James Wood Teachings

From a talk given by James in 2006

Q: What does it mean to see the body as a form of dependent arising?

James: It means to see the body consciously. It means to see the body as dependent on consciousness for its existence as opposed to an independently existing entity, a thing in itself.

To see this, you have to get really deep and really quiet. You witness the sensation in your body. What is the body but a field of sensation, in a way? Consider thought, feeling, and sensation. Have you ever had a tight place in your body and breathed into it and the tight place became fluid?

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From a talk given by James in 2008

I want to talk about sanity. Somehow I feel more sane when I don’t talk about it. The silence feels really good.

I was editing some talks from the summer and I remember that someone brought up something about doing this work and having a sense of fear of letting go of the known, a sense of falling or letting go that feels like a loss, like you’re losing your mind.

It can feel that way. What really happens is you don’t lose your mind. Awakening is losing the mind’s ability to control you.

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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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