Where this really started for me was a very, very sort of eye-opening and in some ways sobering, chilling moment, after a Sesshin that I sat, on the retreat. I was sitting there, and at the end of it, people were having breakfast after it was over, and talking, and I heard a group of old-time students who’d been at this, like, 20, 30—a couple of them—40 years. They were talking, and they were all talking about how when they were young, they remembered getting involved in Buddhism, and they wanted enlightenment and to awaken, and now that they’d been doing it for 30 or 40 years they’d kind of just let go of that. They hadn’t really found out what that was, but they’d found—they kind of found peace with not finding out what this enlightenment thing was about. So they had a peace about that. And they actually did have a peace about that. You know, like, well maybe it’s not going to happen but it’s okay. And I could see, for them, it was okay. And that it was okay. But for me, at 23 years old, and I suddenly look over and I go, “That could be me in 40 years.” I could be sitting there saying, “Well, the enlightenment thing didn’t really work out, but, you know, I’m really at peace with that.” And something about me, at 23 years old–I literally had to bite my bottom lip. I literally dug my teeth into my bottom lip, otherwise I just would have screamed out this huge, “No!” Like, it cannot end that way, that’s what I thought. That can’t happen. That’s not acceptable. It was fine for them, so it wasn’t a judgment for them. But for me, it scared the hell out of me. And that’s the day when I thought, “Okay, that’s it.” I realized I was on my own. Because I realized you can’t just follow the tradition, because it might not work out. Just doing what you’re told because someone says that’s the way to do it, and that’s the way they’ve always done it–I thought, “Okay, I don’t have that luxury. I’ve got to prove everything true or false for myself, and it’s up to me.” And I didn’t leave my teachers, and I didn’t leave my tradition, and I didn’t stop meditating–I didn’t stop doing any of that, but the internal relationship shifted. And what I was really confronted with, is I thought, “Not only do I not know what enlightenment is, I don’t even know if there’s such a thing. Maybe we’re all just deluding ourselves. Maybe this is just a pipe dream.” But you see, up till that point, I couldn’t even ask myself that question. I couldn’t even admit that maybe it was just a pipe dream. It was too frightening. But as soon as I could admit that, it sort of frightened me into a clarity. I thought, “Well I have to find out then, don’t I?” And I don’t know if you can sense it, but there was a real aloneness in it. There was a very stark energy to it. That, ok I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to find this out for myself. And I look back many, many years later, and I look at that moment as probably one of the most significant moments in my whole spiritual seeking days. Because it was the day that I stopped accepting anything simply because somebody said it, including the Buddha. And I looked back and I go that was the most important thing I ever did. I didn’t throw out what anybody said. But I realized that until I proved it to be true in myself, I don’t actually know if it’s true or not. Now when you do that, you feel very, very alone. You feel like there is very little to grab hold of. Because there’s almost nothing that you actually know, for certain. And so it kind of scares you into a clarity, you might say. ~ Adyashanti
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 18:07:28 +0000
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