabhadra, there is no confusion. Only when our perspective descends into temporal beingness does confusion apparently arise.

Do not try to be spontaneous. One cannot generate spontaneity through effort. Spontaneity can only arise through release of perspective. If effort is involved, it invokes the sense of being, which brings with it future and past cognition. Learn to observe what attempts to arise spontaneously, but then gets tangled in mental chatter and speculation. One cannot direct spontaneity — only give it space to play.

Play, which comes naturally to the child, becomes reframed as hobbies and pastimes for the temporally bound adult. One cannot try to play.

I hope that offers some interesting guidance. ❤️🙏

“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
— Matthew 18:3