Adyashanti - Center

art Anja Stiegler

The nature of experience is that it changes or undulates like the waves on the ocean. It’s supposed to be doing that. Identity starts to shift from “me,” the seeker, chasing some particular experience, to just this. Just this. The center is always right here. The center always was right here. It’s just the seeker that insisted the center could be in the spiritual high experience. But as the seeker dissolves, then right here is where every instant is the center. It’s motionless right here. And you can be having a very ordinary, a very unhappy, or a very extraordinary emotional and psychological experience, and still the center is right here. And only from here does it begin to dawn that everything is an expression of the center. Everything. There is no expression that is more the truth than any other expression. There is no experience that is more the truth than any other experience because, in the center of it all, there is no seeker. Right here, there is nothing. All is One.

http://www.adyashanti.org/

buddha dhammapada

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a confused mind,
trouble will follow you as certainly
as a cart follows the ox that pulls it.

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a clear mind,
happiness will follow you as certainly
as your own shadow in sunlight.

"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Believe such thoughts, and you live in resentment.

"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Question such thoughts, and you live in freedom.

Anger teaches anger.
Fear results in more fear.
Only understanding can lead to peace.
This is the ancient law.

download the book (pdf) Here

The Nisargadatta Gita by Pradeep Apte

The Nisargadatta Gita by Pradeep Apte.

 From the intro:

 

I came across a book ‘I Am That’ based on the talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. As I began going through it, I just couldn’t put it down, ‘This is dynamite!’ that’s the immediate feeling I had. I Then began preparing the text of ‘The Nisargadatta Gita’. In my life, so far, I had never met a living Guru, is my mere reading or studying of books of the teachings of all these great men of no avail?  This last doubt was removed while I was editing the script of ‘I am Unborn’ where Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj answered this very question:

V: Do books replace a Guru?

M: Yes, books can replace a Guru. At one stage you yourself become a Guru;then you find out that books are of no use anymore. The Guru is one, who knows the beginning, continuity and the end of his life and understands the mind on which the environment has so much impact.( Page, 89, I am Unborn).

This answer came as a big relief and will also come to many like me who have never come across a living Guru in their life.

 download PDF Here

Garab Dorje - Hitting the Essence in Three Words “The Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King”

Garab Dorje

 Patrul Rinpoche’s commentary on Garab Dorje's Tsik Sum Né Dek, 

or Hitting the Essence in Three Words.

 The Root Text

Herein is contained The Special Teaching of the Wise and Glorious King, together with its commentary.

Homage to the master!

The view is Longchen Rabjam: infinite, vast expanse.
Meditation is Khyentse Özer: rays of wisdom and love.
Action is Gyalwé Nyugu, that of the bodhisattvas.
One who practises in such a way,
May well attain enlightenment in this very life.
And even if not, what happiness! What joy! A la la!

1. Introducing directly the face of rigpa in itself

 

As for the view, Longchen Rabjam,
Three statements strike the vital point.
First, relax and release your mind,
Neither scattered, nor concentrated, without thoughts.
While resting in this even state, at ease,
Suddenly let out a mind-shattering ‘phaṭ!’,
Fierce, forceful and abrupt. Amazing!
There is nothing there: transfixed in wonder,
Struck by wonder, and yet all is transparent and clear.
Fresh, pure and sudden, so beyond description:
Recognize this as the pure awareness of dharmakāya.
The first vital point is:  introducing directly the face of rigpa in itself.

2. Decide upon one thing, and one thing only

 

Then, whether in a state of movement or stillness,
Of anger or attachment, happiness or sorrow,
All the time, in any situation,
Recognize that dharmakāya you recognized before,
And mother and child clear light, already acquainted, will reunite.
Rest in the aspect of awareness, beyond all description.
Stillness, bliss and clarity: disrupt them, again and again,
Suddenly striking with the syllable of skilful means and wisdom.
With no difference between meditation and post-meditation,
No division between sessions and breaks,
Always remain in this indivisible state.
But, until stability is attained,
It is vital to meditate, away from all distractions and busyness,
Practising in proper meditation sessions.
All the time, in any situation,
Abide by the flow of what is only dharmakāya.
Decide with absolute conviction that there is nothing other than this—
The second vital point is: decide upon one thing, and one thing only.

3. Confidence directly in the liberation of rising thoughts

 

At that point, whether attachment or aversion, happiness or sorrow—
All momentary thoughts, each and every one,
Upon recognition, leave not a trace behind.
For recognize the dharmakāya in which they are freed,
And just as writing vanishes on water,
Arising and liberation become natural and continuous.
And whatever arises is food for the bare rigpa emptiness,
Whatever stirs in the mind is the inner power of the dharmakāya king,
Leaving no trace, and innately pure. What joy!
The way things arise may be the same as before,
But the difference lies in the way they are liberated: that’s the key.
Without this, meditation is but the path of delusion,
When you have it, there’s non-meditation, the state of dharmakāya—
The third vital point is: confidence directly in the liberation of rising thoughts.

4. Colophon

 

For the View which has the three vital points,
Meditation, the union of wisdom and love,
Is accompanied by the Action common to all the bodhisattvas.
Were all the buddhas of past, present and future to confer,
No instruction would they find greater than this,
Brought out as a treasure from the depth of transcendental insight,
By the tertön of dharmakāya, the inner power of rigpa,
Nothing like ordinary treasures of earth and stone,
For it is the final testament of Garab Dorje,
The essence of the wisdom mind of the three transmissions.
It is entrusted to my heart disciples, sealed to be secret.
It is profound in meaning, my heart’s words.
It is the words of my heart, the crucial key point.
This crucial point: never hold it cheap.
Never let this instruction slip away from you.

This is the special teaching of the wise and glorious king.

Rigpa Translations, 2008.

 http://www.patrulrinpoche.org/

Jac O'Keefe - The Personal to the Impersonal

http://roadioarts.deviantart.com/

The "all about me" story can become a painful one. If you have become fed up with talking about "my life, my beliefs, my opinions, my belongings, my money, my life style..." then perhaps the futility of these unending and repetitive stories is beginning to show itself.

Take a look and see if you can recognize that many of these stories about "me" are simply an attempt to defend who you THINK you are. Without these believed stories you might find you are not who you think you are. The personal I can never be satisfied because it is fundamentally inauthentic. Its very nature is filled with desire. There is no personal I that is constant and unchanging. The personal I knows no stillness and moves between pleasure and pain in response to the senses. The personal I is an insatiable idea constantly protecting itself and seeking acceptance and love.

This unending cycle has no resolution. It can only be recognized as a futile play and abandoned. Let the "all about me" story fade out. At this point you will find there is something that is watching the play of the one who wants everything to be about itself. The one who sees the hungry personal I does not require the world to rotate around itself. The impersonal I has a knowing that all that happens does not have a direct impact on who you are. Simply put, the impersonal I does not take things personally.

If your reference point has moved from the personal to the impersonal I, then emotional reactions will have lessened greatly. The search for love and attention will have taken a back seat and judgement of others largely subsided. Without a doubt, the impersonal I is a reference point from which you can operate with significantly less suffering. A sense of being less self-absorbed arises. Increasingly, you will notice that when the personal I appears, some drama ensues, because the personal I is perpetually seeking attention.

Many have found that the withdrawing of attention from the personal to the impersonal I is a useful spiritual practice. For some, mind is calmer and for most an inner contentment begins to develop. This is a natural consequence of the removal of attention from who you think you are.

So why bother training your mind to operate from the perspective of the impersonal? Undoubtedly there is less suffering when events are understood to be not about you. However, there is an inconsistency in this practice. It is impossible to be established in the position of the impersonal while the belief that you are a separate individual is still active. It will feel like there is an internal switch which reactivates the personal I. While it seems obvious to seek to avoid suffering and therefore relocate your perspective to the impersonal, something inherently continues to be not at rest. Both the personal and the impersonal points of reference are tricks of the mind as it attempts to make life an experience with less suffering.

Mind imagines that something is to be gained by the perspective of the impersonal, but what it has to offer is limited and becomes not good enough. It is mind that plays with spiritual practice and you are not your mind. Neither are you a product of your thoughts. Both the personal and the impersonal are conceptual states of mind that run their course experientially, and you can erroneously think that you are making progress towards freedom.

So what to do? What you are, is prior and beyond the games of mind. But while you think you are an individual, let it be known that this is idea of separation is no more than a thought believed into a subjective reality. What you are knows nothing of personal and impersonal, of spiritual practice, of awakening. You are not who you think you are and mind cannot conceive of what you truly are. Mind was not designed to know your true identity. Mind is a tool kit to allow manifestation to appear as real. It imagines as it goes. It believes or doesn't believe, as it goes. Who you are is not concerned. In fact, who you are has no capacity to imagine anything at all. Who you are knows nothing of who you think you are. The lies that are offered by mind are no more than a smokescreen, an apparent movement that has the capacity within itself to like and dislike what it has created. Do not be bothered with any of this as there is nothing to be fixed or changed here. However, the appearance of manifestation will appear to continue as it plays a game of control. It is mind that tries to control mind, tries to minimize suffering, tries to annihilate itself and imagines that without itself it will be happy. See this game of life for what it is. What you are is beyond all of it.

http://www.jac-okeeffe.com/

Rupert Spira - Awareness is the dreamer

 An Introduction to Non-Duality

The essential discovery of all the great spiritual traditions, including Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Sufism, Kashmir Shaivism and Judaism, is that experience is not divided into a perceiving subject, an entity known as ‘I,’ and a perceived object, world or other.

The apparent separate entity and the apparent separate, independent world or other are understood to be concepts that are superimposed onto the reality of experience.

If we look for this Reality, for the essential ingredient in every experience of the mind, body and world, we find Consciousness or Awareness, a Knowing Presence that we intimately and directly know to be our own Being, and that is experienced simply as ‘I am.’

This understanding, sometimes referred to as Non-Duality or Advaita, lies at the core of all these traditions and although it cannot be expressed directly, teachers, sages, mystics and poets use the language of their culture to point towards this Reality.

This non-conceptual or experiential Reality or Knowingess, although in fact always present, embedded in all experience, is veiled in most cases by beliefs. The primal belief, upon which all others are based, is that Consciousness or Awareness is located in and/or as the body.

With this fundamental mistake we shrink ourselves into a separate entity that resides in and as the body. That is, Consciousness seems to contract into a tiny, vulnerable entity and, as a result, the peace and happiness that are inherent in our true nature, in Consciousness, are veiled and seem therefore to be lost. This is the beginning of the search for happiness.

Consciousness seems to contract into a separate entity that we know and feel to be ‘I,’ and the world (including all others) simultaneously seems to become outside, separate, other, ‘not me.’

Although this division of experience never actually takes place, it is a powerful illusion that seems to divide the Oneness of experience into two separate things. With this apparent division suffering is born.

In most cases a friend or teacher is required to point out this fundamental mistake, and through association with him or her, through the sharing of Being in conversation, meditation, contemplation, silence, self-enquiry, investigation, exploration and simply spending time together in silence and in normal everyday activities, the dense web of beliefs and feelings that comprise the knot of separation is dissolved.

This is sometimes called Awakening. It is the awakening of Presence, Consciousness, Awareness to its own Being as the Reality of all things.

In my case, it was my friend and teacher Francis Lucille, who pointed out this clear seeing of the nature of experience. However, there were many others, mostly from the Advaita or Non-Dual tradition, that prepared the way for this meeting in the heart: Ramana Maharshi, Robert Adams, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Klein, Atmananda Krishnamenon, Wei Wu Wei, Rumi, Hafiz, Meister Eckhart, Irene Tweedie, Da Free John, Krishnamurti, Shantanada Saraswati, Francis Roles and Ouspensky.

Francis Lucille introduced me to the Direct Path, which is not really a path. It is the clear seeing that Consciousness is simultaneously the witness and the substance of all experience, the one Reality that gives seeming existence to the mind, body and world.

The first true glimpse of this is sometimes known as Enlightenment or Awakening, although in almost all cases the habitual tendencies of the mind and the body reappear and apparently veil this Knowingness again.

The subsequent establishment in this understanding, sometimes known as Self-realisation, is not a process towards a goal. It is a re-orchestration of the body, mind and world that comes from understanding, rather than going towards it. Enlightenment is instantaneous. Self-Realisation takes time.

Enlightenment could be said to be the deep understanding that there is no separate entity located inside the body experiencing the world and all others outside and separate from itself.

Self-realisation could be said to be the re-absorption of the mind, body and world into this Knowing Presence from which they proceed, and from which they were in fact never for a moment separate.

It is a re-orchestration of the mind, body and world in line with our understanding that it is this Knowing Presence that takes the shape of thinking, sensing and perceiving and, as a result, seems to become a mind a body and a world, but in fact never becomes anything other than it already eternally is.

There is only Presence taking the shape of the totality of our experience from moment to moment.

http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/home

Chuck Surface - Right where we began

Martin Stranka

Though we are often driven by sorrow,
To seek the end of sorrows,
It is the desire for Love, and Love Itself,
That in the end brings us to Freedom.

For when all Hope is lost,
And only Despair remains.
When all paths have failed,
And all efforts proven vain.

Then we sit alone, defeated, with nothing left.
Nothing, that is…
Except what moved us at the onset.
Our Own Shining Heart, our Own Inherent Love.

We wander for countless ages.
In the heartbreak of giving and receiving,
Until, when grasping is exhausted,
We simply rest as the Love we Are.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.
Not in perfection or attainment,
Not in doing thusly, or understanding profoundly.
Simply Here, where we began.

As we are.
Here.
Now.
Right where we began.

~~~

Chuck Surface writings 

 

 www.GardenOfTheBeloved.com

www.facebook.com/InTheGardenOfTheBeloved 

 

 Martin Stranka