Author: wisdomfromtheothershore

Shock

“Authentic growth toward happiness comes by _taking shocks
with awareness_. Let’s see what this means.

When we are faced with an unwanted truth, we are shocked.
If we resist the blow by repressing it or denying it, we
cannot learn from it, in fact, we are worse off than before.
But if we are aware of the blow, we can see its cause in
the clash between what is true and what we falsely claim
is true. Our willing exposure of our falseness wins release
from its pain.”

~Vernon Howard, Pathways to Perfect Living, p. 97

“There are many fierce moments in any one life span: times of turmoil, upheaval, challenge, and change. These fierce moments of grace are in many ways the most spiritually important moments of our lives.”

~ Adyashanti, FIERCE GRACE, Awakening in the Midst of Turmoil

Courage

 

“Real courage consists of repeatedly leaping beyond surface personality even while fearing to do so, until all fear vanishes.”

– Vernon Howard. 1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, # 484

The hero’s journey, fear, melancholy and courage

An audio interview with Richard Moss and two individuals who call in to talk to him. Richard talks about the hero’s journey, fear, courage and the real meaning of melancholy.

Notes to self

Things to keep in mind, from Vernon Howard:

“You need only one prayer to cover every difficulty in life.
That prayer is, ‘I pray to see more.’”

-A Treasury of Trueness, # 1338

“Healing fails to occur simply because it is much easier to
injure others than to heal oneself.”

-1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, # 820

“The questioning of presently-held viewpoints is an absolute
necessity for self-transformation. It means that you must go
against your old and familiar ways of thinking.”

-The Power Of Your Supermind, p. 115

“Turn away from society’s artificial wisdom to the real
intelligence of your recovered essence.”

-1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, # 907

“Don’t give neurotic people a reward. When you permit them to
upset you, you are giving them a reward.”

-A Treasury of Trueness, # 1073

Stargazing

“In order to illustrate a basic truth about life, ancient philosophers told a story about the astronomer and the stars. The astronomer habitually took an evening stroll outside the city to gaze at the starry heavens. While lost in stargazing, he fell into a well. His cries for help brought rescuers on the run. One of them advised, ‘It is better to see your very next step than to lose yourself in skies you do not as yet understand.”

– Vernon Howard, The Esoteric Path to a New Life, p. 46

The cost of Awakening

In this very intimate radio interview, John de Ruiter speaks about:

  • the high cost of Awakening
  • self-enhancing awakening experiences and self-annihilating Realization
  • Needing to secure Awakening for yourself and in yourself is the mechanism that’s in the way

The interviewer shares her own experience and asks good questions. This is the second part of a two part interview:

 

Your comments?

More -isms

“Nihilism is the rejection of everything but rejection. It has no stance – except the stance of having no stance.

Being for or against ideas is just another idea. We are free when we no longer derive a sense of self from being for or against anything. When you have no views, even the view of having no views, you are truly free.

Both attachment and rejection mire you more deeply in sleep.

Find what is false in yourself. If you do this deeply enough, you will wake yourself up from this nightmare of conformity and nonconformity and find Something Else. This is not a religion.

Atheists have a god and that is the god of having no god. Who would you be without any positions or beliefs at all?”

–James Wood Stelzenmuller. The Path of Awakening (2007) p.265-266

 

-isms

Adyashanti:

“If you filter my words through any tradition or ‘-ism’, you will miss altogether what I am saying. The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond – awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that.”

 

 

Reflections on meeting the Teacher

I had been practicing Zen for a few years. Many of the folks I sat zazen with had been at it for decades and thinking about that terrified me.

When I heard from a friend that James was ‘awake’ – as in, enlightened, free of dukkha – I had to check it out. Could it be? Someone, living, not far away, but across town, in Tucson, Arizona, had done what it seemed so impossible to do? I was all doubt, skepticism and Zen-snobbery.

I had to meet him. I had questions.

The rest is history, you could say. Things sped up.

Shortly after I started working with James, an answer to the Mu koan appeared. I had been chewing on that one, and giving ridiculous attempts at answers to my Zen teacher, for about 3 years. I started to see more translation of in-zazen-realizations into the rest of life.

For me, teachers of spiritual awakening are access points, way-pointers, nudging me toward what’s possible. James’ perspective and friendship help keep me going in the right direction, like the breadcrumbs that lead out of the deep dark forest.

Here is a beautiful piece in which Richard Moss writes about meeting Franklin Merrell-Wolff.

Joel S. Goldsmith on the function of the spiritual master:

In some religious teachings, there are those known as masters, just as in ancient days Jesus was called Master. A master is one who has achieved some measure of spiritual freedom, which means some measure of nonattachment to the things and thoughts of the world. People often get the idea, however, that the function of a master is to take over another’s mind and life and to govern and manage them for that person, but a master is one to whom a person can go and through whose help and co-operation he can be lifted up into a state of spiritual consciousness and discernment where he himself realizes the Master in his own consciousness. The Master is not a man: the Master is a state of unfolded and developed consciousness.

– Joel S. Goldsmith. The World is New (1997).

Not getting caught


“When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem-making.”

– Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

What is social activism?


James Wood:

Social activism is a form of love in action. If you base your activism in a value judgment – e.g., that the world is “messed up” – you will only create more pain in the world.

As far as social activism is concerned, just liberate yourself and trust what happens. Human rights arise from the true heart of all morality, the conscious human being. The more awake you are in the world, the more just, righteous, and fair your actions are. Anger does not produce positive social change. Liberation does. Anger just makes you harder, meaner and more afraid. Negativity in any form is not necessary for vigorous action that, in its own way, subverts an unjust social order.

– The Path of Awakening (2007) p. 110

Vernon Howard:

If you straighten yourself out, if you are no longer putting out hostility or deception, then you are putting out something that is helpful, therefore that is the only thing you can do to help society… Your anger is the cause of war.

-The Esoteric Path to a New Life MP3 CD, “A revealing interview with Vernon Howard”

Byron Katie:

Just as we use stress and fear to motivate ourselves to make money, we often rely on anger and frustration to move us to social activism. If I want to act sanely and effectively while I clean up the earth’s environment, let me begin by cleaning up my own environment. All the trash and pollution in my thinking- let me clean that up, by meeting it with love and understanding. Then my action can become truly effective. It takes just one person to help the planet. That one is you.

-Loving What Is (2003) p. 107-108 and here is an additional excerpt on activism from A Thousand Names for Joy (2007)

Franklin Merrell-Wolff:

This view is not merely altruism in the usual meaning of the word, for in the latter sense, altruism involves a difference between one’s own self and others… I Recognize more in every man’s Recognition. I am delayed by every man’s failure. Every new facet opened by another individual man breaking through is a new facet awakened in My understanding. Thus, from this standpoint, the duality of selfishness and altruism is destroyed.

-Experience and Philosophy (1994) p.91

 

Franklin Merrell Wolff, on Divinity

The Meaning of Divinity

Clearly, what I mean by Divinity is a somewhat that is quite impersonal. Yet, this somewhat can be directly Realized by the function of Introception. When so Realized, it is found to be quite the most intimate of all thi…ngs. It is the fulfillment of all the deep yearnings of the human heart and it illumines the mind with a Light that is far more brilliant than any light of the intellect, operating either in its purity or in relation to experience.

–Franklin Merrell-Wolff

Description or Value Judgment?

James Wood:

“A description and a value judgment are not the same thing. If I see a cup on the table, the statement “The cup is on the table,” is an accurate description of my experience, a basic truth. If I say, “The cup shouldn’t be on the table. It should be in the dishwasher,” I am making a value judgment, because I am implying that my experience should be other than it is now or would be better if something else were happening. This is also true if I say “The cup is ugly,” “You’re an idiot for owning such an ugly cup,” or “I hate myself for being so careless as to leave a cup out on the table again.” A value judgment implies that something is wrong or bad about my experience. In this case, the badness or wrongness – the “shouldn’t be-ness” – can be attributed to the cup, to its owner, or to myself. You can judge anything or anyone for any reason. Descriptions are useful because they convey information about the world. Value judgments are confusing because they conflict with Reality. Notice the difference.”

–James Wood, The Path of Awakening (2007) p. 19

Problems?

Ultimately, there is no such thing as a problem. The mind generates the appearance of problems to maintain a sense of self. Practically speaking, a problem is a painful situation. The only way out of a painful situation is to take appropriate action. This does not require value judgment and stress. Conscious action dissolves judgment and relieves stress.

–James Wood Stelzenmuller, The Path of Awakening 2007, p.88

More straight talk from Vernon Howard

“Everything works to your advantage as you do what must be done. You may not see this at first, in fact, you may feel that you are losing instead of gaining. __This loss is your gain.__ See this! Your present life goes the way it does because you have certain ideas about it. Well, honestly, what kind of life is it?  If the life is wrong, the ideas in back of it are also wrong, so they must go. It is the loss of the harmful familiar that you feel. Don’t love the familiar just because it seems comfortable. Love whatever is beyond the familiar, which is true love.”

–Vernon Howard, Esoteric Mind Power, p. 153

Thy will be done

All is well-

all is righteous-

and marvelously beautiful and lovable as IT IS.

Why ask that it may be different?

Why even pray that ‘Thy Will be done’ –

The Will is ever being done in the divine Swa-lila.

Rejoice in gratitude –

and endure patiently what you cannot enjoy.

–Sunyata Emanuel Sorenson

Immeasurable Reality

 

Truth refers to the whole of existence and beyond. Truth exists as much in your teacup as it does in your temples and churches. Truth is as present in shopping for your groceries as it is in chanting to God. To think of truth only in spiritual or religious terms is to miss the whole of it, for in doing so you create the boundaries and divisions that are the very antithesis of truth.

Truth is an immeasurable reality not at all separate from your own being. For in the revelation of truth, all beings rest within your being. Put more simply, if you cannot find it now underfoot, I’m afraid that you have missed it entirely.

© Adyashanti 2009

Psycho-Pictography

Sooner or later, all of us must see that negative feelings
toward another person is like tossing dust at him while the
wind blows against us. It all comes back. This is not merely
a moralistic teaching or Sunday school lesson; it is a basic
and inescapable Law of Life.

–Vernon Howard, Psycho-Pictography, p. 168

Happy New Year!!

Happy 2011 Cliffhanger readers!

Thank you for your visits and comments!

 

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

-Jesus

Resistance

James Wood:

“The unawakened state is characterized by resistance or this shouldn’t be happening. Suffering is caused by a split between Reality and what you think it should be. When what is happening and what you think should be happening are different, you suffer. To the degree that you energize what you think should be happening in opposition to what is happening, you experience the pain of unconsciousness, like steel plates grinding against each other.

How do you know what should be happening? Look around; it’s happening.

There is nothing you can do about it.

In addition to a should, resistance can also be expressed as a want or a need: this shouldn’t be happening then becomes I want this not to be happening or I need this not to be happening. If what I want to be happening or what I need to be happening is different from what actually is happening, I generate pain and unconsciousness. For example, consider the following statements: “It should be raining.” “I want it to rain.” “I need it to rain.” If it’s not raining, attaching to these thoughts hurts. In the awakened state, I recognize that what should be happening, what I want to be happening, and what I need to be happening are all the same thing.”

–  Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood




‘The whole existence is a church’

“So many religions are there because so many people are unhappy. A happy person needs no religion; a happy person needs no temple, no church — because for a happy person the whole universe is a temple, the whole existence is a church. The happy person has nothing like religious activity because his whole life is religious.”

–Osho

 

Gratitude

“Practice gratitude for all you have, especially for what serves your growth in consciousness. Take moments throughout the day to reflect on the blessings you have received in life that have led to this point. The practice of gratitude tends to instill humility, a condition that is favorable for awakening. It also leads to joy and faith. If you are grateful for what you have, regardless of how little it may seem, more will be given to you, and you will also be more likely to use what you have for noble purposes.”

-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom 

Happy Halloween!


“You know, most haunted houses aren’t haunted until someone walks inside it. (Laughter)  We do the haunting ourselves and don’t know it. You’d better remember that little figure of speech so you won’t make the same mistake again.”

– Vernon Howard‘s Higher World – MP3 CD Volume 33, talk 823

 

The Wound of Love, by Adi Da

Adi Da on love and fear:

Love Does Not Fail For You When You Are Rejected or Betrayed or Apparently Not Loved. Love Fails For You When You Reject, Betray, and Do Not Love… Therefore, The Most Direct Way To Know Love in every moment is To Be Love in every moment.

–

The emotional (or emotional-sexual) Career Of egoity Tends To Manifest As A Chronic Complaint That Always Says, By Countless Means, “You Do Not Love me.” This Abusive Complaint Is, Itself, The Means Whereby the egoic individual Constantly Enforces his or her Chronic Wanting Need To Reject, Avoid, or Fail To Love others. Indeed, This Complaint Is More Than A Complaint. It Is A self-Image (The Heart-Sick or self-Pitying and Precious Idea That “I” Is Rejected) and An Angry Act Of Retaliation (Whereby others Are Punished For Not Sufficiently Adoring, pleasurizing, and Immortalizing the Precious ego-“I”).

–

Fear is the self-Contraction. The self-Contraction (or the ego-“I”) is The Root-Action (or Primal Mood) That Is Fear. Therefore, All Of The self-Preserving, self-Glorifying, and other-Punishing Efforts Of the ego-“I” (or the self-Contracted body-mind) Only Preserve, Glorify, and Intensify Fear Itself.

–
Fear, the ego-“I”, Un-Love, or The Total Ritual Of self-Contraction Must Be Understood and Transcended. All Of Fear, egoity, self-Contraction, or Un-Love Is Only Suffering. It Is Only Destructive. And It Is Entirely Un-Necessary.

From ‘The Wound of Love’ by Adi Da in The Dawn Horse Testament of the Ruchira Avatar.  See full text here.

Talk tonight with James Wood

For more information about attending a talk, please go to this link:

James Wood talk tonight in Tucson…

Part Three: truth and Truth

Part One of this 3 part series was a look at the question: Do you suffer? using the First Noble Truth from Buddhism: Life is suffering, or dissatisfaction.  Part Two was an exploration of the question: Can suffering/dissatisfaction end completely?  Part Two and a Half had to be written, and it briefly addressed the idea that the end of suffering = the end of the mind, which is a highly problematic view, in my view.  (For more on that, please see ‘Sanity’ by James Wood.)

I don’t claim to know anything.  I’m happy to debate, respectfully.  What I offer in this blog is the understanding of The Teaching on freedom from suffering that I have arrived at by asking my primary Teacher lots of questions and studying my secondary Teachers.

That brings us to Part Three: truth and Truth.  It is useful to be able to discriminate between relative truth and Absolute Truth.

For example, if someone is thirsty and he asks me for water, I do not say, ‘oh, nah, you’re confused, ‘water’ is just a word.’  Yes, ‘water’ is just a word, in an Absolute sense, but it refers to something in the world of relative experience that can help the person who is thirsty.  I know what ‘water’ refers to.  I don’t know what it ultimately is.

This gets a bit trickier when we talk about ‘spiritual’ stuff.  ‘Truth’ is just a word, but it refers to something that helps.  Awake teachers encourage us to find and express what is true in our relative experience, (are you dissatisfied?) while pointing us to the Absolute Truth of freedom that is beyond what words can capture.

Absolute Truths are statements made from the perspective of awakened (enlightened) consciousness about the nature of Reality – statements like ‘Truth is all there is’ or ‘the world is an illusion’.  Liberated individuals speak like this because they are firmly planted in the awake state, out of the nightmare of dissatisfaction.  Absolute Truths are helpful because they lead us somewhere.  (The map is not the destination.)

True Teachers are able to switch between speaking from the perspective of Absolute Truth (it’s just a dream you’re having) and the perspective of relative truth (are you thirsty? would you like a glass of water?

Absolute Truths are used dishonestly quite often.

What I mean by that is – if I were to use statements of Absolute Truth it would be dishonest because I am not spiritually awake.

[I can say, honestly, that I have a strong intuition and I accept, intellectually, that the end of all dissatisfaction is possible.  I can repeat what True Teachers say or discuss my interpretation of what they say.]

When I am angry, for instance, that is the (relative) truth, in that moment.  It would be dishonest for me to react to the anger with an Absolute Truth like ‘Truth is what I am’ or ugh, ‘This anger is the truth.  I am already free’.

No. For me, anger is an (level of the nightmare) issue, so I employ relative truth.  I find the source of the anger – thoughts about what I want that I’m not getting, usually.

Then, I recall the Teaching – anger is fueled by attachment to ‘what I want’ and then, deeper, attachment to thoughts like ‘I shouldn’t feel angry.  I don’t want to feel angry now or ever again.’

Until judgment of What Is does not drive me, I’m not free and I cannot speak as if I am.

3 Part series summary:

  • It’s useful to notice if you are dissatisfied.
  • Dissatisfaction is unnecessary – it can end it, completely.
  • Absolute Truths are statements made from the perspective of Awakened consciousness and are sometimes mistakenly used to deny what is true in relative experience.

When a seeking mind finds what it seeks, it feels its reward.  This means that if you have a seeking spirit you want to find something other than your present level.  That very right sincere wish will lead you to the recognition of that higher state when it appears and presents itself to you.  Because there is a matching of your wish and the fulfillment of that wish, there is what we commonly call an inspiring feeling.  Just like when you’re thirsty and have a drink of water there’s a certain satisfaction there.  You wanted the water.  you had the water and there is the reward.  However, when you have this experience of feeling good when having met a truth, you also feel that it’s not enough.  Let’s go very carefully into this now because the point is enormous.”

from a talk given 6/22/1988    Vernon Howard’s Higher World – Volume 21, talk 507

Part Two and a half: respectful discussion

The mind, rational thought, language and words, in and of themselves, are not a problem.  The mind and words are helpful when used appropriately, with an understanding that the map is not the territory.

Attachment to the mind is a problem.

“As the heart pumps blood, the mind pumps thoughts.  They’re going to arise, the question is, what is your relationship to those thoughts?”  James Wood

We cannot conceptualize the Absolute, however, that does not mean we ought to stop attempting to clearly, honestly articulate our experience and what we understand about the teaching so far.

I really enjoy connecting with others who are interested in finding out what’s true.  However, if you have been following the comments here, you may have noticed that the discussion can get unnecessarily snarky, even insulting.

For me, debate has great value –  the ones who disagree with me help me get clear about what I am saying by calling me out on illogical or confusing formulations.  It’s great!  It helps me think from different angles.  I am not trained in formal debate, but I am aware that there are standards – i.e. it’s not ok to make a claim that you cannot (or refuse to) back up with evidence.

For example, telling a writer that she is ‘using her mind’ is a pretty vague and unclear assertion.  First, how can you know that I am (only) using my mind?  Why do you think that?  Where is your evidence?  What does it mean when you say I am ‘using my mind’?  What are you accusing me of?  What exactly is the problem?  And come on now, no thank you to insulting remarks.

There is a saying I like, ‘the truth is no respecter of persons’.  I don’t do the ‘it’s all good’ thing very well and I won’t congratulate you for being confusing.  I like clear, direct communication (even though I am not always good at it).  I am writing to share my experience of what it is like to study directly with a True Teacher.  And I am here because I am very interested in how you live and understand the teaching on freedom from suffering.

If you say something that doesn’t make sense to me, I will ask for clarification.  I may ask a question about something that is very obvious to you.  I am not the sharpest person around.  You may have to repeat yourself or say it a different way.

If I ask a question or call you out on something, please know I am sincerely trying to understand (with all my faculties) what you are saying and why.   And if you do not give clarification, or still do not make sense, I won’t agree with you.

Recently, I asked a question on another blog and my question was deleted.  I don’t know what happened with that, it could have been a technical glitch, but if the writer deleted my question because he didn’t want to  explain what he was saying, I am not impressed.  It strikes me as unethical to put out information (or opinion), especially in this venue, if you are not willing to answer to questions about it.

For this blog, I assure you, I want to know if you don’t understand what I write.  I will respond to you to the best of my ability (and we still may not understand each other, and that’s ok).

I do not claim to have all the answers and I am more than happy to hash it out, respectfully.  I am willing to be wrong about anything I say.  What I offer here is the understanding I have come to by way of asking my primary teacher lots of questions and studying other teachers’ expressions of the teaching on freedom from suffering.

Part Two: Can suffering end completely?

The last post was about the First Noble Truth in Buddhism: life is suffering.  ‘Suffering’ is the commonly used English translation of the Sanskrit word dukkha.  I agree with Triangulations blogger that dukkha is more accurately translated as ‘unsatisfactoriness’ or ‘dissatisfaction’.

In my experience, dissatisfaction occurs when I attach to the thought, ‘this shouldn’t be happening’ in reaction to whatever is happening.

Can suffering end completely?  Here is what I have learned about that:

While I don’t claim to know anything, I offer a synthesis of what I  have learned from personal conversations with my teacher, and from studying other sources I trust.

When an individual becomes fully awakened spiritually, that individual stops generating dissatisfaction for him/herself.  Awakening means there is no attachment to ‘I, me and my story’, and dissatisfaction stops.  Completely.

That does not mean that suffering stops for other people.  There are terrible, horrible abuses and injustices happening in the world all the time.  The awake person is not blind to the suffering of others or immune to physical pain.  The awake person is simply not contributing to the incessant noise of dissatisfaction, and therefore is able to help other people who are still dissatisfied.

True awakening, true and complete freedom from dissatisfaction, is extremely rare.  The end of dissatisfaction is possible, but if it ends for you, chances are, it will continue for others, so in that sense, it is not over.

The awake person lives for the purpose of helping people who want to wake up.  In order to relate to others, depending on the context, the awake person may seem to be very ‘normal’ or very ‘eccentric/otherworldly’.

Finding a True Teacher can be the end of seeking and the beginning of the end of dissatisfaction if you allow yourself to be guided.

Part One: Do you suffer?

Hello Dear Readers,

In order to follow up on the discussion from the last post on truth, I will be posting a three-part series over the next week or so.   Thank you for being here.  Your comments are very welcome!

Suffering, truth and Truth:  Three Part Series

Part one:  Do you suffer?

One of the purposes of this blog is to connect with others who are interested in freedom from suffering and so it’s important to get clear about what we mean by suffering.

If you are thinking, ‘What is she going on about suffering for?  I’m not suffering.  Life is good,’  I’m not going to attempt to convince you that you are suffering.  Although I do see great value in paying attention to whether or not you are.

Buddhism is based on Gautama’s enlightenment, his awakening to freedom from suffering.  From the Buddha, we have the Four Noble Truths:

  • Life is suffering
  • The origin of suffering is attachment
  • The cessation of suffering is attainable
  • The path to the cessation of suffering

When I first heard the Four Noble Truths, I felt very strongly that I had found a spiritual home.  At the same time, I also thought – I cannot be suffering when there are people in the world being tortured, starving, homeless,  sick, etc.  I wouldn’t dare say I was suffering when I contemplated the suffering of those less fortunate than myself.

But I wanted to check out the First Noble Truth.  I asked myself, is it true, life is suffering?  For me?  What does it mean to suffer?  The Buddha pointed out sickness, death, loss and poverty as kinds of suffering that we humans will typically face in a lifetime.  I located suffering in myself in the form of stress, anxiety, fear, dissatisfaction and just plain old excruciating existential pain.

Perhaps it sounds gutsy or self-centered to claim suffering, given that I live in one of the most affluent countries in the world, given that I enjoy good health, access to education and good relationships.  The view that life is suffering does not mean that I don’t feel extremely grateful my situation.  I do notice the sunset is beautiful.  And I don’t go around gloomy and brooding and upset all the time.

So why would focusing on suffering be useful?  Why not just be happy and focus on the good stuff?

In order to do something about suffering in the world at large, I have to start with how I am participating in it.  It’s really important to note that the cause of suffering that I experience has the same cause as the extreme suffering experienced by others.  The cause is (Second Noble Truth) attachment to ‘I, me and mine’, a pervading sense of ‘I don’t like this’.  (I wrote about this in a prior post, and will probably write more about it in future)

Accepting the First Noble Truth reminds me of the idea that you don’t have to hit bottom before you can start to do something about your situation.  You can see the long term trajectory of your particular brand of suffering, and raise the bottom to meet you by cultivating a heightened awareness of it, even if you don’t experience hunger, violence or physical limitations.

Please stay tuned for the next post on why we do not stop at ‘life is suffering’, and the importance of recognizing the difference between relative and absolute truth.

Desire for truth… is it a problem?

Today I’m picking up a topic that was mentioned recently over on a blog I like.

I sometimes hear people in Buddhist circles talking themselves out of wanting to know the truth… or suggesting it’s somehow wrong to entertain even the possibility of getting enlightenment…  because of the desire issue.

Maybe this is not a sticking point for most of you, but I have certainly struggled with it.

So the question is:   If desire is the cause of suffering, is the desire for truth a problem?  Is the desire to get enlightenment and help all beings a problem?

This is (my paraphrased version of) how my teacher answers these questions:

 

Desiring truth is like really fiercely wanting to sit in the chair you are sitting in.  The desire cannot cause suffering because you are sitting in the chair you’re sitting in.

Desire for truth does not arise in the same (painful) way as desire for things that are not happening.  It’s not a problem to want what already is the case.  And truth is already the case.  It hurts when you argue with the truth, it does not hurt when you want what is true.

Arguing with truth sounds like:  ‘I want what I don’t have’ or ‘I don’t want what I have’ or ‘I want things to be different in the future’ or  ‘2+2=5’.

While recognizing truth sounds like:  ‘I don’t know what needs to happen’ or  ‘I want to be exactly where I am, doing this, feeling exactly what I feel’          and… it’s already done.

Truth is…what is revealed when you remove everything that is false.  Truth is what you are.

To awaken, you must strive to live in accord with Truth – as much as you can – until you awaken to the fact that you are it.

Wanting what you have is not desire because radical acceptance of what is satisfies desire before it can exist.

-James Wood The Path of Awakening (2007)  p. 2, 16, 138

 

The Game of Life: Who’s playing?

“True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment.  This inner alignment with now is the end of suffering.”

–Eckhart Tolle

—

“Life is simple.  Everything happens for you, not to you.  Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.  You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.”

–Byron Katie

—

“What you truly need may not be what you think you need.”

–James Wood

—

I never made any plans-
the Plan is there
and we can fit in
with joyous ease
and delightful uncertainty.

–Shunyata Emanuel Sorenson

—

I like movies.  A lot.  Have you seen The Game?  It’s way high on my list of favorites.

So, Michael Douglas’ character signs up to play a very mysterious game – there seem to be no rules, no boundaries and no objectives.  Or, he is not told what the point is when he signs up to play.

The Game is different for each player, and the rules change continuously, depending on the player’s responses and reactions.  Once a player has committed to the game, it does not stop… until… well, writing too much about it will spoil the effect for those of you who haven’t seen it   :)

—

“Awakening is Truth-recognition.  It is not an experience, state, or form of anything you can mentally know.  The path of awakening involves finding false ideas, or lies, and seeing their falseness.  When you see their falseness, you see truth.  To find truth you have to be a detective.  You have to notice that things don’t add up, like a bad alibi.”

–James Wood The Path of Awakening (2007) p. 2-3

Who’s playing?   ;)

Bones

—

“Reality stands out, utterly free of all that arises, and yet not distinguishable over against any thing or state that arises.  Then consciousness is lifted out of that image of barriers created by skull and skin.”             – Adi Da, Heart-Master Da Love-Ananda


I hold the bones of your head in my hands.
The bones of my hands hold the bones of your hands.
I hold the bones of your feet in my hands.

The moon rises.  We wait.
I see me watching you swim.
I walk you in my feet.
I live you in my bones.
You breathe.  I listen.

There is no preparation for,
no modification
of this.
We are, only now, emptied of stories,
skulls useless, stripped of skin.

—

aw

Have you met a teacher of spiritual awakening?

Have you met or studied in person with any of the teachers listed in the sidebar of the home page here?  I would love to hear from you if you have!!

It is exciting to see ‘spiritual awakening’ become a more commonplace interest.  Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle seem to be the most popular voices right now; they both present the teaching in a way that jives with living a typical modern life.

If you are familiar with Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle, probably you have wondered, as I have – what was it like to be with these teachers before they got famous?    How did they teach before they were booking huge, sold-out venues?  Who were their first students?

Perhaps our task of discernment is easier with teachers who already have an established following of relatively intelligent, ‘normal’ people (whatever that means :)

Perhaps it’s easier to recognize teachers who have published books and videos because we can digest the message from a distance.  We can sit back, comfortable in our own homes, and run the material through our BS detectors.  We can check to see if it’s the same message (different expression/terminology) given by the true teachers we already recognize.  We can check to see if the inner teacher says, “yes!”

But before Eckhart Tolle wrote The Power of Now, and before Byron Katie wrote Loving What Is,  I wonder… how did people respond to them?  What was it like to be with them?

Here is a written interview in which Byron Katie talks about the early days after her ‘transition’.  And a super fun video interview with Eckhart Tolle on Canadian TV show The Hour.  In it, Eckhart talks about his childhood.

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I started a Twitter account today… let’s connect if you are there too!

Working with Dreams, by James Wood

Working with Dreams

“Let your dreams wake you up.  Let them show you patterns hidden beneath the surface of your awareness or illuminate ongoing issues… Let them shock you into a new awareness… On a deep level, we all share the same dreams…

Life is like a dream…The foundation of the dream is a lie of independent existence.  Your dream is the one you are having now, a dream of life and death, parading in an endless cycle.”

-James Wood.  The Path of Awakening (2007)  pp. 219-222

If you haven’t seen Inception yet, you’re in for a treat.  I like movies that help us question reality.  Inception is my new favorite!

 

Stress

I got interested in this teaching because I was stressed, and distressed.

I appreciated all the comforts, privileges and pleasures I had in my life, but I could never shake the underlying sensation of dissatisfaction.  (I also felt guilty for feeling dissatisfied, because I had the comforts and privileges.)  I tried to talk myself out of the dissatisfaction.  I worked jobs in social services.  Nothing seemed to help.  I have a serious case of The Dreaded Gom-Boo.

Some may say that stress is just a part of life, that it is wise to just accept it and treat the symptoms – with humor, philosophy, religion, alcohol, etc.  For me, ignoring the haunting dissatisfaction (or temporarily covering it up) has never worked.  I want to get to the bottom of it.

When I discovered this teaching, I learned that I do not have to continue living with stress.

I learned that it is extremely important to focus my attention precisely on the sensation of dissatisfaction, not to avoid it.  It was important to get serious about examining it.

I learned that there are people, even people living now, in modern times and situations, who are free of suffering.  And they are not sitting around enjoying their own personal contentment.  Pain continues to arise in others, so they are busy teaching.  It’s like in action movies, when the heroes fall in love – they do not, will not, stop to enjoy the honeymoon.  They have more people to save, more villains to defeat, and they just keep going, hardly missing a beat, in love and fighting the good fight.

This is a great talk, recently posted on James Wood’s website, that addresses the importance of witnessing the stressful self-contraction without judgment.


The Dreaded Gom-Boo

In the last post, I talked about meditation as medicine.  Yesterday a friend handed me a copy of:  The Dreaded Gom-Boo or The Imaginary Disease that Religion Seeks to Cure. A Collection of Essays and Talks on the “Direct” Process of Enlightenment by Da Free John.

This material is really fantastic, as is all of Adi Da’s work.  I’ll quote some of what really struck me here.

From  Chapter 2, Tell me True – Have You Got the Gom-Boo? by Da Free John

“We start out naively seeking to know and to experience as a way of becoming expansive and happy and ultimately fulfilled.  But our search does not become Happiness.  The more we know and experience, the less happy we are as a general tendency,  because we are qualifying the presumption of Being the more we experience, the more we know, the more we observe in the conventional sense, the more we analyze and see how we are functioning and how Nature works.  Thus, people come to a point of weakness and despair, a feeling of bondage, as a result of the egoic elaboration of their possibilities, and they approach the Sources of Truth, communicated through religious and spiritual culture, as if seeking a cure for this dilemma, this Dreaded Gom-Boo, that is the basis of traditional religious culture.

In truth, the religious or spiritual process has nothing at all do to with the Dreaded Gom-Boo or its cure. It has nothing to do with the disease you want to make the premise of the spiritual process. The first thing you must do when you truly become involved in the process associated with Truth is to understand, and, immediately, directly, presently, to transcend the disease that you seek otherwise to cure. The pursuit of the cure of the disease is the same activity as the one whereby you first acquired the disease. It is a version of the disease, something you do because you are diseased. It is not another process than disease. At most it involves a different relationship to the disease. Whereas previously you unwittingly did everything that compounded the disease, now you want to do everything to get rid of it. The search for the cure is still another way of being diseased. It is not the Way of Truth. It is not the Way that I Teach. It is not true religion or true spirituality. True religion, true spirituality, is the process that takes place when you are already well, when you are in your Native position, when you are established in Truth, Happiness or Reality.

The spiritual process is to understand how you contracted this disease, understand the mechanics of your presuming it always in this present moment so that in every present moment you will be established in the Free Position, the Position of Happiness, Truth, or the presumption of Being. The spiritual process, then becomes the magnification of non-disease, prior Happiness, the prior presumption.”

Da Free John. The Dreaded Gom-Boo. (1983). The Johannine Daist Communion. pp. 44-45

Not all good

For me, being a student of the teaching on freedom from suffering is not about affirming the idea that ‘all is one’ or ‘it’s all good’. It is not all good, and this work reveals how not good it is.

Meditation does not exactly feel good to me. It never really has. It feels like taking medicine. It does not feel like an escape or a relief. In meditation, I do not reach states where I would like to reside permanently. There is no bliss or ‘stream-entry’ happening here.

The light of brighter awareness reveals psychological and emotional content that is not pleasant. It shows me how fiercely I am clinging to a sense of self that is always dissatisfied and threatened. It shows me how much I live in repetitive thoughts about ‘me and my problems’, regrets, hopes, schemes and plots. It shows me how little I trust. That’s how the medicine works. If it feels good in any way, it’s when I note that it is doing what it’s supposed to do.

Being close to an awakened teacher is like taking the strongest dosage of the medicine available, plus some, times ten billion.  I am told that the sense of dissatisfaction gets much louder and more intolerable before it lets go.  It’s pretty loud and intolerable at the moment.

Who are these teachers of spiritual awakening?

One of the many benefits of getting to know James before he wrote his book and got busy teaching was the time we spent discussing the teachers who influenced him when he was a student.

James has an extensive collection of audio tapes, CDs and literature written by awakened individuals.  In those early days we would spend hours watching videos, listening to talks and reading excerpts from the books.  We talked about the material at length.  At first, I was skeptical of every one of these individuals.  I was fond of the Zen tradition of transmission, in which a teacher receives permission to teach from his or her superior, usually after decades of formal practice.   Most of the teachers James introduced me to had not received formal transmission of any sort.  They spoke on their own authority, using their own terms, about awakening.

Listening to the first borrowed audio talk in my car driving home from James’ house, my skepticism flew out the window.  (As I recall, it was a tape of Bryon Katie leading people through The Work… )  I borrowed more material and couldn’t keep my head out of the books.  All these teachers were saying the same thing, in their own terms, in their own ways!  But the message was the same message, and the same root teaching of Zen – life is suffering and there is a way out.  As Byron Katie says, “you are the cause of your suffering, but only all of it.”  This was great news.

I noticed several things as I learned about these teachers.  I noticed that they do not rely on religious traditions, texts or systems.  They may refer to passages in religious texts or use certain rituals, but they communicate only from the authority of their own personal and direct realization.  They speak spontaneously in response to their immediate surroundings, listeners and life circumstances.  Talks do not have the tone of a planned lecture.  In general, there is not a course of study or step by step plan of attainment.  There may be guidelines or mile-markers that students tend to notice along the way, but the mile-markers are not stages of enlightenment, just the possible results of applying certain practices.

In my studies, I did not hear these teachers say – you are already free,  there is nothing you need to do.  There is no denial that we are suffering anxiety, stress, fear, anger and the whole spectrum of negative emotions.  They say, freedom is our birthright, or natural state, and we cannot do anything search-wise to find it.  True freedom comes by grace, and, we can take steps that develop a stronger psychological/physical/emotional/social vessel that is able to contain and express that natural state.  Practices like meditation and inquiry help me.  I am not spiritually awake, but there is progress that I feel as less density and a relief from the sense of dis-ease.

Access to the work of a variety of persons living and expressing the awakened state grew my hope and determination to keep going.  At first exposure, I felt the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter and over time I feel my ‘self’ getting lighter.

 

The end of suffering