James Wood Teachings

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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Judgment is tied to a sense of separation. The word “God,” implies religious belief, whereas “Truth” does not. Truth is just what is. We usually project parental qualities onto “God” and argue with “God.” But who would argue with Truth? Wouldn’t you have to be insane? Living a lie isn’t wrong; it’s just painful. Truth moves Itself. There is a difference between reacting and responding. Consciousness doesn’t judge, but makes distinctions between healthy and unhealthy functioning. Faith is a relationship with Formlessness that doesn’t require thought.

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From a talk given by James in 2008

If our true nature is formless and what has us captured is form, then the relationship between the two is what I call the Awakener. That’s where Emptiness comes into play. Emptiness means that forms neither exist nor not exist. They have a certain kind of existence. When forms are viewed consciously, they have no ultimate or intrinsic value. Of themselves, they are nothing—and in that sense, they are empty. But they have a conventional kind of existence.

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Awakening reveals the true nature of things: that they neither exist nor not exist. They are mentally projected and have no intrinsic existence. This is not nihilism. Things exist, but only dependently. They don’t exist independently or absolutely. No thought ultimately matches your experience. Nothing you can say, think, or imagine actually captures Reality. The more you feel that you are an independent, intrinsically self-existing entity, it’s like a little prison cell that shuts out Freedom. Ego is an attachment to self that causes suffering.

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The sense of self is empty, or empty of intrinsic existence. It may be useful but it doesn’t have an ultimate nature of itself. Forms are empty — like phantoms, snowflakes, or puffs of smoke. Formlessness is the essence of all that is. Awakening is letting go of concepts as if they were ultimately true but allowing them as you would allow a puff of smoke in a room. Awareness is like a vast space that doesn’t cling to objects. Faith consists in not-knowing, trusting, and letting go. Nirvana is the end of the dream of forms as having intrinsic Reality.

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Words are not necessary to discern Truth. Silence is always present. Listening into this space is a kind of wisdom that is deeper than thinking. It’s harder to do this when there’s more noise, specifically mental noise. But part of the practice is to notice mental noise, what causes it, and what it feels like. This practice allows you to fall into a deeper witnessing of stillness. There may a noise or disturbance underneath this stillness that requires patience to dissolve. If you’re persistent, patient, and present, you can wake up in this lifetime. That’s what we’re here for.

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