tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35530203211986570822024-02-20T17:53:32.192-08:00ArupaJim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-821755924660170992010-07-28T20:32:00.000-07:002010-07-28T20:33:18.343-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Open</span><br /><br />You can like something, or not like it<br /><br /> Or you can be open<br /><br />You can talk about good and evil<br /><br /> Or you can be open<br /><br />You can talk about excitement versus fear<br /><br /> Or you can be open<br /><br />You can have stage fright or be a performer<br /><br /> Or you can be open<br /><br />You can have anxiety or bliss<br /><br /> Or you can be open<br /><br />If this comes up or that comes up<br /><br /> And you can be interested<br /><br /><br /> You can be open…Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-23195716939100642492010-06-06T13:08:00.000-07:002010-06-06T13:09:49.997-07:00Today's ColumnThe eye slowly reopens<br />The door was never closed!<br />Why did I start to do this?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">For love of the wounded parent,<br />Who took it on before, <br />What cannot be harmed,<br />Cannot be divided,<br />Took on the role of<br />What is rejected,<br />Until it stopped…</span><br /><br />It’s right where I left it.<br />I pick it up, and move on.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">6-6-2010</span><br /><br />Arupa will be opening a new website shortlyJim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-36698699321712678392010-05-08T08:40:00.001-07:002010-05-08T08:41:52.234-07:00Today's Columnas i watch <br />the hands <br />making <br />the cup of tea <br />space observing space <br />undivided <br />exaggerated objectification <br />inevitably resolves <br />the “problem <br />self” as 3rd person <br />implodes in <br />that small samadhi <br />and ecstasy ensues <br />the compassion of the One <br />for the "many" <br />is the bedrock of "aha."<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">5-8-2010</span>Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-85535371781126100902010-04-25T20:08:00.000-07:002010-04-25T20:09:45.193-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Toil and Trouble</span><br /><br />When we ask why we act as if we are separate creatures, with only this life to live, we must refer back to the basic question: who am I?<br /><br />If the answer is That, then there are two corollaries.<br /><br />1. It is actually That which is acting this way. There is nothing else.<br /><br />2. It is normal and unalarming for That to act this way.<br /><br />Since That manifests itself over and over as these beings acting this way, trying not to act in the way That has manifested itself is absurd.<br /><br />Each instance of That in the world experiences awareness from behind the screen of a biological body that has evolved with the necessity of protecting itself first and asking questions later. In the wild this protective stress ramps up quickly and then disappears, either by escaping, or being eaten. In “civilized” society the stress ramps up and just stays there, because there is no way for the body that has not yet returned to awakening to understand that the constant danger it perceives cannot really harm it.<br /><br />The average person in the modern world is trapped from the cradle to the grave in a matrix in which he or she is simply cattle for the rich and powerful and we all know it. The stress is chronic and it hurts, but chronic pain that can’t be avoided is denied, because until awakening begins to return no one feels they can do anything about it. Denying that stress simply layers more armor around the heart and the true knowledge that it is opening up to that pain and experiencing which will frees us remains hidden. The wonder is, as those who return to awakening begin to understand, not even this constant suffering can bring any harm to That.<br /><br />The only way to return to awakening is the way that we return: by gradually returning, as That remembers Itself. The biological being that is experiencing stress is a construct, a part That is playing, and whether That is “conscious” of the drama is of no consequence. There is no effort the biological being can make that will speed up, or slow down, the returning: it has no such powers. Practice and bhakti are indications that the return is proceeding, not ways and means to speed it up or gain merit. There is no merit to be gained, as each being is always already that Perfect One. A delicate balance has been tipped when we “provisionally” begin to act “as if” this were truly the case.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-54677350724294650872010-04-21T20:06:00.000-07:002010-04-21T20:08:34.782-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Non-duality is Not Mysticism</span><br /><br />Non-duality is not mysticism. Ordinary life and the illusion of separateness is mysticism. <br /><br />The idea of separateness is the most remarkable manifestation of the undivided. <br /><br />But where else can completeness move except toward partiality? <br /><br />Where else can perfection move except toward separateness?<br /><br />All of these “problems” are the way that perfection supports the radical notion of separateness. Without them, separateness collapses. “I” is the difficulties, not the triumphs, the struggle, not the relief.<br /><br />Samadhi – bliss – is the snapping back of the rubber band of separateness when the illusion collapses. Awakening comes when the realization opens that things were this way all the time. It is not an experience. Experience is what props up the illusion, including the experience of bliss. Awakening is not something gained, but something given up, or even lost. What is left when the frantic search finally stops? Peace. Peace with the way things are. Loving what is, even the warts. Whose face are they on?<br /><br />Thou art that.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-10310430630735987192010-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:002010-04-08T14:45:11.565-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Innocence</span><br /><br /> Clearly, the legend of Atlantis is parallel to the legend of the Garden of Eden, the Elysian Fields, etc. They all refer to what is “generically” looked at as the fallacy of the Golden Age, the time of innocence, before Lethé was drunk and we all became the miserable creatures we are now. Well — a lot of us are miserable creatures, and many of us treat others miserably, especially those who run things. But a lot of us don’t think of ourselves as miserable creatures, and when someone starts talking about realization and awakening, many people could care less. So fine. My teacher says, “Don’t worry about your happy illusions. Worry about your sad illusions. Or your anxious illusions.” <br /><br /> In Joan Tolifson’s “Awake in the Heartland” the phantom Guru, Jed McKenna, is quoted as saying, “Enlightenment is nothing. Delusion is the wonder.” In the same book Chogyam Trungpa is referred to as having said that enlightenment is the biggest disappointment that exists. Well, sure. It’s the end of pretend. The big question may not be, “Who am I?” but “Why is there illusion?” Is there a “who” to whom illusion is being presented as a game? If it’s all One, how does that work? If there is no personal “I” who is being fooled?”<br /> I Am That. Thou Art That. All of This is That. That is impersonal. “I” disappears into it. There can be no harm because there is nothing that can be harmed: there is no-thing. So where does the compassion come from that blossoms forth when one of us goofy, deluded creatures finally sees? If the point is that I take my own hand out of the fire because it hurts then why start? Why do it again?Innocence.<br /><br /> It blossoms again and again. It has no previous knowledge. Materialization – manifestation – just happens, and when it does, some say tomato, and some say to-mah-to. It just happens. There is no name that is correct, no right or wrong way to do it, but there are always disagreements. And agreements. These are small things. Life doesn’t mind. Life is what is aware. Awareness is the latent potential that pops out of no-where, no-thing, and that is who – what? – is typing this (and making errors on the keyboard, going back, fixing them, going forward). The vital datum it keeps mislaying is that opposites and contradictions stand out, but the fulcrum under the teeter totter is in shadow, and you forget it’s there. It’s neither this nor that. It doesn’t stand out. It produces no feelings. The only time you get a rush is when you suddenly remember it’s there, and that’s just the rubber band you’ve been stretching with your existential angst for the last twenty years snapping back. Oh. That’s called Samadhi.But awakening is always already aware. Like you. Here. Now.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-51411173774229061812010-03-20T08:38:00.000-07:002010-03-20T08:43:29.816-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">What To Do?</span><br /><br />So, what do I do now? Make an announcement? Issue a challenge? To who? Why not?<br /><br />February 28, 2010 I met a man named Michael Walsh. He said that one way to remember who you always were was to “let go of the rope that’s dragging you through the shit.” That struck home. It was, in a funny way, very much like the impact of “Loving What Is.” I questioned him about it, said that it really appealed to me because it wasn’t about doing something, but about not doing something. He agreed. I acknowledged it was me that had to “do” it – let go. He agreed. And I did.<br /><br />It’s taken a while to skid to a halt, to let all that crap that was rooster-tailing up around me to settle down. And it has. This is it.<br /><br />No there, no that, no then. Just this. Tathata. Suchness.<br /> <br />Should I tell people? Should I make an announcement? I guess I am. There's no way to prove it. Most people wouldn’t see any difference. There is no difference. It always was this way. I’ve just stopped pretending. What’s the point?<br /><br />Michael’s e-mail a few days later: samadhi is an extreme. Good point. Suchness just is. Samadhi is like a rubber band letting go after you’ve been pulling it back all your life. The snap back is quite a ride. Then it’s over. If it just went on like that you’d starve. Ramana almost did several times. His devotees had to force feed him. It would have been okay if he did starve. When he was dying his devotees asked him not to leave them, and he said, “Where would I go?”<br /><br />Yesterday I had a strong realization that it is the emptiness that is alive.<br /> <br />Oh. <br />Well, that explains a lot. <br />Yup.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-13964852461327989512009-09-27T13:38:00.000-07:002010-03-20T08:36:53.235-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">"That" Is Me</span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Introduction: The Radical Surmise</span><br /><br /> "I should introduce this thesis with the statement that my intention in pursuing my studies at Goddard is to enhance my qualifications to begin the practice of psychotherapy. My focus in this work has been what is known as Transpersonal Psychology, and as I’ve been doing for three semesters now, I go on herein with my notion that, for therapy to succeed, it must be based, consciously or unconsciously, in the idea that what really brings people into the consulting room is the pain of separateness and the quest for wholeness. This is vintage transpersonal psychology, of course, so what is my contribution? My little drop of water for this huge, leaky bucket we keep trying to fill is to add my assurance that the separation we feel is actually illusory, and most importantly, to advance the notion that things are, in some sense, arranged to appear this way."<br /><br /> The above is the beginning of my senior study for my Bachelor’s Degree at Goddard College. It was submitted and my degree was granted in August 2001. Most of what I want to talk about now was already contained in what I was saying then, but some of the ideas have taken eight more years to reach the point where they can be laid out in a way that makes them more accessible. What remains the same, always already there, is…<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Radical Surmise</span><br /><br /> The thing I want to “take back” is the word arranged. It’s unproductive and confusing to suggest that there is a plan involved. Awareness has no agenda. It’s not personal. If the mind wants to continue playing the game of separateness, then awareness is still there, unchanging. If the mind begins to realize separateness doesn’t add up, then awareness is still there, still unchanging. It doesn’t say anything. It’s just there, always already there, unchanging.<br /><br /> A lot of things have happened since my graduation but the single one that has made the most difference in my life is meeting Byron Katie. Katie lives what the ancient Indian sages called advaita. She doesn’t use any fancy terminology. None at all, in fact, or any metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Katie offers a tool called The Work, which consists of four questions and a turnaround. In June of 2006 I went to a three-day session with her at Kripalu Yoga Center in Massachusetts. By the second evening, I realized I was with someone whose consciousness is fully grounded in the Oneness that seekers spend their lives searching for.<br /><br /> We all talked for hours about the crazy way that our beliefs mislead us and the cardinal question of why, if we are all one, we act the way we do. Katie’s answer? We just do. It’s simply the way that brains work. At the beginning. But there are other ways. Katie doesn’t say that the way she teaches is better or that her way is good and the way our brains usually work is bad. It’s just different. It’s an opportunity to see and live and function as if one were already just as grounded as she is. The secret, that everyone knows and no one believes, is that we are all awake and aware. But we keep insisting we won’t be.<br /><br /> People start looking for spiritual answers when the physical answers they’ve been working with stop working. They go to therapists, ministers, priests, rabbis, Zen centers, some go to India, and some find someone in the lineage of Ramana Maharishi, or someone else who either explicitly or implicitly is teaching advaita. All of the teachings of advaita can be summed up in two phrases. The word advaita simply means “not two.” Another way to say this is that separation is an illusion. There’s nobody here but us chickens. The other phrase is one that everyone who’s ever been on the spiritual path hascertainly heard. Thou art That. The Sanskrit is usually rendered as Tat Tvam Asi, and can be transliterated in many different ways. I Am That is another. My current favorite is “That” is Me!”<br /><br /> Main Street religion, both East and West, tends to bog down in the simplistic notion that the world is a mess because of ignorance, evil, or both. Advaita contends that there is no such separation. It requires no practices, no meditations, no strange postures or diets, no refraining from ordinary life or the idiosyncratic enjoyments of our sexuality. There is no separation. When we act as if there is we fail to fulfill the joyous and powerful destiny that is our birthright. When we notice what ego is innocently doing, we suddenly have new choices and beauty blossoms as the foundation of all our acts.<br /><br /> Oneness is ever present. To search for it is absurd, like going to the station and standing on the platform waiting for a train that you are already traveling on. Every problem you have is another ramification of separateness and separateness isn’t the case. The more upset you become, the more frantically you want this and want that, the more sharply the mechanism operates that turns everything inside out, like a reflection in a mirror. <br /><br /> A little more than 10 years ago, I cut away the roots of a lifetime of depression, simply by realizing that it was something I was doing, not some disease I had caught or inherited. What comes now is the realization that acting as if I am a separate being is also something I am doing, and just as innocently as I was depressing myself. Depression is something the mind does when it cannot answer the question to be or not to be. Separation is another kind of depression. The mind is a physical mechanism with millions of years of evolution, telling it to take care of itself first. Awareness looks out from within, with no agenda. Again, if the mind wants to continue playing the game of separateness, then awareness is still there, unchanging. <br /><br /> If the mind begins to realize separateness is not the case, then awareness is still there, still unchanging, and that same mind can begin to realize the complete absurdity of seeking. Falling back into the arms of this unexplainable mystery we continue to try to describe the indescribable, just so we can somehow suggest what we can’t explain. The only way to hear silence is to shut up. If you stop scratching around, desperately searching for peace, really just STOP, what happens?<br /><br /> Tat Tvam Asi.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-35086924286702865732009-04-27T17:13:00.000-07:002009-04-27T17:17:16.977-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">That Which Is</span><br /><br />That which is cannot be personal, if personal means separate, different from me, or from you. That which is has no boundaries. There are no actions, no events, no time. All is now. Nothing has "happened." All is happening -- or, if you wish, is still happening -- now. Nothing Ever Stops.<br /><br />The effort of the ego to change "the past" is inevitable: it <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> separation. And it is what THAT is doing. It only ends when THAT (re)opens completely to itself, which is what enlightenment is. This could be described as the process whereby THAT journeys "backward in time" to the point in personal memory where it dis-integrated, and re-integrates itself. Once this process gains momentum, then "you" are no longer going to sleep but "awakening."<br /><br />You are that which moves the worlds – but not by volition. There is no "volition." There is only nature, ever changing, moving the worlds. Thou Art That. Your "thoughts" are the tracks of a process, not the beginning. They are the results of action, not the initiator. We cannot discern how thoughts produce actions because they don't: they trail behind. Action is beginningless. It is the nature of things. There is no "mover," only movement, which David Bohm called "the holomovement."<br /><br />It dances. Shiva Nam Hridayam.<br /><br />I am the Ancient <br />One,<br />divided,<br />I seek Myself.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-33321789570201646522009-03-21T09:13:00.000-07:002009-03-21T09:18:24.571-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Singular One</span><br /><br />I am the singular One, which arises in all things. That very arising is the root of separation. The singular One is changeless. Time and space are a dance, which is the genesis of “things.” Dancing is changing. Changing is separation, or the appearance of separation, but there is no separation. Things are dyads, pairs of that which moves and that which moves it. Such "pairs," are Not-Two.<br /><br />To move is to appear to be separate. That which appears to be separate is joined at the heart, and it is only the appearance of division between the spontaneous movement of the body and the spontaneous resistance of the ego – the part of the mind whose nature is to seek to control – that creates the illusion of separateness. <br /><br />As the mind is immersed in the arising, the appearance of separation strengthens. As the mind is seduced by the remembrance of the One, that veil begins to thin. Minds that have seen influence minds that are still convinced of their own lonely singularity, and that which shines from every eye knows itself.<br /><br />Thou Art That.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-10123904250261760532009-03-19T17:44:00.000-07:002009-03-19T17:46:56.017-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Hard Argument</span><br /><br /> Non-duality rests on what is perhaps the single hardest point to argue in all of existence: that the arguer, him or her self, does not exist. Who, then, is making the argument? Who is writing this? The simple answer is that the brain does it by itself, with no “agent” necessary behind the scenes, anymore than there is actually any “it” behind the statement, “It is raining.” Philosophical approaches to this dilemma trot out seemingly counterintuitive perspectives, like the notion that there is an implicit “I” common to all observers, each of which becomes, by virtue of its manifestation in the world, an explicit “I.” The brain it seems, which is regularly enslaved by its notions of ego, is also quite capable of encompassing the idea that its deepest nature is grounded in the very fabric of reality, and that it looks both out of and into every eye.<br /><br /> There is a natural rhythm of enrapturement with the everyday that arises at birth and gradually loses its all encompassing grip as its limitations become apparent. This brain that glories in its own selfishness is also capable of the most amazing acts of kindness and charity. It is capable of letting go with just as much grace as it is capable of holding on. This is when doors are discovered to be standing open that weren’t even recognized as doors before. Once the notion that this dictatorial “I” is a phantom gains the slightest credibility the ego’s demands begin to collapse. In this moment no harm can come to me. There is no threat for which I must build defenses, and every “should” that has nibbled at my peace of mind turns transparent and melts away. For every demand that appears an equal and opposite surrender occurs automatically, and it becomes inescapably obvious that the petty little judgments we make are simply the reactivity of a mechanism built into the brain by billions of years of evolution.<br /><br /> This reactivity is the neurological medium of the game of hide and seek that the Real plays with Itself, always teasing the seeker, making life “difficult.” This prolongs the delight of watching oneself espouse the “ideals” of non-duality and twist in the wind over quirks of acquisitiveness or eccentricities of sexuality. It’s all so simple. The mind is the battlefield, but the battle is a play. The one who is refusing to give up that last little selfishness is that same One, that is not-two. This is it.<br /><br />NamastéJim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-28793410189428650152009-03-12T18:03:00.000-07:002009-03-12T18:18:57.501-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Sex & Spirit (Not Two)<br /></span><br /> It’s always such a breath of fresh air how truth is stranger than fiction: life gives you surprises you could never dream up in a million years. Back in the 1990s I wrote what I’ve referred to as an adult fantasy, a sort of swords and sorcerers novella, with some rather explicit sexual content. I was always a little embarrassed by it, and even after I revised it about two years ago – and got a new crop of rejection slips – I was careful who I showed the manuscript to. After all, I’m telling people I’m a “spiritual” person, right?<br /><br /> And now that I’m giving satsang the situation is even pricklier than it was before. Will people pay attention to the help I can give if they know I wrote this sexy story? A close friend of mine sent me an e-mail today, and it really touched me deeply. The universe actually is a friendly place, which is why Rumi always speaks of the Beloved, I guess. No names, but here’s what he said…<br /><br /> “Jim! I was just thinking of you and your writing… I was looking at some romance novels and remembered your own story of a man thrust into another world. I told you this before, but I gotta’ say, you have a talent for the sexually intense. I think I even got a hard-on reading your stuff, and I hope you take this as a compliment. I'm not talking porn, I'm talking of sexuality/spirituality. I think the surface was only scratched there.<br /><br /> “For some reason, people like to keep that under their hats, and their hats always on their heads, maybe because sexual fiction is too powerful. Maybe we should just move to France.”<br /><br /> Thanks to my good friend for his forthrightness, his courage, and his manliness, to tell me his deep, risky feelings. It’s so empowering. It encourages and emboldens me to remind the people who come to my satsang that awakening isn’t some bloodless retreat into a mountain cave or monasticism. As Jack Kornfield says, “First the Ecstasy, Then The Laundry.” I would add, “… and the toilet, and the Internet, and the bedroom.”<br /><br /> Wake up, move on, have feelings. It isn’t about some unending bliss, and it isn’t about becoming a saint. It’s about being everything you are, and then being everything. Everything. This is it, right now.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-43127258834875488372009-03-11T19:45:00.000-07:002009-03-12T18:19:25.966-07:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight: bold;">Undivided</span><br /><br />One of the things that became clear through working with Byron Katie was that I had turned away from myself at a very early age, and that it was me who did it. No one else did it to me. It was my decision to go along with the idea that the natural way my being was blossoming into the world was wrong and had to be changed. This went on to approximately the age of 57, and then it changed. What occurs to this mind now is the curious resemblance between this process, which is the root of all depression, and the reflexive and spontaneous way of the Undivided in becoming the world.<br />The indivisible from which all things issue is the template of all the dynamics of human life and the human soul, which, by the way, is no different than any “other kind” of soul. Soul, of course, like every other word, is inadequate to describe what we’re trying to talk about, but we have to use something, and soul is the word so many of use to try to point to whatever it is that exceeds the boundaries of our individual lives and concerns.<br /><br />So let’s try. What I am, what you are, what everything is, is the light hiding from itself. We call that the dark, and run away from it, try to eradicate it, but it’s nothing other than the light, hiding from itself, because that’s what it does. I hid from myself for the first five decades of my life, and that is the light hiding from itself. Why? Because it does. That’s how the world gets made.<br /><br />So how can we change that? Hmm. We can’t. We can’t stop hiding, because we didn’t, in the fullness of this metaphor, ever start. It starts by itself. It stops by itself. Awareness begins to see what’s been going on, and the hidden memory of what went before simply emerges again. What has been wrapped so tightly in itself begins to unravel, and it’s all spontaneous. There’s nothing we can do to hurry it, or to hold it back. It isn’t about effort or determination, or purity. The pretence finally drops. The burden exceeds the capacity to carry it. The scales fall from our eyes, and we see that the sun has been out all the time, and then – oh, my! I Am That!Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-90490012639314288952009-02-27T18:30:00.000-08:002009-02-27T18:32:09.580-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Satsang Sunday</span><br /><br /> This coming Sunday, March 1, I will be giving satsang, at my house in Vermont, from 1 to 3. This is the first time I’ve ever done this, and I’m sure there’ll be rough spots. Maybe no one will come. Maybe there’ll be a mob! No one has told me to do this, or told me I’m ready, and I’ve asked myself why I’m doing it. Well, aside from the non-duality outlook – that nobody’s “doing” anything – I’m doing it because some one did it for me.<br /><br /> Byron Katie is my teacher, and she says the same thing that all teachers do: that it’s not about her, and that the way that realization came to her isn’t important. I’d say that too, except for one thing. I think that people who have awakening blossom around them are vulnerable to forgetting that they are the evidence that it’s real. What I can say, for anyone who wants to hear, is, “Yes. It is real. It’s here. Now.”<br /><br /> We are our stories, weaving in and out and on and on. What’s left of that if we open our attention into this moment, this immeasurable presence? There is no time in the Real, no space. Just this, and Thou Art This.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-81074807542982441142009-02-17T16:58:00.000-08:002009-02-17T17:00:02.464-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Ghostory</span><br /><br /> I've been really enjoying detective novels over the last few years and I recently discovered an author whose name is Stuart M. Kaminsky. He writes about several different characters, but the one I've been enjoying most is Lew Fonesca, who lives and works in Sarasota, Florida. Fonesca’s wife was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Chicago, and he got in his car and just drove until it quit, which happened to be in Sarasota. Fonesca struggles with depression, and his work is finding people. He's a process server. More often than not, according to him, it's the people that find him, rather than vice versa.<br /><br /> Digressing a little, it's been a delight to me to find over the years that there are just as many nuggets of wisdom in fiction as there are in nonfiction books, and I ran into this wonderful little bit in one of Kaminsky's books called “Denial.” It's on page 114 if you want to check my sources. Fonesca is talking about one of the people he's finally found, who supplys him with a small piece of information he needs. He says, “I left without looking back. If I paused, he would tell me his story. I couldn't handle any more stories. They filled the air wherever I went, invisible, ghostly. Ann <span style="font-style:italic;">(Fonesca’s therapist)</span> was right. There was no hiding from ghosts, mine or other peoples.”<br /><br /> The main question that my teacher, Byron Katie, asks of everyone is, "Who would you be without your story?" In reading this little piece in Kaminsky it occurred to me that our stories are ghosts, and our ghosts – or the things that we think of as ghosts – are our stories. It's clear that we live better without them, but how do we lay these ghosts to rest? It's true that there’s no hiding from ghosts, but it's also true that there's no need to. The ghosts, the stories, the beliefs that trouble us that we struggle for years to change or vanquish finally turn out to be just clouds passing across clear blue sky. And we are not the clouds. What we really are is the sky. Thou art that.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-16370227881564414382009-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:002009-02-14T11:28:11.170-08:00Today's ColumnMet to mend what can't be broken,<br />Let us speak what can't be spoken.<br />Take from here and now a token.<br />Open eyes and be awoken.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-11198604688895959202009-02-01T19:14:00.000-08:002009-02-01T19:17:06.687-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">No Mind</span><br /><br />There is no “mind,” no thoughts, no beliefs. Awareness is not in time or space. Awareness is that which has no relationship with anything. That’s why it’s unexplainable, miraculous. The ordinary mind that conducts the day to day business of life has one purpose: to distract awareness from its own obvious ubiquity and impregnability. This is not a conspiracy, or the result of evil, or even ignorance. It’s just one of things that happens; the way it is. As the ordinary mind – or the appearance of ordinary mind – encounters more evidence that it is an illusion, it becomes more and more transparent, until a threshold is crossed. The balance between what we ordinarily agree is the way things are and the way things really are becomes undeniable.<br /><br />Samadhi can happen as this tipping point is crossed, and the relief of laying down the unsupportable burden contrasts so wildly with ordinary life that it’s usually perceived as bliss. But bliss isn’t the point. Awakening has no drama. It simply is. And what is awakened to is that there is no one to have that dramatic experience. Or any other dramatic experience. Experiences, like everything else, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, float past, like clouds. They don’t cling because there’s nothing for them to cling to. The “I” in “I am thinking,” becomes just as unsupportable as the “It” in “It is raining,” simply a linguistic convenience.<br /><br />Weightlessness.<br /><br />Well, we’re “all” space travelers, aren’t we?Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-67512122348336887392009-01-22T17:05:00.000-08:002009-01-22T17:06:32.990-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Transparency</span><br /><br /> There is a certain transparency developing. What is seen now is that this personality is only an ephemeral consequence of a constantly evolving construct that is the crude summation of a holographic reflection. Mind is not a “thing.” There are no “things,” only continuously changing constructs that reflect an instantaneous summing up of what the ripples and overlaps of a holographic wavefront in the brain reflects.<br /><br /> “I” am no more than a boundary that delineates what the experience of this evanescent piece of meat has experienced. I am a reflection of what I apprehend and when I see that what is apparently out there is actually what is seeing “me” and thereby making me real, this illusory “I” slides farther down Mt. Analog and gets closer and closer to the slough of despond which is actually the Garden of Eden.<br /><br /> Oh, sweet angel, you are not the one that bans, but the angel, standing by the door, welcoming back this errant sweet and delirious traveler who has insisted on an illusory excursion. Paradise is one, now, here. Always, already here. How miraculous that the One has stumbled on the crazy, wonderful delusion of separation!Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-81585183852014044322009-01-19T10:59:00.000-08:002009-01-19T11:03:31.185-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Not Two Haiku</span><br /><br />Wanting, not wanting.<br /> Walk out from behind all that!<br /> What is this stillness?<br /><br />Wanting, not wanting.<br /> God's little trick on Himself.<br /> Buddha got the joke!Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-70857643487560203992009-01-18T10:39:00.000-08:002009-01-18T10:40:42.705-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Dear Katie and Arthur</span><br /><br /> Two good friends of mine, who are the authors of, “The Game of God: Recovering Your True Identity,” have been reading the manuscript of my unpublished book, “The Feast That Eats Itself.” They’re really a gift, because, contrary to what usually happens with an agent or an editor who doesn’t think your book is ready, they actually took the time to tell me why they think it’s not. The essence of their comments is that I hadn’t said enough about myself, that I’d quoted other author’s too much, and that I hadn’t explained what the title I chose for my book means. Katie wrote, “There is so much territory to explore in that phrase (“The Feast That Eats Itself”), and I feel like you barely touched on this theme.”<br /><br /> Well, Katie, it’s hard to describe…<br /><br /> In fact, it isn’t possible to describe. But that’s what we keep trying to do.<br /><br /> Non-duality is like a watermelon seed. The more you try to grasp it the quicker it slips away. No one has ever described it. Not Buddha, not Shankara, not Byron Katie, not Ramana Maharshi, and not me. Just about the most that can be said is that telling “my” story is not the way to “describe” non-duality. I guess, though, that I can explain what I mean by “The Feast That Eats Itself.”<br /> As I was banging away at the computer a year ago, shoehorning twenty years of journal entries into a few hundred pages of manuscript, I realized that the ancient image of the Ouroboros was a perfect way to illuminate what I meant by “The Feast That eats Itself.” The great wyrm – or dragon if you prefer – chasing its tail, is a characterization of the universal process that has been with us for thousands of years, and it illuminates the sudden insight that comes in one way or another to everyone who steps back and scratches their head about what’s really going on here. Meister Eckhart said something like, “The eyes with which I am looking for god are the eyes with which god is seeing me.” What I first saw was that the universe is a book that reads itself: there is only one thing here. One thing that has invented the incredible notion of separation. No reason for it. It just has.<br /><br /> Sometimes I get self-conscious about being a bookworm. “The Book That Reads Itself” transformed, broadened, I hope, into “The Feast That Eats Itself,” and as some years passed by, I was drawn back into the spiritual quest I’d let go fallow (yeah, right.) About ten years ago I had a spontaneous experience of Samadhi. And then it went away (yeah. Right.) Oh, no, it didn’t! These things don’t “go away.” I know now that what actually happened is that a tsunami was released inside of me that rolled back through the years of my memory washing away assumptions and judgments, deconstructing all the defenses I’d built up through fifty some years of thinking I was a separate being. <br /><br /> In 2006 I met Byron Katie, and realized I was sitting with a living Buddha. In the summer of 2007 I went to the School for The Work. A month later I had another spontaneous Samadhi. A year after that, I realized that there was no one who needed to have that overwhelming experience of bliss again. I went to a satsang held by David Carse, and met a friend of mine there, another “follower” of Katie. In the course of that afternoon, she said something to the effect of, “I’ve realized that there’s nothing to get,” and in my mind, I said, “And no one to get it.” About a month later, after another satsang with an illuminated being, it all settled in. The quest is over. There’s nothing to get. And no one to get it. So, let’s get on with it.<br /><br /> So is there nothing left for me to work on? No. There’s plenty to work on. This brain has plenty of “problems” to keep it occupied. My wife and my friends know what some of those things are. Am I immune to pain and sorrow? No. But more and more, as D. T. Suzuki said, “…my tears have no roots.” I just want to tell you that what is real here is not “me” in any way that I have previously known it. There’s nobody here. What is real is not the object of perception but the fact, the miraculous, unexplainable, irreducible fact, of perceiving. The heart of everything is awareness, and it is immutable. It does not begin, or end. It is not confined to here, or now. “I” and “here” and “now” are the same word. What is real is everywhere and everywhen, looking out of every window, absorbed in its most amazing discovery: separateness.<br /><br /> That is the feast that eats itself.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-76409708918822750942009-01-16T09:41:00.000-08:002009-01-16T10:13:05.415-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">Privilege</span><br /><br /> What I was thinking about this morning is the Hsin Hsin Ming, the Third Patriarch of Zen’s discourse about what's goin' on. The essence of this nonpareil piece of advice is in the first couplet:<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">“The Great Way is not difficult<br /> For those who have no preferences…”</span><br /><br /> I think most people look on this suggestion as a challenge to become detached, to weather all storms without being moved, etcetera. I’ve begun to think of it in a different way. I’ve begun to see it as a privilege. What we’ve got here isn’t an admonishment to try to be uncaring. It’s an invitation, to plunge into total caringness, to give to every instant of our lives our complete and wide open attention, no matter how it feels, or how we judge our reaction to it. What we have here is an gentle suggestion to be patient with our impatience, to not be angry with our anger, to be generous with our pettiness, not to try to be impassive.<br /><br />So what about when the “irritant” is someone else’s actions, not our own? The opportunity for opennesss is there again. If you can hold that stillness for a moment, perhaps something can bloom in that space, like, “Why am I doing that?” Sounds like nonsense at first, but if we’re working from the notion that there is no Other, then this person who is annoying me is me, looking out of another pair of eyes, speaking with another mouth, experiencing life from a perspective that has led to whatever is sparking the defensive reaction coming from this side.<br /><br />The payoff here is that the Great Way <span style="font-style:italic;">isn’t</span> difficult for those who have no preferences. Every insight into this process means the falling away of another constraint that seems like it holds me inside this bag of bones. <span style="font-style:italic;">Gaté, gate, paragaté, parasamgaté, bodhi svaha!</span>Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-30197519962838516832009-01-13T17:09:00.001-08:002009-01-13T17:12:09.717-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">What If The Heart...</span><br /><br /> What if the heart is the real center, and the mind – ok, the brain – is just a secondary offshoot that evolution has blown up out of all proportion? I had a sort of vision as I was waking up this morning of the two hemispheres of the brain as Horus’ wings, and then I saw them as spirals, one going out, one going in, and I thought, “the left one eats inspiration, and shits words. The right eats words, and shits inspiration.” And, since the heart forms in the embryo before the brain, that big chunk of nerves is really the heart’s servant, not the other way around.<br /> <br /> I just learned last night that Adi Dam – once known as Bubba Free John – died in November 2008, right around Thanksgiving. He was one of my early heroes in the world of spirituality, but he got so strange, and so heavy. He always admonished people that awakening was “always already here!” but then he insisted on all kinds of austerities and devotions to his gurudom, to “achieve” what he said was already the case. Hmmm.<br /><br /> What if we just settle down and look around? My friends, this is it. It’s the most difficult thing in the world to accept, and it’s the soul of simplicity. There is no problem. The way things are naturally is perfect. There are no criteria to dispute this, because there is no one to have criteria. There is no self, just this clear, empty awareness. Of course, you could say, “What if it’s not empty. I feel really irritable this morning!” So where does that irritability happen? In the midst of this clear, empty awareness. <br /><br /> There’s a wonderful quote from Adyashanti on Joe Winslow’s blog (http://only--this.blogspot.com/). “You are looking for God with His eyes.” Think about that. All this thrashing and struggle we go through is just one of the things that Oneness does, not some grand conspiracy, or even a great puzzle: it’s just one of the things that Oneness does. Leave it to the limitless to invent the amazing puzzle of limitation!Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-12456300876764610772009-01-11T09:53:00.000-08:002009-01-11T09:54:51.597-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight:bold;">A Little Advaita Humour</span><br /><br />Thou art <span style="font-style:italic;">That</span> close!Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-63265231597978053922009-01-09T20:37:00.000-08:002009-01-10T11:13:19.921-08:00Today's Column<span style="font-weight: bold;">Don’t Be Snotty ‘Bout Samadhi</span><br /><br />It’s a funny thing – what with all the scrambling – but Samadhi isn’t anything special. It’s simply the natural state of awareness when no attitude is present, when all the stuff that’s “you” gets out of the way. What makes it seem so extraordinary is the incredible relief we get when it simply happens, all by itself. There are no methods for getting to this “state of mind.” As we say in Vermont, “Ya’ can’t get there from here!” The <a href="http://allspirit.co.uk/hsinhsinming.html">Hsin Hsin Ming</a> says “…simply cherish no opinions.” In other words, just shut up. Just stop. You don’t know anything about it. You can’t know anything about it. You can’t get there. Your ordinary struggle is the result of “getting there.” Samadhi is <span style="font-style: italic;">here</span>, with no fuss, once you understand it.<br /><br />One of the things we get lost in is the concept of boredom. We think something like, “God! I’m bored! I can’t get interested in anything!” when the truth is that, at that moment, we are absolutely enthralled with boredom! Fascinated! Awestruck with boredom! Can’t shake our focus on it! Get with the program, folks. There isn’t any way not to be fascinated with something. Awareness is what is at the core of all this, and awareness is fascination. When Samadhi occurs it is awareness wide open, not focused on anything, and that is what the rishis mean by satchitananda.<br /><br />Which, as usual, brings us back to what we mean by “I.” What do we mean? The best minds in the world are currently turning themselves inside out trying to understand consciousness. The problem, strangely enough, is that you have to define what you’re talking about before you can come to any kind of a theoretical understanding, and no one seems to be able to define just what we’re talking about. What do we mean when we say, “I’m conscious of such-and-such? Obviously, such-and-such is registering with me, somehow, but what is this me? I “know” I’m here, but what am I?<br /><br />David Chalmers is close to the head of the class in this line of research, and his working suggestion is that consciousness is a fundamental energy, like gravity, electromagnetic waves and the nuclear forces, a concept that suggests a new paradigm, but doesn’t really give us any information. Advaita, however, makes a tantalizing contribution. According to advaita there is nothing but consciousness, or, more usually, awareness, and from there it’s obvious that any kind of registering of any kind of movement or change is awareness. We struggle to create artificial intelligence when we already have: a windmill is artificial intelligence. Change is the currency of awareness, the medium that <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the message.<br /><br />As for me, I struggle along with all the other SAP*s, here. But ever since I met Byron Katie I “struggle” from a completely different perspective, aware that there’s really no problem. It just isn’t true, and I know it. Maybe that’s what an “I” is. What I do know, more and more, is that what getting from there to here is about is climbing up out of “me.”<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">*Semi Autonomous Probe of the Eternal One</span>Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553020321198657082.post-44144549651734976292009-01-08T18:24:00.000-08:002009-03-11T19:47:50.007-07:00Today's ColumnA week or so ago, I started jokingly referring to my almost daily journal entries (going back many years) as Today's Column. The subject area is advaita, or non-duality, and arupa is a sanskrit word that refers to formlessness. So...<br /><br />Here's Today's Column....<br /><br />Mind and "You"<br />January 8, 2009<br /><br /> The mind is not you. The mind is a map of your identity, which, again, is not you. The mind is a pattern of ripples, spreading out in all directions and reflecting off infinity. Those ripples – memories – form a living hologram, constantly adjusted and refined by your experience, which integrates with the reflexes and instincts that evolution has equipped your brain with over billions of years. But that process is subject to error, and, again, that is not “you.”<br /><br /> What you are is something altogether different, something timeless, something that is unchanged by any circumstance, something that is the one irreducible consequence of all enquiry: awareness. No matter how convoluted your philosophy gets, there is no way to eliminate the single undeniable fact of existence. To suggest that your own awareness is an illusion is to dodge the question, when, in fact, awareness is the question. <br /><br /> The universe is a question, not an answer. Awareness is curiosity, not meaning, and it is a door that opens in all directions, with no criteria, no judgments, no particular qualities, and most of all, no particular location or identity. Looking out of me and looking out of you is the same awareness. We are not separate beings. Being is universal, immanent, ubiquitous, infinite, unbounded, and when I am most open I know that you are me and i am you.Jim Doddshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18352404691559212827noreply@blogger.com0