Adyashanti - Emptiness Dancing

Selected Dharma Talks of

Introduction

Chapter 1: Awakening

Chapter 2: Satsang

Chapter 3: Openness

Chapter 4: Innocence

Chapter 5: Harmonization

Chapter 6: Freedom

Chapter 7: The Radiant Core

Chapter 8: Silence

Chapter 9: Consciousness

Chapter 10: Depth

Chapter 11: Ego

Chapter 12: Love

Chapter 13: Spiritual Addiction

Chapter 14: Illusion

Chapter 15: Control

Chapter 16: Letting Go

Chapter 17: Compassion

Chapter 18: Fire of Truth

Chapter 19: Enlightenment.

Chapter 20: Implications

Chapter 21: Dharmic Relationship

Chapter 22: Eternal Now

Chapter 23: Fidelity

By Bonnie Greenwell, Editor

Love moves without an agenda. It just moves because that is its natureto move.

These words of spiritual teacher Adyashanti express the essence of his meetings with students when he speaks about the nature of spiritual awakening at weekly gatherings, weekend intensive seminars, and silent retreats. This book is a collection of some of these remarkable talks, selected because they represent consistent and meaningful themes that have been important to his students.

"The heart of what I do, and the heart of what brings you here, is to have the direct experience of who you are," Adyashanti says. "How can you know enlightenment if you don't even know what you are?" In his unique transmission of Truth and freedom, he provides the pointers that can lead students into this discovery, the realization of their true nature.

About Adyashanti

Adyashanti was born in 1962 in Cupertino, California, a small city in the San Francisco Bay area, and was given the name Stephen Gray. It is clear from some of the stories he shares that he enjoyed his childhood and his colorful, extended family, which included two sisters, four grandparents, and an assortment of other relatives. One grandfather enjoyed doing dances of Native American blessing for him and his cousins when they came to visit. He loved bicycle racing as a teenager and young adult, but at age 19, he came across the word "enlightenment" in a book, and was overcome by a fierce hunger to know ultimate Truth. He began training under the guidance of two teachers, Arvis Justi, a disciple of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and Jakusho Kwong Roshi, a disciple of Suzuki Roshi.

Adyashanti practiced Zen meditation intensely for nearly 15 years, and says he was nearly driven to desperation before he finally awakened into a series of profound realizations about his true nature and experienced the dissolution of attachment to any personal identity. In 1996 he was invited to teach the dharma by his teacher, Arvis Justi.

What began as very small group gatherings grew in a few years to weekly dharma talks with hundreds of students. "Dharma" is the word used in Buddhism for the expression of ultimate truth-the underlying nature of all physical and mental phenomena and the true spiritual destiny of all beings. Dharma talks are the teachings offered by one who lives in this truth and has clear realization that has been acknowledged through a lineage of teachers going all the way back to the Buddha.

A slim and graceful man with a shaven head, Adya (as he is called by his students) has a warm presence and a tremendous gift for relatedness and clarity. Students find that the steady gaze of his large and nearly transparent, light blue eyes often disarms the mind and seems to penetrate the heart. Adya's teaching style is heartfelt and direct, free of Zen jargon, but rich with pointers toward universal truth. In the years since that first teaching, many of his students have experienced awakenings through the revelations of his teachings and the transmission that permeates his satsang sessions and retreats.

An Extraordinary Teacher

Adya's style of dharma teaching (also known as "satsang") has been compared to some of the early Chan (Zen) masters of China, as well as teachers of Advaita Vedanta (nondualism) in India. He has a great affinity for the late Advaitic sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and other awakened teachers in both Eastern and Western traditions. Although the retreats he leads for students are a blend of silent meditation, dharma talks, and dialogues with students, his approach to awakening is not based on developing spiritual practices, but rather on the disarming and deconstruction of the personal identity.

As have many of his students, I experienced a powerful awakening in Adyashanti's presence, which convinced me that he was my teacher, although I had given up the concept and the search for a teacher years before we met. I then discovered how a teacher/guide can point the cluttered mind toward the exit door and open the heart directly into the love and radiant emptiness that underlies existence.

This is an experience that is extraordinary, profound, and unspeakable; it annihilates all further interest in spiritual seeking and leaves those who know it connected to an interior place that is remarkably simple, quiet, and open. I had been a serious student of Eastern spiritual teachings in several traditions and a teacher and therapist for those who were in the spiritual process, and yet I never clearly saw the power of this extraordinary teacher-student relationship until I discovered this teacher, the teacher who was resonant for me. I feel tremendous gratitude for this fortunate meeting.

Adya expresses both the infinite possibilities and the ordinary simplicity of a spiritually-realized life. I experience him as living in the fullness of emptiness and freedom and demonstrating the dynamic relationship between source and spontaneity, heart and humor, and appreciation for the form and the formless aspects of existence.

The Teachings in This Book

This collection of Adya's teachings is culled from hundreds of dharma talks he gave between 1996 and 2002 during satsang meetings, weekend intensives, and retreats.

It is being made available so that the pointers, the love, and the transmission he offers can be a continual reminder for his students and also reach many people who are unable to be with him in person.

These talks were chosen because they encompass the initial issues and themes that arise when individuals explore the nature of awakening, liberation, and embodiment with an enlightened teacher. They also describe some of the direct experiences of Adyashanti's awakening and show the world of experience that opens for one who is self-realized: qualities such as innocence, openness, love, impermanence, harmony, peace, depth, and freedom. His words, which are a delightful reflection of the truth that arises from profound inner silence, resonate with our hearts because they express what we really are.

They are truth speaking to truth, source revealing its mystery to source.

This resonance has the power to disrupt our habitual patterns of thought and emotional reactivity and help to dismantle the egoic trance, giving us glimpses of the underlying reality of our lives. Such perceptions can literally turn our world upside down, shaking us free from the delusions of mind. Such an opening reveals an entirely fresh way of being alive, vibrant, and free. This aliveness is demonstrated in the expression and the life of this teacher and many of his students.

None of us know how to influence events, however hard we try. In our worldly life, this causes both pain and surprise. But in spiritual life it becomes our grace. When we are able to rest in the not-knowing that is the deep truth of our being in every moment, we allow that which is spontaneous to arise and awaken us. Adya repeatedly tells his students not to hold any concepts, not to believe anything he says to them, and not to cling to any experience.