Guidance to Awakening

Being awakened means experiencing only what is experienced and not adding any interpretations to it. 

The interpretations or assumptions are in the way of experiencing what is called awakening. They work like tinted lenses and add something to the experience that isn’t actually there.

We interpret what we experience and believe that the interpretations are part of experience – but they are not. For example, if you meet somebody who seems to be in a bad mood, you might assume he doesn’t like you. But maybe he only has a headache.

The assumptions that are in the way of awakening go much deeper.
I use the Buddhist model of the Ten Fetters. In the teachings of the historical Buddha, they are mentioned about as often as the Eightfold Path. You don’t have to be a Buddhist of one sort or another though to see through the assumptions.       

You are going to examine the assumptions

• That somewhere inside of you, there is an ‘I’ that thinks, experiences, chooses, decides and acts.
  
  This is the crucial step and the eye of the needle that opens up the path to awakening. About every other person realizes that this assumption is wrong. When you saw through the assumption of a ‘me’, it is highly likely that you will see through all assumptions and find awakening. 
  

• That there is wanting and not-wanting which lead to a reaction when something pleasant or unpleasant happens.   
  

• That there is a subject experiencing object, with clear borders between the subject and the object and the objects themselves. Assuming a subject, form is given to experience.
  

• That you perceive a world with things in time and space, which is outside of you and rises in your limited consciousness. 
  

• That the subtle sense of ‘I exist’ or ‘I am’ is true.
  

When these interpretations have been seen through, you and the world will no longer exist the way you knew them. Yet nothing will be lost, only assumptions about the way things are.

Now you are going to experience the forces that led to the assumptions and will see through the root assumption that made the other ones possible.

• With the subtle sense of 'I am' or 'I exist' gone, the last assumption of anything substantial and permanent is seen through.  There is nothing left to hold on to. Restlessness arises, looking for something to replace what is gone. You will look for the mechanism that creates this restlessness. Eventually, the restlessness will calm down and you will stop looking for something that doesn’t exist: substantiality, permanence and satisfactoriness, the possibility that your expectations could be met fully. You will make peace with the fact that nothing is predictable or reliable, that there is nothing to hold onto and that there is no such thing as always feeling good. 
  

• When the restless search for substance, permanence and  satisfactoriness has calmed down, you are able to see what you didn’t know and what you ignored though it has been there all the time. With the seeing through ignorance, awakening is there.
  

We will work together either in small groups of 6-8 people, or we can have a dialogue using video sessions or writing to each other.

You'll look into your own experience and find out what is actually experienced and what is only added interpretation. With the help of little experiments you will learn how to tell what is experienced and what is added.

I will not teach you anything, you don't have to believe anything, you will be able to find the truth in your own experience.

Booking

No Open Spaces in 2022