Latest / Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry / The Search for Peace | What Happens When Seeking Ends

Transcript

The Search for Peace | What Happens When Seeking Ends · Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry

• 0:00
  [Music]
• 0:01
  You are listening to the Amoda 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
  So let's begin
• 0:06
  by taking a look at the movement of seeking
• 0:07
  because almost everyone is searching for peace
• 0:08
  in some form or another.
• 0:09
  we may call it peace or happiness or certainty or fulfillment or even awakening.
• 0:10
  We imagine that when something changes, when the body feels better or when the relationship is
• 0:11
  more harmonious or when the future becomes more certain or when the mind is finally quiet,
• 0:12
  then we'll finally be able to rest. And on the spiritual path, this seeking for the future,
• 0:13
  perfect moment when I can finally be at peace becomes even more subtle. We may believe that we'll
• 0:14
  be a peace, no peace when we're finally free of fear or when the mind is totally silent,
• 0:15
  or when we've healed our past,
• 0:16
  when we finally come to some sense of being complete,
• 0:17
  or when we've finally awakened and everything is perfect.
• 0:18
  But the thing is that with this seeking of peace, peace is always just up ahead.
• 0:19
  It's not here.
• 0:20
  And so this moment, this moment now, which is all there is, somehow becomes something
• 0:21
  that we have to get through in order to arrive where we think we should be.
• 0:22
  And this creates an inattention.
• 0:23
  what is happening now, what is actually happening. And then there's the mind's idea of what should
• 0:24
  be happening, so that I can be at peace. So there's a gap. And in that gap, there is conflict
• 0:25
  and tension. That gap is where the sense of being a separate self lives. It's the sense
• 0:26
  of 'I am here and life is out there and somehow I need to manage life or manage my experience
• 0:27
  in order to get there where I imagine I should be.
• 0:28
  So what happens is that the sense of self, the 'I' contracts around experience.
• 0:29
  It doesn't rest open within experience.
• 0:30
  It contracts around it.
• 0:31
  So then we try to control experience or control circumstances.
• 0:32
  Everything becomes a management project.
• 0:33
  Even peace becomes a management project.
• 0:34
  We try to control circumstances.
• 0:35
  We try to control relationships.
• 0:36
  We try to control our emotions, our thoughts, our body
• 0:37
  in order to be at peace finally.
• 0:38
  We even try to control our state of consciousness.
• 0:39
  All of this is revolving around a usually unconscious,
• 0:40
  not seen belief that if only we could rearrange everything,
• 0:41
  rearrange our experience,
• 0:42
  then we'll finally be able to relax, we'll be safe.
• 0:43
  Mostly this movement, this management project is not clearly seen. It's just what happens.
• 0:44
  the default. There can be no true change, no true transformation within. Unless this
• 0:45
  is examined in some way, brought to light within oneself. We have to see, look within,
• 0:46
  the search for peace becomes endless when we're constantly looking to rearrange life.
• 0:47
  The thing is life refuses to be rearranged. Everything changes, circumstances change,
• 0:48
  relationships change, plans fall apart, unexpected things happen, the body changes,
• 0:49
  It's the very internal mechanism of searching for peace that creates inner lack of peace.
• 0:50
  So perhaps if we're willing to look within and expose this mechanism within ourselves
• 0:51
  to ourselves, be true, be honest.
• 0:52
  Are we seeking peace by trying to rearrange life, our experience of life?
• 0:53
  And of course it gets more and more subtle.
• 0:54
  And secondly, is it possible to end that inner tension, that inner conflict, that inner disturbance,
• 0:55
  Not by trying to make our experience perfect, but by ending the inner argument with what
• 0:56
  is.
• 0:57
  Can we soften the argument with life, with experience?
• 0:58
  This is a primary question.
• 0:59
  Softening the inner argument doesn't mean that we resigned to difficult or painful
• 1:00
  circumstances and it doesn't mean that we stop responding to what needs attention.
• 1:01
  It simply means that beneath that response we're not refusing reality.
• 1:02
  First, yeah, primary, the foundation is a willingness to fully allow, because it already
• 1:03
  is what is here and what is here is what is felt in this moment. That's the raw truth of reality.
• 1:04
  It's an honest meeting with what is. You don't have to like it or dislike it.
• 1:05
  of course liking and disliking can be here comfort and discomfort are here but the fact
• 1:06
  is this is what's being experienced this is what's being felt this is life the reality
• 1:07
  of life so even when there is thought activity thoughts moving even when there is emotional
• 1:08
  activity. Yeah? Even if there is uncertainty about the future, about my life, about what's
• 1:09
  happening or may happen or may not happen, even with all of that, we can discover peace,
• 1:10
  true peace. Because the invitation is not to look for peace in the content of our experience
• 1:11
  But to look for peace, to know peace, not to look for peace, but to know peace, to recognise
• 1:12
  peace, as that which is more fundamental, more primary than the content of experience
• 1:13
  which is constantly shifting, changing, moving.
• 1:14
  What is it that knows that movement?
• 1:15
  What is it that knows thought? What is it that knows emotion?
• 1:16
  What is it that is aware of that seeking mechanism?
• 1:17
  Can we become aware, recognise the aware presence, the simplicity, the constancy of aware presence
• 1:18
  There is always here, before any experience, appears.
• 1:19
  It's here when your mind is quiet and it's here when your mind is busy.
• 1:20
  What is it that does not come and go, even though the weather is always changing?
• 1:21
  So the question, the inquiry, the true inquiry, should you be willing to take it up? Is not
• 1:22
  to ask yourself how can I find peace? But to ask, what happens if I stop moving away
• 1:23
  from this moment. What happens if I allow experience to be exactly as it is? And notice
• 1:24
  what remains in that.
• 1:25
  What reveals itself when the movement away from this moment
• 1:26
  starts to soften.
• 1:27
  It's an invitation for the search, the seeking, to quieten,
• 1:28
  even for a moment. So that something that's always been here starts to become more visible.
• 1:29
  We rarely ask ourselves this question. Again, it's not an intellectual question, it's a
• 1:30
  energetic question, a visceral question. What if I simply didn't move away from this moment?
• 1:31
  Am I willing? Am I curious enough? Am I open enough? Am I soft enough to simply discover what
• 1:32
  remains, not to imagine, not to overlay with imagination, but to discover this is direct
• 1:33
  experience. So perhaps we can just rest for a few moments in silence and allow that question
• 1:34
  to drop in. It doesn't have to be phrased in any perfect way.
• 1:35
  Just hear it in yourself. Let's ask this again. Am I willing to stop moving away from this moment
• 1:36
  just for a moment and be open to discovering what remains, what remains in that stop.
• 1:37
  (gentle music)
• 1:38
  (gentle music)
• 1:39
  (gentle music)
• 1:40
  (gentle music)
• 1:41
  [MUSIC]