I am one of the few teachers I know of who will talk about high-level practice directly and unambiguously without relying on dogma, making things taboo or coating simple truths in mystery. I assume that most practitioners are mature enough to handle straight-forward and honest answers. My fundamental assumption is that many more people will be empowered to realize that they can master these things if they are out in the open.
– Daniel Ingram

Vanmorgen luisterde ik op de trein naar deze aflevering van de Buddhist Geeks podcast met Daniel Ingram. Zonder poeha beweert “Dharma Dan” dat hij verlicht is, maar nuanceert dat begrip onmiddellijk en pleit ervoor om meer duidelijkheid te brengen in wat het woord “verlichting” nu eigenlijk betekent. Ondertussen stampt hij lachend wat heilige huisjes in, zoals over de laatste dagen van Boeddha (free from suffering anyone?). Of het De Waarheid is, weet ik natuurlijk niet. Maar dat het logisch klinkt en me aanspreekt, dat weet ik wel. Dus: Amen! Meer van dat!

Ondertussen ben ik begonnen aan zijn boek “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha” dat ik al enkele jaren geleden ontdekte, maar tot nu toe nooit las. (De PDF is trouwens gratis beschikbaar op zijn website.) Ik ben benieuwd!

Podcast BG 009: Enlightened Teachers – Aanrader!
Boek: Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (Daniel Ingram)
Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha

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I was born in 1960 into a working-class family in South-East England.

As a child I was intense and inquisitive – hours spent reading adventure and mystery books, hobbies which involved searching for antique artefacts, long treks into the countryside at every opportunity. Seeking began at an early age!

As I grew up, my restlessness led to difficulties in choosing a career, an inability to focus in any particular area. I left school as early as I could, decided to train as a chef, and then ended up working on construction sites.

I enjoyed this very much. It absorbed much of my restless energy and required no investment of responsibility. I took my orders and got on with the work – leaving me free to indulge in roaming in the thought story.

There was a constant interest in the mysteries of the body and the universe – experimenting with various diets and herbal treatments, looking at the stars, eating magic mushrooms, and pushing the body to the limit with weight-training and body-building.

In my early twenties I was forced to slow down. A shoulder injury brought the weight-training to an end, my wife gave birth to our first daughter when I was twenty-two, and I changed from construction to horticulture. For several years I picked fruit in Kent orchards from early summer to late autumn and gardened at other times of the year. During this period my thoughts turned to spiritual and esoteric matters.

Around 1985 I joined a fraternal order which sent me regular monthly lessons in mysticism and ‘universal law’. I enjoyed doing experiments and reading monographs each week.

After a couple of years I became interested in the teachings of a deceased Indian teacher, offered in monthly lessons and incorporating a guru-disciple relationship – even though the guru was already dead! I took this up and became involved with seeking enlightenment. This was my new obsession.

Another couple of years and several spiritual techniques later, I grew bored with it and happened upon a book by a western guru. This book told me that I was already awake and needed no liberation. The truth of what he was saying seemed obvious. However, he then went on (in the next few years and over the course of quite a few books) to proclaim himself the world teacher and offered a guru-disciple relationship for those who were interested.

Well, this time I was having none of it, although over the following five years I read a few more of his books as well as just about every other spiritual book I could get my hands on. But nothing really cut it for me the way the western guru’s original book had done. Somewhere in me I knew it was true that I was already awake and free, but I was still confused, because I seemed to be just an ordinary person with all the usual sorts of problems that ordinary people have.

Anyway, I got sick of this guy’s teachings and all the more traditional spiritual stuff, and next I hit the Advaita scene. I read everything by and about all the big Advaita names.

A lot of the confusion that I had felt before dissolved. I understood that all there is is Consciousness. So why did I still feel like a separate ‘me’? What was the missing link? If I was already awake and free, then why did my life often seem like a pile of dung?

In 1997 I read Tony Parsons’ first book, The Open Secret. I contacted him and he invited me to join a discussion at a house in London. It soon became clear to me how much mystique I had built around the whole ‘enlightenment’ drama. Tony appeared as an ordinary man and spoke with humour and patience. I listened to what he said in response to people’s questions and I was struck by the simplicity of his answers. I went to more discussions over the next year and spoke to Tony on the phone when I could.

I wanted to make him into my ‘teacher’, but he explained that he had nothing to teach, and simply pointed out that there is only Consciousness – which I already am. Although I had understood this to some extent already, now it really began to sink in.

Tony pointed out that there does not need to be any kind of ‘event’ associated with the recognition of our true nature. Well, as it happened, in September 1998 an event arose. I was gardening and the rain was drizzling down. I looked up, and there was a subtle sense of ‘me’ not being there. I got on my bike and cycled around the lanes and it seemed as though there was a movie going on, without any effort necessary on my part to be taking part in it.

With this sudden dropping of the ‘I’, all need for understanding fell away as knowing was revealed. Even though Tony had pointed out that an event is not necessarily associated with the recognition of our nature as Consciousness, I had obviously still been subtly waiting for one, because now that this event or experience was occurring, it was seen as ‘permission to be awake’. Without realising, I had been waiting for a confirmation of my true nature.

I rang Tony and excitedly explained what was going on and, with this new ‘permission to be awake’, speaking arose from clarity rather than the point of view of ‘I’. Tony recognised that I was no longer relating to him as a separate character who was trying to get something, ie from the point of view of seeking and understanding.

As the day wore on, the mesmerisation as ‘I’ began subtly to return and claim this event – which was precisely the absence of ‘I’ – as ‘my’ enlightenment, ‘my’ awakening. There was a focus on the sense of sudden release – a blissfulness that arose in the absence of the ‘I’ – as being the enlightenment I had waited for.

I woke the next day. Was it still there? Yes! Then, after a few days, I noticed that the sense of release was wearing off a bit – but a couple of days later it was full on again. After a couple of weeks of it coming and going and of the ‘I’ reappearing and trying to hold on to its own absence, I went to one of Tony’s discussions and the blissfulness seemed to be re-charged through being there. But then a few days later it disappeared altogether and there was mesmerisation as the ‘I’ again. I didn’t say anything about it to Tony and I didn’t go to the meetings for a while. I felt confused.

Then I read a book by a woman who described an absence of the ‘I’ which lasted many years. After some time, she was told by certain ‘teachers’ that this was enlightenment. Then she became ill and died, and, in the afterword to her book, written by a friend of hers, I read that near the end she became confused and frustrated because the event had disappeared and the ‘I’ had returned.

Suddenly it became clear that these events where the ‘I’ suddenly disappears can actually be very confusing, so far as clarity is concerned. Such an event may last a few seconds or ten years or more, but unless the ‘I’ is seen for what it is – as simply a thought – then when this ‘I’ returns, there is a sense of loss, a sense of confinement in being an identified character again. As the identified character, the desire arises for more of this ‘enlightenment’, and there is the sense of being back in the agitation and tension of the play of seeking.

Now it was seen that all of life is a great play. There is only ever knowing, but this knowing is seemingly veiled by the mesmerisation with the ‘I’ thought and all the other thoughts that appear as ‘my’ story. Our true nature as Consciousness is awareness and the appearances. The ‘I’ is simply a part of the scenery, as are all the other various images, and when it is seen through – or seen for what it is – then seeking and tension fall naturally away.

It was clear also that this seeing through the ‘I’ is not necessarily a sudden happening, but may appear to happen gradually, as part of the play of life. And rather than in a rush of blissfulness, the natural ease of being is gently, gradually revealed.

The confusion was gone. I no longer required any event or sudden dropping of the ‘I’ to prove my nature as Consciousness. It was clear that the whole of my life and ‘spiritual’ search was arising as a play in Consciousness, and I understood the confusion around this whole issue, why ‘spirituality’ and ‘enlightenment’ are confused with simple clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any kind of event. It was clear that an event of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs without clarity – which is the seeing through of the ‘I’ and the thought story.

Obviously the event that happened in the garden was of no particular significance, nor is any other event. The occurrence of the event merely brought my confusion to a head and allowed the clear seeing of how I had been subtly waiting for an event as ‘permission’ to be what I already am. This clarity is not dependent on the absence or presence of the ‘I’. If the ‘I’ appears, it is simply seen for what it is.

To bring this little story to a close: during the years of spiritual seeking I was divorced, married and divorced again, a single parent to my two daughters throughout most of their school years. I settled in a small village in Kent with not so robust physical health, and until recently worked locally as a gardener. Life is presently quiet and simple.

By Nathan Gill

Related posts:

1. Gelezen: Spirituele verlichting? Vergeet het maar!
2. Gelezen: Ontwaken in het alledaagse

Mensen beoefenen yoga en mediteren om uiteenlopende redenen: ontspannen, gezonder worden, aan zelfonderzoek doen, buitengewone ervaringen najagen,… of in de hoop spirituele verlichting te bereiken.

Over dat laatste gaan de boeken van Jed McKenna, de schuilnaam van een kerel die beweert verlicht te zijn. In zijn eerste boek maakt hij korte metten met een heleboel misverstanden, zoals het verschil tussen mystieke ervaringen en verlichting, mooie zen en lelijke zen, de droom waarin we leven oppoetsen of eruit ontwaken, en de wijdverbreide misvatting dat verlichting permanente gelukzaligheid zou betekenen. Waar hij vooral de nadruk op legt, is dat je zelf je hersens moet gebruiken en niets klakkeloos mag aannemen.

Of Jed nu verlicht is of niet, hij wist me van begin tot einde te boeien met zijn rake inzichten, nietsontziende liefde voor de waarheid en vlotte schrijfstijl. Ik kon het boek nauwelijks neerleggen, nam het overal met me mee, tot ik het vol ezelsoren en onderlijningen kapotgelezen bij mijn favorieten plaatste.

Als je op je zoektocht niet voortdurend over je nek gaat bij het idee hoe naïef en stom je nog maar een paar dagen geleden was, betekent dat dat je hopeloos bent vastgelopen.

Zoals je ziet, is hij al net zo’n lieverdje als U.G. Krishnamurti.

Boek: Spirituele verlichting? Vergeet het maar! (Jed McKenna)
ISBN 10: 9077228292
ISBN 13: 9789077228296

Wisefool Press
spiritualteachers.org over Jed McKenna
filmpje geïnspireerd door passage uit Jed’s tweede boek

Related posts:

1. Gelezen: Verlichting voor beginners
2. Gelezen: Ontwaken in het alledaagse
3. Enkele boeken

Plots schiet ik wakker door luid gelach. De monnik ligt in een deuk. Hij heeft de slappe lach en kan absoluut niet meer stoppen. De mensen in de coupé gniffelen toegeeflijk. Maar wanneer het ruim twintig minuten later nog niet over is, zijn er steeds meer verveelde gezichten te zien en beginnen er geïrriteerde opmerkingen te klinken. Ondertussen besterft de monnik het bijna. Hij ligt dubbel geplooid naar zijn buikspieren te grijpen. Ja, slapen zit er niet meer in, maar ik vind het best leutig. Zoals enkele anderen heb ik de neiging om mee te lachen, al weet niemand waarom.

Ondertussen zijn we de stations van Torhout, Lichtervelde en Roeselare gepasseerd. De trein raakt leeg. De man blijft maar lachen. Het lijkt nu erg pijnlijk. Zijn hoofd zit helemaal rood, er kloppen aders op zijn slapen. Af en toe wordt het lachen onderbroken door scheurende hoestsalvo’’s. Ik maak me zorgen, maar durf eerst niet op hem afstappen. Schaapachtig glimlach ik naar de vrouw voor mij.

Uiteindelijk overwin ik mijn verlegenheid. Ik sta op en neem plaats voor de monnik. Ik ga er vanuit dat hij geen Nederlands spreekt en vraag dus: “Is everything okay?”
Hij kijkt op, tranen in de ogen, de mond verkrampt in een grimas.
Met veel moeite weet hij enkele woorden uit te brengen: “I was just meditating… (bulderend gelach) …and I believe I got… (gepiep, gekreun en gelach) …en-en-enlightened… (lachen en hoesten) …I got to know… (zucht) …the meaning of life! (ongelooflijke lachuitbarsting)”
Dan valt hij weer ten prooi aan de spasmen.
Ik weet niet goed wat te doen en zit maar wat rond te kijken. De conducteur is kaartjes aan het controleren in de volgende coupé. Ik haal mijn Railflex-abonnement alvast boven.

En dan gebeurt het. De ogen van de monnik puilen uit zijn hoofd, het lachen stokt hem in de keel, er klinkt een gesmoord gerommel in zijn buik… en *BLAM*! Bloed en ingewanden vliegen door de hele wagon! Een lever kwakt tegen het raampje, hersenen druipen van het plafond…
Wat een smerigheid! En stinken! Ik zit helemaal onder de drek. Over het abonnement in mijn hand hangt een dikke darm te dampen. Voor mij ligt enkel nog een bebloede pij ter herinnering aan de monnik.

De conducteur komt de coupé binnen en stapt op me af, vakkundig negerend dat hij over een oogbal schuift. Ik zit nog verdwaasd te staren wanneer hij de Railflex uit mijn hand rukt. De darm ploft op de grond.
“Ja, dat wordt een boete meneer!”
“Huh?”
“Verbaasd? Kijk ‘ns naar je abonnement, dat kan ik niet lezen hé! Je weet toch dat je niet mag schrappen op treinkaarten! En dan nog met van die dikke vette rode strepen, wat heb je daarvoor gebruikt? Wasco’s?”
“Maar eh…”
“Nog een excuus ook zeker? Allez, laat horen!”
Ik wijs naar de puinhoop en stamel: “Dat eh… heb ik wel niet gedaan hé.”
Hij kijkt vragend rond en schopt uiteindelijk een verfrommelde Metro weg.
“Ja, ik kan wel geloven dat die rommel niet van jou is. We zien wel ergere dingen nu de vakantie voorbij is. Maar dat neemt niet weg dat je datum onleesbaar is!”
Ik probeer nog steun te zoeken bij de vrouw waar ik net bijzat, maar die wiegt catatonisch heen en weer met een long in haar schoot. De conducteur grijnst zelfingenomen.

In Kortrijk stap ik af, 30 euro lichter, met gestold bloed in het haar, mijmerend over de zin van het leven en het feit dat we diep vanbinnen allemaal hetzelfde zijn.

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