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 With our exciting upcoming conference and the fourth issue of the Paradoxica journal available to readers now, I thought it fitting to begin this editorial piece with a tale that points to the essence of sacrifice and embracement of infinity.
There is a story that tells of the 5th century Zen mystic, Bodhidharma, who refused to teach anymore as he claimed most disciples were insincere and half-assed in their search for truth. He sat for 9 years staring at a wall, waiting for the right disciple to arrive. Several people came and were instantly rejected by Bodhidharma. There was one, Dazu Huike, who, for several days, repeatedly approached Bodhidharma, stating he was ready to receive the teaching. But Bodhidharma simply ignored him. Fed up, Huike abruptly cut off his left arm and threw it on the ground in front of Bodhidharma. Suddenly the pain hit and Dazu began to scream in genuine agony. He managed to speak to Bodhidharma, “My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.” Bodhidharma replied, “Bring your mind, and I will pacify it.” Huike responded, “Although I’ve sought it, I cannot find it”. “There,” Bodhidharma said, “I’ve pacified your mind”.
The story is raw and dramatic but it hit me at a guttural level. I felt the story was a direct invitation to me to relax and let go completely. It mirrored my own frustration in chasing enlightenment, what was being asked of me to give up, and the transformational opportunity in the midst of a crisis of being. Awakening is a total sacrifice and plunge into Eternity. A complete sacrifice of our own separateness in each and every moment. It is a spontaneous release into the blackness of Infinity. The accumulated biographical history called “me and my life” is swallowed up and devoured. It seems that only when we give up the totality of our existence does the opportunity of realization and awakening take place; where a vast spaciousness opens up within our being and nothing is left but the ineffable suchness of who and what we are in the moment. It is as if a black hole has opened up in the centre of our being and sucked out the energetic charge of separation.
However, as many nondual teachers see today, such a sacrifice seems to be avoided. The fear of no self can be so terrifyingly huge that subtle self-preservation strategies can sprout back up recreating the illusion of separateness. One such self created sanctuary is the belief in one’s own spiritual awakening. We can hide out in the background of our own awakening and indulge in our self-created fantasy. Comically, with some people, there is even the case of believing that they have somehow outsmarted existence. It’s understandable and quite humbling to realize that many people don’t have the nerve to completely lose themselves. Sacrificing it all is sacrificing it all, through and through. Our life, our dreams, hopes, relationships, careers, kids, desires, path, experiences, being and nonbeing, attaining, understanding, and even our own awakening have to be let go. There is nothing to hang on to anymore. Life continuously offers us the opportunity to drop it all in each and every moment.
And yet, this level of sacrifice can’t be willed or produced through some kind of mental gymnastics where one merely says to oneself, “Oh, ok, I’ll just drop it all right here”. This seems artificial. If one continues to believe they are still going to “get enlightened” through some type of meditation practice or spiritual path, they are more than likely going to continue meditating or following a particular spiritual path until it burns itself out. They won’t be able to help themselves. Like Huike, it seems that when we have exhausted all of our attempts at “getting it”; when all of our effort over the years has reached a boiling point of frustration and sheer exhaustion, only then does there lie the possibility of an unwilled spontaneous act of total sacrifice. A total sacrifice is a direct experiential encounter with ourselves. Nothing is left unturned. Any conceptual “hangers-on” are seen through and released. And our hearts are unclenched, releasing the tension of becoming and the doubt about who we are.
It is in this sacrifice that we are blown wide open to existence and held in an infinite embrace. Reality becomes strikingly clear. We see that there is no ending to the process of sacrifice and we delight in its continuous unfolding, marveling at the mystery of the cosmos. There is nothing to defend against because there was never a separate individual in the first place and so even the claim of awakening seems laughable. And here, it can feel like we are a conduit for existence. We are so totally surrendered that no vestige of separateness lurks anywhere. Uncooked seeds of separateness are seen through and burnt up. We are so blown open and taken over by existence that we are at ease with what is. As Krishna experienced, and continuously invited us to experience, having sacrificed it all, we can dance in existence and ride the full deck of consciousness. Life becomes incredibly playful. There is no friction with what is, nothing left to understand or attain. We are free from how life should be and able to respond to the moment in a clear and immediate way. There is no trajectory of how this particular life should unfold. Our careers, loved ones, and daily interactions are met freely and unattached which paradoxically brings us closer and more intimately involved. There is no demand placed on anyone or anything nor any trace of self-consciousness. There is a fierce openness to all aspects of life and the opportunity has always been now.
Our 3rd annual conference and fourth issue invites us to sacrifice it all and jump into infinity. It is an opportunity to give up all of our attempts of resurrecting ourselves, our vices and addictions, and complaints against existence. And doing so, perhaps for the first time, we can truly relax and allow existence to race through us … revealing more and more the mysterious infinite depth of who we are in each and every moment.
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This article is a look into the very nature of being, using contemporary movie and video game analogies for easy access to existential concepts. This cutting-edge query combines humor, modern language, compelling analogies, current scientific knowledge and a liberal dose of nondual philosophy. The invitation here is to find the courage to make a true paradigm shift in how you see the world in general and yourself in particular. The article offers a glimpse into what one could enjoy as an attendee at the upcoming 2012 Paradoxica Conference where Chad will be presenting his radical perspectives in person.
This paper is a chapter adapted from a completed, yet-to-be-published book with the working title: Awakening To The Sanity Of Presence: Being Sane In An Insane World—A Traveler’s Guide. It is clear that thinking anyone knows anything must be surrendered to honor the paradoxical nature of pointing to not-knowing and to not be entangled in the mind’s grandiosity, concepts or pseudo-knowing. Purely from total naked vulnerability with no concepts to hang on to, pointers to not-knowing arise in six themes that serve as gateways to freedom for aware knowing and inhabiting who we already are. Truth is seen as a defining quality of not-knowing. The six themes are: 1) Not-knowing has a context 2) Egos are threatened by not-knowing 3) Witnessing reveals not-knowing 4) Not-knowing opens the gate to service 5) Living Truth, the defining quality of aware not-knowing, sets one free and 6) Not-knowing is silent divine mystery and grace. These themes are not presented as a literature review, but to reveal from numerous angles a rich domain that welcomes an aware not-knowing of limited impermanent duality nested in unlimited unchanging nonduality. A process interweaving across all themes is the movement from unaware not-knowing to aware not-knowing that, in turn, necessarily and sufficiently allows aware knowing to blossom. Aware not-knowing is likened to a well of infinite depth that surrenders everything and unveils truth, true knowing, joyous suchness of being, egoless empty reality, a vast divine mystery and grace, and timeless, all-encompassing, not-knowable wonder.
This article is a summary of a nondual psychotherapy session with a long time spiritual seeker of 40 years who had worked hard on a meditative path with a guru, but had not experienced an awakening. In the session, he is introduced to some nondual pointers to help him realize that it is all available right here, right now, he has to only see it. After an intense hour with many new understandings, the long term seeker is invited to take the ultimate medicine and discover the lion's roar within.