“Anytime you find yourself wanting sympathy, you’re trying to get someone to join you in your mythology. And it always hurts.”
- Byron Katie
“When Whitman says “The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,” he’s talking about compassion. Compassion is in a sense seeing the Divine in another and simultaneously within oneself. And it holds me here — this earth, this realm, whatever you want to call it — because I love. I deeply, deeply love human beings — all beings, but humans suffer — not only suffer but cause suffering in a way that animals don’t, plants don’t. It’s the mind. It’s our ability to conceptualize. Of course, whose ability to conceptualize, right?
Compassion is self-serving. It’s very clear. But it’s self-serving for the sake of others. It’s not the same as selfishness. When we say “self-serving,” that usually means egotism, selfishness, and so on. But there’s an element of compassion that’s a force. That’s not what it actually is, but it manifests as a force. That’s part of its manifestation. It’s a force that holds self together, actually. But it does so for the sake of others, and only for the sake of others.
But paradoxically, when it’s done for the sake of others, it — I almost want to say it makes self impenetrable — like it’s fortified with Wisdom, Truth. Because it’s completely and utterly not for itself. So if ego is an attachment to self, and that goes away, that disappears (in awakening), then what happens is Truth takes over.”
-James Wood, from the talk Importance of Body
“The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions, but to question your answers.”
- Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation
“The return of innocence isn’t the end of pain. Pain reveals depths of real knowledge. In that way pain heals you. It connects you with what you know.”
-John de Ruiter, The Return to Innocence
“…attachment to the body is a main attachment. It’s also a prior attachment. The concept of “body” comes from a need for — an attachment to or craving for — self. So prior to birth, that craving is already there.”
- James Wood, Importance of Body, Part 2
Vernon Howard:
“Well, let’s just relax and want to hear. Now you may think that it’s easy to want to hear, but it becomes very difficult when that hearing requires you to set your entire past aside.
Now, you of your usual, habitual nature, you do not want to set your past aside, you want to think about it, you want to roll in it, get excited about it. You want to recall past experiences, miserable or happy, because they seem to confirm that you are a continuous self.
This is only the repetition of thought, not the repetition of you. And if you understood that one thought from this talk it would be worth driving ten thousand miles to come to hear just that one thought and understand it.
There is a way to be happy, it actually exists. You haven’t found it, you’ve found thrills and achievements and you found ego-victories and you found a few relationships that seem to satisfy you, but you’ve never found happiness, you don’t even know the meaning of the word in the true meaning of it.
And I can prove it to you, and I want you to do better than that, I want you to prove it to yourself as a part of your intensive listening tonight. I want you to prove to yourself that you have no idea what authentic happiness and contentment is.”
- from a talk given 1/6/1988, Vernon Howard’s Higher World, talk 412
“So there are two points about how to view the body: There’s a listening — what I find in meditation, for example — a listening into the body to the point where it becomes unknowable. Because the body is an object of the mind to some degree. If I’m listening into the body-mind, I’m meditating, listening within this sense of self that includes the body and mind — that could be considered esoteric. You’ve heard the doctrine of “no mind”; well, that could just as easily be “no body.” A palpable peace.
The other way to look at the body is just as a meat vehicle, or a bag of bones or something like that. Shitting meat tube. (laughter) I mean, let’s be honest.”
- From a new talk posted on the James Wood Teachings website: Importance of Body
“Compassion is an awareness of others’ suffering coupled with a willingness to help ease their suffering. Compassion is powerful because it takes you out of your selfish tendencies and recognizes other beings as essentially the same as you. Compassion destroys the tendency to view others as objects. Cruelty persists in the world through seeing others as objects instead of connecting through a shared humanity, and compassion is the solvent that destroys this objectifying tendency.” ~ James Wood
We live in a time of that asks us to change radically. Emotionally, self and collective are at many levels one. Rarely can any of us truly know that what we feel is me and not also WE as all of us live in a field of shared hopes and fears. This means we must outgrow becoming self-involved when we feel fear and instead open our hearts. We can practice staying present in a relaxed yet alert awareness so that we don’t grasp for security from an old consciousness that is about self-interest and separates us from others. We must each decide that while FEAR is a great god, he is not our god.
-Richard Moss
“Spiritual awakening doesn’t happen because you master some spiritual technique. There are lots of skillful meditators who are not awake. Awakening happens when you stop bullshitting yourself into continual nonawakening. It’s very easy to use disciplines to avoid reality rather than to encounter it. A true spirituality will have you continually facing your illusions and all the ways you avoid reality. Spiritual practice may be an important means of confronting yourself, or it may be a means of avoiding yourself; it all depends on your attitude and intention.”
-Adyashanti
“Fear is the feeling generated by the ego’s resistance to Freedom.” ~ James Wood
“Always be willing to have your eyes opened. Life is only asking one thing of us really, and the only thing it’s ever asking is “See. See. See.” Don’t be afraid. If you’re afraid, see that. That’s all it’s about.” ~ Adyashanti
Buddha has defined compassion as love plus meditation. When your love is not just a desire for the other, when your love is not only a need, when your love is a sharing, when your love is not that of a beggar but an emperor, when your love is not asking for something in return but is ready only to give – to give for the sheer joy of giving – then add meditation to it and the pure fragrance is released. That is compassion; compassion is the highest phenomenon.”
- Osho Zen, Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing
”Truth is in the moment, this instant in which there is no meaning, no cause, no implication, no necessity, no motive to any effect. The Radiance of Ignorance Is the Reality, and all phenomena only test our Realization of the necessity and sufficiency of That. It is the Condition of all conditions. It is neither subjective nor objective relative to this moment. It is Only, and It is unspeakable.”
- Adi Da Samraj
“Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic, that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea – and there is no experiment up to now that has found any center in the brain which corresponds to awareness. The whole work of meditation is to make you aware of all that is “mind” and disidentify yourself from it. That very separation is the greatest revolution that can happen to man.”
- Osho
“If you try to change difficult feelings then they are defining you. You therefore are confessing that you’re not already whole – you have to first defeat this negative feeling to be whole – and there’s no winning that one. The ego will so much enjoy trying to defeat some problem or some negative feeling in order to arrive at the promised land of wholeness that it will forever have you trying to solve your own suffering in order to keep itself in place, in order to keep itself intact.
So there is, in this present moment, the art of being in relationship to what you’re experiencing, gradually over time, not fighting against it. In Zen they talk about when you reach a barrier, when you reach an obstacle, you stop. You soften the belly, you sit down and slowly you touch the barrier until you can embrace it. Not go around the obstacle, not retreat from the obstacle, but embrace the obstacle. What’s the obstacle to my open heart?”
-Richard Moss, An Open Heart
“You are not a thought. You are the Truth that sees thoughts as lies, the Reality that sees drama as illusion. You cannot know Truth because you are Truth. Give up thinking that you know ultimate truth or even can know it. Some students grasp at ultimate truth intellectually, thinking they can somehow “get it.” You cannot get it. Do not clutch or grasp. Instead, see that your false ideas are false and let go of your struggle to know. The thought of “I” is not who you are. Assuming you are an I-thought is like thinking you are a character in a movie. It may seem real, but it is an illusion. Your character is fictional. Can you verify yourself? Can you prove that “you” independently exist? Your essence cannot be comprehended by thought, belief, or knowledge. Awakening clears away the cobwebs of false ideas, revealing who you really are.”
- James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
“The Way is not fulfilled by the efforts of the ego, but by the ego transcending itself in communion with its Ultimate Help.”
“No concern for spiritual life or spiritual attainment ever became spirituality or truth. All concerns are founded in the same dilemma and must be understood.”
- Adi Da Samraj
“The plain fact is that if you don’t have a problem you create one. If you don’t have a problem, you don’t feel you are living.”
-U.G. Krishnamurti
“The word “Nirvana” means “extinction.” It means ending the reign of your conceptualized world. Realize that words can point you toward awakening, just as a highway sign can point you toward a destination — but by themselves words have no ultimate value. The best way to get rid of fear is to notice that it’s caused by a thought that disagrees with Reality.”
- James Wood
“When you are in what heart is and you are in that while you’re with others, you will find heart in others, despite what selves they have, despite what thinking they’re in, despite what level of emotion they’re in. You’re able to find nature in others. When you’re relating to what nature is and that relating continues while you’re with others, you’ll find it in everyone.”
- John de Ruiter
“It doesn’t matter whether emotions are considered positive or negative; all emotions are disturbances in the feeling-body that detract from the natural peace of conscious embodiment. For example, people often pursue things or experiences that give them positive emotions, thinking that this will satisfy them. But eventually things are lost or experiences end, and the positive emotions give way to negative ones, leading to a tumultuous, roller-coaster experience of life. The key to lasting satisfaction is to become conscious enough that you no longer attach to things or experiences, and then it doesn’t matter, because your oneness with Being brings you joy regardless of what arises within the field of your experience. Any emotions that arise, whether positive or negative, are mere disturbances to be made conscious. They are what they are. Their roots are dissolved into serenity. Just remember that an intense emotion is neither good nor bad; it just is. To be with it without judgment is a fundamental aspect of spiritual work, even if it feels “negative” or “bad” to do so.”
-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
“A person’s life consists of the thoughts and feelings which govern him.”
-Vernon Howard, Cosmic Command, # 2148
“If you’re truly serious and intelligent then no matter what arises you will bring the discipline of that great commitment. And soon you will find that it’s even more interesting to discipline yourself and overcome things than it is to indulge yourself and have things. It’s the self-overcoming that’s interesting. The rest is bullshit. That’s what it is to grow up.”
-Adi Da
“You are not your mind, but you are responsible for its behavior, in the same way that you are not a vicious dog, but if you own a vicious dog, you are responsible for watching it and keeping it from attacking others or responding appropriately if it does attack someone. As you go through your day, notice what the mind is doing. Keep it on a leash. Discipline it by developing discriminating awareness. Often, the mind lies in wait for you to let your guard down. If your mind suddenly rages out of control, just notice it. Like a vicious dog, it’s not who you are. It may feel like you, but it’s not. You must witness it impersonally and see it for what it is, without judgment. This keeps you from beating yourself up when you see what it’s up to.
Judgment obscures your true nature and keeps you from having permanent peace and satisfaction, like a pond that is clogged with trash. If you unclog the pond and tap into life without judgment, you will taste the sweetness of Freedom like spring water from a pristine well, the Truth you have been looking for as long as you can remember.”
-from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood
“For all anxiety and fear,
And pain in boundless quantity,
Their source and wellspring is the mind itself,
As He who spoke the truth declared.
Therefore I will take in hand
And well protect this mind of mine.
What use to me are many disciplines,
If I can’t guard and discipline my mind?”
-from The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva, Chapter 5 verses 6 and 18
James Wood:
“Resisting what happens now is stress. Accepting what happens now is peace. Although what flows through the Now changes constantly, the Now is identical to consciousness – the Great Space in which all things live, move and have their being…
The past is not a problem unless you live in it. Living in the past means you derive a sense of self from past events, such as family history. Anything in the past is not the essence of who you are. If you find yourself dwelling on painful memories, you are giving them a power that they don’t have. Of course, like a physical wound, emotional wounds take time to heal. If you lose a loved one, grieving is natural and appropriate. In the awakened state, you grieve; you just don’t derive a sense of self from it. Feelings pass through you, but you don’t judge them.
Another way to live in the past is to indulge in fantasies about pleasurable past events, reliving scenarios that have already happened over and over again because there is an emotional payoff, but not enduring satisfaction, in doing so. If you do this you are perpetuating your suffering.
Living in the future usually takes the form of anxiety or hopefulness. Either one of these is a form of pain. Anxiety usually turns out to be unfounded, and hopefulness at best leads to a gratified desire that quickly fades.”
- from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood
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.
- Jesus, Gospel of Thomas verse 70
“Great fiction usually conveys something about the bleakness of the human condition while hinting at the potential of consciousness through struggle and suffering. Literature reflects the evolution of our understanding and shows us how to live more authentically. At the same time, realize that fiction can sometimes be an escape into unconsciousness, into the fantasy of drama. Let it wake up you instead of lulling you to sleep. Focus on quality. Use literature just as you would use your own life by asking, “What is authentic? What is valuable? How can I use this fictional experience to grow in consciousness?”
-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
I am deeply grateful to my Teachers, who point the way to freedom from suffering with endless, tireless compassion, honesty and love. I am grateful for my friends who see me and have patience with me. I am grateful for guidance that keeps me going and reminds me what’s important. I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for this place to share Teachings that inspire me and for everyone who visits here. I am grateful to be alive and healthy and supported in countless ways.
May we all find freedom from anger and fear. May we all find peace, joy and freedom from suffering!
Vernon Howard:
“Now is the time. Tonight is the night when you will decide that you no longer want to be kicked around by the world. And do you know what you just thought? You just thought of the exterior world, didn’t you? You slipped into it just like that because you don’t think clearly.
Well, of course, you’re weary of being at the mercy of things out there, but you do not realize that the world that you’re tired of is you. Oh, I know how easy it is to lie. You know how easy it is to deceive yourself.
Let’s try it again. The world that wearies you, that wears you out, that confuses you, that gives you more questions than answers, that world is inside of you. Now, if you reject that, you’re just going to have to waste the rest of your life as you’ve wasted it heretofore.”
from a talk given 10/14/1987
Vernon Howard’s Higher World – MP3 CD Volume 15, talk 362
“Peace is native to you, buried beneath all your thoughts about Reality that aren’t true. Beneath mental noise is the Stillness that is like a tranquil lake, like golden sunlight streaming in through a clear window into space. Your thoughts about Reality form a web of deception that ensnares you, and you’re in the middle of it. In fact, you’re the one spinning it. Since you are creating it, you can stop it.”
-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
“You may lose something or someone in your life that will show you what space is. Instead of rushing to fill the void in your life with things - possessions, concepts, stories, people-allow yourself to sit still with the space and just be with it. Breathe into it. Allow your awareness to deepen, without judgment, into the feeling of absence. Your mind will try to convince you that it is nothing, but if you sit with it consciously, you will notice a stillness, a domain of peace and wakefulness that is also a quiet joy and gentle brilliance within your awareness. Recognize it as the glimmerings of your true nature If you experience pain, be with it without judgment. When you lose something or someone, meditate on the space created by the loss. When disaster comes, let it be your best friend. Invite it in for tea.
Ultimately, you don’t need anything but what you have in the moment. Learn to live with less. Be with the feelings of loss and notice how within grief and mourning is a stark sense of beauty that bleeds through your inner awareness. Notice how alive you feel when you can be present for loss without judgment. Notice that it shows you how to treasure what you have – and especially how to treasure Emptiness the value at the heart of all mourning. See if you can feel the Emptiness in loss, death, and poverty.”
-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
Franklin Merrell-Wolff:
“Before all other objectives, man should seek that Goal known as Enlightenment. Before the attainment of this Realization, all effort, all experience and all knowledge has durable value only in so far as they may serve to bring nearer that culmination. All which serves not this End is, at best, empty or actively injurious. The life which produces no slightest advance toward this Goal is wasted and without worth. Such a life is like the journey of the squirrel in the rotating cage, which ends just where it started, or it is a descending course to the darkness of oblivion. That joy or pain, success or failure, gain or loss, peace or struggle, whether small or great, which leads on, little or much, to the luminous End is good.”
“Keep practicing.
Develop a deep commitment to Truth instead of a tepid desire for comforting ideas.”
- James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
“In awakening, there are no hierarchies of attainment. There is one goal, and that is Liberation. Once Liberation occurs for that person, it’s over. Some schools teach that there are degrees of enlightenment. There are no such degrees. There are, however, levels of depth of expression that are gradually refined and eventually transcended completely. This gradual refinement occurs on the relative level of the person, not on the absolute level of Truth. These are not levels of attainment; they are degrees of refinement and occur naturally, like the falling away of leaves.”
-James Wood, Ten Paths to Freedom
Hangout on Google+ with James Wood!
Are you reading Ten Paths to Freedom? This Sunday August 26 from 12-1:30pm pacific time is the next Google+ hangout to discuss chapter two.
You can find instructions on the James Wood Teachings website for how to join the book study.
The online book study is a great way to ask James questions and connect with others who are reading the book. James’ clarity and compassion are truly inspiring. His teaching has helped me more than I can possibly say! I hope that you take advantage of the opportunity to spend time with this amazing Teacher.
♥ ♥ ♥
Fire postcard from Jen McKenna's website
“You flee within through contraction, through inversion, through dissociative emotion, in order to protect yourself, and then you focus your attention on your own self-sense and the products of it—the thoughts, the tendencies, the reactions, the self-imagery, and everything associated with self-possession. You are all fleeing from your parents—not just your blood relations, but the meanings in your own body-mind—and yet you do not escape. You imagine yourself to be escaping somehow because you are withdrawn. But your withdrawal can never be so far within or away that you actually escape these meanings, because the meanings are in you. They are you, you see.”
”Prayer is the surrender of judgment about what should happen, letting Truth run your life. It is rightly understood as a form of meditation. The most common form of prayer consists in asking God for something for yourself, or petitionary prayer. This is not true prayer. Can you really know that you will be better off getting what you want? Can you really know what is best for you or anyone else? Since God’s will is what is happening at any given moment, praying for a specific outcome implies a basic distrust of God’s will. Not trusting God’s will is a barrier to Liberation. If you really knew what was best for you, wouldn’t you have made it by now? Wouldn’t you be truly happy? True prayer implies surrender to God’s will, to Reality.
What else is there?”
-from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood
“In some religious teachings, there are those known as masters, just as in ancient days Jesus was called Master. A master is one who has achieved some measure of spiritual freedom, which means some measure of nonattachment to the things and thoughts of the world. People often get the idea, however, that the function of a master is to take over another’s mind and life and to govern and manage them for that person, but a master is one to whom a person can go and through whose help and co-operation he can be lifted up into a state of spiritual consciousness and discernment where he himself realizes the Master in his own consciousness. The Master is not a man: the Master is a state of unfolded and developed consciousness.”
– Joel S. Goldsmith. The World is New (1997).
THE “SNOWBALL” OF JUDGMENT AND HOW TO STOP IT
“Judgments snowball until the mass of mind-material overwhelms you. It is important to know how to break the cycle. Notice if you judge, and then notice if you judge yourself for judging, and then notice if you judge yourself for judging yourself for judging, and so on. If the tangled mess is too complex and hard to follow, just notice the feeling of all those judgments until you can discern patterns and notice those. The better you get at noticing what you are thinking and feeling in the moment, the quieter your mind will become, and the more you will be able to notice individual thoughts before they can spin out of control. You must see yourself exactly as you are in the moment without flinching or turning away, without apology or rationalization, without creating a ” me” out of it—as in I’m no good because I’m angry and I’m angry because I’m no good. That is how you get wound up tight. That generates more anger. You are afraid of dissolving, so you contract in fear, judging yourself to defend against dissolution. Ecstasy is terrifying for the ego to taste, much less BE.
Your mind will try to lash out and get you involved in its ugliness by getting you to judge yourself for judging. Remember, you are not your mind. If your mind lashes out, notice it but recognize that you are the witness while your mind is the perpetrator. Let it show you what you are doing unconsciously, because on some level you are imbuing your mind with a sense of self that keeps it going. The mind tries to get you to identify with it. You are not your mind, but you are responsible for its behavior, in the same way that you are not a vicious dog, but if you own a vicious dog, you are responsible for watching it and keeping it from attacking others or responding appropriately if it does attack someone. As you go through your day, notice what the mind is doing. Keep it on a leash. Discipline it by developing discriminating awareness. Often, the mind lies in wait for you to let your guard down. If your mind suddenly rages out of control, just notice it. Like a vicious dog, it’s not who you are. It may feel like you, but it’s not. You must witness it impersonally and see it for what it is, without judgment. This keeps you from beating yourself up when you see what it’s up to.
Judgment obscures your true nature and keeps you from having permanent peace and satisfaction, like a pond that is clogged with trash. If you unclog the pond and tap into life without judgment, you will taste the sweetness of Freedom like spring water from a pristine well, the Truth you have been looking for as long as you can remember.”
-from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood
This is one of my favorite go-to passages from Ten Paths to Freedom of late.
I hope you enjoy ♥
Embracing Uncertainty
“To be in the world but not of it, you must be able to embrace uncertainty and chaos. You must give up trying to know things with the mind, as if mental certainty—something you will never get—will deliver you from life’s inherent uncertainty. You cannot ever know things with complete certainty. An awakened person doesn’t know things with absolute certainty, as if thought could deliver Truth. She is absolute certainty, regardless of any thoughts that may appear. An awakened person enjoys just being with what is and letting the future take care of itself. Wanting certainty in life is like skipping to the end of a novel to find out what happens, or wanting to learn the end of a movie without watching it—only in life, the story never ends, and you miss all the good parts. It blocks your joy of the Now and makes life feel incomplete, like you’re missing something.
Chaos is constant. You cannot predict when things will go wrong. “Wrong” just means chaotic or unexpectedly out of control. Chaotic circumstances are not ultimately wrong, just messy. Life is never going to get more orderly or certain than it already is. If you create order in one place, chaos erupts elsewhere. If you wait for certainty, it will never happen. The awakened life is not completely certain, as the mind might have it. In a way, it is completely uncertain, involving total trust. It is Wisdom. In that sense, it is complete and hence completely uncertain, but only on the level of Being. On the level of the mind, it is out of control. The mind cannot grasp it, cannot comprehend it. Knowledge is necessary for getting by in the world, but it cannot give you certainty. It is the uncertainty and chaos of life that makes it spontaneous and fun. You have to let go of the mind to get there.”
- from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood
