Beyond Mindfulness by Stephan Bodian

Author:Stephan Bodian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SEL032000 Self-help / Spiritual, OCC000000 Body, Mind & Spirit / General, REL062000 Religion / Spirituality
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

Inquiring into the One Who Is Aware

In addition to contemplating the direct pointers of others, you can actively inquire into the nature of the one who is aware. The classic approach is to ask some variant of the question “Who am I?” with the understanding that the usual answers—for example, I’m a woman, a dancer, a teacher, a father, an entrepreneur, a meditator, a Christian, a tennis player, an artist—are not who you really are. The point is to direct attention beyond all the stories, roles, and identities you’ve accumulated over a lifetime to arrive at who you are essentially, prior to your life history and conditioning. In Zen, they call this fundamental, essential nature your “original face before your parents were born.” For the purposes of this book, we call it awakened awareness.

For many people, the question “Who am I?” is too abstract and doesn’t have any resonance or traction. If so, you can use something more concrete and experience-near, like “Who is experiencing this moment right now?” or “Who is looking out through these eyes right now?” The purpose is not to engage the logical, deductive mind but to ask a question that goes to the heart of the matter directly and elicits a resolution through another, more unmediated way of knowing. You need to ask the question with your whole being and let it resonate energetically, throughout your body, as if you were dropping a pebble into a pond and allowing the ripples to radiate out unimpeded. Eventually the answer reveals itself in a way that you couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

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