Serious

2023, June, Issue 49

Just to let everyone know, Amazon will be increasing the costs of publication soon.  Before that happens, I want to have a bit of a sale, so that people who have a difficult time affording can obtain my books.  Timeless Luminosity, as well as The Frog, have now experienced a price drop.  Please go to Amazon to take advantage of this offer while it lasts.

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Lately, I find myself at odds with this fabricated self.  It doesn’t seem serious most of the time.  It’s true, my sense of humor is a bit overactive at times.  I’m amused by all appearances.  On the other hand, I’ve fabricated myself to be like that self I was prior to my death.  It’s getting exhausting, and I’m done.  People expect me to be this way or that way.  Well, I don’t think I’m real.  What way is that?

The purpose of fabricating myself in a certain way was so that people who knew me wouldn’t freak out.  I wanted to ease them into it.  Well, people are a bit skittish and a few people did freak out.  You can’t really hide something like this, or keep it secret for long.  Several relatives won’t even talk to me any longer, and I lost a few friends, as well.  They could see something radically different about me, even though I did everything to reconnect my appearances to that old self.  The time for being subtle about it has passed.

My death experience provided me with direct experience of the ineffable that is only hinted at by great masters.  If they told you the reality of the situation, you would freak out.  You have freaked out, and you will continue to freak out every time you die, each time you are propelled through the death bardo.

Some say that awakening is like the open sky.  Oh, that’s very nice.  It’s a very peaceful thought; however, the first thing we are likely to encounter when we die is something like a trillion hurricanes, each greater than anything you can imagine.  If you’re not prepared for that, you will definitely freak out.

When I described my death, I started with this notion of instantly becoming the light of Dharmakaya.  It was very nice.  It was a very peaceful description.  People love that, it’s comforting.  I’ve got to say, however, in all seriousness, that you will likely not really notice that amazing light.  The common experience of death is encapsulated in my descriptions of the journey back through the utmost violence imaginable, an energy so incredible that mind is likely to imagine all sorts of terrible things.  I haven’t expounded on it very much.  If we freak out, and we are likely to do so, we will be propelled by our accumulated karma into another lifetime.  We will have no chance of remaining in the pristine awareness of Dharmakaya.

Now, don’t let that dissuade you from discovering your essence through meditation.  If anything, it should make you that much more determined to awaken.  People dabble too much, when they should be preparing for death every chance they have.  If a storm is coming, is it time to trim the lawn and weed the garden?  Activities like that are very nice, they can be comforting; however, these are not serious activities that will make the slightest bit of difference.  What we need to do is get serious about our own awakening.  Stop messing around with useless activities.

If we wish to awaken, then every moment of our lives must be devoted to this possibility of awakening.  It’s very simple: Cultivate Bodhicitta to unlock our potentiality, then examine every aspect of mind until mind merges with our Real Nature.  We go from meditation to contemplation, that is effort to no effort.  It’s simple and you have many opportunities to begin now.

Pay attention to this simplicity when you begin to form intellectual concepts.  Have a light touch with that.  All the intellectual activities in the world will not help you awaken.  Awakening is direct experience, not an intellectual achievement.  Utilize texts and teachings as merely tools we can use to examine mind.

Pay attention to beliefs that arise from experiences.  Belief alone will never help you to awaken.  Its value is only temporary, to be discarded as realization arises.  Awakening is not dependent upon belief.  Don’t fixate on belief, just let it go as you open your heart and mind.

Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions, but don’t do anything with them.  If we wish to have something greater in our Spiritual Practice than meditation, then we learn to be in a state of instant presence, not changing anything.  The precursor to instant presence is mindfulness.  With instant presence, we are learning to be aware, which is becoming accustomed to awakening.

Awakening means to be in the essence.  It does not mean that we are judging and thinking.  Awakening is an obtainable condition that is beyond all obstacles.

I hope you utilize my words, in books, talks and this newsletter, in a serious manner.  I came back to this life, not to amuse people or to put you at ease in any way.  It was to help all beings awaken.  Let’s take this opportunity to awaken. 

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho