Latest / Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry / Let It Be: When Nothing Needs to Be Fixed

Transcript

Let It Be: When Nothing Needs to Be Fixed · Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry

• 0:00
  [Music]
• 0:01
  You are listening to the Amoda maa podcast.
• 0:02
  In this series, Amoda explores her essential teaching through conversation and excerpts
• 0:03
  from interviews and events.
• 0:04
  Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy.
• 0:05
  And let's be clear that living from the quietness of being
• 0:06
  is not about living in a permanently calm state.
• 0:07
  It's not about the periphery of the experience.
• 0:08
  It's not about being totally silent
• 0:09
  or becoming totally passive or withdrawing from life.
• 0:10
  quietness is not the absence of movement,
• 0:11
  but the deeper ground from which all movement arises.
• 0:12
  On the periphery of me, it's always busy.
• 0:13
  There's always a lot happening.
• 0:14
  There are thoughts of feelings and desires and fears
• 0:15
  and memories and reactions and responsibilities
• 0:16
  and failures and successes and hopes
• 0:17
  disappointments. There's no problem with that, that's part of the human experience and the
• 0:18
  human character, the human personhood. But it starts to become a problem as such when
• 0:19
  we give our allegiance to this movement and take it to be the whole truth of who we are.
• 0:20
  To give allegiance to the periphery means that our attention is continually captured
• 0:21
  by this experience and that experience and what it appears to say about me, that's the
• 0:22
  crucial part.
• 0:23
  What does this feeling say about me?
• 0:24
  What does it mean?
• 0:25
  What does this challenge or this person's response or this circumstance mean about my
• 0:26
  life, about my worth, about my progress, about my awakening?
• 0:27
  So every movement becomes a self-referencing.
• 0:28
  And this self-referencing is what places the personal self at the center.
• 0:29
  even spiritual life can become part of the periphery of me. We become concerned about
• 0:30
  whether I'm present enough, whether I'm surrendered enough, whether I'm free enough, comparing
• 0:31
  this moment with that moment, whether it's more peaceful, more open, more quiet. But this
• 0:32
  quietness of being that's being spoken of is not a state that comes and goes.
• 0:33
  It's the silent openness in which all states appear. It's the unmoving presence,
• 0:34
  an art, a dimension of being that is not altered by the changing weather of experience.
• 0:35
  So how do we live from this quietness when it's been recognized even for a moment,
• 0:36
  when there has been a soft stop in the midst of the peripheral movement,
• 0:37
  well living from this quietness is a shift of allegiance, that's where it begins.
• 0:38
  Shift allegiance, in other words we stop giving authority to every thought, to every emotion,
• 0:39
  to every interpretation. When we give authority to all of that, we become a victim of that. We're
• 0:40
  at the behest of every thought, every emotion, every feeling, every sensation, every personal
• 0:41
  interpretation. This is living as the victim identity. It doesn't mean that we deny what we feel.
• 0:42
  It means we feel it without allowing it to define who we are.
• 0:43
  Let's take the example of fear, which is so common.
• 0:44
  When we give authority to that, then we try to explain it.
• 0:45
  Why is it here? What does it mean about me? What does it mean about my life?
• 0:46
  What does it mean about my spiritual progress?
• 0:47
  and then we try to defend against it, get rid of it, jump into it.
• 0:48
  But if we don't give allegiance to the story, then that fear becomes a doorway. It becomes a doorway
• 0:49
  because we feel the energy directly. We just feel its texture,
• 0:50
  not its story, but its texture, which means we can allow it to be present without resistance.
• 0:51
  And only then can we discover something deeper that is untouched by fear.
• 0:52
  So same with sadness. When it's personal, it becomes my sadness, my wound, my lack of self-worth,
• 0:53
  my unworthiness, my not-enough-ness. But if we don't use it to reinforce an identity,
• 0:54
  It's a doorway. It's a doorway to a profound tenderness, something very human and intimate.
• 0:55
  And then we may discover that the sense of being a separate self is not imprisoned within it.
• 0:56
  or a contraction. That's one that spiritual seekers don't like. If there's a contraction,
• 0:57
  it means I haven't got it yet, I haven't got there yet. But a contraction can be a doorway.
• 0:58
  It's not something gone wrong. It simply reveals the place where allegiance has been given
• 0:59
  to where we are defending or controlling or resisting or holding on. So it's a doorway
• 1:00
  It points us to a deeper dimension of being.
• 1:01
  All experiences contain intelligence.
• 1:02
  They're not here to say, "We've got it wrong," or "We've done something wrong."
• 1:03
  They're here to say, "Where are you arguing with this?
• 1:04
  And is it possible to turn allegiance away from that argument when it stops being an
• 1:05
  enemy?
• 1:06
  So then everything, every reaction, every disturbance, every trigger, every disappointment
• 1:07
  can simply reveal what we are defending, what we are identified with, what we are invested
• 1:08
  in. And in this way, every experience invites us beneath the story into the direct experience,
• 1:09
  the naked experience. Is it possible to stop at the threshold rather than rushing into
• 1:10
  interpretation. Stop at the threshold. That's like being suspended with no ground. Just
• 1:11
  stop.
• 1:12
  It is intimacy with what is.
• 1:13
  It allows everything to be felt without becoming entangled in everything that is felt.
• 1:14
  that entanglement, you can act, you can respond from a deeper intelligence. And when you stop
• 1:15
  asking what this experience means about me, when you stop consulting the personal self,
• 1:16
  when you stop placing the character of me at the center of every experience at the center of life,
• 1:17
  There's a deeper intelligence.
• 1:18
  There's a shift that changes everything.
• 1:19
  You stop giving allegiance to the one that thinks it's at the centre of the story.
• 1:20
  Instead allegiance is given to silence, openness, that which is unchanging.
• 1:21
  the quietness of being that does not need to defend itself,
• 1:22
  that is already whole.
• 1:23
  invitation. The invitation is not to habitually, unconsciously, keep moving outward into the
• 1:24
  periphery. To let attention fall inward into the depth of being, simple return to what
• 1:25
  is true. The personal movement, the personal experience will still happen, but it's no
• 1:26
  longer, the one in charge, it's no longer the authority. This is available to each of
• 1:27
  us and we don't have to wait for the holy grail of awakening. This in itself is awakening
• 1:28
  moment by moment, moment by moment.
• 1:29
  It's right here.
• 1:30
  It's totally available.
• 1:31
  It's here within each breath, within each sensation, within each movement of thought.
• 1:32
  Nothing that appears needs to be fixed or resolved or understood or given meaning.
• 1:33
  Let it be.
• 1:34
  (gentle music)
• 1:35
  (gentle music)
• 1:36
  (gentle music)
• 1:37
  (gentle music)
• 1:38
  (gentle music)
• 1:39
  (gentle music)
• 1:40
  (gentle music)