Q. Sean Trostle
Thank you very much for your guidance, Gary....I have had...short periods of experiencing what you describe (seeing that everything is actually one thing experiencing itself, that thoughts and labels don't have existence outside of my own projection), but it always seems fleeting. As I continue to meditate and practice, my day-to-day experience seems to reflect those qualities more and more, but I still often find my mind being drawn away by thought.
Is it just a matter of diligence? I'm often told not to have expectations for my practice, that I should totally throw away any concepts of enlightenment or spiritual progress that I may have, but from others I'm told that I need to have an insatiable desire for awakening in order to be ultimately successful...some people advocate absolute non-practice, as if not trying to find truth is the best way to find it... Maybe I'm just reading from too many different philosophies.
Thank you very much for your guidance, Gary....I have had...short periods of experiencing what you describe (seeing that everything is actually one thing experiencing itself, that thoughts and labels don't have existence outside of my own projection), but it always seems fleeting. As I continue to meditate and practice, my day-to-day experience seems to reflect those qualities more and more, but I still often find my mind being drawn away by thought.
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| Sean Trostle University of Georgia |
Is it just a matter of diligence? I'm often told not to have expectations for my practice, that I should totally throw away any concepts of enlightenment or spiritual progress that I may have, but from others I'm told that I need to have an insatiable desire for awakening in order to be ultimately successful...some people advocate absolute non-practice, as if not trying to find truth is the best way to find it... Maybe I'm just reading from too many different philosophies.
I apologize for the incessant questions and thank you for your time!
Q2. Some see the enlightenment experience as some "thing" falls aways and thus reveals the underlying reality...do those people then go back to their regular way of life (same concentration, same thoughts, same feelings) with just that insight or does that falling away allow for strong concentration and other things to just appear?...is it the first little snowflake that tumbles down the hill which turns into a big ball of snow, without the need to do anything (no practice)?
G. No problem re the questions, Sean (and Q2 who asked to remain anonymous). You're making excellent progress w/your increasing experiencing of "oneness", even if still intermittent.
There is little evidence, or personal experience, to validate the "one glimpse and then it all takes care of itself" model, as discussed in the first blogpost mentioned above. Even after a great opening like Ramana Maharshi's or Eckhart Tolle's it takes a lot of hours to stabilize one's understanding.
Q2. Some see the enlightenment experience as some "thing" falls aways and thus reveals the underlying reality...do those people then go back to their regular way of life (same concentration, same thoughts, same feelings) with just that insight or does that falling away allow for strong concentration and other things to just appear?...is it the first little snowflake that tumbles down the hill which turns into a big ball of snow, without the need to do anything (no practice)?
G. No problem re the questions, Sean (and Q2 who asked to remain anonymous). You're making excellent progress w/your increasing experiencing of "oneness", even if still intermittent.
As you are seeing "oneness", watch when it "collapses" back into everyday mind...the "I/ego" has come back to reclaim its turf. As your own ""day-to-day" experience reflects "oneness" more and more", the brain is finding a way to increasingly stabilize the experience, despite the ego's attempts.
There is some truth in both poles of what you have read, heard, etc. Persistence is necessary. As Ramana Maharshi said, "no one succeeds without effort...Those who succeed owe their success to their perseverance." However, whether or not you persist obviously depends on whether you have sufficient desire to practice. As i have said, as has Adyashanti, if you want awakening "bad enough", it will happen. IME, i did not have to ''work" @ persisting - it was not possible to "not practice".
The converse is not completely true, though, as you have discovered. you can live a dramatically enhanced, anxiety-reduced and happier life even if you don't have the urgency of "having your hair on fire" (Zen guys) or "being held under water" (Ramana). you might not develop a "persistent 'thoughtless' state" but your life will continue to "improve" as/if you continue to "unpack" your "I" by questioning its location (Where am I?), duration (When am I?), and existence (What am I?), as you have done.
What is often lost w/the focus on "enlightenment" or "awakened" is that it is really "en-lightening" and "awakening". These are processes, not end points as a famous Zen master, Harada Roshi, pointed out, "Enlightenment is capable of endless enlargement".
It gets better along the way. The great focus on achieving some designation like "arhat", "stream enterer", State/Level X or Y actually works against progress in nondual awakening as is strengthens the very ego that is the problem.
Another important understanding is that whether or not the "being held under water" level of desire, or any level of desire, manifests, is ultimately out of your control. i didn't consciously "choose" to have that level of desire; there were some difficult times when "Gary" wished it wasn't so "must do", or didn't exist at all, but that was what it was. i have no idea where it came from, but it wouldn't go away.
As far as doing "absolute non practice" and "not trying to find truth is the best way to find it", as discussed in the earlier blog "Why 'calling off the search' for nondual awakening is a bad message...", the brain doesn't naturally and automatically refunctionalize itself, all "by itself". There are many cognitive neuroscience studies that demonstrate that refunctionalizing takes time, "practice", and enough events of "stillness/oneness" of sufficient duration for the brain to learn how to do it, for the state of "oneness" to persist.
Another thing folk are told is that if the "oneness" experience went away, that it was not the "real thing" or it would have stayed. That's not correct, IME. If you have visions of parrot or anaconda avatars, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, your face melting, or dear departed Aunt Gracie, that's not "it", delightful or horrible as they may be. If you truly feel "oneness", that is it, and it's always there; you don't need to create it, you just need to get the stuff (from the "I") that is obscuring it, out of the way. It is where chants arise from, what is there in peak experiences and between breaths. It is everywhere, literally.
The "do nothing and you will ultimately awaken" approach, IME, often arises out of fear when folk encounter experiences which are frightening and inexplicable (to the "I"). Seeing the possibility of being "un(der)employed", the "I" does all it can to derail what it considers dangerous practicing and "calls off the search".
The converse is not completely true, though, as you have discovered. you can live a dramatically enhanced, anxiety-reduced and happier life even if you don't have the urgency of "having your hair on fire" (Zen guys) or "being held under water" (Ramana). you might not develop a "persistent 'thoughtless' state" but your life will continue to "improve" as/if you continue to "unpack" your "I" by questioning its location (Where am I?), duration (When am I?), and existence (What am I?), as you have done.
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| Ramana Maharshi |
It gets better along the way. The great focus on achieving some designation like "arhat", "stream enterer", State/Level X or Y actually works against progress in nondual awakening as is strengthens the very ego that is the problem.
Another important understanding is that whether or not the "being held under water" level of desire, or any level of desire, manifests, is ultimately out of your control. i didn't consciously "choose" to have that level of desire; there were some difficult times when "Gary" wished it wasn't so "must do", or didn't exist at all, but that was what it was. i have no idea where it came from, but it wouldn't go away.
As far as doing "absolute non practice" and "not trying to find truth is the best way to find it", as discussed in the earlier blog "Why 'calling off the search' for nondual awakening is a bad message...", the brain doesn't naturally and automatically refunctionalize itself, all "by itself". There are many cognitive neuroscience studies that demonstrate that refunctionalizing takes time, "practice", and enough events of "stillness/oneness" of sufficient duration for the brain to learn how to do it, for the state of "oneness" to persist.
Another thing folk are told is that if the "oneness" experience went away, that it was not the "real thing" or it would have stayed. That's not correct, IME. If you have visions of parrot or anaconda avatars, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, your face melting, or dear departed Aunt Gracie, that's not "it", delightful or horrible as they may be. If you truly feel "oneness", that is it, and it's always there; you don't need to create it, you just need to get the stuff (from the "I") that is obscuring it, out of the way. It is where chants arise from, what is there in peak experiences and between breaths. It is everywhere, literally.
The "do nothing and you will ultimately awaken" approach, IME, often arises out of fear when folk encounter experiences which are frightening and inexplicable (to the "I"). Seeing the possibility of being "un(der)employed", the "I" does all it can to derail what it considers dangerous practicing and "calls off the search".
There is little evidence, or personal experience, to validate the "one glimpse and then it all takes care of itself" model, as discussed in the first blogpost mentioned above. Even after a great opening like Ramana Maharshi's or Eckhart Tolle's it takes a lot of hours to stabilize one's understanding.
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| Adyashanti |
IME, a big awakening occurred unexpectedly, but i was unable to hold it, as the ground was not ready for it. Much practice was necessary for it to grow to maturity; there were other "no self" experiences along the way, which also disappeared. There was NO confirmation that "it takes care of itself"; it didn't.
Ultimately, it is all out of "your" control and always has been. Similarly with the "no practicer" existing. Somewhere along the line of "awakening" you may see clearly that it is all out of your control and that there is no "practicer", but until you do, what you call "practice" is necessary to be "done" by the "practicer". It is paradoxical, but that is what it is.
Ultimately, it is all out of "your" control and always has been. Similarly with the "no practicer" existing. Somewhere along the line of "awakening" you may see clearly that it is all out of your control and that there is no "practicer", but until you do, what you call "practice" is necessary to be "done" by the "practicer". It is paradoxical, but that is what it is.
BTW, Liberation Unleashed has had "my" article "Where is the 'I'? Where does it come from?" (discussed in the blog "Wrote parable on your Mountain Path article, is this summary OK?") posted on their site under "Articles". A reader of this blog, Oskar Usuari, from Barcelona, Spain has translated the article into Spanish. (No, Google translator isn't good enough English > Spanish; it works OK the other way.) Liberation Unleashed will be posting Oskar's translation on the website as well. Oskar's blog (in Spanish) is http://petitcalfred.wordpress.
I have read perhaps ten responses to similar questions by teachers I respect, and a few paragraphs by others (neo-Advaitists) who discourage practice. In my experience, Gary's comments are spot on. After my "big kensho" I knew immediately and instinctively that it also "wouldn't hold." I sensed that the "separate inside self" had enough inertia (filling those moments with typical thought-streams) to have at least very strong residual force. And there were six months or so of "disorientation" (that's also Adya's word). Sean, inchworm progress also happens. Gary is often very physiological in his comments and research, a strength not shared by many other teachers. So when he talks about the mind "refunctionalizing," others will say things like "the mind has to get used to the new perspective." And practice helps that. The forms of practice vary widely. Something else, though, in Gary's comments merits emphasis. And that is "grace." He speaks of not willing himself into practice, but rather, being unable to not do it. Elsewhere he has mentioned that some sort of outside agency must have contributed (Darshan? entrainment? -- or as Adyashanit suggests: "Falling into Grace.") It certainly was like that for me...which is to say that after 37 years of Transcendental Meditation, there was no satori. Much seeking, and really, very steady seeking, an obsession, really. But no breakthrough" until there was. It came unexpectedly, in a little mental exercise...like many I had done before.
ReplyDeleteSo be patient. Your neurochemistry is unique, within some generally common parameters. Shunryu Suzuki ("Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind") is said to have never had a "big experience." Perhaps his life was generally so ego-free that the leap was not that far? You are drawn to spiritual advancement...the impulse is active...that is enough...trust the pace...
Andy