In a Q&A exchange, Adyashanti works with a student moving between glimpses of seeing through external expectations and the fear of emptiness those glimpses expose. He frames the disillusionment with outwardness as one of the central pivots of the path, not a problem to be solved.
Transcript
I've been through a a kind of anxious period lately where I take uh it's it's clear to me that I take a an external world to be a reality. It's going to give me something. It has a coralate of my belief on this side. And when I really question it, I'm really uh afraid of that emptiness that that comes just Yes. So I'm kind of going back and forth between sort of highs of the glimpse behind the process of >> right >> an external expectation, >> all the trouble it causes, >> right? And the is it is it seen? It's being seen. But is it completely really totally being seen that nothing out here nothing out here is going to be the answer? Nothing. You see, so it's totally it's just demolished so you could never believe in it again. Stuff out here can be fun. Don't get me wrong. Stuff out here can be really fun. Whether whatever that is, it's great stuff. But is it actually ever is it going to bring me the satisfaction that I'm looking for that my heart longs for? See, so important to see that so clearly that you can't believe it anymore. >> That's the challenge. And it's not done yet. It will be. It's working on you. Life's very consistent in giving us the true reflection back. It's very consistent in telling us, look, if you look for happiness out here, you ain't going to get the the happiness you're looking for. Not the lasting happiness, not not the thing that's that's not going to be able to be taken away at a at a snap of a finger. Life's very consistent in giving us that message. It's amazing that we don't listen to it more often. So in the um that kind of fear of emptiness, fear of being alone. >> Yes. Same. Same fear. Emptiness alone. I mean I can spend today we had a some of us got together and had a special Romana Mahari celebration day just for fun and we did a lot of reading and stuff. >> Yeah. >> When that was over and then went to to a meal afterwards it was all nice and socialized. When I went home after that, I felt emptiness. Like if I'm not, it's like as soon as I'm not directly in contact with the the external, >> right, >> even if it's teaching me, you know, where to where where I should really be going. >> Mhm. >> Um it's like, okay, here I am with the opportunity for what it's where where I'm being pointed. even if it's just you know an hour of rest before coming on to the satsang here >> right >> and um just this emptiness just >> so um what do you suggest about that kind of >> I'm not sure what to you to to sort of formally sit kind of meditate light no like or >> no I mean formally sit that's fine it's good for your nervous system and you know generally you know good for your blood pressure but to try to solve the problem through sitting which is what usually happens. Spiritual people are really good at trying to solve their problems through more right it just means that you have an you just have a deeper addiction because meditation can be another way through which I go on the outside even though you're sitting there by yourself the activity itself the action or the non-action of meditation itself is still a means to an end still a means of looking to get me back to this place which is still the same old relationship right now. It's not a relationship or that I'm going to get happiness with a human being or a group of human beings, but I'm going to get happiness with me and my cushion. But your cushion is still an outward thing and it's going to keep showing you this isn't it either, right? Because you eventually got to get up from that cushion unless you plan on sewing it to your ass or something, you know? >> Right. We all get up off the cushions eventually, as much as some of us may enjoy being on them, which it's a it's a very nice thing, but that's still see a subtler form of going to the outside. >> Mhm. >> Right. >> Where I spend my time with uh your book, Emptiness Dancing, >> right? >> It's that's even subtler because it uh it undoes things, right, >> as I'm >> with it. But I'm still going to I'm not going to emptiness as directly as possible. I feel well that's right. You you got it. So that what's the most direct route? Look at it this way. You take all that, right? all the ways that you get to that nice experience of pure being. And just imagine that you're out there on some planet about this big and you're standing on top of it and you have all that stuff and you heave it over your shoulder and it disappears but only forever. Right there you are standing on a planet, you know, about the size of a bowling ball out in the middle of nowhere. And it's you. It's you alone. And it's going to be you. And it's going to be you alone. And it's going to be you. And it's going to be you alone. And it's going to be that way for a very long time. Now, what are you going to do? You see at that point you would have no option. You you would be in such a place that you could no longer avoid yourself at all. You just you couldn't do it forever. You couldn't avoid yourself. And I don't mean avoid the self. I mean just avoid your garden variety self. The guy that's standing there. You couldn't avoid yourself because there'd be nothing was being used as a means to avoid yourself. And that's what this spirituality thing is all about. Usually spirituality and religion gets used as a means through which I avoid myself rather than a means through which I encounter myself. And then you start to feel inside yourself the resistance like encounter myself. You mean like the way I am you feel it inside of you. There's a there's a real nervousness that can happen then. But that's the whole point. It's the wisdom of no longer running away from anything. No longer running away from you.