Adyashanti - The Direct Way

A big and heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Miles for her excellent cover design. Your talent for translating ideas and feelings into impactful images and design is a creative talent and skill that I not only appreciate but admire. Another bow of gratitude goes to Alice Peck as the primary editor for this book. You make my words read with a clarity and flow in a way that was particularly important for this work. To me, you are the gold standard of fine editors. And a heartfelt thanks to Mitchell Clute for all of the insightful suggestions, encouragement, enthusiasm, and clarity that you bring to all of my projects with Sounds True. You somehow always seem to know just the right questions to ask or suggestions to make to bring a project into clearer focus.

W elcome to The Direct Way practices! If you are familiar with my spiritual teachings, you know I call them The Way of Liberation. In this book, I introduce a new set of teachings called The Direct Waya dynamic method of contemplative spiritual practice. These are the most fundamental, concise, one-pointed, and immediate form of The Way of Liberation teachingsthe activity of self-realization or awakening itself.

These teachings are direct in the sense that they can be practiced only with an intuitive, experiential approach. In them, I present self-realization or awakeningthe enlightened viewby utilizing the view itself, not via the more familiar means of progressive development. The ego must not try to engage these teachings by means of its own efforts. They can only be practiced from within that condition of consciousness that is always and already prior to ego-mindedness. This prior condition can only be relaxed into and never grasped at by egocentric effort or clever-mindedness.

For example, there is an always and already peaceful, silent, and aware condition of consciousness that is present right now in your own experience, prior to any attempt to search for or attain this condition. Instead of trying to attain it through some form of seeking or mental effort, notice and acknowledge that there is background quietness and wakefulness that is already present in your experience before you search for it. This always and already present condition is the condition The Direct Way teachings are not only utilizing but also awakening to its full potential, or fully realized state.

To be fruitful, The Direct Way teachings must be applied with sincerity, honesty, and self-reliance. In this sense, one must be profoundly genuine and mature to use this direct form of teaching. It is neither student- nor teacher-focused; it is experientially focused. Paradoxically, of all of The Way of Liberation teachings, it is the most vulnerable to misuse. Therefore, if you are to take up this teaching, I advise you do so with no idea of gain, no egocentric agenda, but instead exercise your deepest integrity and most heartfelt devotion in applying these practices for the revelation of truth and the benefit of all beings.

These teachings are not meant to be read, studied, or conceptually understood; they are meant to be practicedone each day. They are to be experienced in the deepest silence of your being. The Direct Way teachings have no methodology beyond what is stated in each pointing-out practice. Every teaching is a means of directly awakening you to a specific state of being or consciousness within your experience. That is why these practices can only be comprehended and engaged intuitively, prior to the mind looking for how to understand them.

As you engage The Direct Way, your focus of attention must not be on the conceptual mind, but rather on resting in a condition of intuitive open-mindedness. Each of the teachings is meant to be individually meditated upon until it is awakened to and realized within ones own experience. Emphasize any practice that grabs your attention or inspires your longing. Each of the practices can be worked with for any amount of time that you feel called to, and you should feel free to stay with one practice for as long as you feel a need toa day, a week, a month, or even a year. Quality of insight is far more important than engaging in any quantity of practices.

Spiritual awakening refers to an experiential insight that feels and is experienced much like when you wake up from a dream in the middle of the night. It is the experience of waking up from the dream of the separate me and the way it experiences life, to the reality of universal Being and non-separation. This awakening is neither an escape from life nor a rejection of oneself or the world. Its an embrace of the truth of Being, both your own being and the Being of all beings.

What is Being? I use this word to indicate the underlying nature of the reality of you and all that is as it is perceived from the awakened view. You can think of Being as synonymous with the Tao, the Infinite, reality, the absolute, noumena, emptiness, the Godhead, pure consciousness, awareness (if not understood in its limited, conventional sense), and perhaps Spirit. The important thing to remember is that the nature of Being cannot be fully described or understood conceptually. It can only be understood experientially. Therefore, in these practices we will not seek to conceptually understand what Being is, for Being isnt a what or a thing, it is the fully awakened view and condition of enlightenment itself.

Spiritual awakenings can be shallow or deep, abiding or non-abiding. Generally you get small momentary glimpses or a foretaste of the enlightened view (which can be life-transforming to various degrees and should not be ignored or underappreciated) before a more fundamental and lasting awakening occurs. And contrary to the idea that awakening marks the end of ones spiritual quest, its actually the end of the restless seeker but the beginning of exploring the infinite nature of the reality one has awoken to, as well as the inexhaustible journey of embodying that reality in the challenging terrain of your everyday life, through the priceless vehicle of your human incarnation.

The Direct Way practices are a commitment to doing the one thing that you can do today and each day to best serve your awakening to who and what you are. Each practice can be silently contemplated during meditation or any quiet and undistracted moment of the day. The challenge of these practices is to stay committed to applying each practice with great patience and dedication. Remember this whenever engaging in any of The Direct Way practices: Keep it simple, relaxed, and consistent.

To make the full nature of spiritual awakening more accessible and practicable, in The Direct Way I break down the awakened view into three smaller leaps of insight, each of which is a profoundly life-transforming realization in its own right.

Awakened Awareness: Awakening as the formless Being of Awareness

Awakened Heart: Awakening into the Body and Unity of all Phenomena

Awakened Ground of Being: Awakening as the Divine Ground of Being

Each one of these three fundamental aspects contains the whole of the awakened view if we penetrate it deeply enough. Because all three aspects are simultaneously present in a deep and thorough awakening, the final section of this book integrates the facets of The Direct Way to bring the awakened view into your daily life.