Dass - Journey of Awakening: a Meditators Guidebook

The inner experiences of these past years have changed the perception and meaning of the daily events of my life: achievement, sexual desire, anger, boredom, pleasure, money, relationships, work, and play. I no longer feel that one part of me is fighting another. I experience any integrity in my being that includes the deepest as well as the most superficial. More of the time, the momentno matter what I am doingis permeated with space, peace, equanimity, joy, and lightness.

In this book, as in my others, I have attempted to share what I have found.

JOURNEY OF AWAKENING: A MEDITATORS GUIDEBOOK
(REVISED EDITION)
A Bantam Book / August 1990

PUBUSHING HISTORY
Originally published June 1978

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the following people for quotations published here: Marie Idol, .

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for permission to reprint copyrighted material: HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS, INC., for Roshi Taft in The Wheel of Death, edited by Philip Kapleau: copyright 1971 by Philip Kapleau. MACMILLAN PUBLISHING CO., INC., as well as the Trustees of the Tagore Estate and Macmillan London and Basingstoke, for poems XXIV, XXII, and XLI as they appear in One Hundred Poems of Kabir (originally published as Songs of Kabir), translated by Rabindranath Tagore; copright 1915 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1943 by Rabindranath Tagore. NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING CORPORATION for portions of The True Man, The Man of Tao, Symphony for a Sea Bird, and When the Shore Fits as they appear in The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Marton; copyright 1965 by The Abbey of Gethsemani. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS and ROUTLEDGE & KEAGAN PAUL LTD. for a poem by Ryokwan as it appears in Zen and Japanese Culture by Daisetz T. Suzuki, Bollingen Series LXIV: copyright 1959 by Princeton University Press. RAMAKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA CENTER for quotations from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Complete Edition, by Swami Nikhilananda, published by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Inc., 1942. SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, INC., for quotations from The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by sGam.po.pa translated by Herbert V. Guenther: copyright 1971 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.: The Myth of Freedom by Chogyam Trungpa; copyright 1976 by Chogyam Trungpa: and Visual Dharma by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche: copyright 1975 by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. UNITY PRESS, INC., for quotations from The Experience of Insight, A Natural Unfolding by Joseph Goldstein; copyright 1976 by Joseph Goldstein. UNIVERSITY BOOKS, INC., for a portion of The Song of Mahamudra by Tilop as it appears in Teachings of Tibetan Yoga by Garma C.C. Chang, and for quotations from The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa by Garma C.C. Chang; both copyright 1962 by Oriental Studies Foundation. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain appropriate permission to reproduce those copyrighted materials included in this volume. If notified of omissions, the editor and publisher will make the necessary corrections in future editions.

eISBN: 978-0-307-81248-3

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INTRODUCTION

When we make it in our society and then dont feel good insidehappy, at peace with ourselveswe are confused. As we strive for external security and success we anticipate that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will not only look good, but make us feel good. If it doesnt, we conclude that there is something wrong with us, that we need to adjust. The assumption is that an adjusted being would be happy with success. But success usually turns out not to be enough to make us happy, and the therapeutic couch isnt necessarily appropriate for what ails us.

Disillusioned by the hollowness of success, some of us have sought fulfillment in revolution, others in dropping out, and others in trying to milk more and more gratification from our environmentand some of us have sought a solution to our problems in other cultures, philosophies, or religions.

For me this search took me from being a psychology professor at Harvard University, through experimentation with LSD and other psychedelics, and finally to the Himalayas in India. There I came to understand that I would have to approach my inner being directly to find a lasting answer. Meditation has been the best way to do this.

There are innumerable meditative techniques deriving from many philosophies and religions. Over the past years I have sought training in and practiced a variety of theseand have profited greatly from each. The inner experiences of these past years have changed the perception and meaning of the daily events of my life: achievement, sexual desire, anger, boredom, pleasure, money, relationships, work, and play. I no longer feel that one part of me is fighting another. I experience an integrity in my being that includes the deepest as well as the most superficial. More of the time, the momentno matter what I am doingis permeated with space, peace, equanimity, joy, and lightness.

In this book, as in my others, I have attempted to share what I have found. In the final analysis what has been found is simple. The challenge is to say it simply. I hope you will find this book to be of use.

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GETTING YOUR BEARINGS

There have been moments in your life when you were pure awareness. No concepts, no thoughts like I am aware or That is a tree or Now I am meditating. Just pure awareness. Openness. A spacious quality in your existence. Perhaps it happened as you sat on a river bank and the sound of the river flowed through you. Or as you walked on the beach when the sound of the ocean washed away your thinking mind until all that remained was the walking, the feeling of your feet on the sand, the sound of the surf, the warmth of the sun on your head and shoulders, the breeze on your cheek, the sound of the seagull in the distance.