Kathleen Dowling Singh - Unbinding: The Grace Beyond Self

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KATHLEEN DOWLING SINGH is a Dharma practitioner and in-demand speaker and teacher. She is the author of The Grace in Dying: How We Are Transformed Spiritually as We Die; The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older; and The Grace in Living: Recognize It, Trust It, Abide in It. Kathleen lives in Sarasota, Florida.

She maintains a website at kathleendowlingsingh.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK WAS A JOY TO WRITE. Im grateful for the privilege and am hopeful that it will also be a joy to read and contemplate.

Deepest bow of respect to Rodney Smith. His insight into self as a harmonic inspired me. He opened my mind and heart to these teachings and to the necessity of owning our own path as grace leads us to it and through it.

Deep endless bow of gratitude to the rich, loving blessing of my family each and every one of you. You blow me away.

An invitation to everyday mystics: unbind yourself from the causes of suffering and step into grace.

Beautifully written, Unbinding inspires the reader to let go and let be.

SHARON SALZBERG, author of Real Love

A rare accomplishment. With clarity and grace, she invites the reader into dependent originations world of transforming wisdom. Unbinding is a great contribution to our deepening Dharma understanding.

JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, author of Mindfulness

I always feel at home in Kathleen Dowling Singhs books because she writes with such gentle clarity. Unbinding is no exception. I recommend it most highly.

TONI BERNHARD, author of How to Be Sick

Unbinding tells the simple and most profound story of the journey to freedomfrom being bound by the ego to living in grace, unbound, showing how every moment we are limitless, present in truth.

LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE, PhD, Sufi teacher and author of Spiritual Ecology

With poise and grace, Kathleen Dowling Singh points us to that in the human spirit which has never been bound, never been wounded, and has always been an un-selfed shining freedomthe radiant ground that is our diamond life.

MARTIN LAIRD, author of Into the Silent Land

Unbinding elaborates on truths that deal with our efforts to understand our true nature. It is utterly practicaland our future on this planet likely depends on our right understanding of ego, self, and essence.

LARRY DOSSEY, MD, author of One Mind

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Unbinding

UNBINDING IS A BOOK FOR MYSTICS. I am not using the word mystic in its usual connotation, with images of celestial visions or walks in haloed glory. Im using the word here in a specific and practical way. A dictionary definition precise and lovely describes a mystic as a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into th e... Absolute. We could extend that definition to include a person who seeks, by contemplation and self-surrender, to recognize the Absolute as always and already ever-present, the very ground and essence of our being.

In that sense, every sincere practitioner from every wisdom tradition is a mystic. We all practice contemplation and self-surrender out of a deep, grace-engendered longing for the sacred. My intention here is to speak in broad language to all mystics crossing traditions with words, insights, teachings Ive been blessed to receive from many teachers, and views that are useful for practitioners from any lineage. We all want the freedom of sanity and peace, the undefended inclusiveness of love. We all want refuge in grace.

Steadfast and sincere practitioners from any authentic tradition recognize that we share a commonality of blessings: depth, insight, and mutually known experiential referents. We have all tasted awareness beyond self. We also hold in common ripening qualities of wisdom and compassion, love and peacefulness, as grace fills the spaces previously occupied by shallowness and confusion. I no longer think it matters so much what we label ourselves when we meet together whether Buddhist, Christian, or Hindu, for example except in terms of honoring and accrediting the insights we can share from our own paths. Together in grace, it doesnt seem to matter how we got here.

Contemplatives have long recognized that the word God connotes so much more than a superior being. Such a notion diminishes what we point to with the word. God refers to infinite Being. It is called the dharmakaya in Buddhism. When we meet together, in person or through a book, I use the word grace as an ecumenical word denoting the sacred, denoting Being, denoting God. Grace seems to be a word sincere practitioners from all traditions can live with, as it turns all our hearts to the light. We all understand the Great Mystery can only be hinted at. Words only point us toward it.

The word grace is used throughout this book to speak of that from which we have never for a moment been separate, except in our confusion. Grace points to an inconceivable, pervasive, sacred immensity, containing, in the present, the love of every being who ever lived the love of Jesus, Buddha, the saints and sages, all our ancestors and every departed loved one as well as the love of all those yet unborn.

Unbinding looks closely, almost under a magnifying glass, at the confusions and obstructions that arise in each of us as we incline toward the sacred or, we could say, as the sacred inclines us toward it. We will look closely at the causes and conditions that create, to whatever degree, our bewildered unease and hesitation like a startled fawn before the always open door into the Absolute, the ground of our being. Well look at what keeps pulling us back into the tight and binding grip of self-reference in spite of graces welcome out of it, in spite of our heartfelt longing to respond to the invitation.

Whether were new to practice or our meditation cushions are already well worn, weve all seen the aphorisms and easy answers that float around, advising us to let go of our anxieties, step free of our masks, walk away from our dramas and our penchant for drama creation. Theres a market for bumper-sticker platitudes and the feel-good memes of social media. And yet surely, if we could do any of those things as easily as most of the glib words suggest, we would have done so already.

For a long while on our spiritual journey, were stuck like flies on flypaper in ego. In spite of our growing longing for the sacred as grace arises in us, calling us, we keep ourselves stuck through ignorance. Ignorance is our willingness to ignore, to not examine or inquire into whats actually going on, what this egoic sense of self actually is. Ignorance supports the suffering both great and small that the separate self-sense experiences. It is sufferings supporting condition, the foundation upon which suffering rests.

Ignorance blocks the wisdom that can free us. I cant let go of my anxieties without seeing the causes that create them. I cant step free of my masks without uncovering the seductive pull to keep them in place. I cant simply cease my drama churning until I have some understanding of the dynamics that compel me over and over to continue to create them.

Seeing actually looking at whats going on operates at a focused energetic level, with a laser-like intensity of attention. Clear seeing has far more power than the diffuse spiritual thoughts we often allow to remain mere platitude. We tend to treat truths glibly; we treat them as if we already know and fully understand their meaning. In doing so we obstruct their potential to actually impact us. We skip the personal implications of truth. In so doing we deny ourselves the great spiritual opportunity of embodying truth.