Live Session Summary, Sunday, February 25, 2024: It was good to be with you for our Live session today. The theme of the talk was ‘Truth and honesty on the path of awakening.’Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems: I spoke about the two ‘ways of seeing’ that we have been discussing in recent sessions—the Buddha’s path to awakening, or the end of suffering; and the teachings of contemporary teachers of awakening, notably Adyashanti, Gangaji, and Eckhart Tolle—and their views of the importance of truth on the path of awakening. We discussed how both these approaches view a commitment to truth—particularly, the willingness to open wholeheartedly to life as it is—as essential to realizing the deepest truth: the complete freedom that comes with letting go of clinging completely, in the Buddha’s teachings; the realization of the freedom that is our true nature, in the understanding of these contemporary teachers of awakening. Just as it is said, ‘there is no way to peace; peace is the way,’ it can be said that we can only realize the deepest truth through a path of truth. I highlighted how truth is at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings—his first and central teaching was of the four noble truths, which state at their heart that clinging leads to suffering and letting go of clinging leads to abandoning suffering—and letting go completely leads to the complete ending of suffering in our life. These are the most important truths to realize (make ‘real’) because they make the difference between living a life of suffering—confusion, entanglement, division, unhappiness—and a life of peace, joy, and the deepest freedom. These are truths to be experienced directly, rather than to be believed; the Buddha said, ‘see for yourself,’ put them to the test in your own life. The contemporary teachers, whose teachings I’ve termed ‘already free,’ also see the realization of the deepest truth—awakening to our true nature of freedom, peace, joy, and love—as the most important realization in this human life, and a key to awakening is to meet our experience as it is, saying ‘yes’ to what is, or in the words of Jesuit spiritual teacher Antony de Mello, ‘absolute cooperation with the inevitable.’ Through opening fully to our experience in body, heart, and mind, we can awaken to the freedom that is always and already present, but obscured by our attachments and unconsciousness. I shared quotes from these contemporary teachers: • Eckhart Tolle: “You can always cope with the present moment; but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection—you cannot cope with the future.” (The Power of Now, p35) • Gangaji: “In the instant of simply opening, you experience that whatever you were struggling with is no longer there. True openness reveals that the struggle—the problem, the bogeyman, the demon, the wound—is actually nonexistent… The only thing that holds the story in place is the resistance to opening. (The Diamond in Your Pocket, p27) • Adyashanti: “The key [to awakening] is sincerity. It’s the willingness to meet, sincerely and honestly, what is happening in our body and mind. That is always the doorway to freedom—a freedom that only happens now and now and now and now.” (The End of Your World, p61) When we think of truth, we naturally think of telling the truth, being honest to others, not lying or deceiving. This is a very important element of truth—wise or appropriate speech in the Buddha’s path. But it’s only a part of being truthful. It’s also important to explore whether we are living our lives in truth or in some ways hiding away or avoiding acknowledging what is true to ourselves or others. It can be helpful to ask ourselves questions, like:
• How truly and authentically am I living my life?
• Am I living in truth?
• Am I hiding or denying parts of myself—from myself or others?
• Am I holding back or repressing what I feel, believe, or know for fear of how others might react?
• Am I bringing into consciousness, into awareness, all parts of myself and my life?
• Am I looking for happiness or fulfilment where they cannot be found?
• And, if there are ways I’m not living fully in truth, what impact does this have on my happiness and freedom?
I finished by sharing some reflections from Adyashanti on the importance of ‘coming completely out of hiding’:
• Adyashanti: “What would it be like if we didn’t avoid anything we knew to be true? What if we came out of hiding in all areas of our life? What if we completely stopped avoiding ourselves, because that literally is the awakened life?” (p63)
“I’ve found… most people have a fear of being truthful, of really being honest—not only with others, but with themselves as well… When we tell the total truth, our inside is suddenly on the outside. There’s nothing hidden anymore… (p65) Enlightenment, in the end, is about truth; it is about being truthful in all aspects, at all levels of our being.”(p77)
“If you avoid those aspects of your life that are not in harmony—those where you may still be in denial—that kind of avoidance is going to hinder your spiritual awakening… To be anything less than real, to be in avoidance of anything at all, diminishes our experience of who we are… to be less than truthful with the people and situations in your life is to withhold the expression of who you are. In the end, we must come to see that truth itself is the highest good, that truth itself is the greatest expression and manifestation of love…. You can’t have truth without love, and you can’t have love without truth.”(79)
We come to the deepest truth—that complete freedom from suffering can be realized in this human life—only through a path, a practice, of embodying truth in all aspects and areas of our life. Turning a compassionate and non-judging awareness towards our experience—and, particularly, to any area where we experience division and suffering—is the doorway to the deepest freedom and peace.
I shared Martha Postlethwaite’s poem ‘Clearing’; an excerpt from Dorothy Hunt’s ‘Peace is this moment without judgment’; and Rashani’s ‘There is a brokenness.”
Good wishes for the week ahead. I look forward to seeing you on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, at 9am eastern for our next live session. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
