The End of the Target: Why You’re So Exhausted

Jim Moore • March 15, 2026

The End of Exhaustion and the Return to Effortless Being

Have you ever noticed the subtle, relentless pressure that hums beneath your daily life? It’s the feeling that you are a small, vulnerable island of consciousness constantly defending itself against the waves of an external world. We spend our lives in a state of "Seeker’s Fatigue," perpetually trying to fix the "me," improve our circumstances, and shield ourselves from life’s arrows. We treat every setback, think of a traffic jam, a harsh word, a sudden loss as a personal attack, a tragedy happening "to me." But what if the exhaustion you feel isn’t coming from the challenges themselves, but from the invisible "target" you believe you are?


In the laboratory of everyday experiencing, we find that suffering is built on a simple cognitive assignment: the assumption of authorship. We believe we are the "Doer" pulling the levers of the body and the "Thinker" creating the stream of thoughts. This creates a heavy burden of responsibility, where every outcome becomes a verdict on our worth. However, Radical Non-Duality invites us to observe the actual case. If you look closely at the act of breathing, or the spontaneous arising of a thought, you will find that there is no central "manager" inside. Life is simply happening, and the "me" who claims to own it is a non-actual character in a vivid story.


This shift in perspective reveals a profound and immediate relief: the world is not happening to you; it is you happening. When the distance between the "observer" and "experience" collapses, the "Target" for suffering disappears. You cannot be a victim of the moment if you are the movement of the moment itself. Just as a dancer is not separate from the dance, you are not a spectator having a life, instead you are the warmth of the sun, the hearing of the bird’s song, and the very being of this flash of existence.


Recognizing this isn't about achieving a new spiritual state; it’s about the end of the search for one. In the latest book in the series , This - Radical Non-Duality: Practical Guide, explores this "Homecoming" in detail, dismantling the pillars of the separate self to reveal the effortless peace that remains when the "me" stops trying to run the show. If you are tired of managing the storm and ready to realize you are the sky, I invite you to stop seeking and start seeing. The exit from suffering isn't a destination you reach; it’s the realization that the one looking for the exit was never actually there.

No Thing Inside. No Thing Outside

By This • February 20, 2022
What then should one do?

Is Life But a Dream?

By This - The End of It • April 9, 2019
You are not a wave on the ocean. You are the ocean being waves. Have you ever held a conversation in a dream? Do you suppose that the person with whom you spoke was an independent, self-directed individual? Or do you suppose that your conversation partner, your self, and the entirety of the dreamscape was a cohesive manifestation arising from a common source? The difference between a dream and waking experience is in content, not in fundamental nature. Seeing is the realization that the ocean does not have waves, but rather the ocean is waves. A fire does not have flames, a fire is  flames. A tree does not have leafs, a tree is leafs. There is no actual separation of ocean/wave, fire/flame, tree/leaf and thus neither object in each respective set is of itself actual. Seeing is the realization that I do not have experience, I am experience. I do not have an experience of you, I am an experience of you. The nature of the separation of I, experience, and you is that of the separation of fire and flame. I am void (no thing) being experience and experience is not other than me. I am this being that and that has no self identity, no will, no volition and no power in an of it self. Flames do not burn the fire. Waves do not move the ocean. You are not a wave on the ocean. You are the ocean being waves.

An Invitation to Play

By This - The End of It • March 31, 2019
You no more have experiences than does a tree have leaves. Life no more happens to you than do waves happen to the ocean. You no more move your body than does a river move its current. See the actual nature of reality and the actual relationship of you and the world will arise. +++++++++++++++++ An Invitation to Play "I move my hand". The sentence suggests that "hand" is other than the movement that is activated upon it. The sentence suggests there is an "I" that is other than the "hand" being claimed and which is independent of the movement activated on the hand. The "I" is each the owner of the hand and the doer of the motion. If it pleases, hold your open hand at eye level and examine it. Now, close the hand into a fist. Where is the hand that was open? When you re-open the hand, where is the fist? Is the movement of open hand to close fist something that was activated upon the hand? Where was the movement prior to it being activated upon the hand? It may arise that the "hand" is actually not other than "what it is doing". Staying with the hand long enough it may arise that actually the hand is doing nothing and that the movement is all that is actually present. The game is a doorway, an invitation, to seeing.

You Can Not Gain Freedom

By This - The End of It • March 26, 2019
All practices, methods, and techniques are evidence of the freedom you are. There is no path to regaining that which you never lost. There is only the expression of the freedom you are. Seeing is seeing. Only a way of looking at can be taught. Any action you take is an expression of the freedom you are to take the action. If you were not free to take the action, the action could not be taken. Each action in which you engage is other than all other possible actions - every "that" is different than every other "that". When you are running, you are not walking. When you are holding your breath you are not breathing. Every behavior is its own distinct and singular set of conditions. No behavior results in no conditions. The concept that performing any action (ie meditating, yoga, praying, studying, chanting, stopping thought, thinking positively, deep breathing) results in freedom is a falsity. Each of actions occurs because you are free to do undertake it. Each action is a unique set of conditions that is other than all other possible sets of conditions. No conditions result in freedom, rather freedom, that which you are, arises as conditions. There is no action you can take to gain Freedom - No worries, Freedom was never lost.

There is No Personal Enlightenment

By This - The End of It • March 20, 2019
Q: There is no personal enlightenment? Response: Enlightenment is enlightenment. Enlightenment is associated with a person only in stories. Where I am enlightened and you are not is not enlightenment. Where you are enlightened and I am not is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is creation informed by the seeing. Creation in which one person is enlightened and another person is not enlightened is not informed by seeing but is informed by looking at. When a concentrated stream of water is poured into a large pool the water level does not rise only in the spot where the new water is being introduced. Nor is the water more wet in the point of introduction due fresh water being added. The water is the totality of itself and is indivisible. Enlightenment is a state of creation and creation is without edges, borders and divisions. When creation is informed by seeing all of creation is infused with enlightenment. I am not enlightened, you are not enlightened - This experience is enlightened and neither I nor you are other than this experience. We are not individual waves on the surface of the water, but we are the water being waves and each is equally wet. "I am an enlightened being and you are not" is a demonstration of knowledge and separation (Creation informed by looking at). Enlightenment does not arise from knowledge.

Illuminate

By This - The End of It • March 15, 2019
Shall we think that the current causes the river to run? Shall we think that the rays cause the sun to shine? Shall we think that the world causes you to be? The world is your ray. The world is you manifest. You are not of it, on it, in it nor because of it. The world is you being.

Fire is Not Harmed by its Flames

By This - The End of It • March 9, 2019
Fire is not harmed by its flames. Wind is not perturbed by its moving. No longer separate from what you are being, Peace arises. Seeing is the end of the duality in which you wrestle with you. Peace and peace Peace, not that peace proclaimed in the lack of violence or chaos, does not arise from the defeat or surrender of that which threatens peace but from seeing that Peace can not be threatened. Peace, the smiling void that is full but of no thing, can not be earned, won, achieved, offered nor result from any effort. Peace, the silence in sound, the no thing in everything, arises when the space between me and other is no more. Tension and anxiety are part of the reality in which there is me and that which is other than me. In that reality I am troubled to control "other than me" and stressful about my control of that which is other than me not being thorough enough to keep me safe. Even when small "p" peace is present the temporary lull in the trouble and stress is only notable because it falls between episodes of non-peace. Seeing is the evaporation of space between me and it - me and that which must be controlled and/or defeated. Seeing is the evaporation of the space between the fire and the flame. I am what I am being just as the fire is its flame. More, there is not other than what I am being. Therewith Peace arises.

You Are This. There is Not Other Than This.

By This - The End of It • March 7, 2019
"You are not other than what you are being. This is not other than what you are being. There is not you doing this or that. There is not this or that being done to you." That is the entire crux of this. By being the doer of that which is done , I am that which is done to by that which is other than me . In the capacity of doer subject/done to object I am bombarded by circumstances which I need to deal with, respond to, change, overcome, protect myself from and otherwise attempt to control. I am like a balloon in a world of porcupines. Worse, among the sharp objects that threaten me are what I may call my own feelings. Feelings as Other Here I am in here and all else is out there in the world. Among what is out there is feelings and emotions. The evidence that feelings and emotions are out there and not in here are common phrases such as "My feelings" "Control my emotions" "Overcome my feelings" "I can't handle these feelings" "The feeling is overwhelming" The implication being that there is a "me" and feelings that are other than me that can be controlled, owned, a danger to me. It is there in that space between me and "it" (feelings) that all suffering arises. Actually That space, the one between me in here and other than me out there, is where all suffering arises and that space is real - 100% as real as the last night's dream. Utterly real and utterly not actual. Seeing is no longer mistaking the reality "me in here/other than me out there" as being actual and there with evaporating the space between. No space between equals no more suffering. There is not you doing this or that thus There is not this or that being done to you. Any experience which is other than " There is not you doing this or that . There is not this or that being done to you. " is real, 100% as real as last night's dream, and is utterly not actual.