Awake in This Life

Let it be known to each of you reading these words that neither my story nor my version of spiritual teaching offers anything that hasn’t already been offered many times before. At its core, there is absolutely nothing original about this work. I’m merely passing a baton, of sorts-one that was generously offered to me by circumstance, deep peace, great teachers, and more than a little commitment. The only thing that I’ve written in these pages are pointers and suggestions that have been helpful in my journey as a student and especially now as a teacher. This isn’t false modesty. Ask anyone who knows me; I’m not always as modest as I should be. Rather, I’m simply trying to be transparent and offer an honest evaluation and explanation of credit that is not and will never be mine to take.

With that critical disclaimer out of the way, Awake in This Life has a simple message. It is about seeing through old habits and letting go of old psychological reference points so that we might consciously and continually live from a place of grace and ease, no matter what our circumstance might be. Ultimately, the work of awakening in this life is about metaphorically going up the Mountain of Spirit, reaching the summit, and sharing the view from the summit with others as we come back home into the real world. Every bit of this book is inspired by meetings, teachings, and dialogues I’ve had with my students in the Infinite Smile Sangha, as well as conversations I’ve had with spiritual teachers in the mountains of Nepal, the forests of Thailand, and along California’s coast in Marin County. So it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to suggest that my words are actually theirs. To this end, I owe each of these helpful men and women who relentlessly pushed me to consciously and continually uncover in this life what we might call “the fullness of Emptiness” an expression of gratitude that goes beyond any word or deed. I owe them nothing short of everything. Deep bows to each of them.

Awake in This Life has grown out of a desire to support those among us who don’t want to wait until our next life in order to awaken to what both the ancient and contemporary mystics and sages often refer to as “the Truth beyond name and form.” This book is written as a functional map, or guide, or at least a series of guideposts, for those trying to integrate a relevant and meaningful spirituality into their busy lives.

I also keep noticing how people are so often frustrated by an awful dilemma: Do I stay with a tradition that no longer reflects what I believe to be true, or do I negate spirituality altogether? This book shows readers how to bridge this gap. I’m also hopeful that this book supports and inspires conversations that help facilitate a maturation of the way we regard spirituality so that we are neither confined to magical or mythic traditions nor confined to scientific fundamentalism. Just because anthropomorphic versions of God don’t hold much serious weight in today’s religious dialogues doesn’t mean that atheism is right on all counts. God isn’t dead any more than you or I are, but adhering to limited ways of talking about Him and honoring Him can diminish our potential as a species and can lead to disasters. Our way out of this mess is to develop a way of uncovering and supporting an approach to spirituality that is relevant for today’s practitioners, yet doesn’t throw out the wisdom offered to us so generously from the past.

Awake in This Life attempts to help all of us, regardless of our traditions, explore the notions of God, or Spirit, or Being, or whatever name we choose in reference to the Infinite. It is not an attempt to advocate one path to Spirit over another. This book is an offering that keeps its sights on where the path is leading us, not exclusively on the path itself. In order to help this journey along as effectively as possible, I have taken liberty with some of my examples to construct composite sketches of people and situations, changing names to protect privacy, and leaving out some of the details that might either bore you or detract from the essence of what’s being illustrated.

Along these lines, there is one key point to this book that you might do well to remember: this book is not simply about a way to uncover an unsurpassed, penetrating, and perfect Enlightenment so that we can stay there in a blissful state of freedom for eternity. That approach only points toward half the journey. This book is written for those interested in going a step further, to a place where they can find themselves Awake in this very moment while they consciously work to bring their realization of freedom with them, into the world, wherever they go, for all of us.

Recognize that there will be lots of repetition in these pages. In fact, every bit of what I’m trying to communicate can be summed up like this: Let go to what is real in this moment, and then fully participate in the world from this openness. That’s it. You’ll read it, or some facsimile of it, plenty of times. I had to hear it thousands of times in thousands of different ways before it ever gained any traction in my experience. (Again, to all of my teachers, thanks for your patience.)

I hope readers will also notice that even though my spiritual training is Buddhist, I’ve tried to make this book something that any person can use to support whatever spiritual practice he or she might have. All traditions can use this approach to the Infinite as a method of deepening an appreciation of what their version of the Sacred represents. This is important since, again, Awake in This Life is just a simple map drawn to help lead us away from a limited view of God as well as the fundamentalist practices that always fail to honor Him, and into an ever-expanding recognition of all that God is. This map, then, directs us to a deeply inclusive recognition that everyone is at least partially right as he or she hikes up the Mountain of Spirit. This means that no one has exclusive rights to the whole Truth. Merging these partial pieces and atomized versions of Truth takes time and patience on all of our parts, but listening deeply and watching carefully helps each of us uncover that which is forever beyond fragmentation-that which is always and forever integrated and whole. As I often say to those I work with in the Infinite Smile Sangha, wisdom traditions are simply different paths up the same Mountain. Let us talk about that Mountain, and the view that it offers, rather than argue about the various paths used to climb it.

In order to make this process a little easier, I’ve organized the book into three parts: the climb, where we begin to identify obstacles and challenges; the summit, where we witness the unity of all things; and coming home, where we consciously bring what we’ve uncovered on the summit back into the world for everyone’s benefit. My Buddhist friends will recognize this approach as a rather crude reformulation of the Buddha’s teachings. Rest assured, it’s intentional. Not to take anything away from the Buddha, but I’m sure that he appreciates contemporary twists on the things he taught. Connoisseurs of more recent spiritual writings will find evidence of their influence throughout the text. Philosophers, teachers, and contemporary sages like Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle, Norman Fischer, Reb Anderson, Gangaji, Adyashanti, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, and Ken Wilber have all had their hands involved in the unchaining of my heart and mind as well as in the writing of this work. I have shamelessly thrown their articulations and punctuations into this work. Deep bows to all of them, and I thank them for the blessing of allowing me to stand on their shoulders.

Part One of the book examines the origins of greed, hate, and delusion. I look, as others have looked, to our sense of being bound by our separation as the source of all of our suffering. As we climb the Mountain of Spirit, we begin to see how a life lived from this sense of separation will quite normally act to defend against any and all threats to its sense of control. I will go into this matter in some detail and show how our tendency to act from this place of terminal threat explains much about our behaviors, and points to the very source of our suffering.

Part Two explores the ways that our minds and bodies can support our conscious expansion beyond the whole drama into a deep union with all things. Knowing this union allows us to get to the summit of the Mountain of Spirit where we begin to develop skills that enable us to be free of whatever circumstance might veil Truth from our experience. This freedom helps us to uncover the opening within each of our life situations that then allows us to act as vehicles of Awakening.

Part Three suggests ways for us to integrate the separation discussed in Part One with the unification discussed in Part Two. Bringing both aspects of our experiences back down the Mountain in order to share them is the ultimate work of integrating Enlightenment in to the world. As we become more deeply informed by the Infinite, a continual knitting together of expansive Awareness with all that is contracted within us begins to keep us close to what’s real and true in life. Looking with honest, inwardly focused eyes at our deepest intention and then vowing to live intimately and compassionately with all beings will generate all that is necessary to shift from circumstantial living to Ultimate Living. At the moment we start living from an Ultimate orientation, we suddenly find that in every situation we have a choice: do we retract into the familiar, or open to the divine chaos that can never be known? As our practice matures, the decisions we make change everything. Literally. And we have come home.

I’ve tried to keep the writing light on the recommendation of some of my most worthy critics. Comments like, “make it funnier,” and “this is way to heavy,” have been thrown at me since I started work on this project. Know that I’ve done my best, but also know that deep spiritual work almost always kills your sense of humor.

Just kidding.