I teach you to live being-awareness.

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‘I Am Not At Peace’

A famous Zen koan, “Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind,” brings out poignantly the existential predicament that many spiritual seekers find themselves in today:

Bodhidharma sat in zazen facing the wall. The Second Patriarch, who had been standing in the snow, cut off his arm and said, “Your disciple’s mind is not yet at peace. I beg you, my teacher, please give it peace.” Bodhidharma said, “Bring the mind to me, and I will set it at rest.” The Second Patriarch said, “I have searched for the mind, and it is finally unattainable.” Bodhidharma said, “I have thoroughly set it at rest for you.”

Let’s update the story to ensure that we don’t miss the pith. Like the Second Patriarch, you’ve tried almost everything: you’ve read the contemporary nondual literature, you’ve watched hundreds of YouTube videos, you’ve used the HeadSpace or Insight Meditation Timer app, you’ve gone to plenty of meditation retreats, and you’ve participated in contemporary nondual satsangs led by very competent, popular teachers of the direct path. And yet, despite your intellectual understanding of the Truth plus (you’d throw in) some experiential glimpses here and there, you’re nearly at wit’s end. “When will all this suffering come to an end? What am I missing? How can I be awareness and yet still feel so dissatisfied?” 

You go on: “I feel confused and alone: I’m not abiding as peace, clarity hasn’t sunk in deep, and my preoccupations with ordinary life–the niggling stresses, the atmospheric sense of overwhelm, the nitpicking conflicts with others–continue unabated.” Worse, at times you beat yourself up, believing that had you been a more dedicated spiritual practitioner, none of this would have been so.

What Are You Looking For? 

You want what has, for so long, seemed just out of reach: to be peace.

And you want genuine rigor because existential puzzles persist. For instance: the direct path teaching says that there’s no path in the ultimate sense (surely you’ve heard: “How many steps does it take to go from here to here?”), but you want a sensible path, some handholds, a few sturdy stepping stones. You grasp the teaching intellectually, but you don’t see how to integrate it fully. You see the impersonal radiance of some contemporary teachers, but you don’t feel a deeper connection with them. They seem removed, inaccessible, beyond it all. And when you try to raise questions about shadow work, samskaras or vasanas, or deeper hurts, you’re offered a witness teaching or a gentle reference to psychology. Finally, any vague gesture toward karma yoga–of working selflessly in the world–can seem abstract and out of touch. That your job may be taken by AI or that your wife may be dying doesn’t seem to be met by an invitation to stand as awareness. And even if you were standing as awareness, you might nonetheless wonder how you should properly respond in situations such as these.

What, then, is the present-day equivalent of Bodhidharma’s “Bring the mind to me, and I will set it at rest”?

The Path Of Knowledge In Modernity: Three Pillars

I don’t think that we can bracket the time in which we live from the spirit of the nondual teaching. While it’s true, as the Rig Veda says, that “the Truth is one,” the articulation of the Truth needs to be in keeping with the nature of our time.

For this reason, it seems to me that there are three pillars to the path of knowledge for modern, earnest Western seekers:

1. Inner Purification: Many different approaches–ranging from the somatic, to the emotional, to the energy body–can fruitfully be employed to slowly attenuate ego-selves and their attendant attachments. To say this is to insist that direct path teachings be assisted by deeper–and sometimes preliminary–explorations of the subtle body with a view to “cleaning up” bodily tensions as well as ego-tendencies.
2. Higher Reason: The direct path teaching of Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon offers us a nondual form of inquiry referred to as “higher reason,” the point of which is to take one directly to the Truth. Here, we do enter the terrain of jnana yoga proper, yet it should be noted that lines of inquiry–which Atmananda termed “prakriyas”–are first laid out by a teacher who’s highly skilled in this method. Slowly, the student learns how to ask higher reason-style questions during the course of daily life with the aim either of taking his stand as the witness or of reducing all experiences ultimately to pure consciousness.
3. Self-inquiry: The most needful form of instruction, one prepared by inner purification and also by a deeper metaphysical grasp of the heart of the nondual teaching, is self-inquiry (atma vichara). What Ramana Maharshi clearly saw was that at the root of the experience of dualistic consciousness is this sense of I, one that appears upon waking up in the morning and that waxes and wanes during the course of the day. Key to this style of investigation is targeting the very source of dissatisfaction in order to understand that, truly, the essence of the I is none other than pure consciousness.

The lack of inner purification required by, and often implicit in, the direct path teaching explains why it’s hard to maintain one’s stand as awareness (for one’s attention keeps going outward toward objects with which one misidentifies oneself) while the lack of clarity regarding how to engage in higher reason or self-inquiry on a regular basis (call these “situational practices”) accounts for the propensity to simply intellectualize the teaching. (“I know that I’m awareness, but still I engage in certain bad habits.”)

Offering

When we meet one-on-one or in a small group, I may begin by taking us through a guided meditation that’s keyed into “where you’re at.” The latter may be followed by a dialogue in which we get really clear about fundamental metaphysical topics (e.g., “What is the mind?,” “Is it true that the world is unreal?,” and “What does it mean to suggest that ‘consciousness is not an object’?”) or about your own more practical confusions. Our session may end with spiritual instruction, somewhat in the spirit of Zen, whose point is to “unstick you” from “where you’re stuck.”

Along the way, we may also discuss seminal sacred texts in order, quite simply and deeply experientially, to reveal your true nature.

Cadence

Typically held over Zoom, our discussions last 1 ½ hours and often take place once every 3 to 5 weeks. During and between discussions, we may focus on intuitive understanding, on “sticking points,” or on certain key aspects of the metaphysics. The point is to experience peace and clarity at the heart of awareness not only when we’re together but also, and more importantly, when you’re alone and with others.

Some Existential Questions We Resolve

• “If awareness is already free, why do I still feel stuck?”
• “How can I abide as awareness when I’m overwhelmed by emotion?”
• “During seated practice, I dissolve into consciousness. But during the day, I take myself to be the doer. What am I do?”
• “How do I live this understanding in relationships and at work?”

Contemplating Together

If you’d like to see whether this could be a good fit, please fill out the Contact Form.