Does The Awareness That You Are Ever Suffer?

​“Does The Awareness That You Are Ever Suffer?” is a 2-day home meditation retreat held on May 25 and May 26.

Drawing largely from the Direct Path teaching of Advaita Vedanta, it’s centered on a playful yet earnest exploration of one’s direct experience. Here, we are concerned in particular with whether our fundamental nature ever suffers.

The truth is that it does not.

Home Meditation Retreat At A Glance

• ​​What: Home Meditation Retreat
• ​​Where: Over Zoom
• ​​When: Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26 (please see schedule below)

​​About Me

I’m a meditation teacher and a practical philosopher. My understanding of the nondual teaching is drawn, in the main, from the Direct Path teaching of Advaita Vedanta. You can learn more about me by visiting my website.

Does Awareness Suffer?

“The ‘I am the body idea’ is the seed of all sorrow.”

—Adi Shankara, Vivekachudamani

This body grows old, may become ill, and shall die. The senses fade. The mind’s clarity fades and, in time, all knowledge of the world is drawn to a close. Suffering, in short, seems to abound.

But am I this body, these senses, or this mind? This—to paraphrase Hamlet—really is the question.

During this 2-day online retreat, we’ll be exploring the proposal that what we essentially are is awareness, or aware being. And we’ll look very closely and carefully at this stunning implication: if we are awareness, then our very nature is beyond suffering. In fact, our very nature is abiding—and so non-contingent, non-circumstantial—peace. 

We’ll undertake this exploration through (a) rigorous inquiries into the nature of the mind and world and through (b) more poetic, somatic inquiries into the nature of the body. 

Details

​​On Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26, we’ll come to the heart of the perennial nondual teaching.

​​Each day, you’ll have the opportunity

• ​​To sit for a 60-minute silent meditation (*),
• ​​To take part in a 60-minute guided meditation following the line of higher reason, (**).
• To take part in a second 40-minute guided meditation focused on the body identity (***),
• ​​And to attend a 60-minute satsang (that is, a question and answer session devoted to clarifying the nondual teaching) (****).

​Your level of participation will be up to you. You can come to all sessions, to most sessions, or to only some sessions.

​​Brief Notes On These 4 Genres

​​(*) Silent Meditation Period (30 min. or 1 hr.): The sitting period will begin with 3 strikes of the singing bowl. At the 30-min. mark, a bell will sound once; this will indicate that you can (a) get up and leave, (b) get up, stretch your legs, and then return for the second half of the sit, or (c) “sit through”: that is, continue sitting without moving until the end of the 60 minutes.

​​(**) Guided Meditation: Higher Reason (1 hr.): Simply sit in openness and follow the inquiry we’ll be undertaking together. In this case (that of higher reason), we’ll examine the nature of our direct experience in order to deconstruct old views that aren’t in accord with what we’re discovering and in order to reveal, very freshly, what is actually the case.

(***) Guided Meditation: Body Inquiry (40 min.): Simply sit in openness and follow the inquiry we’ll be undertaking together. Because the “I am the body” identity makes one feel separate and contained, we’ll look very closely to see what the body truly is.

​​(****) Satsang Period (1 hr.): This is an opportunity for you to have your questions answered, your real doubts resolved. Bring with you any questions or doubts pertaining to (a) your understanding of the teaching, (b) anything that has come up during seated or guided practice (e.g., physical pain, certain recurring thoughts, etc.), and (c) ultimate concerns about life that may have sprung forth from your life situation (e.g., not knowing what you’re doing with your life, etc.).

​​Schedule

​​Dana

​​Dana, loosely translated as “donation” or “generosity,” is given with a view to helping support others—here, my family and me.

​​The following provides some guidance on how much may be appropriate for you to give:

• ​​Suggested Dana: $80 USD
• ​​Limited Means Dana: $40 USD
• ​​Patron Dana: $120 USD
• ​Scholarship: $0 USD
  • ​If you’re very eager to participate yet if you’re not able to offer dana, then you can sign up via Luma (see “How To Register” below) and also send a note separately via this Contact Form.

​​Your donation, which will secure your spot in the retreat, can be offered through either of the following 2 platforms:

​​​1.) Venmo

​​2.) PayPal

​​How To Register In 2 Steps

​​FIRST: Sign up for the 2-day retreat via Luma One-Click Register.

​​SECOND: Offer dana via Venmo or PayPal.

​​Once you’ve registered and offered dana, you’ll receive a message that will confirm your participation; this email will also include the appropriate Zoom links. Since this is not an automated process, you can expect to receive Zoom joining information from my wife Alexandra within 24 hours.

Does awareness experience pain?

No.

Open to any bodily sensation. Notice that it’s just a pulsation of energy.

A thought, a superimposition, might arise and label the sensation “pain.”

Stay only with the sensation. Does it have any label “pain” immediately or directly attached to it?

No.

So, pain is nothing but a thought and, as such, does not appear unless nama or the naming function of pain appears. The sensation, without the label, is just vibrating energy.

Now, who is aware of this sensation?

Awareness is aware of this sensation.

When you stay only with the experience of awareness, do you find that awareness, itself, is sensing?

No.

Do you find that awareness, itself, is “in pain”?

No.

Be this knowingly. Awareness–your essential being–experiences no pain.

What is this like?

I haven’t had any wonderful, non-ordinary spiritual experiences. Because of this, I doubt whether I’m on the right spiritual path or whether the teaching is correct.

The Direct Path teaching is elegantly simple: you’re invited to investigate the nature of your direct experience. And you don’t need to go anywhere–to India or Japan–to do so. You have all you need right here.

To be clear, direct experiences aren’t wondrous or extraordinary. They’re simply perceptions, bodily sensations, thoughts, and feelings–plus whatever it is that is aware of perceptions, sensations, thoughts, and feelings.

In this investigation, three things become clear.

One is that the deeply held beliefs and deeply rooted feelings are actually “superimpositions”: they’re thought tendencies that appear to veil the ultimate nature of our experience. As these beliefs and feelings are closely examined, they begin to melt away.

Another is that when we keenly stay with our own experience, we discover that it’s, in the final analysis, only consciousness. Example: an investigation of sight reveals that it’s just the experience of seeing; an investigation of the experience of seeing reveals that it’s just experiencing; an investigation of pure experiencing reveals that it’s only knowing or consciousness. And it’s clearly understood that consciousness isn’t experiencing experience but instead that consciousness is only ever experiencing itself.

The third–and it’s already implicit in the second remark–is that there’s, ultimately, no distinction between objective experiences (perceiving, sensing, and thinking) and subjective experience (or consciousness itself). That distinction, which was used as a provisional teaching device, also collapses, with the result that only consciousness remains. Better: only consciousness is.

Following this line of inquiry, one does not get caught up in extraordinary visions or signs and the like. (If they happen, fine. Just move on, as my Zen teacher used to say.) Rather, one is slowly established in and as consciousness.

Moreover, mind-concocted doubts are not removed by mere intellection (though intellectual understanding can help). Instead, they fall away due to keen experiential investigations that you undertake.

You see the truth for yourself. Indeed, you see that you are the truth.

Question: Fear arises in my body. Anger arises in my body. Anxiety arises in my body. But while at times overwhelming, many times they arise from a more loving space .

As a first pass, one can say that “fear [as well as other emotions] arises in my body” (my emphasis). It’s true, at this level of understanding, that all emotions are “stored” in “my” body and thus that they’re also felt within “my” body. Accordingly, it can be said that all emotions, when surfaced, are gently “released.” 

This formulation isn’t wrong. However, it would be good to go beyond this understanding.

How?

Steps In The Direct Path

1. In the first step, I realize that I am witnessing awareness. Disentangling myself from the content of objective experience, I see that all experiences are naturally appearing to me, witnessing awareness.

2. In the second step, I explore a simple fact: I, awareness, have no objective qualities. I’m, for instance, neither perceivable nor conceivable.

3. In the third step, I “return” to objective experiences and see that they’re rising within me.

• This is a subtle superimposition: for now, we allow that awareness has a “space-like” quality–even though it really has no objective qualities at all. This upaya is allowed because it facilitates clarity insofar as it deconstructs the habitual belief that there is an “inside of me” as well as an “outside of me.” Hence, the teaching, at this level, states that all experiences are appearing within the “space” of awareness.

4. In the fourth step, I see that every experience is made only of awareness.

• At this point, I may re-formulate experience thus: awareness freely assumes “the name and form” (namarupa) of all experiences in order to experience itself in this way.

Step 3: The Space-like Quality Of Awareness

Go back to your question, then.

Is it true, if you stick with your actual experience, that emotions are rising in your body? Or isn’t it really the case that emotions are rising in the space of loving awareness?

Can one sensation–what’s left of fear when there are no labels attached to the experience of sensing–arise within another sensation–the “total body sensation”? Is that what is evident in your actual experience?

When it’s clear that emotions are arising within loving awareness, then emotions are no longer a problem. They’re like gently unfolding waves in the ocean of awareness.