Fear and Confusion turn Peaceful

    At times we become weary from the heaviness of life, and need to get away, if only for an hour or so. Pleasant, healthy getaways include playing with little children or puppies, walking or jogging outdoors, gardening, listening to or playing music, joking or watching comedy, reading a book just for fun, playing games with family and friends, etc. Most of us don't 'play' like this nearly enough. 

    At the same time, almost all of us have an understandable, visceral fear of death. We're so afraid of the dreaded "D" word, that we expend a lot of energy avoiding / ignoring / neglecting / delaying even things we associate with it: proper nutrition, proper health-care, exercise, meaningful discussions about sickness & death, meditation, meaningful spirituality, wills & estate planning. Many of us mistakenly assume that opening our minds & hearts to the deepest, most meaningful aspects of life will somehow "make us soft," threatening our ability to earn a living or even to survive. Fear of death confines many of us to the shallows of life's profoundly vast & deep ocean.

    “We look like (we're) rich from the outside, but mentally we have problems. (We're) all about 'face.' We don’t know how to talk (sincerely - from our true Self). We can’t ask for help. So many people are alone with their problems, and stuck, and their hearts aren’t touching. … It’s not that people lack friends. Facebook, Instagram— scroll around and you find (people) bursting with mugging, partying companionship. It just isn’t real, that’s all. There’s a real me and a masked me (and a) lonely gap in between ...” https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-incredibly-true-story-of-renting-a-friend-in-tokyo?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

     “Our hearts do not need logic. They can love and forgive and accept that which our minds cannot comprehend. Hearts understand in ways minds cannot.” Lois Wilson “When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story” 2010 TV Movie – Prime Video

    "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Blaise Pascal, French philosopher

    “the only thing really needed is to descend alone ... down into the silent depths of yourself to listen, and wait, and learn.” Peter Kingsley “A Book of Life.” Catafalque Press, 2021.

    "I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." Albert Einstein

    “It is perhaps the ultimate paradox: At the heart of our loneliness, at the core of our longing for life, we find an exquisite aloneness, a Oneness with all creation, our true salvation.
    We find God in the forsaken pit of the psyche; we find the Divine in the abyss.
    We find astonishing light in the darkness of ourselves.
    This is the true enlightenment. To be alone and to be found, to be lost and to be saved, all before the moment even begins.” Jeff Foster

“In the beginning, mind is like a torrent rushing down a gorge.
In the middle, it flows gently like the river Ganges.
In the end, it’s like a stream returning to the sea.”
    Tilopa, 10th century Indian sage, on the progress of meditation over the stages of its practice

“If you look for the truth outside yourself,
it gets farther and farther away.
Today, walking alone,
I meet her/him everywhere I step.
S/he is the same as me, yet I am not her.
Only if you understand it in this way
will you merge with the way things are.” Tung Shan 

 

    Amoda Maa's pointers to help you find your true Self:

    “True healing is what happens when consciousness recognizes its own wholeness amid what appears to be broken or wounded.”

    “Moving from the stillness & silence of being gives you the freedom to start wherever you are, without having to change, fix, or improve anything. … simply but utterly present in what you do, work becomes spiritual practice.”

    “The real question is: Are you willing, whether your experience is tranquil, turbulent, ecstatic, tragic, opulent, or austere, to give yourself wholeheartedly to what is truly alive in you?”

    “If you truly want to enter the ‘kingdom of heaven’ and be free of suffering, you must put down the burden of all acquisitions and be fully here, in this moment, without a story. This freedom is available to you here and now if you are willing to die, in this moment, as empty awareness.”

    “When the dream of separation becomes unbearable, and you have the courage to honestly say you have had enough of suffering, then awareness has the possibility to turn back in on itself and recognize the deeper dimension of formlessness that exists prior to all forms.”

    “All forms are transient, even the most spiritual ones, and without an anchor in the deepest dimension of beingness that does not come and go, the vicissitudes of the world will threaten to wipe out the satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment derived from external manifestations.
    Your true purpose and fulfillment have nothing to do with what you imagine yourself to be, but everything to do with what you do with who you are beneath and beyond all forms. The invitation is to stop asking, ‘How can I manifest my dream of a better life?’ or ‘How can I do something special / important / unique / spiritual in the world?’ and to turn your attention to the primary purpose of your life: awakening out of the dream of separation. Your true purpose is an inner, not an outer one. Without staying true to this, you will keep on chasing dreams.
    If you are on a path of spiritual inquiry, your commitment to realizing your inner purpose prior to finding your outer purpose is likely, over time, to unravel all agendas and expectations of what you should be doing, what you will be doing, and even of what you want to be doing. This unravelling allows the revelation and release of an essential quality of beingness that wants to express itself through you as you. Not as a future dream, but as a present moment reality. This quality of beingness exists prior to conditioning, and is experienced as a subtle felt-sense (such as clarity, playfulness, devotion, or harmony) when you are still and silent inside.”
    Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017. HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED WISE, VALUABLE BOOK

Amoda Maa "Falling Open in a World Falling Apart"

OVERVIEW

     The purpose of my blogs has been, and continues to be, sharing with you the experiences of people whom I consider to be sincere, wise seekers of Truth. You will find quoted, a very wide range of exemplars & thought leaders, living & dead, from Shamanic, Aboriginal, Advaita, Buddhist, Greek & Roman philosophical, Jewish & Christian Mystical, Sufi, and other traditions, but primarily inspiring current non-dual teachers like Amoda Maa, Louise Kay, Helen Hamilton, Dorothy Hunt, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Henry Shukman, and many more.

      Most human beings have the capacity to mature emotionally / psychologically / spiritually well beyond "the average" : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=stages+of+faith .
    Some factors accelerate, while others moderate, slow, (temporarily) stop, or even reverse our maturation process : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=maturation . 

    The greatest roadblocks to healthy maturation / aging are rigid certainty about one's self-concept & worldview http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=certainty and nihilism http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=nihilism . When people cling with a death-grip to their (usually inherited & unexamined) self-concept & worldview, any alternative perspective tends to feel life-threatening, and it is, but only to the ego.

    “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Joe Klaas

    For thousands of years, the few who've taken the search for Truth as their life's central purpose, all seem to reach a common set of conclusions, summarized in the 'perennial philosophy' http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=perennial .

    You'll find many quotations from books, interviews & presentations of mostly people whom I (among many others) consider spiritually-mature & on the life-long path of 'awakening' : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=awakening . All these quotes are "pointers towards the Moon" - metaphors, humor, poems, stories, practices, to help you experience directly the peace, silence, stillness & joy that is well-beyond words & concepts ("surpasses all understanding") - your true Self : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=true+self .

    You'll also find quotations about topics closely related to awakening, such as psychology / psychotherapy eg Trauma theory, Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems (IFS), Iain McGilchrist's Hemispheric theory, etc. This blog has almost 1,400 posts which are quickly & easily searchable - see top left of page.

    “Maturity is the ability to live fully & equally in multiple contexts.” David Whyte, poet & philosopher

    “True adulthood … is a difficult beauty, an intensely hard-won glory, which commercial forces & cultural vapidity should not be permitted to deprive you of.” Toni Morrison

        “There are only two ways to live your life.
         One is as though nothing is a miracle.
         The other is as though
         everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

    “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do what best awakens us to love.” Saint Teresa of Ávila

    "... one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.” Ram Dass

    We are called “to serve not our limitations but what’s whole & unbreakable, our true self. It’s easy to identify with all the places we’ve been hurt & abandoned, but can we identify with the timeless wholeness that weathers every condition? If we can’t, we may spend this life protecting ourselves and never risk really living.” Bonnie Myotai Treace

 

    To see my latest blog, simply click : www.johnlovas.com 
    To see previous blogs, scroll down from the latest blog.

    My blog is NOT "monetized."
    I'm simply sharing what I understand to be of greatest value in life.

 

One of Helen Hamilton's fine orienting talks:

Experiencing Awareness of Awareness

     A very short, powerful guidance to recognize & directly experience - fleetingly at first - who you truly are. You will experience a wonderful difference in your day-to-day life as you learn to stabilize in, see things from, & act from your authenticity, rather than your past conditioning.
    This is NOT a math problem to solve, so relax, feel into this with gentle curiosity as if you were approaching a 1-year old relative or a wild baby rabbit you wished to befriend.
    Read along if it helps and / or listen to Louise Kay's skillful guidance 3:20-7:25 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSxygwMsHU

    “Right now, bring all your attention, fully present, into this moment, and just notice your body breathing, and notice the experience of the body of sensations. You’re already here – right? So, just recognize that you’re here, you’re aware, and let go – this is the paradox – let go of any idea that you need to awaken; that you need to open your third eye; that you need to experience Oneness. Those ideas come from a seeking, from the conceptual me – and they’re also authentic, it’s also incredibly beautiful – but this is the paradox. It’s when you surrender it, and recognize I’m already here, that which is here now is Pure Consciousness. You already are it.
    Now it’s not an experience, because any experience will come and it will be beautiful and amazing but then it will go. So what this is about is recognizing what’s here that’s deeper than any experience. And to recognize that, you simply witness the experiences that appear in the moment. So right now, you observe any thought that comes, so maybe that you’re just being here, present, and then the thought comes like ‘I want to experience full spiritual awakening.’ Okay, then that’s a thought, and then it goes. But you, the witness, were here before the thought appeared, during the thought when it was present you witnessed it, and after it was gone, you’re still here. Now you keep your attention like that, every single moment, of every single day.

    The more you can be with it, the faster the transformation will happen on the level of the human expression. So it’s really a paradox. It’s not about faster or getting somewhere, because it’s only here now, in this moment, and the now is the gateway by stopping and recognizing yourself as the aware witness, and when you live like that every moment, transformation does happen in time on the human level.
    So now you’re recognizing what that feels like, and you just bring your attention back there again, and again, and again, and again, until you don’t even have to remember it – it’s just your natural state. It will start to happen more and more and more when you make this prayer in your heart to life, to the Universe, to God, to the Divine, whatever you want to call it, ‘Yeah, I’m available for this. This is what I want. This is the most important thing in my life. I want to surrender everything to this.’
    Life will support you fully in this. And it already is.”
    Louise Kay “How Can I Speed up my Spiritual Awakening?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSxygwMsHU (below 3:20-7:25)

Anxious, Afraid & Confused?

    We are ALL anxious, afraid & confused! The most important difference among us is how aware or conscious we are - a major determinant in how we deal with our anxiety, fear & confusion.

    There are still populist politicians / dictators, CEOs, & less visible sociopaths who seem to be full of aggressive conquering bravado but are actually running SCARED and UNCONSCIOUS. Amazingly, they cling to a certainty that by following a few simple (-minded) rules they're guaranteed to emerge a 'winner' from (the rest they regard as) losers. 'Grab what you can!' 'Anything goes!' 'Winner takes all!' And only 'winners' deserve & get the spoils of war. After all, it's 'survival of the fittest,' 'law of the jungle,' and 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!'
    Sadly, more and more countries are democratically electing such 'strong men' (sociopaths). This trend has historically lead to catastrophic wars. And despite annual Remembrance Day ceremonies, most world leaders, & those who elected them, fail to learn from deadly mistakes from history.
    At least a bit more curiosity, courage, imagination, energy and, perhaps above all else, good will towards our fellow humans, other life forms and the Earth itself, would really help!

    “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Thomas Jefferson

    "... the external world that humans have created is a reflection of egoic patterns in the human mind. So that is your function, to be a midwife to help bring about the birth of the new consciousness ..." Eckhart Tolle

    PRACTICAL alternatives to today's spiritually-bankrupt populism ARE WISE, CONSCIOUS, PEACEFUL ways of managing our 'anxious quiver of being.'  

    For thousands of years, people from every part of the world & every culture, have been devoting their lives to finding answers to our most important questions: who we truly are; how we deeply relate to ourselves, each other, to life itself; what is the meaning of life; and most importantly how can we live meaningful lives. 

    These mystics - ancient to current Shamans, Yogis, Taoists, Monks & Nuns of all wisdom traditions, but mostly anonymous serious individual seekers of Truth - evolve well beyond religious customs for the masses, to directly experience profound understandings beyond words & concepts. And yet, there's a striking commonality to their insights because these are the pinnacle of human understanding, hence the term, 'perennial philosophy' : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=perennial

 

 

    “The real question is: Are you willing, whether your experience is tranquil, turbulent, ecstatic, tragic, opulent, or austere, to give yourself wholeheartedly to what is truly alive in you?”
    Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017. HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED WISE, VALUABLE BOOK

 

 

"I've been asked many times whether this is the Aquarian Age, and it's all just beginning, or Armageddon, and this is the end. And I have to admit, I don't know,
but whichever way it goes,
my work is the same.
My work is to quiet my mind
and open my heart and relieve suffering wherever I find it.
May that be the work for all of us.”
Ram Dass

 

“Deeply rooted in the present moment
With a clear open spacious mind
Seeing beyond doubt and fear
Abiding in the luminous heart of equanimity
The way unfolds before me.” Atum O’Kane

John McDermott's cover of Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda"

It's Time We Stop!

    Since the age of 18, I was strongly attracted to, and began reading (a lot) about Zen, other forms of Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, and psychology. Thirty years later, I finally started a sitting meditation practice, and for over 15 years, I sat with a couple of local Zen groups. With my wife and two sons, we also sat numerous 7-10 day silent meditation retreats at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), and with my wife, a one month retreat at Forest Refuge in Barre MA. Then we sat a few annual week-long retreats at Dharma Retreats in Toronto, led by teachers from IMS.
    At some point I took Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher-training, and then facilitated about a hundred 8-week courses at Dalhousie University and the IWK Children's Hospital in-person, and since the beginning of Covid, online.
    All this time, I continued to read, blog, and contemplate this spiritual journey we call life. When I first started reading about spirituality & psychology almost 60 years ago, the material was puzzlingly paradoxical yet, attracted & fascinated, I kept at it. 

    “All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th-century German philosopher

    SO it's no surprise, that many - including most of our relatives & friends - quickly reject & avoid concepts & practices that strike them as unfamiliar, foreign, not quickly & easily understandable, too deep, religious, and especially spiritual. AND YET, healthy maturation, which involves at least some evolution of consciousness, REQUIRES acceptance, patience & perseverance BUT is BLOCKED by fear & avoidance.

    Over this lengthy period of slow maturation, books written by wise spiritual elders have slowly but progressively come to reflect my own lived experience. My blogs showcase what I currently resonate with, inspire me, and hopefully, help you evolve spiritually. If negative judgments quickly pop up about wise spiritual elders' experiences, consider the possibility that what you just read might not be 'just crazy talk,' but simply beyond your current level of understanding.
    The more we're able to 'unburden' our 'parts' - Internal Family Systems (IFS) talk for the less self-centered & neurotic we become - the more we actually start to experience life the way shamans, mystics & saints of all traditions, places & times describe. IFS would say that these people have become 'Self-led.' See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/06/frightened-children-and-wise-elders.html

        “... as self decreases,
         the Divine increases.”             Bernadette Roberts

    From her wise, inspiring 2024 book, “Psyche & Spirit. How a Psychiatrist Found Divinity through her Lifelong Quest for Truth and her Daughter’s Autism” here is Melinda Edwards:

    “Ramana Maharshi (one of the great sages of India, 1879 – 1950) taught that the ‘Self’ or real ‘I’ (our true or ultimate identity) is a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness, not an experience of individuality (small self, noisy ego). He said the individual egoic self was a fabrication of the mind that obscures the true experience of the real Self. He maintained that this universal Self is always present, but the self-limiting tendencies of the mind must cease for one to be consciously aware of it.

    Contraction & separation, when acted out or discharged externally, cause suffering & pain, not only within the target of our words or actions, but also in ourselves. Contraction and separation are the same. When we allow our hearts to open to the pain our contraction has caused in the other or in ourselves, a healing of the wound of separation takes place. The illusion of separation dissolves. This healing is a return to Love, to recognition of our Oneness with the very object of our illusion of separation. The pain itself is the doorway Home. In truth, the tenderness of pain is not separate from Love. All is One. All is born in Love.

     With all spiritual paths, although a mental concept or paradigm can be useful in conceptually understanding where the transformative process is heading, the real transformation takes place at a deeper level – at a level where habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and energy shift in a foundational way. As the veil of my fear about (my autistic little girl) Saachi’s ability to be in the world dissolved, space opened up in my system for a deeper truth to reveal itself. The hallmark of every spiritual path is the dissolution of contraction, of fear, which is the source of separation & suffering. When fear dissolves, that which is deeper and truer than fear emerges. When fear & separation dissolve, love remains.”
    Melinda Edwards “Psyche & Spirit. How a Psychiatrist Found Divinity through her Lifelong Quest for Truth and her Daughter’s Autism” 2024.

    The same theme, from one of Gangaji's wise, inspiring interviews:

     Papaji’s (W.H.L. Pooja) practice instruction for Gangaji:
    “ ‘You want freedom? Great, just sit there and do nothing.’ So since I had practiced all this Buddhist doing-nothing business (sitting meditations), I thought I knew how to do nothing, and I sat still in meditation. And he said, ‘No, no, no. That’s too much. Don’t do anything.’
    And when I heard that, it was really, deeply frightening to me. It even took me back to that moment when I was eleven-years-old and I had started doing things to get out of my unhappiness. I had a fear that if I didn’t do something, if I didn’t do a practice or I didn’t do my meditation, or I didn’t do a mantra, or I wasn’t being good, that I would fall back, I would regress, I would lose anything that I had accomplished. So it was a moment.
    And he said, ‘Yes, lose everything!’ It shook my life. It shook my life right-side up. I feel like I was walking with my head in the sand, and I knew something was wrong because I kept tasting sand, and he just turned me right-side up.
    ‘Just stop. Just be still.’ And then later, I would hear him speak to people and he would say, ‘You have to lose your enlightenment, and you lose your un-enlightenment. You lose them both. You lose it all! Lose your gender. Lose your nationality. Lose your ranking. And (now) what’s here? And what’s here that’s always here?’ ” 

Q: “How do you teach people to stop?”

Gangaji: “Well there’s a conundrum, because you can’t really teach somebody to stop. You can invite people to stop, and what I try to do, and what I saw Papaji do is you point out where they are refusing to stop or where they are active. And the way you do that is you recognize it in your own mind, because we all have the same structure. It’s a survival structure. We have active minds because we’re an intelligent species that knows how to survive. So to stop is a threat to that, and the mind will get very busy – how it’s impossible, how you shouldn’t, or you can’t ((because the ego wrongly assumes that the {healthy, appropriate} transition from 'noisy ego' to 'quiet ego' to be a physical death)). So it’s really important to be able to hear your mind chatter, to overhear your thoughts. And then there’s a possibility of choice: to follow thought OR to be still. And really, it’s just to be still for a moment.
    There’s nothing wrong with thinking or thoughts, but often our thinking our thoughts is just a re-thinking of what has been thought, and re-thought, and re-thought – obsessive kind of thinking. And with that is a lot of unnecessary suffering. So to be willing to be open to not rethink that thought – this very thought, in this very moment – then the mind is available for insight & revelation.”

Q: Stopping could be interpreted as trying to hold the mind still, or purposely letting go of attachments, but even that’s too much.”

Gangaji: “That can be an initial step because normally, in our unnecessary suffering we’re just obsessively finding reasons in the past, or the present, or the future. So I had experienced that in some of the early meditations where you were kind of arresting your thought. But there was also in that the thought of me arresting this thought. So it was complicated and it took effort. This can actually be perceived as taking effort because it definitely is a challenge – because if you’re not thinking, that means you aren’t checking your environment, something could happen, you could die ultimately. That’s the root of it. So it’s an invitation to meet your death. ((The 'noisy ego' wrongly assumes that we are constantly in a life-or-death situation. BUT we rarely if ever are! Our noisy ego or false sense of self is, however frequently challenged eg a slow driver ahead of us when we're late. Such minor incidents can & do escalate unreasonably because the noisy ego operates at a primitive 'fight / flight / freeze instinct' level. THIS is one of the reasons why some wisdom traditions formally practice meeting actual death with an evolved, peaceful clear mind ie with equanimity, instead of primitive instincts.))”
    Gangaji - “Gangaji Interview: A Life of Service to Spiritual Awakening” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmUYR2Higcc 

 

It's WELL worth listening to these lyrics again!

Awakening according to AI

      I recently heard Rick Archer - of Batgap (Buddha at the Gas Pump https://batgap.com/) - describe his website's unique Bots. Unlike most, which scan 'horizontally' ie broadly, all data on the web, his site's Bots scan 'vertically' ie deeply into only selected respected / trusted data. He has 3 different Bots, each loaded with appropriate resources:
    "Compassion Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/compassion/thread?t=about 
    "Interfaith Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/interfaith/thread?t=about  and 
    "Batgap Bot" - https://www.awakin.ai/batgap/ask

    So I posed the question, "What are definitions of Awakening?" not to a wise human being, but to Batgap's "Compassion Bot" which quickly provided a surprisingly decent, fairly nuanced, nonsense-free answer - mercifully the opposite of the old database admonition, "garbage in, garbage out!" :

"Awakening is a profound and transformative shift in one's sense of identity and perception. Here are a few perspectives that capture its essence:

• Identity Shift: Awakening involves moving from a self-oriented perspective, where a personal "self" is at the center, to an expansive identity that includes everything. It's a movement to a broader worldview that influences how you view, experience, and relate to the world and others.

• Awake Awareness: It is the transition from a thought-focused consciousness to an awareness-based knowing, allowing a deeper connection to the present moment. This state of being is often associated with feelings of being in flow, selfless service, or deep love, where you 'forget yourself.'

• Direct Knowing of True Nature: Awakening is also described as a direct recognition of a deeper, true nature, often experienced as a profound absence of self. This state is characterized by a unity experience where all is perceived as interconnected oneness.

• Timeless Ground of Being: Awake awareness is seen as the formless, boundless, and timeless essence that serves as the foundation of our being. This awareness brings clarity, presence, and freedom of choice.

In essence, awakening is not about changing beliefs or external circumstances but rather about shifting how we organize our minds and identities. It's about embodying an awareness-based way of knowing that deeply connects us to our true self and the world.

Follow-up questions you might consider:

• How can I start my journey towards awakening?
• Are there specific practices that can facilitate awakening?
• What role does service to others play in the process of awakening?
• How do different spiritual traditions view awakening?
• Can an awakening experience be sustained over time, and how?

As actionable next steps:

• Reflect on moments when you've experienced feelings of connectedness or presence.
• Explore meditation or mindfulness practices to cultivate awareness.
• Engage in acts of service to deepen your connection with others.
• Seek conversations or literature on various spiritual paths to broaden understanding."

Stone Jizo Statue - SangkalaArt - www.etsy.com

 

Awakening and the Ego

    I value what serious spiritual practitioners have learned from many decades of continuous practice & teaching. Here is part of Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick's talk: “What I learned from almost 60 years of Zazen” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlsgX5oH_HQ

    “To paraphrase the Buddha, ‘In my many years of practice, I haven’t gained anything, but I’ve let go of a lot.’ The Buddha said that everyone, without exception, has the wisdom and virtue of the Buddha. We’re all intrinsically as complete and spacious and as virtuous as the Buddha. Yet we obscure that truth with all kinds of attachments and opinions, judgments, projections and deluded thoughts. If we can just let go of these obscurations, our intrinsic wisdom will shine through.
    So what is it that prevents us from being able to let go of all these attachments? This is what I learned. It always comes down to our image of who we think we are, and our persistent attempts to maintain & protect that image.
    One thing I learned is that there’s no fixed, abiding self. That fact is hard for most people to swallow. How can I function if there’s no self? Can you believe that the notion of a ‘fixed self’ is just that – a notion, a concept, an idea? And even the teaching of ‘no self’ is a concept.
    Concepts can be used to guide, but they’re not the experience itself. Some concepts can lead us astray because they’re like conspiracy theories. Other concepts can guide us to experiences that lead to the lessening of suffering. But remember, the concepts are like the fingers pointing to the Moon - they’re not the Moon, just like the map is not the territory, or the menu is not the meal. Our practice is beyond words and letters.
    What that means is that our concepts do not describe the experience of awakening, insight or enlightenment. The best we can say is that the Self cannot be grasped, it is unknowable.
    The more we are able to let go of our attachments, the clearer the Moon of wisdom will shine within us. So I did not gain anything, but I did let go of attachments that obscured my Original Self. But it’s an endless practice." Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick

        My current favorite serious spiritual practitioner & teacher, Amoda Maa, wrote this on the same topic: 

    “Another tenacious concept that perpetuates the myth of enlightenment and creates much confusion in the spiritual seeker is the belief that the ego dies, and with it all personal history is erased. In this myth, the ‘enlightened one’ supposedly has no sense of self and no story, and therefore he or she is expected to never talk about themselves, to never use the word ‘I’ or ‘me,’ and to never refer to ‘my life.’ The ‘enlightened one’ has supposedly seen that the body and the world are an illusion, and therefore is totally unconcerned with physical well-being or worldly affairs. This image of enlightenment is a fantasy upheld by millennia of religious dogma and patriarchal spiritual traditions. It also taps into our childlike need to enter the kingdom of heaven or nirvana, where bad things never happen, and we are rewarded with endless peace.
    The stark reality is that awakening is not a death of the ego. As long as you’re alive as form, the ego cannot die. Ego, as a primary sense of ‘I-ness,’ must exist, otherwise you’d be unable to discern inside from outside. It’s very likely that, without an ego, the voices in your head would be undifferentiated from my voice, from someone else’s voice, or from the voice of God, and you would be in a state of psychosis. You might even be a blubbery mess, unable to function in three-dimensional reality. If you’ve ever taken too many psychedelics, you’ll know how disorienting and even terrifying this can be!
    As long as we operate within relative reality, the relative function of the ego must continue to operate. A sense of self as a separate entity is absolutely necessary for both physical and psychological survival as form. Death of the ego only happens when form dies. Luckily, as long as there is a functioning neurophysiology, there is a sense of self. It is a sense of ‘I’ that increasingly develops as we emerge from the womb and gives us the capacity for self-reflection and self-awareness. It’s actually the seed of awakening, because without it we would not be able to become conscious of consciousness.
    Awakening is also not a transcendence of ego. Transcendence of ego certainly can happen in a variety of circumstances, such as when you experience a mystical state or a state of expanded consciousness such as in deep meditation (samadhi), long-distance running, or giving birth. It also happens if you have an out-of-body experience or near-death experience. The initial experience of awakening can also be an intensely transcendent experience. But if you continue to identify with this transcendent state, you are likely to develop a ‘spiritual ego.’ There is no transformation or evolution of consciousness in the identification with this state, because when the inevitable return of old egoic patterns and personality traits appear there is a tendency to deny that any of this belongs to you.
    In true awakening, there is neither a death nor a transcendence of ego. Instead, the location of self is released from its entanglement with the unconscious ego (in other words, the conglomeration of conditioned mental, emotional, and physical responses.) Liberated from the prison of egoic identification, the ‘I-ness’ becomes nonlocalized and unattached. Having recognized awakeness as the inherent nature of all that is (including the self), the self becomes an ‘awake I,’ undefined and unrestrained by relative reality.
    Another way of saying this is that the self experiences itself as inseparable from the totality of existence. While certain survival-based impulses continue (protecting the body from danger, the impulse to eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, or rest when tired, and so on), they now happen without interference. They simply happen as life’s natural and intelligent movement toward what needs attention while form is alive. The ‘awake I’ is therefore free to respond intelligently & creatively to the moment, and this gives you access to a power that is at one with life itself.
    So what happens to the ego in all this? From one perspective, nothing happens. From another perspective, everything changes. In the process of liberation, the once ('noisy') unconscious ego transmutes to an evolved ('quiet') or ‘aware ego’ and gives itself in service to the ‘awake I.’ In other words, the ego stops being the master and bows down to awakeness.
    ((From an Internal Family Systems [IFS] perspective, this represents unburdening of protective 'parts' [subpersonalities], resulting in becoming Self-led. IFS psychotherapy appears to be an exceptionally valuable link between traditional ego-strengthening psychotherapies and spiritual practices serving to evolve consciousness.))

    So, yes, in awakening there is a death. There is a death of the self-identity that is wrapped around the ego. But there is also a birth of a whole, integrated human being that includes both the surface sense of self as a separate entity (the self that is born & then dies) and the deeper layer of undifferentiated beingness (the self that was never born & can never die).
    Awakeness embraces the paradox of self & no-self. There is no conflict in this apparent duality. While the mind finds this intolerable, the heart abides in unfathomable acceptance. When the silent mystery of spacious acceptance becomes overridingly preferable to the habitual struggle of making sense of it all, the search for a mythical state of enlightenment comes to an end. However, the ever-unfolding deepening into authentic awakening never stops.”
    Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK

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