happytown Wrote:
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> I would also like to hear more about these four
> concerns:
>
> 2. His teaching style
You didn't ask me but I would like to say something about this, as someone who encountered Mooji's teaching coming from more of a zen buddhist approach (by that I only mean that it was the books I had been consuming, worked with and been aplying, I didn't sat zazen. basically Adyashanti's and Cheri Huber's books).
So with these two fairly popular teachers I've mentioned,
i would say with Zen in general,
you INCLUDE everything in your practice and in your contemplation. From the get-go there is NO DIFFERENCE between the Personal and the Impersonal. Transcendence is not seen (and not talked about)as to be "higher" than Immanence.
What I've always understood from this (and took a huge amount of inspiration and joy from) is that EVERYTHING is already sacred, just as it is, and not to forget that, and not to miss that. And surely, first of all, you have to really SEE that.
The Heart Sutra talks about this insight:
“Oh Shariputra,
Form is no other than Emptiness
Emptiness no other than Form.
Form is exactly Emptiness
Emptiness exactly Form.
Sensation, Conception, Discrimination,
are likewise like this.
I've always loved that about Zen, the concreteness of it, and I find it really relaxing to START from a philosophical viewpoint that emphasizes that you'll never really land anywhere at all.
"Oh, so you've found the Absolute / the Self/ The Unborn??
That's very fine and dandy, but how are you living it?
In which ways are you hiding from life?What are you afraid of? What are you rejecting?And why?Where are you still fixated? What do you still believe that you "know"?Sure, there really is no Time, but what's your problem with Time?"
From the Sandokai:
“To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.”
Granted, it is a big fucking deal. The biggest, truly "unimaginable" deal.
ANd ALSO.
We musn't get stuck on it.
This is, the way I see it, incredibly important, not to mention healthy, and an exercise of humility. (And life will have it's ways to pull us "down" from the Absolute anyway. if I may use adverbs of location at this point)
Now Mooji's emphasis is in remembering our Isness, the ungraspable unlimited un-nameable Absolute identity.
His teaching style is I would say,rather EXCLUSIVE; so, a Neti-neti approach (you come to what you are through seeing what you are not) coupled with a theistic frame and the Guru/disciple dynamic.
For this to work, some pre requesites have to be in place, the most important of all being
- you have to implicitly trust the guru.
This means that your nervous system has to be comfortable enough to engage with a dynamic where you will do what you are told. This is the particular form of surrender that this path entails (and surrender is INDESPENSABLE in any kind of real attainment/recognition/shift). It is talked about as a grace in itself,this trust; grace being that element that the human didn't produce, that was just available mysteriously
Now everyone is different and not everyone will "gel" with this kind of path. Or maybe not for now, but will later.
I have to say I don't think it makes any sense to ego shame; it is just very foreign to what I've seen to be true, and helpful, and practical. Most people are already incredibly self judgmental. It takes a lot of skill to transmit that fundamentally there is nothing wrong with anyone or anything, while at the same time encouraging you to relaxedly inquire into what you are believing is wrong. And it takes a lot of courage and sincerity on the part of the student at times. And for some people a TREMENDOUS amount of it
So Mooji's style might suit us, or not so much, at a particular time. To expect his humanity to be "perfect" at all times, or the teaching to never ever fail, is to set ourselves for disapointment.The human element will be there.
What he ultimately is, what YOU are, is perfect, because it is not original or new, just IS
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would also like to hear more about these four
> concerns:
>
> 2. His teaching style
You didn't ask me but I would like to say something about this, as someone who encountered Mooji's teaching coming from more of a zen buddhist approach (by that I only mean that it was the books I had been consuming, worked with and been aplying, I didn't sat zazen. basically Adyashanti's and Cheri Huber's books).
So with these two fairly popular teachers I've mentioned,
i would say with Zen in general,
you INCLUDE everything in your practice and in your contemplation. From the get-go there is NO DIFFERENCE between the Personal and the Impersonal. Transcendence is not seen (and not talked about)as to be "higher" than Immanence.
What I've always understood from this (and took a huge amount of inspiration and joy from) is that EVERYTHING is already sacred, just as it is, and not to forget that, and not to miss that. And surely, first of all, you have to really SEE that.
The Heart Sutra talks about this insight:
“Oh Shariputra,
Form is no other than Emptiness
Emptiness no other than Form.
Form is exactly Emptiness
Emptiness exactly Form.
Sensation, Conception, Discrimination,
are likewise like this.
I've always loved that about Zen, the concreteness of it, and I find it really relaxing to START from a philosophical viewpoint that emphasizes that you'll never really land anywhere at all.
"Oh, so you've found the Absolute / the Self/ The Unborn??
That's very fine and dandy, but how are you living it?
In which ways are you hiding from life?What are you afraid of? What are you rejecting?And why?Where are you still fixated? What do you still believe that you "know"?Sure, there really is no Time, but what's your problem with Time?"
From the Sandokai:
“To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.”
Granted, it is a big fucking deal. The biggest, truly "unimaginable" deal.
ANd ALSO.
We musn't get stuck on it.
This is, the way I see it, incredibly important, not to mention healthy, and an exercise of humility. (And life will have it's ways to pull us "down" from the Absolute anyway. if I may use adverbs of location at this point)
Now Mooji's emphasis is in remembering our Isness, the ungraspable unlimited un-nameable Absolute identity.
His teaching style is I would say,rather EXCLUSIVE; so, a Neti-neti approach (you come to what you are through seeing what you are not) coupled with a theistic frame and the Guru/disciple dynamic.
For this to work, some pre requesites have to be in place, the most important of all being
- you have to implicitly trust the guru.
This means that your nervous system has to be comfortable enough to engage with a dynamic where you will do what you are told. This is the particular form of surrender that this path entails (and surrender is INDESPENSABLE in any kind of real attainment/recognition/shift). It is talked about as a grace in itself,this trust; grace being that element that the human didn't produce, that was just available mysteriously
Now everyone is different and not everyone will "gel" with this kind of path. Or maybe not for now, but will later.
I have to say I don't think it makes any sense to ego shame; it is just very foreign to what I've seen to be true, and helpful, and practical. Most people are already incredibly self judgmental. It takes a lot of skill to transmit that fundamentally there is nothing wrong with anyone or anything, while at the same time encouraging you to relaxedly inquire into what you are believing is wrong. And it takes a lot of courage and sincerity on the part of the student at times. And for some people a TREMENDOUS amount of it
So Mooji's style might suit us, or not so much, at a particular time. To expect his humanity to be "perfect" at all times, or the teaching to never ever fail, is to set ourselves for disapointment.The human element will be there.
What he ultimately is, what YOU are, is perfect, because it is not original or new, just IS