Chapter 6 - Practice » Awake in This Life

Repeating ‘Thou, Thou,’ I became Thou in me, no ‘I’ remained.

—The Mundaka Upanishad

Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise.

—The Lankavatara Sutra

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?

—Rabindranath Tagore

Several traditions equate surrender with renunciation. This is an appropriate way to look at surrender as long as renunciation isn’t seen as a denial of anything. Denial, after all, is merely an egoic avoidance. Another mistake occurs when surrender is interpreted to mean “giving in.” In fact, giving in is just the opposite of fully meeting whatever the present moment is offering. Unlike authentic surrender, giving in means that we create an attachment to something other than what is being offered in our experience. Giving in runs away, while true surrender stays put, opening itself to exactly what is happening without moving an inch.

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When the Buddha is gone, look to the Dharma as your teacher. Make the practice your teacher. The Dharma and the Sangha will be your teacher.

—The Buddha

Do not shout thy prayer publicly, nor yet speak it low in secret, but seek between these a middle way.

—The Koran

I will now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn away my senses from their objects, I will even efface from my consciousness all the images of corporeal things; or at least, because this can hardly be accomplished, I will consider them as empty and false; and thus, holding converse only with myself, and closely examining my nature, I will endeavor to obtain by degrees a more intimate and familiar knowledge of myself.

—Rene Descartes

When we begin to integrate wisdom with compassionate activity in conscious ways, we practice. Usually we assume that our spiritual practices need to happen only on our meditation cushion, or in our church or synagogue, or on our prayer rug. While all of these circumstances can help support an opening to the view atop the Mountain of Spirit, limiting our spiritual connection to the forms and ceremonies of the Path diminishes our connection with the Empty, Spirit-infused reality that is our whole life. On the other hand, if we can see that Spirit is always already here with us and everything else all the time and that we are never separate from any of it, then our entire life can become a deliberate manifestation of Spirit. As we do this, we come to realize that Spirit is never only “out there,” listening or talking to us from a place separate from us. Instead, we must uncover within ourselves the Knowing that Spirit is exactly what is both listening and doing the talking as us, as this very moment. In other words, there is nothing that is not Spirit in action. If we operate, therefore, in a way that puts Spirit or any of its divine grace outside any part of our experience, we will forever limit ourselves to lives of separation. This is the ego’s realm, oriented perpetually from its erroneously perceived sense of lack. Living from this place of lack can only work to inhibit the full experience and expression of the freedom that Spirit always delivers us in infinite abundance.

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Awake in This Life