Emptiness Dancing

Adyashanti

May 2006 · Sounds True

About this ebook

There is something about you brighter than the sun and more mysterious than the night sky.

Who are you when you are not thinking yourself into existence? What is ultimately behind the set of eyes reading these words? In Emptiness Dancing, Adyashanti invites you to wake up to the essence of what you are, through the natural and spontaneous opening of the mind, heart, and body that holds the secret to happiness and liberation.

From the first stages of realization to its evolutionary implications, Adyashanti shares a treasure trove of insights into the challenges of the inner life, offering lucid, down-to-earth advice on topics ranging from the ego, illusion, and spiritual addiction to compassion, letting go, the eternal now, and more. Whether you read each chapter in succession or begin on any page you feel inspired to turn to, you will find in Adyashanti's wisdom an understanding and ever-ready guide to the full wonder of your infinite self-nature.
 


Excerpt

The aim of my teaching is enlightenment—awakening from the dream state of separateness to the reality of the One.  In short, my teaching is focused on realizing what you are.  You may find other elements in my teaching that simply arise as a response to people’s particular needs of the moment, but fundamentally I’m only interested in you waking up.
Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that.  Realize and be, realize and be.  Realization alone is not enough.  The completion of Self-realization is to be, act, do, and express what you realize.  This is a very deep matter, a whole new way of life—living in and as reality instead of living out the programmed ideas, beliefs, and impulses of your dreaming mind.
The trust is that you already are what you are seeking.  You are looking for God with his eyes.  This truth is so simple and shocking, so radical and taboo that it is easy to miss among your flurry of seeking.  You may have heard what I am saying in the past and you may even believe it, but my question is, have you realized it with your whole being?  Are you living it?
My speaking is meant to shake you awake, not to tell you how to dream better.  You know how to dream better.  Depending on what you mental and emotional state at the time is, I may be very gentle and soft with you, or not so gentle and soft. You may feel better after talking with me, but that is incidental to awakening.  Wake up!  You are all living Buddhas.  You are the divine emptiness, the infinite nothing.  This I know because I am what you are, and you are what I am.  Let go of all ideas and images in your mind, they come and go and aren’t even generated by you.  So why pay so much attention to your imagination when reality is for the realizing right now?
 

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About the author

Adyashanti

Adyashanti is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence. His books include Emptiness Dancing, The End of Your World, True Meditation, The Way of Liberation, and Falling into Grace.

Asked to teach in 1996 by his Zen teacher of 14 years, Adyashanti offers teachings that are free of any tradition or ideology. "The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all." For more information, please visit adyashanti.org.