I have read about half of Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione, and am as impressed by the book as I am by the practice. It is beautifully written, simple, insightful and always very practical and helpful.
The five steps of the practice itself is outlined at her Kapala Training website.
Statement: He shouldn’t make it wrong. (Beliefs. Habitual patterns. This is about the teacher that triggers a good deal of beliefs in me.)
Through a body oriented practice I am doing, I am required to listen to a particular teacher for about 40-50 hours once or twice a year. I find that he is pushing a good number of buttons for me (including about what is “good teaching”) which is uncomfortable for me but also invites me to notice and work with some deeply held beliefs.
Through this, I see more clearly that a teacher can either be a model or an annoyance, and that each has its value. In Zen, I am used to a teacher being precise in words, yet also challenge their students in different ways - often through their behavior.
But here, it goes even further since the words themselves push buttons. (Some of my stories about it: Imprecise, coming from a “should” about needing to shock his students, talking down to his students, pretending the teachings are more profound or unique than they are, being deceptive about the hierarchy of the organization and the history of the practice, and so on).
It is easy to relate to a teacher who is obviously a good model, such as Byron Katie, Adyashanti, Joel, and others. It is comfortable, and also very helpful.
And while it can be tremendously difficult to deal with teachers who show up more as an annoyance, it can also take me even further. I am directly faced with some deeply held beliefs that sometimes remain more hidden when I am with “good teachers”, the teachers who follow my expectations.
These beliefs will of course come up anyway, just through living my life, but in the presence of these types of teachers, they are dredged up more thoroughly and directly. I sit in the fire whether I want to or not, and have to face it. (Including the belief that since life will trigger these beliefs, a teacher don’t have to.)
This particular teacher comes from the Gurdijeff lineage, so I shouldn’t be surprised by this since it is an important element in that particular tradition.
I may not like it. I certainly wouldn’t have sought him out if it wasn’t a requirement for doing the body work (which I love). I may not chose to act in that way myself. But, although I don’t like to admit it, his teaching style is helpful to me. Through pushing so many buttons in me, I have to face them.
I have to reluctantly admit that it works, whether it is intentional from his side or not.
It is even possible that rather than being a “bad” teacher who unintentionally is a “good” teacher, this is all intentional… How would I receive it differently if I knew it was all intentional?
Teachings can be seen as medicine.
We have a fixed position, which creates wounds, immature behavior and a sense of an I-Other. And the teaching is designed to nudge us out of that fixed position, either directly or through offering us a tool which invites the shift when applied.
That is one reason why there are so many - apparently contradictory - teachings. They each are designed to invite us out of a particular fixed position and belief. (There are of course other reasons for teachings, but this is an important one.)
From this, it is easy to see a “good teacher” as someone who is fluid among a wide range of views and positions, and can take any one of them according to what seems most helpful in the situation. And that is certainly true from a conventional viewpoint.
But I also find that teachers who take a somewhat fixed and rigid position can be very helpful. Maybe more helpful, in some ways, because they bring my attention straight to my own hangups.
I may have an expectation of the teacher being fluid, so get to notice and inquire into that belief. I may agree completely with the teacher, which then feels a little stale after a while, so I get to inquire into the stories I agree with. And I may disagree with the teacher, which is stressful, so here too I get to notice and inquire into my fixed positions.
In the first case, the teacher is fluid and models it for me. I get to see my own fixed views in contrast to the fluidity of the teacher, and am inspired and invited to move in the direction of a similar fluidity.
In the second case, the teacher is rigid, which in different ways also brings my attention right to my own fixed positions. And here, I have to do the work myself, which in many ways is more powerful.
Statement: He should teach differently.
I notice how I am drawn to teachers who speak with fresh words. Who go to what is alive here and now, and find words for it as if it was the first time. The words are alive and juicy, and often different from how they have talked about it in the past, or how others talk about it.
Other teachers may also go to what is alive for them here now (or not), but then use familiar phrases to describe it. It can sometimes feel a little predictable or stale, even if the content is excellent.
In either case, it is how I receive it that matters. Do I use it as a pointer to look for myself, here now, in a fresh and alive way? If I do, it doesn’t matter whether the teacher speaks with fresh and juicy words or not. Although the fresh and juicy words so obviously comes from an alive experience, so that is a reminder and encouragement to find it for myself.
Also, when I write about these things here, when do I go to old and familiar phrases, and when am I free enough to use fresh and alive words? And what happens for me, in each case?
A few things I find helpful when listening to teachers…
He shouldn’t use a fire and brimstone approach. (When teaching.)
Spiritual teachings/stories have several different functions.
First, they function as bait to get people interested, usually by triggering a variety of projections. We take ourselves as an I with an Other, and with a particular identity. The stories reminds us of what we are on the other side of those boundaries, and we are attracted to it.
Then, they invite a reorganization of the stories people use as guidelines for how to live their lives. They become new beliefs, which has an important practical function in keeping people out of trouble. This is the social aspect of stories/teachings.
For those interested in the practice part, they are pointers for practice, questions for us to investigate on our own. Each statement is a question only, to take to inquiry.
And finally, and most importantly, they offer tools for practice, for instance for investigating beliefs and finding what is more true for us. (The teachings and tools themselves are of course included as material for inquiry.)
The topic of Bernadette Roberts came up again, or I could say the conundrum 
(See the comments of that post.)
To me, it seems that her descriptions of her own path and awakenings are beautiful and clear, quite similar to what have happened here at different times, and what has been described by mystics from many traditions.
For instance, she differentiates between oneness/unity, where there is a sense of an I one with God/all, and selflessness, where there is a release of identification with a sense of I and Other. And that is awakening 101, found among mystics of each of the traditions, experienced by many today as well, and something we can investigate for ourselves using tools such as the Big Mind process, headless experiments and investigating the sense fields.
(For me, there was first a shift into realized selflessness awakening, coming out of the blue, after consuming a great deal of alcohol one time and then being “absorbed into” the witness for about a year. Then, after some months, a shift into a oneness/unity state, which lasted for several years. Then a dark night for a few years. Then a gradual emerging of the oneness state, then a realized selflessness phase for a few months, and now a oneness phase again where things are worked through some more.)
But when she talks about the different traditions, it seems that very few of the ones familiar with them would agree with how she describes them. Sometimes, it seems that her take on them are 180 degrees turned from what you would actually find there. To me at least, she seems to use a straw man argument, fighting windmills and imaginary foes - as I described in the initial post.
But that is only one possibility, and the other is that I have got it completely wrong. Which is of course true anyway. Any story such as these is just a story, more or less accurate in a conventional sense, and also having nothing to do with what it appears to refer to in another sense.
What it comes down to is its effectiveness as a teaching strategy and pointers for own investigation. How effective is her take on it as a teaching strategy? And how effective is it as a pointer for own practice?
And then finally what this is really all about: a mirror for myself. In what ways do I do exactly what I see in her? When do I overgeneralize? When do I use straw man arguments? When am I blinded by my own stories about something?
Note: See this inquiry for how I worked with one of my hangups around this.
Some things I have found helpful in what to look for in a spiritual teacher, and also in how to work with teachers and teachings.
In terms of teachings, I find it helpful to see any statement as a question and a pointer. It is an invitation to investigate it for myself, in immediate experience. And then hold whatever comes up lightly and as another question. It is an ongoing process of investigation.
In terms of finding a teacher, it is partly just a knowing, but partly also looking for certain things. If they come from a tradition and lineage, are they free in their relationship with that tradition? If they don’t come from a tradition, are they still aligned with the teachings of the mystics of the traditions?
How mature and healthy are they, as a human being? Is the organization healthy, in a conventional sense? How relaxed do they seem, in body and mind?
Are they open and relaxed about their own shortcomings as a human being? How do they respond to challenges and criticism? Do they sincerely welcome it and find the truth in it for themselves?
Is there a sense of receptivity and fluidity in how they teach and relate to their students? Do they encourage students to inquire for themselves? Do they give practical and effective tools for the students to investigate for themselves?
Is there a sense of breadth? Do they expect everyone’s path to be similar to their own, or what is described in their own tradition?
Do they encourage healthy independence in their students? Do they admit when they don’t know, and only talk about what they have experience with themselves?
In short, I look for how mature and healthy they seem as a human being, and in relationship with students and the wider world, and also how mature and healthy the organization is, in a conventional sense. And I also look for maturity in their teachings, a sense of breadth and receptivity, and an offering of effective tools for their students to investigate on their own.
In terms of working with a teacher and the teachings, I find certain pointers and tools helpful. The main one is mentioned above: Seeing any statement as a question to explore for myself. And then hold whatever answer comes up for me as another question, something to hold lightly and stay fluid with, and investigate further.
The other main tool is working consciously with projections and beliefs. What stories do I have about the teacher and the teachings? What do I find when I investigate those beliefs? Do I think the teacher will actually get me something I need? If I see something in the teacher I am attracted to, can I find it in myself, here and now? If I see something in the teacher I don’t like, can I find - and own - that too in myself, here now?
Seeing statements as a question, and working with projections and beliefs, makes anything into material for practice. Any situation, whatever happens, is something to work with for myself.
Finally, even if anything is material for practice, I still use my best judgment about what is going on. If I work with my beliefs and projections around it, and what they are doing still doesn’t seem all that helpful or healthy, can I do something that will change it? If not, would it be most helpful for me to stay or leave?
I haven’t been in many situations where those questions has come up. But where it did come up, in one case, it was not a problem to stay because the teacher was completely open and sincere about what had happened, and tried to make amends. (He cheated on his wife.) In another case, where the teacher seems less than clear in certain areas, I also decided to stay because the practice is very helpful to me and is not touched by whatever lack of clarity he may have in other areas.
A chapter from Almaas‘ new book The Unfolding Now is available as a free download. The book can be pre-ordered and should be out June 10.
From Amazon:
Almaas brings clarity and understanding to the intimate details of this inner work, which makes use of self-observation and the contemplative method he calls inquiry. Each chapter includes an “exploration session” with questions for the reader’s practice of self-inquiry.
About the Author
A. H. Almaas is the pen name of Hameed Ali, originator of the Diamond Approach, who has been teaching individuals and groups in Colorado, California, and Europe for some twenty-five years. He is the founder of the Ridhwan School and the author of numerous books, including Spacecruiser Inquiry, Essence, and The Pearl Beyond Price.
Thanks to John from open-secrets.com for letting me know!
Some teachers use how we experience sensations as a quick test for where we are.
Bring attention to where your foot meets the ground. (Or your hand on your thigh, or anything else.) What do you experience? Do the sensations belong to the body, with the floor on the other side of the boundary? Do they appear in space?
It seems that there are at least three possibilities for how these sensations are experienced.
Sensations may appear in space, with not much else happening. There is no sense of an I with an Other associated with it.
Sensations appear in space, but with an overlay of mental field activities such as an image of the body and the foot, and an image of the ground. But these mental field activities are seen as just that, imagined boundaries to aid our human self function in the world. They do not have substance.
Sensations belong to this foot, with the floor on the other side of that boundary. There is a strong sense of an I with an Other, and of the sensation/mental field gestalts (body, foot, floor) being real and substantial.
So to summarize: Sensations can appear in/as space, and that’s it. There are sensations, and mental field activity seen as just mental field activity. Or sensations are entangled with the mental field, and the gestalts are not seen as gestalts.
For me, I see that when I bring attention to it, sensations appear in and as space - with or without a mental field overlay, and although both are awareness itself, they are also distinct from each other. But sometimes in daily life, there is still the habit of taking the gestalts as real. (Beyond just a gestalt.)
Vince has a good post on ways teachers and traditions sometimes speak about enlightenment, and what types of dynamics it may set up in the group.
The verbal level is of course important, partly because it sets up maps people use to navigate by.
Yet, something else is as important: The tools we are given. First, to have an immediate taste of what we are. Then, to work with beliefs and stories directly, no matter what they are about.
The tools I am familiar with here are the ones I have written about many times before.
Some tools for inviting in a taste of enlightenment include headless experiments and the Big Mind process. These give a taste of what we are and ways to explore it for ourselves, although obviously not with the same clarity as a full blown awakening. Doing this can be helpful in letting go of some of the more exotic ideas about enlightenment. What we are is something that is quite simple, available to be noticed here now, and not really out there in others or the future.
And there are also good tools available to help us unravel beliefs and stories about enlightenment, teachers or anything else. The Work helps us explore the effects of beliefs, and find what is already more true for us. And exploring the sense fields helps us see thought as thought, and how an overlay of thought on each of the sense fields create gestalts. It also helps us find ourselves as what we are, outside of what any story tells us.
At least for me, having and using these tools - with some sincerity - is far more important than any models, mainly because they first help me explore the terrain for myself, and then because they help me unravel beliefs and attachments to any story and identity.
Also, any model can become a belief, an identification with a story. So it is helpful to work with any model we are presented with - or come up with on our own - in this way, no matter how accurate it appears to be. In a conventional sense, some models are more accurate, meaning they have more practical value. But really, all models are equally far away from what they appear to be about.
I also see that I personally prefer practices aligned with awakening, but with an emphasis on the practical and day to day aspects of it. So in that sense, I would be more in the “no need to talk about it too much” camp. (Although I obviously explore it quite a bit here, but that is on my own.)
I am familiarizing myself with a teacher I just discovered, whom seem very clear and direct. But there are also parts that brings me to inquiry for myself, such as this one about insight practice:
Ultimate insights cause permanent changes in the relationship to reality and eliminate fundamental levels of suffering forever.
Forever is a very long time.
It is also just a story. A projection of what is here now into an imagined future.
A projection of the awakeness here now, which is already awake whether it is confused or clear. And a projection of the content of a story of “forever”, as if it was real, substantial, existing - somehow, magically - somewhere in an imagined future.
All we know is what is here now. Anything else is just a story of a future.
I see that Eckhart Tolle is doing an online class for Oprah’s book club. A genuine mystic who goes mainstream and reaches thousands and thousands of people. It is actually quite astounding. It is free, and anyone can sign up.
Buddhism and Christianity both use a “pointing beyond itself” analogy.
In Buddhism, it is the finger pointing to the moon. The teacher, teachings and practices point beyond themselves to what we really are, this awakeness with a content which is awakeness itself. Don’t mistake the finger for the moon.
In Christianity, it is the humility to realize that it is all from God. Nothing happens here which is not from God.
This also shows where the traditional teachings sometimes don’t go quite as far as they can.
In Buddhism, it is not only the teacher/teachings that are the finger pointing to the moon. It is also this human self. When it points to itself as the final truth of what it really is, it is deluded. When it notices that it is already and always pointing to awakeness as what it really is, it is awakened.
In Christianity, it is not only that I as a human being give all credit to God. It is also that God is all there is. It may appear that there is a human being here, with a separate I, but there is nothing but God. There is no separate I here, only God.
In both cases, this human self becomes a finger pointing beyond itself.
And this shift has to be thorough for it to be real. For this human self to really notice what is already and always is.
(Leonardo’s beautiful painting of St. John the Baptist shows him pointing up. He has to point somewhere, so it may as well be up. But it is really in all and no directions.)
They are too tame. (The folks at CSS, and the approach of the center in general.)
I started reading The Laughing Jesus today, and have also placed a hold at the library on a few other books by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. (Thanks to Peter at the excellent The Seer blog for introducing me to them!)
The book helps differentiate inner and outer truths of Christianty, first going through the outer truths about Jesus and early Christianity, and then the inner truth of the early gnostics and gnostics, or mystics, anywhere. The basics of both is familiar to me, but it is presented in a very clear and insightful way, have some angles that are new to me, and is a joy to read.
In terms of the outer truths of Christianity, it shows the parallels between the early gnostic stories of the God man and the life story of Jesus, the lack of historical evidence for Jesus ever having existed in flesh and blood, and examples of the literalist interpretation of Christianity came into being through the usual politics.
(From the little I know of mainstream scholarship on this subject, it seems that their basic thesis is not too far off, but I am sure there are different takes on many of the details. This is not a book for those interested in exact and nuanced scholarship, and that is not the point of the book either.)
The inner truths of Christianity is that of mystics anywhere and any time, and I am reminded of Douglas Harding and the headless experiments in the simple and elegant ways Freke and Gandy write about it.
Finally, the book is a reminder of looking for the inner truth of any spiritual or religious story, independent of its outer or historical truth (or, most often, lack thereof). The historical truth has historical interest, which is well and fine. But the inner truth is about who and what we are, here and now.
Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
[Mark 10:15]
Some of the ways I find myself more childlike…
Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
[Mark 10:15]
Much of what I write about here is almost childishly simple. For instance, in the last post, I could have taken the hypothesis angle instead, which is equally true and sounds more scientific. Evolution is a hypothesis, a model, and it has good explanation power so we choose to use it (or not).
But going to our immediate experience makes it more real for us. We see what is true, here and now.
And that truth is childishly simple.
It is the truth of the sense fields, of what arises in each of them, and how thoughts combine with the other to create an appearance of something solid and real.
It is the truth of what arises as inherently free from an I with an Other.
It is the truth of stories as practical tools only, with no more inherent value - or truth - than a hammer or a toothbrush.
It is the truth of finding ourselves as ultimate simplicity, as awakeness, and as the content of awakeness as awakeness itself. This ultimate simplicity which allows and shows up as infinite complexity as well.
It is better to not filter Buddhism through New Age and Christianity. (Distorting it.)
I am not qualified. (To help, give advice, teach, contribute.)
If it is alive for them, they would use their own words.
It is better if they differentiate history and teaching stories. (From a dinner conversation with friends yesterday, where they got into talking about some of the non-Biblical scriptures such as the gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene.)
Another look at karma, and how it is and isn’t, and is personal and universal, belonging to the part and the whole.
As with any maps, models and stories, the story of karma is a practical tool only, a tool that helps our human self to orient and navigate in the world. A tool that can be more or less useful depending on what we want to use it for. There is no value or truth in it beyond that.
And we can say that karma is and isn’t.
It is, because there is, obviously, cause and effect in the conventional sense.
It isn’t, because there is only what is here now, the five sense fields and what appears in each one. Anything else comes from the inside of a story. Past, future, time, continuity, space, extent, causality, all that is only found on the inside of a story.
It is individual, because we can find, in a conventional sense, causality within the boundaries of this human self. We see how thoughts and decisions are followed by actions in the world, and so on. It is also individual as a practical ethical tool, inviting and helping the human self to live in a more ethical way and follow the golden rule more easily.
It is universal and of the whole, because everything has infinite causes and effects, reaching back to the beginning of the universe and out to its furthest reaches. What we see locally, including what appears as local causes and effects, are just the local effects of movements within the whole.
So karma, cause and effect, exists in a conventional and practical sense. If we look a little closer, we cannot find it in our immediate experience. It can only be found on the inside of a story.
It is individual, again in a practical and conventional sense. And it belongs to the whole of the world of form, in that everything happening locally has infinite causes and effects, and is a manifestation of the movements of the whole.
And we can find all of this here and now, in our own immediate experience. How is it true for me, here and now? What do I find when I look for myself?
I just started looking at Buddhism for Dummies, and it seems to be an excellent book, written in a way that honors and is faithful to the traditions, yet in a very simple and ordinary language, and always very practical.
If anyone asks me for a good book about Buddhism, I am going to recommend this one. And I am going to read it myself as I have benefited a great deal from the brief sections I have read so far.
When the tagline says “a reference for the rest of us”, I read that as “a reference for all of us”.
Another, briefer, one with some of the same main points.
I just discovered Timothy Freke, a modern gnostic. He reminds me quite a bit about Douglas Harding (the headless guy) and not just because they both are British.
There are multiple benefits for me in going to CSS.
First, the clarity Joel brings from his Ground awakening and studies of the philosophy and practices of many traditions. (Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism/Advaita.)
Then, what gets triggered in me in different ways.
I often feel that the ways the teachers look at a particular topic is quite limited, so it encourages me to find what is more true for myself. What they say is great, but what else is also true? What are the other ways of looking at this topic? What does the larger landscape look like? And also, what are the truths in the reversals of these teachings?
And then the reactiveness, the hangups triggered in me, which is as valuable and as much a teacher as the above. (If not more of a teacher.) Whenever I go, believes are triggered, and there is something in the setting that allows these to come up more clearly and in more abundance than in any other setting. (I probably have higher expectations/hopes.)
