I've made my
investigation, and I haven't found a single Master who can be really
trusted. A second said: You currently think that you had a shift in awareness and
then lost it, but that is not true. "You" never had anything happen to
you because who you think you are does not exist. Who you think you are
is a figment of imagination. One wrote from an emotional experience, the other from a place presumably beyond the reach of the mind. Neither connected in a way that is helpful. I was also instructed to stop looking for awakening, and go read what Suzanne Segal wrote about this.Ah, yes! I remember these go-rounds from the past. I must have buried them, but here they are again. I read my introduction, to see what I had missed: I had a shift of awareness...I was fully in the present moment...life was effortless...then desires came back and I "lost it." Now I have to get it back and make it stick...and so on.
In hindsight I can see some flaws, but it's also merely "point of view." In the past, fellow seekers have done everything from yelling in my face when I tried discussing the Lankavatara Sutra, to walking away when I started asking questions. Why should it be any different now? After sleeping on it, I found how my new friends could be helpful. I wrote "thank you for helping me learn to share this more clearly and with fewer words, and to assert that I don't have any fears except the one that is holding me back."
It's hard work learning to be precise with words, and become unassailable. That's why many teachings are fluff; most teachers can't handle brutal inquiry. I know this because I am one to do such inquiry. It's only fair that I take some heat. Tomorrow, I'm meeting in Oakland with Shawn, the guy who edits this spiritual discussion board. He just relocated from Kentucky.
