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Post by laughter on Aug 30, 2015 7:25:07 GMT -5
why doesn't he use 'steven gray' anymore? what's with the mystical-cool name? Well... Steven Gray,... that sounds like a cold, rainy, sh*tty day somewhere in Shrewsbury. Adyashanti on the other hand... sounds all blissful, loving and peaceful, it's practically smiling at you. If you look at it hard enough you can almost see white light coming from those letters, radiating in rainbow colours. Chicks dig that sh*t. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2015 23:12:20 GMT -5
Bodian: There’s an ancient debate in Zen about the nature of enlightenment. Some schools claim that it’s sudden, and others claim that it’s a gradual process. What do you think? Adya: It’s usually a combination of the two: a sudden penetration into the true nature of being, and then a gradual embodiment of this realization on the level of body, mind, and personality. It can take time to live our understanding fully, to express fully who we know we are through this human form, in the world of time and space, in the ways that the emotions and energy move and the mind functions. This gradualness differs tremendously from individual to individual. In rare cases, the awakening and the embodiment seem to happen in the snap of a finger: The false self drops away at once and never returns. More often, the process of embodiment involves a continual seeing through any remaining false layers of self, belief, and identity, as well as an ongoing surrender of anything that would cause us to stay separate. Whether it’s sudden or gradual, in the end one comes to an absolute and unconditional "yes" to reality just the way it is. Interview in Tricycle "The Taboo of Enlightenment" quite like this bloke Adya. simplicity is for everyone. |
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Post by quinn on Sept 1, 2015 9:02:47 GMT -5
Bodian: There’s an ancient debate in Zen about the nature of enlightenment. Some schools claim that it’s sudden, and others claim that it’s a gradual process. What do you think? Adya: It’s usually a combination of the two: a sudden penetration into the true nature of being, and then a gradual embodiment of this realization on the level of body, mind, and personality. It can take time to live our understanding fully, to express fully who we know we are through this human form, in the world of time and space, in the ways that the emotions and energy move and the mind functions. This gradualness differs tremendously from individual to individual. In rare cases, the awakening and the embodiment seem to happen in the snap of a finger: The false self drops away at once and never returns. More often, the process of embodiment involves a continual seeing through any remaining false layers of self, belief, and identity, as well as an ongoing surrender of anything that would cause us to stay separate. Whether it’s sudden or gradual, in the end one comes to an absolute and unconditional "yes" to reality just the way it is. Interview in Tricycle "The Taboo of Enlightenment" quite like this bloke Adya. simplicity is for everyone. Me too. No B.S. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2015 19:49:40 GMT -5
did you spot the scandal in Tricycle re the tit-koan of Joshu sasaki roshi?
(died about 107)
I suppose new koans arise in teachers to suit the State of their subjects.
Certainly unsettled the clan.
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Post by quinn on Sept 2, 2015 10:38:45 GMT -5
did you spot the scandal in Tricycle re the tit-koan of Joshu sasaki roshi? (died about 107) I suppose new koans arise in teachers to suit the State of their subjects. Certainly unsettled the clan. This gets into guru worship (a misplaced focus, imo), and an interesting topic: if all boundaries collapse, functioning in this world becomes reliant on the remaining conditioning and intuition. One would hope that the intuition that senses what a student needs would direct the next step, rather than any latent conditioning. I would think that the students that were in high distress over his behavior were not contemplating that koan.  |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 20:09:44 GMT -5
"I'm loosing faith in you speaking about my breasts. Why is it that you-men always take advantage of us women simply because we adore you?
"Show us your tits?"
"Show me your dick!"
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Post by maxdprophet on Sept 24, 2015 8:36:03 GMT -5
The Question of BeingAbove the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi were written the words, “Know Thyself.” Jesus came along and added a sense of urgency and consequence to the ancient idea when he said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” What Jesus is saying is that spirituality is serious business, with serious consequences. Your life hangs precariously in the balance, teetering between a state of unconscious sleepwalking and eyes-wide-open spiritual enlightenment. The fact that most people do not see life this way testifies to how deeply asleep and in denial they truly are. Within each of our forms lies the existential mystery of being. Apart from one’s physical appearance, personality, gender, history, occupation, hopes and dreams, comings and goings, there lies an eerie silence, an abyss of stillness charged with an etheric presence. For all of our anxious business and obsession with triviality, we cannot completely deny this phantasmal essence at our core. And yet we do everything we can to avoid its stillness, its silence, its utter emptiness and intimate embrace. To remain unconscious of being is to be trapped within an ego-driven wasteland of conflict, strife, and fear that only seems customary because we have been brainwashed into a state of suspended disbelief where a shocking amount of hate, dishonesty, ignorance, and greed are viewed as normal and sane. But it is not sane, not even close to being sane. Nor is it based in reality. In fact, nothing could be less real than what we human beings call reality. By clinging to the mind in the form of memory and thought, we are held captive by the movement of our conditioned thinking and imagination, all the while believing that we are perfectly rational and sane. We therefore continue to justify the reality of what causes us, as well as others, immeasurable amounts of pain and suffering. Deep down we all suspect that something is very wrong with the way we perceive life but we try very, very hard not to notice it. And the way we remain blind to our frightful condition is through an obsessive and pathological denial of being -- as if some dreadful fate would overcome us if we were to face the pure light of truth and lay bare our fearful clinging to illusion. The question of being is everything. Nothing could be more important or consequential -- nothing where the stakes run so high. To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to reality at large. The choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep.
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Post by maxdprophet on Sept 24, 2015 8:46:24 GMT -5
The Indispensable Qualities of AwakeningIn essence the entire spiritual endeavor is a very simple thing: Spirituality is essentially about awakening as the intuitive awareness of unity and dissolving our attachment to egoic consciousness. By saying that spirituality is a very simple thing, I do not mean to imply that it is either an easy or difficult endeavor. For some it may be very easy, while for others it may be more difficult. There are many factors and influences that play a role in one’s awakening to the greater reality, but the greatest factors by far are one’s sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage. Sincerity is a word that I often use in teaching to convey the importance of being rooted in the qualities of honesty, authenticity, and genuineness. There can be nothing phony or contrived in our motivations if we are to fully awaken to our natural and integral state of unified awareness. While teachings and teachers can point us inward to “the peace beyond all understanding,” it is always along the thread of our inner sincerity, or lack thereof, that we will travel. For the ego is clever and artful in the ways of deception, and only the honesty and genuineness of our ineffable being are beyond its influence. At each step and with each breath we are given the option of acting and responding, both inwardly and outwardly, from the conditioning of egoic consciousness which values control and separation above all else, or from the intuitive awareness of unity which resides in the inner silence of our being. Without sincerity it is so very easy for even the greatest spiritual teachings to become little more than playthings of the mind. In our fast-moving world of quick fixes, big promises, and short attention spans, it is easy to remain on a very surface level of consciousness without even knowing it. While the awakened state is ever present and closer than your feet, hands, or eyes, it cannot be approached in a casual or insincere fashion. There is a reason that seekers the world over are instructed to remove their shoes and quiet their voices before entering into sacred spaces. The message being conveyed is that one’s ego must be “taken off and quieted” before access to the divine is granted. All of our ego’s attempts to control, demand, and plead with reality have no influence on it other than to make life more conflicted and difficult. But an open mind and sincere heart have the power to grant us access to realizing what has always been present all along. When people asked the great Indian sage Nisargadatta what he thought was the most important quality to have in order to awaken, he would say “earnestness.” When you are earnest, you are both sincere and one-pointed; to be one-pointed means to keep your attention on one thing. I have found that the most challenging thing for most spiritual seekers to do is to stay focused on one thing for very long. The mind jumps around with its concerns and questions from moment to moment. Rarely does it stay with one question long enough to penetrate it deeply. In spirituality it is very important not to let the egoic mind keep jumping from one concern to the next like an untrained dog. Remember, awakening is about realizing your true nature and dissolving all attachment to egoic consciousness. My grandmother who passed away a few years ago used to say to me jokingly, “Getting old is not for wimps.” She was well aware of the challenges of an aging body, and while she never complained or felt any pity for herself, she knew firsthand that aging had its challenges as well as its benefits. There was a courage within my grandmother that served her well as she approached the end of her life, and I am happy to say that when she passed, it was willingly and without fear. In a similar way the process of coming into a full and mature awakening requires courage, as not only our view of life but life itself transforms to align itself with the inner mystic vision. A sincere heart is a robust and courageous heart willing to let go in the face of the great unknown expanse of Being—an expanse which the egoic mind has no way of knowing or understanding. When one’s awareness opens beyond the dream state of egoic consciousness to the infinite no-thing-ness of intuitive awareness, it is common for the ego to feel much fear and terror as this transition begins. While there is nothing to fear about our natural state of infinite Being, such a state is beyond the ego’s ability to understand, and as always, egos fear whatever they do not understand and cannot control. As soon as our identity leaves the ego realm and assumes its rightful place as the infinite no-thing-ness/every-thing-ness of awareness, all fear vanishes in the same manner as when we awaken from a bad dream. In the same manner in which my grandmother said, “Getting old is not for wimps,” it can also be said that making the transition from the dream state to the mature, awakened state requires courage. Sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage are indispensable qualities in awakening from the dream state of ego to the peace and ease of awakened Being. All there is left to do is to live it.
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Post by maxdprophet on Sept 28, 2015 11:39:05 GMT -5
Adyashanti releases free audio regularly. You can find them at the Cafe Dharma library. I just listened to "Beyond Where All Paths End part 1." He goes into comparing and contrasting using an internal vs. external being model. In the Q&A he amusingly refers to the amazing abilities of ego to survive even massive spiritual experiences and compares it to T2. Even when completely obliterated, it somehow manages to reconstitute and reappear in full force. Seems to me we've seen the powers of the Spiritual Ego on this forum. The ego reborn. |
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Post by quinn on Nov 5, 2015 20:46:19 GMT -5
BE DONE WITH IT
I commend my Spirit
unto the grace of the Great Way
whether consciously or not
this has always been
the doorway to liberation.
All you lovers of truth
and all you true lovers
now is the time to be done with it.
Wash your battle-scarred hands
in this Presence among us.
Cast off your warriors’ clothing
and slip into your night slippers.
Untie your hair or cut it off.
The Hidden One is present
and doesn't care where you've been
or what you've done
or what you are doing now.
Commend all of yourself –
body, mind and spirit
to this Grace.
Slip out into the night air
into the waiting
quivering birth
of this Golden Heart.
Lean down now
like wet, green grass and
kiss the bottoms of your feet.
-Adyashanti
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Post by maxdprophet on Dec 14, 2015 11:02:33 GMT -5
Also at his Cafe Dharma Library for free is "Garrison Weekend Retreat_part 1." About 1 hour 20 min. This is one of those talks that I've listened to half a dozen times. A gift that keeps on giving. It's simple and comprehensive. Highly recommended. |
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Post by maxdprophet on Jan 15, 2016 12:37:25 GMT -5
"Maybe I can point you to the great Reality within you. Maybe you will awaken to the direct experience of Self-realization. Maybe you will catch the fire of transmission. But there is one thing that no one can give you: the honesty and integrity that alone will bring you completely to the other shore. No one can give you the strength of character necessary for profound spiritual experience to become the catalyst for the evolutionary transformation called "enlightenment." Only you can find that passion within that burns with an integrity that will not settle for anything less than the Truth."
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Post by maxdprophet on Jan 15, 2016 12:50:45 GMT -5
can't find my bodhi tree
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Post by zin on Jan 15, 2016 17:51:14 GMT -5
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Post by quinn on Jan 15, 2016 19:40:52 GMT -5
The Art of Meditation with Adyashanti 4-Week Online Study Course February 3 - 24, 2016 Wednesday Evening Live Video Broadcasts 6pm Pacific Time ~ Replays Anytime! Embark on a transformational journey in Adyashanti’s first-ever course focused on the art of meditation. In this live video broadcast study course, Adyashanti will share his unique perspective and insightful guidance based on 15 years of practice followed by 20 years of teaching the art of meditation to thousands of people at all levels of experience. Whether you are called to explore meditation for the first time or are a seasoned practitioner, this course will offer you guidance in: Taking your existing meditation practice to an unprecedented level of depth and transformation. Getting started on the right foot if you are just beginning. Breaking the cycle of compulsive thought that leads to suffering. Exploring the deeper intricacies and potentials of meditation. Freeing yourself from conditioned emotional responses. Avoiding the potential pitfalls of a meditation practice. $175, scholarships available Some interesting quotes (the whole write up is at www.adyashanti.org/cafedharma/index.php?file=webevent). "While meditation is the most common of all spiritual practices, it is also the most widely misunderstood." "Meditation is not simply a form of spiritual practice, nor is it a form of endlessly seeking after the continuation of some desired experience. It is a means of directly encountering the immensity of being, that measureless reality which alone brings an end to the relentless search for greater and greater satisfaction." "...to find a way beyond the compulsive and destructive addiction to thought is of the utmost importance to us all." |
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