Obstacles, tactics, misconceptions, delights of nondual awakening...

Rich Doyle

The obstacles, approaches, misconceptions and delights of nondual awakening are explored in a dialogue w/Rich Doyle; also a youTube video in our series, "Dialogues on Awakening Beyond Thought", produced and directed by Mark Shriver.  (Gary Weber nonduality).  

Rich is a teacher, prolific writer and psychonaut.  His most recent book "Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants and the Evolution of the Noosphere", reflects his eclectic interests and broad intellect.  His recent presentation at "Psychedemia: Integrating Psychedelics In Academia" at the University of Pennsylvania was "Ecodelics: Information Technologies for the Mind Beyond Thought".  we have worked together for a while, hence "...Mind Beyond Thought".

Rich:...I find myself, on this nondual path to awakening, in this incredible sweetness, peace..what we're all gravitating towards...in that deep peace, which feels eternal...and then SHAZAM, some aspect of myself...makes an "attack" on that "peace that passeth all understanding"...that feels like insanity...not a lot of people talk about it...war with a part of ourselves that doesn't want to stop thinking...does that match w/your own?

G....several miconceptions about awakening...some kind of Olympic Gold Medal...that you pass...and it's done, over...you're completely finished.  In fact, it goes on, and on and on...Even after...long periods of great stillness...stuff still keeps being uncovered...like lowering the level of water in a lake...the more quiet it gets...stuff poking up that hadn't been...before...

Charles Darwin

...the brain...likes to preserve real estate and conserve energy...it has found places that it isn't using any more...big neural networks...powerfully, emotionally-locked together and, as you've reported...when you go to those places and..."surrender, let go, let go, let go"...this great release...feeling almost a "rush"...letting go of this very tightly encapsulated old memory, fear, or old story...like dopamine...from that release...Darwinianly...reinforcement for this letting go...

Rich...you get that dopamine..."good job" surrendering...increasing peace, increasing peace...it almost seems in true Darwinian fashion that then the rocks that you hit are more jagged and sharp...more primal...they throw you in a way that requires different tactics...when i hit these obstacles, it's like a sneak eruption...of my "I" that is..."holding on for dear life"...the tactics that got me there...are somehow insufficient...it's scary...

...i've made progress and then..."i'm totally lost"..."all of this has been a sham"..."i've just been fooling myself that i'm healing and getting 'better'"...you feel absolutely, totally, insanely lost...and that's when you surrender...then once again, you get that total release...the best joke...what was i doing falling for that one?

G....when folk start meditation..."this meditation has uncovered all kinds of bad stuff"..."i didn't have this bad stuff before and now i'm meditating and it's terrible"..."meditation caused this bad stuff to happen"...all that you're doing is beginning to look at it...instead of looking "out there"...looking back inside, and seeing..."it's a mess there"...you just weren't looking before...as you've gotten...more still, you can feel the stillness get more locked down, deeper and more stable...and then something will come up.

Rich...it only has to be a ripple to feel like a mountain...

G...exactly...because the platform gets to be so still and stable...a better place to see things from and to watch them...it has been so still and this huge, monster rock has come up

Rich...it's a pebble

G...it feels like a boulder...your approaches need to change. People say..."can i just take this 'Who am I?' and use that question forever"...No, because the ego is...sly and cunning...and will find out how to blunt and defeat this incursion...you need...other vehicles..."Where am I?", "I am not this body" ("What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening...What is 'self-inquiry'?") or chants like "Nirvana Shatakam"...other ways to get around the defenses that the "I" has just come up with...

you have to keep "tricking" the "I"...in some way it hasn't defended yet...and there's an opening there that you can plunge through...and make real progress...when you get into one of those fogs w/"OMG my practice has been for naught!"...feel back into who it is...ask "Is it true?", "Is it absolutely the case?"...just surrender, just let go...how do i feel when i have this feeling?

Rich...what is so amazing is...when i've done that...recovered...turn around...look at who's having the experience and then surrender...another tactic emerges...i don't need to come up with the tactic...automatically began to feel...i was a drop of water in the ocean of nectar...in that moment, i don't have to do anything...i just am that Oneness which is...i am the screen upon which the...movie is being screened...

G....we're always afraid to talk about Grace...something ineffable that's running the show...we've talked about Her...there is this Grace...you could have just as easily...more easily, just go into this fog...and stay there forever...never come back out...somehow, something happens and you find yourself back in your "good" space...somehow the right protocol manifests...another key goes into the lock, another door opens...

As you more deeply surrender...you are held...absolutely held...you let go a little bit and...are held a little bit, you let go more...are held more, you let go a lot and...are completely held...something takes over...

She keeps giving you new challenges...that's the game...keeps getting more and more sophisticated...if you...work with it, She'll come up with Grace and a solution...after a certain point you don't have to do anything...just be present, be open...let go, surrender, and Grace happens...

Rich....It's beautiful...this place beyond thought...anything but uninteresting...it sounds like..."it's going to be totally dull", "selflessness is a drag", "i won't want anything"...the exact opposite is the case...the intensity of experience...ratchets up tremendously because of those iterating challenges...raised, raised, as you go along...the adventure itself...this cosmic adventure...i keep forgetting that there's going to be more.

G...huge misconception..."you'll become a robot"..."darkness, dry, horrible"...it isn't like that at all...it isn't even close...if it were that, we wouldn't even be doing it, we'd be doing something else...we're not foolish...it is better than anything else we could find...there's nothing else that's better...if it weren't that way, we wouldn't be meditating...

Rich...it gets better and better and better...even after those big bubbles of insanity, i can say "thanks for that"...the other side is even better

G...as far as you can go...it's even better

Rich...yeah, it's worth it

G...we've talked about intensities of pleasure...as far as one can subjectively describe them.  we did a survey...("Which is more pleasurable...psychedelics, the nondual state or sex?")...it's more pleasurable, this nondual state, than entheogens, psychedelics...

Rich...i prefer ecodelics

G...more pleasurable than that, and more pleasurable than sex.  If it weren't, as the Buddha has said, there would be no meditators...our culture gives us all kinds of messages...every day...about how wonderful sex is, it never stops...sex is wonderful, but there are things that are better than that...pleasurable, more and more so...it gets so sweet that you can't imagine ever not having it.