Showing posts with label Adyashanti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adyashanti. Show all posts
Adyashanti: The Art of Self-Inquiry
Soh

Also see my (Soh's) article: Self Enquiry, Neti Neti and the Process of Elimination

 

From https://adyashanti.opengatesangha.org/

The Art of Self-Inquiry

The Art of Self-Inquiry

When it comes to awakening, I have found two elements to be the most helpful and most powerful. The first is developing a meditative attitude, in which we let go of control on a very deep level and allow everything to be as it is. The second is a serious engagement with our own inherent curiosity and intelligence through meditative self-inquiry. Either one of these two separated can be incomplete: Inquiry separated from meditation can become intellectual and abstract; meditation separated from inquiry can result in our getting lost in various different spiritual states. Combined, they provide the necessary energy, the necessary impetus, to produce a flash of recognition of your true nature. And in the end, that is what spirituality is all about.

WHAT IS A SPIRITUALLY POWERFUL QUESTION?
Meditative self-inquiry is the art of asking a spiritually powerful question. And a question that is spiritually powerful always points us back to ourselves. Because the most important thing that leads to spiritual awakening is to discover who and what we are—to wake up from this dream state, this trance state of identification with ego. And for this awakening to occur, there needs to be some transformative energy that can flash into consciousness. It needs to be an energy that is actually powerful enough to awaken consciousness out of its trance of separateness into the truth of our being. Inquiry is an active engagement with our own experience that can cultivate this flash of spiritual insight.

The most important thing in spiritual inquiry is to ask the right question. The right question is a question that genuinely has energy for you. In spirituality, the most important thing initially is to ask yourself, What is the most important thing? What is spirituality about for you? What is the question that’s in your deepest heart? Not the question that some- one tells you should be there, not what you’ve learned it should be. But what is the question for you? If you meditate, why are you doing it? What question are you trying to answer?

The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I? Before I wonder why I am here, maybe I should find out who this “I” is who is asking the question. Before I ask “What is God?” maybe I should ask who I am, this “I” who is seeking God. Who am I, who is actually living this life? Who is right here, right now? Who is on the spiritual path? Who is it that is meditating? Who am I really? It is this question which begins the journey of spiritual self-inquiry, finding out, for your own self, who and what you truly are.

So step number one of self-inquiry is having a spiritually powerful question, such as “Who or what am l?” Step number two is knowing how to ask that question.

THE WAY OF SUBTRACTION
Before we actually find out what we are, we must first find out what we are not. Otherwise our assumptions will continue to contaminate the whole investigation. We could call this the way of subtraction. In the Christian tradition, they call this the Via Negativa, the negative path. In the Hindu tradition of Vedanta, they call this neti neti, which means “not this, not that.” These are all paths of subtraction, ways of finding out what we are by finding out what we are not.

We start by looking at the assumptions we have about who we are. For example, we look at our minds and we notice that there are thoughts. Clearly there is something or someone that is noticing the thoughts. You may not know what it is, but you know it’s there. Thoughts come and go, but that which is witnessing the thoughts remains.

If thoughts come and go, then they aren’t really what you are. Starting to realize that you are not your thoughts is very significant, since most people assume they are what they think. Yet a simple look into your own experience reveals that you are the witness of your thoughts. Whatever thoughts you have about yourself aren’t who and what you are. There is something more primary that is watching the thoughts.

In the same way, there are feelings—happiness, sadness, anxiety, joy, peace—and then there is the witness of those feelings. Feelings come and go, but the awareness of feelings remains.

The same is true for beliefs. We have many beliefs, and we have the awareness of those beliefs. They may be spiritual beliefs, beliefs about your neighbor, beliefs about your parents, beliefs about yourself (which are usually the most damaging), beliefs about a whole variety of things. Beliefs are thoughts that we assume to be true. We can all see that our beliefs have changed as we’ve grown, as we move through a lifetime. Beliefs come and go, but they do not tell us who the watcher is. The watcher or the witness stands before the beliefs.

The same thing goes for our ego personality. We tend to think that we are our egos, that we are our personalities. And yet, just as with thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, we can come to see that there is a witness to our ego personality. There’s an ego personality called “you,” and then there is a watching of the ego personality. The awareness of the ego personality stands before the personality; it is noticing it, without judging, without condemning.

Here we’ve started to move into something more intimate. Your essential, deepest nature cannot be your personality. Your ego personality is being watched by something more primary; it is being witnessed by awareness.

With that, we arrive at awareness itself. We notice that there is awareness. You are aware of what you think. You are aware of how you feel. So awareness is clearly present. It is not something that needs to be cultivated or manufactured. Awareness simply is. It is that which makes it possible to know, to experience what is happening.

WHO IS AWARE?
No sooner do we get back to awareness itself than we encounter the primary assumption that “I am the one who is aware.” So we investigate that assumption, and discover time and time again that we cannot find out who it is that is aware. Where is this “I” that is aware? It is at this precise moment—the moment when we realize that we cannot find an entity called “me” who owns or possesses awareness—that it starts to dawn on us that maybe we ourselves are awareness itself.

This self-recognition can’t be understood in the mind. It’s a leap that the mind can’t make. Thought cannot comprehend what is beyond thought. That’s why we call this a transcendent recognition. It’s actually our identity waking up from the prison of separation to its true state. This is both simple and extraordinarily profound. It is a flash of revelation.

One of the simplest pointers I can give here is to remember that this process of inquiry and investigation really takes place from the neck down. An example of this is when you ask yourself, “What am l?” The first thing most people realize is that they don’t know. So most people will go into their minds to try to figure it out. But the first thing that your mind knows is that you don’t know. In spiritual inquiry that’s very useful information. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t know who I am.”

Once you recognize that, you can either think about it or you can actually feel it. What’s it like when you look inside to find out who you are and you don’t find an entity called “you”? What does that open space feel like? Feel it in your body; let it register in the cells of your being. This is real spiritual inquiry. This transforms what might have been just an abstract thought in the mind into something that is very visceral, very kinesthetic, and very spiritually powerful.

Once we recognize ourselves as awareness itself, our identity can begin to rest in its essence. Who we are is no longer found in our body, mind, personality, thoughts, and beliefs. Who we are rests in its source. When we rest in our source, our body and mind and personality and thoughts and feelings come into harmony.

THE GREAT INCLUSION
After the Way of Subtraction comes what I call the Great Inclusion. When we start to let go into awareness or spirit, we start to recognize that that is who and what we are. We start to see that everything in existence is simply a manifestation or expression of spirit, whether it’s the chair, or the floor, or your shoes, or the trees outside, the sky, the body that you call “you,” the mind, the ego, the personality, everything—all are expressions of spirit.

When our identification is caught in these various forms, the result is suffering. But when, through inquiry and meditation, our identity starts to come back to its home ground of awareness, then everything is included. You discover that your humanness is in no way separate from the divinity within you, which is what you actually are.

Now please don’t try to understand this with your mind. This is really not understandable in the mind. This knowing resides at a deeper point, at a deeper place within ourselves. Something else understands; something else knows.

THAT WHICH REMAINS THE SAME
Nobody can force this flash of recognition into being. It happens spontaneously. It happens by itself. But what we can do is cultivate the ground and create the conditions under which this flash of recognition happens. We can open our minds to deeper possibilities and start to investigate for ourselves what we really and truly are.

When this awakening to our true nature happens, it may happen for a moment, or it may happen for a longer period of time, or it may happen permanently. Whichever way it occurs, it is perfectly okay. Who you are is who you are. You cannot lose who you are, no matter what your experience is. Even if you have a certain opening and you realize your true nature, and then later you think you’ve forgotten it, you haven’t lost anything.

Therefore the invitation is always to rest more and more deeply, to not grasp at an insight or an experience, to not try and hold on to it, but to recognize the underlying reality, that which never changes. The great 20th-century Indian sage Ramana Maharshi had a saying, “Let what comes come; let what goes go. Find out what remains.”

© 2019-2024 by Adyashanti. Written for Yoga International.

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Mr. AP
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Looks awesome. I would guess it applies both before and after I AM realization?
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Soh Wei Yu
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In the AtR guide, after I AM realization, you stop self enquiry and look into the four aspects of I AM, the two stanzas of anatta and two nondual contemplations.
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Mr. AP
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Soh Wei Yu Oh yeah, I commented before seeing what his "spiritually powerful question" was 🙂.
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Soh Wei Yu
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Mr. AP There are other spiritually powerful questions, or koans, that lead to further dimensions of realization than 'Who am I'?
On Zen koans, John Tan wrote in 2009,
“Yes Emanrohe,
That is precisely the question asked by Dogen that “if our Buddha Nature is already perfect, why practice?” This question continues to bother him even after the initial glimpse and that led him to China in search for the answer that eventually awaken his wisdom into the non-dual nature of Awareness.
Therefore we must understand in Zen tradition, different koans were meant for different purposes. The experience derived from the koan “before birth who are you?” only allows an initial glimpse of our nature. It is not the same as the Hakuin’s koan of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” The five categories of koan in Zen ranges from hosshin that give practitioner the first glimpse of ultimate reality to five-ranks that aims to awaken practitioner the spontaneous unity of relative and absolute (non-duality).
Only through thorough realization of the non-dual nature (spontaneous unity of relative and absolute) of Awareness can we then understand why there is no split between subject and object as well as seeing the oneness of realization and development. Therefore the practice of natural state is for those that have already awaken to their non-dual nature, not just an initial glimpse of Awareness. The difference must be clearly understood. It is not for anyone and it is advisable that we refrain from talking too much about the natural state. The 'natural' way is in fact the most challenging path, there is no short cut.
On the other hand, the gradual path of practice is a systematic way of taking us step by step until we eventually experienced the full non-dual and non-local nature of pristine awareness. One way is by first firmly establishing the right view of anatta (non-dual) and dependent origination and practice vipassana or bare attention to authenticate our experience with the right view. The gradual paths are equally precious, that is the point I want to convey.
Lastly there is a difference between understanding Buddha Nature and God. Not to let our initial glimpse of pristine awareness overwhelmed us. 🙂"
More quotes on koan by JT from the past as I was explaining to someone:
John Tan:
“More by John Tan:
Alejandro, I would separate non-arisen and emptiness from the luminosity. Imo, it's a separate pointing. The one hand clapping here directly points to the luminosity.
What is the way that leads the practitioner to “the direct taste”? In zen, koan is the technique and the way.
The one hand clapping koan is the instrument that leads one to directly and intuitively authenticate presence = sound.
Let’s use another koan for example, “Before birth who am I?”, this is similar to just asking “Who am I”. The “Before birth” here is to skilfully lead the thinking mind to penetrate to the limit of its own depth and suddenly completely cease and rest, leaving only I-I. Only this I as pure existence itself. Before birth, this I. After birth, this I. This life or 10 thousand lives before, this I. 10 thousand lives after, still this I. The direct encounter of the I-I.
Similarly the koan of the sound of one hand clapping, is to lead the practitioner after initial break-through into I-I not to get stuck in dead water and attached to the Absolute. To direct practitioner to see the ten thousand faces of presence face to face. In this case, it is that “Sound” of one hand clapping.
Whether one hand claps or before both hands clap, what is that sound? It attempts to lead the practitioner into just that “Sound”. All along there is only one hand clapping, two hands (duality) are not needed. It is similar to contemplating "in hearing always only sound, no hearer".
As for the empty and non-arisen nature of that Sound, zen koans have not (imo) been able to effectively point to the non-arisen and emptiness of one’s radiance clarity.”
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Soh Wei Yu
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Anatta and Pure Presence
Someone told me about having been through insights of no self and then progressing to a realisation of the ground of being.
I replied:
Hi ____
Thanks for the sharing.
This is the I AM realization. Had that realisation after contemplating Before birth, who am I? For two years. It’s an important realization. Many people had insights into certain aspects of no self, impersonality, and “dry non dual experience” without doubtless realization of Presence. Therefore I AM realisation is a progression for them.
Similarly in Zen, asking who am I is to directly experience presence. How about asking a koan of what is the cup? What is the chirping bird, the thunder clap? What is its purpose?
When I talked about anatta, it is a direct insight of Presence and recognizing what we called background presence, is in the forms and colours, sounds and sensations, clean and pure. Authentication is be authenticated by all things. Also there is no presence other than that. What we call background is really just an image of foreground Presence, even when Presence is assuming its subtle formless all pervasiveness.
However due to ignorance, we have a very inherent and dual view, if we do see through the nature of presence, the mind continues to be influenced by dualistic and inherent tendencies. Many teach to overcome it through mere non conceptuality but this is highly misleading.
Thusness also wrote:
The anatta I realized is quite unique. It is not just a realization of no-self. But it must first have an intuitive insight of Presence. Otherwise will have to reverse the phases of insights
Labels: Anatta, Luminosity |
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Another Zen master wrote,
The abbot of the SANBÔZEN
I think that there is no one who has not heard the name Descartes. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a great philosopher and mathematician born in France. He was a contemporary with the great physicist, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), born in Italy Descartes, in Discourse on the Method, a work published in 1637, wrote, “I think, therefore I am.”1 These words, signifying the comprehension of the existence of the self as a reality beyond doubt, formed probably the most famous and most important proposition in the history of modern philosophy. For that reason Descartes is called the Father of Modern Philosophy.
The process of Descartes’ cognitive methodology in the Discourse on the Method is, to put it simply: “If something can be doubted even a little, it must be completely rejected.” Those things which we usually think of as correct must be completely rejected should there be even the faintest doubt about them. In such a process even the proposition that 1 + 1 = 2, which seems to be self-evident reasoning, is rejected. However, Descartes asserts that the one thing that cannot be excluded and remains last of all is the perception “I think, therefore I am.” Is this true? Should this be rejected? Certainly there is a self which thinks about the self thinking. This fact cannot be denied.
But was Descartes really right?
Descartes was mistaken. I cannot help but say so. Perhaps someone will say to me, “Do you really think that you have the knowledge and intelligence sufficient to refute the conclusion drawn by one of the greatest thinkers known to us, someone who thoroughly thought through the problem and reached a conclusion affirmed by everyone?” It goes without saying that I do not have the knowledge and intelligence of Descartes. However, this is not a question of knowledge and intelligence. It is rather a question of the real world discovered through experience.
Descartes is mistaken in a number of points.First of all, the proposition itself, “I think, therefore I am” is a tautological contradiction. The contradiction lies in the fact that while the proposition seeks to show the process whereby one can know the existence of “I,” already from the start it is presupposing that existence in the words, “I think.” This contradiction seems at first to be only a matter of word usage and not something essential to the argument. However, it is really closely tied up with the essence of the problem.
To think about “Is this correct? Is this mistaken?” is something that cannot be denied. “Thinking” is a reality that cannot be excluded. Up to this point it is true just as Descartes maintained. However, the next step in which Descartes knows the existence of “I” by “therefore I am” is where Descartes fell into error. Where in the world did Descartes bring in this “I”? Where in the world did Descartes find this “I”? I must say that as soon as Descartes started with “I think,” he already had fallen into this error.
“Thinking” is a reality that cannot be denied. But there is nothing beyond that reality of “thinking.” No matter where you look, something called “I” does not exist. No matter how much intellectual knowledge you may have, insofar as you do not have this experience, you cannot discover this world. “I think, therefore I am” must be re-phrased as “Thinking, but there is no I.”
When Master Joshu was asked what was the world discovered by Shakyamuni (What was the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?) he answered, “The oak tree in the garden.” This is a famous koan in the Gateless Gate (Mumonkan).Jôshû is presenting the world of “Thinking, but there is no I.” The oak tree in the garden, besides that tree nothing else exists in heaven or earth--an even less so, a “Joshu” who is looking at it. This is the world that is manifested in this utterance.
“The oak tree in the garden, but there is no I.”
1The original French is: Je pense, donc je suis. This was rendered into Latin by a priest friend of Descartes as “Cogito ergo sum.”
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Adyashanti - Existential Unity
Soh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDJSCBuFhzY



John Tan You as "flow of phenomenality" vs "phenomena is empty", any difference?



Soh Wei Yu as flow of phenomenality is absence of division and agent, anatta, absence of identity

Phenomena
is empty is that the flow of phenomenality is unfindable like chariot,
without any essence undergoing arising/abiding/ceasing, just like
reflections and dreams. Therefore the view of phenomena fluxing and
flowing with momentary arising/abiding/ceasing is also dissolved
1
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THE WORLD OF INTERRELATEDNESS
Soh
Thusness commented, "Yes good stuff. "Things" are just set of relations.

Whatever felt, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and thought that seem so real and awareness that is often taken to be more "real than real" is no different from the "chariot" and its basis of designation."

“[3/8/19, 1:23:25 PM] John Tan: However the article (by Adyashanti) should not lump all into one. They are different insights. "More real than real" is one insight. Everything is in fact truly real is another. The "real" is just "inter-ratedness". Then the clear view of the relationships and how to re-understand and live with the new experience and insights.
[3/8/19, 4:53:14 PM] Soh Wei Yu: More real than real is different from everything is in fact truly real? What do you mean? More real than real is just luminosity right
[3/8/19, 4:54:26 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Btw it occurred to me that advaita talks about non arising but the diff with buddhism is that buddhism non arising is the rejection of inherent production due to being free from causation by self, others, both and causeless, which is to say everything is non arising and free from inherent production due to dependent origination. Whereas in advaita everything is non arising due to everything being mere imputation and projection upon the inherently existing substratum of brahman
[3/8/19, 5:06:41 PM] John Tan: Yes. That (More real than real) is also an insight that turns the mind internal. Non-arising means appearances without essence similar to a reflection, like a rainbow. That (More real than real) comes with I AMness. The different between anatta and substantiality is beside appearance, there is innate feeling of some essence separate from the appearances of colors, sensations, sound, smell, taste and thoughts. Therefore one cannot be fully open and release.”


Update:

I wrote to someone to clarify -

"the OP is not about who has the higher view, it is about the necessity
to distinguish the different insights and not lump them all up.

Which is to say, Adyashanti has expressed most of those important insights, but could have done a better job delineating them"

"it is not a dispute, it is just stating that it is necessary to delineate them for readers to understand

I am sure adyashanti will agree if he is around. He did some delineation in his books"

"the “innate feeling of some essence separate from the appearances of...” is not a
criticism of adyashanti’s current mode of insight but the flaw of being
stuck with I AM paradigm.

Which adyashanti has criticised several times himself in recent articles. Adyashanti has warned many times about being stuck in the I AM.

I am very sure, just from adyashanti’s recent expressions alone, that he no longer has “innate feeling of some essence separate from the  appearances of...”

 

THE WORLD OF INTERRELATEDNESS
by Adyashanti

“When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important.” 
When we think of interrelatedness, we usually think of big or small things that are in relationship with one another. However, the way I’m using the word is not like that. I’m not denying that, but there is something deeper than that. Things are actually nothing but interrelatedness itself.  
It’s really hard for a human mind to think that a thing could be nothing but interrelatedness, that interrelatedness itself ends up to be what things actually are. In this sense, things end up to be no-things, and no-things end up to be all things. So when we hear words like no-thing or nothingness, we shouldn’t try to understand that conventionally. In its truest sense, nothingness doesn’t have much to do with nothing. It has to do with interrelationship or interrelatedness.  
And so it is with each of us. When you look inside for your true being, you might say, “Okay, exactly, precisely, what is this thing called ‘me’? What actually is it?” The more you look for it, the more you can’t find it. The reason you can’t find it is because it is nothing but interrelatedness. There’s no substance. There’s no thought, idea, or image to grasp. In that sense, it’s empty, but not empty in the sense of being nonexistent. It’s empty in the sense of being unexpected or inconceivable.  
When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important. Most people, if they feel love, their love feels more important to them than the solidity of their toaster. The love has no solidity to it at all. It has no objective tangibility to it, and yet, it’s something that one could orient their whole life around.  
The Buddha used to talk about the thusness or suchness of each moment. It means not just each moment, but the thusness or suchness of each apparent thing that we perceive. So when I say being, this is the sense I’m using it in, a similar way that the Buddha used the thusness or suchness of something. When we perceive the thusness or suchness of something, we’re actually perceiving it as being nothing but interrelatedness itself. So this ordinary moment, with nothing particularly unusual about it, is being awareness, and awareness itself is interrelatedness. It’s not like interrelatedness is aware; it’s more like interrelatedness is. It’s not that the interrelatedness is that which is aware—it’s that the interrelatedness is awareness.  
This is probably the fundamental barrier that any of us will bump into in spirituality: the barrier between awareness and the objects of awareness. The fundamental duality is that there is this world of things, and then there’s seeing and experiencing this world of things, and somehow those two are different. One of the great misunderstandings about unity is the belief that it reduces the world to a sort of homogenized “goo” of agreement. Actually, in some ways it’s almost the opposite. It frees the uniqueness in you, and it frees you to allow the uniqueness in others. Uniqueness flourishes when we see the unity of things. It doesn’t get flattened out—just the opposite. You just stop arguing with the difference that isn’t like yours.  
When you have two viewpoints that are open to interrelating, almost always something will arise if you stick with it long enough, if you’re sincere, if you’re openhearted, if you actually want the truth more than you want to win or be right. Eventually something will bubble up from that engagement that’s truer than either one began with. If you have two people who are openhearted and see the truth and usefulness, even the utility, of really relating, they’ll see that, and both people walk away feeling like “Gosh, I feel good about that, like we both win because we both discovered more than we started with.”  
The unity of things isn’t that there are no differences. It isn’t that a tree doesn’t look different than the sky, or behave differently than the sky, or have a different kind of life than the sky. The unity is that a tree—an object—is nothing but interrelatedness. The sky is nothing but interrelatedness, and the awareness of things is itself nothing but interrelatedness. That’s an explanation that is coming from a way of perceiving. That’s what enlightenment really is: seeing that the seeing and what one is aware of are one simultaneous arising. It’s an arising that’s always flowing because interrelatedness isn’t static—it’s ever flowing.  
That’s why I’m always saying that this is really about a kind of vision, not in the sense of having visions, but the quality of our vision, the quality of our perception when we can perceive without the dualistic filter. What seems to be this impenetrable sort of barrier between us and things, us and the world, us and each other, is fundamentally between our consciousness and what consciousness is conscious of. That seemingly basic and immovable sense that there is a fundamental difference, a fundamental separation, is what’s really dispelled when our insight gets deep enough.  
At the deepest level, the most fundamental level, interrelationship is just that—it’s interrelating. It’s not things interrelating. Things end up to be themselves interrelatedness. When vision becomes clear, that’s what we perceive. The world becomes not a world of things, but of interrelatedness. 
Excerpted from “The World of Interrelatedness,” April 10, 2019 ~ Garrison, NY 
Available as an audio download, The World of Interrelatedness. 
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