Having discussed how direct perception leads to enlightenment and that, during enlightenment, knowledge of the information embedded in the mental constructs of everything in the cosmos is wordlessly transmitted from Citta to the enlightened individual, this post examines the enlightenment experience of a contemporary American, Adyashanti, as a verification of them both and that Nothing but Mentality is the fundamental in Buddha’s cosmos.
Adyashanti, “meaning ‘primordial peace,” “born Stephen Gray on October 26, 1962, is an American former spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offered talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.“
“At age 25, Gray began experiencing a series of transformative spiritual awakenings. While sitting alone on his cushion, Gray describes how he had a classic kensho, or awakening experience, in which he “penetrated to the emptiness of all things and realized that the Buddha I had been chasing was what I was.“ [2] “Besides his meditations and prayer, he also studied books about Christian mystics and the Gospels.” “For the next few years, he continued his meditation practice while also working at his father’s machine shop. In addition to sitting, he spent many hours in coffee shops writing answers to questions that spontaneously came to him. Finally, at 31, Gray had an experience of awakening that put to rest all his questions and doubts. In 1996, Adyashanti began teaching with the approval of his teacher, Arvis Joen Justi.“ Today, “he is the author of numerous books, CDs, and DVDs and, together with his wife Mukti, is the founder of Open Gate Sangha, Inc., a nonprofit organization established in 1996 which supports and makes available his teachings.”
In this guided meditation, “What is the Nature of Self?“ Adyashanti stated his goal: “In this meditation, we are looking at the nature of self, or what we call ourselves. The nature of this thing called me. In this meditation, we are looking for ourselves. We are looking inside, so the attention gets directed inside. Where is this thing called self, me? Surely, it’s not simply a thought, a feeling. Surely, one is not simply a body, for there is always something more primary. There is what is seeing the thought. That which is feeling the feeling. That is that which is aware of the body.” “So, the attention gets directed inward. What is that that notices the thought? What is that that is feeling the feeling? What is it that is aware of the body?” “What is this thing called me, called I?“
Yet, “as we direct our attentions inward, we find something unexpected. The more we look for the essential nature of ourselves, the more we look for ourselves, the less we find.” “This elusive self never seems to appear. The more we look for ourselves, the less we find of it. Instead, we seem to bump into an ineffable mystery, a silence, a void.” “And yet, what is it that notices that void, that silence? What is it that is aware?” “Can we find a someone? Can we find a something?” “As we look from our own experience, we keep not locating this owner of awareness, this owner of consciousness, this me. And in looking at our whole definition of ourselves, it’s wordlessly called into question. This whole definition of ourselves, however we define it, must be called into question because when we look for it, we don’t find it.” “We have assumed that we are a something and a somebody.”
Finally, Adyashanti acknowledged, “You are presented with a mystery. You can’t find yourself, and yet, whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware. Whatever you may be, whatever you are, obviously is here.” “This confuses the mind because the mind only thinks in terms of you being a thing, being a someone.” “As we look in this way, our whole notion of the self can begin to transform because you begin to see for your own self that what you are isn’t a somebody, isn’t a something, it cannot be found.” “So what is there in the absence of somebody? What is there in the absence of something? This that notices the absence of the self, this awareness that notices the complete lack of entity is an opportunity to open to what you are beyond a thought. Maybe you are not a thing at all, a somebody at all. It cannot be found. So, maybe, just maybe, you never were a something or a somebody. Maybe it couldn’t be found because it doesn’t exist.” “What can this thing called I be?“
In summary, when Adyashanti searched for the nature of his being, he was “presented with a mystery“ because “you can’t find yourself.“ Instead, he found himself in a “void.“ However, even though he couldn’t find himself, he was aware that “whatever you are, it’s obviously here, obviously aware.“ Furthermore, even though he was lost in a “void,“ where there was no somebody or something, he was aware that he was in an “ineffable mystery,“ where there was “the absence of somebodies,” “the absence of things.“
Indeed, when everything deemed “physical” vanished, the only thing left was Adyashanti’s awareness of his situation. Even when “there was no somebody or something,“ he was aware that he was in a “void.“ In other words, the “void“ he was in was awareness, which was, to him, an “ineffable mystery“ with a “complete absence of definition.“
After enlightenment, Adyashahti teaches that “You Are Awareness“ and “you and awareness are not two different things.“ Additionally, Adyashanti teaches that “resting in awareness is not a state of doing, it is a state of being.“ Indeed, in awareness, Adyashanti has found the true nature of his being.
One can also be confident that Adyashanti did not understand these relationships through studying. Instead, like the Buddha, his knowledge came from his meditation. Furthermore, nowhere throughout this description was there any indication that he was actively seeking information outside himself, especially as he had turned his mind inward as he started meditation. Indeed, as he acknowledged, he was “looking inside,” “the attention gets directed inward,“ and passively waiting for the elusive self to “appear.“ Indeed, as discussed earlier, the knowledge Adyashanti learned was wordlessly transmitted to him from Citta, the enlightened and liminous awareness of the cosmos. Indeed, the “void“ he was in was the nondualistic awareness that formed when he became part of the cosmic awareness of Citta upon his enlightenment, as mentioned when discussing direct perception.
Let’s discuss what Adyashanti’s enlightenment reveals to us.
1) The Void – Nothing But Mentality
- The “void“ Adyashanti experienced is known as Emptiness in Buddhism.
- Emptiness (Chinese = 空), according to The Dictionary Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, also known as “void,“ is a “central notion of Buddhism….Shunyata is often equated with the absolute in the Mahayana since it is without duality and empirical forms.“ So, the void Adyashanti experienced is Emptiness, the absolute in the Mahayana.
- In Mahayana, the absolute is Citta, a quiescent mentality, the Ultimate Reality, and the enlightened and luminous cosmic awareness.
- As defined in Samadhi, Citta is the “experienced object“ that forms a nondualistic state of awareness with the “experiencing subject,” which is the enlightened individual, in this case, Adyashanti.
- In other words, the reason Adyashanti experienced “no somebody or something” was that the “void” he was in was the “void” of Citta, where there is Nothing but Mentality, and nothing deemed “physical” exists.
- Awareness is a void because, as made clear in the definition of Emptiness, mentality is without empirical forms, meaning it cannot be perceived through the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch.
- Buddha defines mentality as inconceivable (Romanized Sanskrit=acintya, Chinese=不可思議), which, according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit, a term to describe the Ultimate Reality that is beyond all conceptualization.”
- The importance of “beyond all conceptualization“ is that even if mentality becomes “reading in of the mind,“ it cannot be conceptualized “in ways we do not govern,“ two of the sensing steps Dr. Fisch described in “How Do We Know What We Know.“ Without conceptualization, mentality cannot become a visible phenomenon, so it cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.
- Natural gas is another example of something that cannot be conceptualized and, therefore, cannot be detected by human senses. However, natural gas is easier to detect than mentally because it can be sensed when it burns in flames or provides heat. Furthermore, odorants can be added to it to make it detectable by humans.
- However, mentality cannot do any of these. As Buddha teaches, it can only be perceived directly until enlightenment, which Adyashanti did.
2) Awareness – The True Nature of all Beings in An Illusional Universe
- The statement “You are Awareness“ suggests that Adyashanti recognizes that awareness is the true nature of his being.
- Awareness is also the true nature of all beings in the universe because it is the only thing remaining when all things deemed “physical“ disappear.
- As mentioned when discussing Inference: How Do We Know What We Know, the universe is created in human minds through “conceptualization in ways we do not govern.“
- Since conceptualization requires an active mind, it cannot happen when the mind is quiescent. It is why the universe disappears when the mind becomes inactive upon enlightenment.
As mentioned when discussing A Few Fundamental Concepts, a Buddha is an enlightened one who has “encompassed all objects of knowledge.“ Furthermore, enlightenment comes in different levels because there are various degrees of encompassing “objects of knowledge.”
In Mahayana, one measure of the different levels of enlightenment is the concept known in Romanized Sanskrit as avarana.
Avarana (Chinese = 障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, is “in Sanskrit and Pali, ‘obstruction,’ ‘obstacle,’ or ‘hindrance.’ In Mahayana literature, two types of avarana are commonly described: ‘obstructions that are afflictions,’ or ‘afflictive obstructions,’ and ‘cognitive or noetic obstructions, viz., ‘obstructions to omniscience.'”
- Afflictive Obstructions (Romanized Sanskrit=klesavarana; Chinese=煩惱障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, are “in Sanskrit, obstructions that are the afflictions, and first of the two obstructions that the Mahayana holds must be overcome in order to complete the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood.” Furthermore, “overcoming these types of obstructions will lead to freedom from further rebirth (and specifically the Paricchedajaramarana, or “determinative birth-and-rebirth (Chinese=分段生死).”
- Cognitive or Noetic Obstructions (to Omniscience) (Romanized Sanskrit=jneyavarana; Chinese=所知障), according to The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, “The second of the two categories of obstructions, together with the afflictive obstructions, that must be overcome in order to perfect the Bodhisattva path and achieve Buddhahood. In the Yogacara and Madhyamaka systems, the cognitive obstructions are treated as subtle hindrances that serve as the origin of the afflictive obstructions and result from fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality.”
Arhat (Chinese=阿羅漢), who represents the newly enlightened, is according to The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, in Sanskrit, meaning “worthy one” who has attained the highest of the Hinayana, that of “no-more-learning” in the supramunda path, and who possesses the certainty that all defilements and passions have been extinguished and will not again in the future. The fruition of arhatship is nirvana with a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit=sopadhishesha-nirvana (Chinese=有餘涅槃).” Arhats have also destroyed their afflictions.
Afflictive Obstructions are caused by the three poisons (Romanized Sanskrit-trivasa, Chinese=三毒):
- Desire or Greed (Romanized Sanskrit=raga or lobha; Chinese = 貪)
- Hatred, Aversion, or Ill Will (Romanized Sanskrit = dvesa; Chinese =瞋)
- Confusion, Benightedness, or Foolishness (Romanized Sanskrit=Moha, Chinese=癡)
By removing afflictive obstructions and becoming enlightened, an Arhat enters “nirvana with a vestige of conditions (Romanized Sanskrit=sopadhishesha-nirvana (Chinese=有餘涅槃).” In other words, Arhats are forever liberated from cycles of rebirth, also known as samsara (Chinese = 輪迴).
Of course, being liberated from the cycles of rebirth is a tremendous achievement and a huge reward for enlightenment. However, Arhats have yet to encompass “all objects of knowledge” because they have yet to comprehend the “fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of reality,” the root cause of afflictive obstructions.
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