James Wood Teachings

Saying you want to be free is like saying you want a bell to ring. And yet, the tighter we hold on to it, the less it rings. It’s not allowed to freely be, so it has a limited range of possibility. It’s even kind of ugly or pedestrian. Dead, like something you can’t feel. Like when you get an injection of lidocaine. Numb. Dead. Shut down. Less alive, less happy. Maybe even less sad, in a way. Like someone who’s drugged, who has a limited range, not allowed to feel, not allowed to express. So we have to let it go. What we let go of is a sense of self that’s at odds with what is.

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Inquiry is specific. You take a thought in the form of a statement and break it down into every little bit of meaning it might have. You look at every little part and ask yourself if it’s true. When you’re done, there’s nothing left. It’s reduced to ashes. Mindfulness is witnessing thoughts, feelings, and sensations nonjudgmentally. This could be formal, as in sitting, or informal, as you go about your day. These are both the same process viewed from different angles. It’s really about awareness ― becoming aware of what’s going on inside of you.

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Being liberated is as if one witnesses from infinity. In the unconscious state, everything that you witness gets caught in a sense of self that’s like a knot in the bottom of a sack. It feels constricted or incomplete, vulnerable. That’s the experience of most people. As you become more conscious, you witness the objects of experience less judgmentally and this “knot” becomes more open. Objects become more unknowable and beautiful. When that happens, something in you opens and the sense of self relaxes. When awakening occurs, it relaxes completely.

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It is important not to make a problem out of existential pain. The pain of existence is an internal sense of not being enough. It feels like an ache, sadness, or depression. Most people try to alleviate this feeling through some distracting activity. It doesn’t work. The way out of existential pain is to be actively aware of it without judgment ― to say It’s okay not to be okay. It’s an allowing that doesn’t judge. It’s just open, like a pure lens that doesn’t corrupt or distort. The key is to breathe and allow ― a deep kind of intimacy where you become really still and yet profoundly active.

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It’s helpful to treat intimate relationships as spiritual practice. It’s horrifying to see what we do to ourselves, but essential. There’s nothing like an intimate personal relationship to trigger unconscious reactions. Whatever upsets you, it’s really about you. It’s what you’re doing to yourself and blaming on someone else. It’s what you’re not seeing in yourself and unconscious, so you have to see it outside somewhere. We’re trying to heal the wounds we received as a child, the love we perceived as not getting from our parents. So we meet someone we can work that out with.

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Marriage is best used for personal growth in service to awakening. Most personal growth is in service to the ego. Personal growth by itself is not enough. If you put finding Freedom ahead of acquiring things, what you need will come to you. You can use worldly things for personal growth leading to awakening. You can enjoy practicing together. If your spouse wakes up, it could get interesting. Although many spiritual traditions are monastic, celibacy is not necessary. Grounding is important. We want to bring consciousness into human form and enliven it.

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Joel Goldsmith taught awakening from a Christian perspective, often calling it “illumination.” True affirmative prayer consists in meditating on the truth of scripture. The ultimate statement of divinity is “I am,” a subjective statement of divine identity. Introception is a recognition of what’s already true within you, a third form of knowing aside from thinking and sense experience. The good news is that we’re all already fundamentally free. Our essence is divine already. But we labor under false ideas. The whole world tries to tells us who we are. It helps to have a Teacher.

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Life is basically dissatisfying. It’s impermanent, a wheel of suffering. Try to find authoritative texts or living Teachers. Then it’s a matter of devotion, giving yourself utterly to a value beyond conventional or relative value. Some people would call that God. It becomes the guide for your life. It’s essential that your practice be sincere. Do your best to stay aware and use all circumstances for growth in awareness. You have to see yourself as you are and have the humility to allow something higher to remove obstacles. A useful prayer is I don’t know what to do. Please help.

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Much of conventional prayer is not true prayer. Desire blocks its activity. You have to let it go for it to work. True prayer is a mode of awareness that doesn’t grasp. It allows what is to be. God’s will is what is happening now; desire is wanting something else. The final delusion is an attachment to self. How do you know when you wake up? The question doesn’t arise. If you’re inclined toward Christianity, its essence is compatible with any other valid approach. The form doesn’t matter. It’s like having two different boats to cross the same river. Who cares what the boat looks like?

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For any real change or growth to occur, it has to be based on something authentic. The conditioned, social self is not sufficient. It cannot be the basis of true change. Most personal growth is about relative, self-based values. Your absolute, true nature is the only value upon which you can build a successful life. It is possible to have personal growth leading to awakening. Awakening involves healthy growth and development. It’s just not necessarily what you think it should be. Letting go and trusting is important. The “you” that you think you are is not who you are.

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Awakening is the end of suffering, the end of anxiety and depression. What’s left is a sense of self that is not anything of itself. It lives and moves and breathes in service to Reality. It’s completely spontaneous and free. As a student, there’s a process along the way. Challenges get easier. You have to face down your fears and anxieties. Practice is important. There’s really nothing like consistent practice to make positive change occur. You can learn to sense intuitively what consistency is best for you. Consistent practice — even in small amounts — is important.

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Getting spiritual help is like having a spotter in weightlifting; it doesn’t necessarily remove all challenges. The path can be difficult. Eventually, it gets easier. Happiness or contentment in practice is possible. Most spiritual seekers have been wounded, or they wouldn’t be interested in spirituality. The path is really more about Being than doing — but it is better to be focused on attainment than not to engage your practice with passion or determination. It takes a rare kind of person to sincerely want awakening. You have to live conventionally while pursuing an absolute aim.

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Awakening is now more common, but still rare. You have to decide that you’re going to beat the odds and wake up. You’re the one. If you think, “It’s kind of rare, I don’t know,” it’s probably not going to happen for you. A helpful attitude is that you will either wake up from the nightmare or die trying. The Teaching is like a rope anchored in rock, something that doesn’t move when you pull. It’s possible to become free of the need for cyclic existence. The end may seem terrifying, but the actuality of awakening is peaceful. It is beyond the logic of the nightmare.

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Meditation is the essence of conscious relationship: witnessing thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment. It might be external or internal; there is no absolute boundary between inner and outer. We may witness an angry person and feel it as a sympathetic resonance. It doesn’t matter whether it’s yours or someone else’s. “Scrubbing” is purifying environmental negativity through your awareness. Negativity is not pleasant, but a conscious relationship to it can be pleasant, like scrubbing a dirty child. The nature of dirt or grime is foul, but as soon as you start washing it off, it’s really kind of enjoyable. The key is not to judge what you experience.

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It’s harder to relate to another person when you are generating your own negativity. All you can really do is be with that content. Witness it nonjudgmentally to the degree you can. If you can’t, notice that and forget about how long it might take. If your practice is good, it may not take that long. Developing that witnessing ability is like building a muscle. It takes practice. What arises may be unpleasant; it may not be. You’re learning to just allow it. Allowing does not mean being passive; it means being awake and calmly active. Eventually the ego lets go.

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