Wisdom Archive Wisdom Archive is the collected words from Achariya Doug Duncan Sensei's teachings. Being in the Moment For greater understanding you have to admit that you are off in the moment. If you can't do that then you can't go anywhere. Because if you don't admit it in the moment, then what happens is that you are actually in a state of distraction or entertainment. You are not looking at your state right now. This is the key to meditation, whether you are in a monastery in Tibet or whether you are in a Theravadin retreat, or whether you are in downtown Tokyo getting on the subway. Your moment is right now; right this moment, right here, right now! This is your meditation moment. You have to know whether you are in a clear, open, awake state or whether you are in a defensive, angry, attached, addicted, confused one. If you constantly have an idea of something better, you will not find satisfaction in the now and that won't change until you take the revolutionary view that now is perfect. Happiness and Bliss Happiness is none of my business. What my business is, is to remain in states of luminosity, non-clinging and bliss, through the various states that arise. Riding it Out The moment you get despair, loneliness, distraction ,or you start to feel threatened, you should not run to entertainment or activity. You should just place awareness directly onto the feeling, steer directly into the storm, and just let the thing ride itself out, like a boat does in a hurricane. Don't try to shore up some false feeling in yourself that you should only feel happy: should only feel good; should only feel positive; should always be joyous; should always be helpful. As long as you don't get stuck thinking you should be feeling a certain way, riding the storm out is not that difficult. The Inner Voice That's the voice from the bottom of the well. If the voices are arguing it's not the voice at the bottom of the well. If there's a discussion or a debate going on, it's not the voice at the bottom of the well. The voice at the bottom of the well is the voice that comes up when you get so tired and worn out by all the other voices that you stop listening to them. And then quietly this little voice from the bottom of the well emerges... and that's the voice you've got to listen to. If you don't listen to that voice, it will disappear back into the subconscious, to the bottom of the well. It's just a quiet little voice at the bottom. It only speaks when it's necessary. Sitting on the Edge of the Void But you can't know the void, you can only know what appears out of it. So this is where you want to sit as a meditator. As a meditator you want to sit right on the edge of the void, so that the first appearance out of the void, is seen. What does a Buddha see ? When the Buddha looks out, what does a Buddha see? Does a Buddha see a lot of messed up people? What does the Buddha see? The Buddha sees Buddhas. What makes you a Buddha? When you look out and all you see are Buddhas. I don't see the father beating his child. I see a Buddha that's trying to break out of the pain and suffering of being attached to a wrong view, that's beating a child. So you hate the sin, not the sinner. It's a big, important point in terms of your relationship with others. Meditation: Moving Upstream The difference between meditation and non-meditation is which way you're looking. Downstream to a stronger and stronger identification with the eventing or upstream to where the arising is coming from. As you move upstream your bliss becomes wider and deeper. You become more and more unperturbable (non-disturbable), more and more equanimous, you become more and more joyful, you become more and more peaceful. You actually get younger. This is the fountain of youth that they're talking about, the alchemy of turning iron into gold. The iron is downstream, the gold is upstream. But remember, man makes plowshares from iron that help grow food. Joy and Calm The word for joy is piti. Why is it considered joy? It's because the concentrated mind is de-armouring the tension, but you might experience the tension as edginess. So if you start to feel a little shaky from the concentration, this is actually a demonstration of joy. The shakiness was always present, you just didn't notice it. If you are present in a relaxed and gentle way with this, the shakiness will dissolve. Every time you start to shake from life's events it means that you're on the edge of a deeper level of calm. When this happens, what do you usually do? You usually back away from it and distract yourself again. That's your limiting factor. But if you could keep your concentration, stay with the shaking, and persist through it a bit, eventually you would release the tension held in the body. You would be like that jet plane going through the sound barrier. There would be a clap, which in this case would be a settling of the calm, and the mind would just continue on without the shaking, in a clearer state. The tension held in the body comes from distracting the mind, which actually takes more energy than keeping the mind concentrated. on Awakening Recognise that the only suffering you ever had was in the struggling of the ego to hold itself together. In fact, the letting go of the false rigidity of the ego structure directly produces the result of bliss. Understanding that brings you into the spaciousness of shunyata. With that spaciousness of shunyata comes a opening of consciousness that-if you can maintain your awareness-never has to leave you again. And that is called awakening. The awakening already works. It doesn't need supervision. It just needs your agreement!