Rodney Smith and the Nisargadatta Maharaj teaching
excerpts from Stepping out of self-deception: the Buddha's liberating teaching of no-self, Rodney Smith, Shambhala Publications, 2010.
from Acknowledgments, Introduction
Spiritual practice is stepping out of the assumed reality of “me” by understanding what the “me” is and withdrawing energy from its perceptual fixations. The Buddha made the realization and integration of anatta (no-self) central to his teaching.
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An essential point will be stated many times in different ways throughout this book, and this is that we must be very careful not to carry the assumption of separation within the practices that have the intended purpose of stepping out of self-deception.
If we do, we will be reinforcing our egoic conditioning and move in the opposite direction of the freedom of the Buddha. Much of my early practice carried this contradiction. My heart genuinely sought the truth, but I conceived of freedom as a very long and arduous process that needed focused determination and hard work. My efforts were directed toward surmounting myself. “I” was the problem and “I” would apply effort toward resolving the difficulty of “me.” Often my teachers spoke of lifetimes necessary to achieve awakening and the long cultivation of mental qualities that freedom depended on. I thought of freedom as something I was working toward but that was not accessible now.
After a few years of strenuous retreating, I ordained as a Buddhist monk and went on a pilgrimage to Bombay, India, in January 1980 to visit the renowned sage Nisargadatta Maharaj.
I was introduced to him years earlier through his book I Am That. After a few days of bantering back and forth about my attachment to being a monk, he said,
“You are like a man holding a flashlight, trying to run beyond its beam. The view you are holding within the methods you are using is undermining your intent.”
“You don’t understand Buddhism,” I retorted. “You do not understand the truth,” he replied. I was righteous, but he was right, and his message stuck. I sat in front of him representing my Buddhist tradition, defending my meditation history, and was prone to look. It was as if we were speaking different languages. As the days unfolded I lost my arrogance and my identification with the Buddhist robes, leaving me naked and exposed. During one of our sessions a shift occurred, and the groundlessness on which he stood was seen.
It changed forever my understanding of Buddhism, and the possibilities of the teaching reached far beyond the limited horizon I had previously set. By directly pointing to the truth, Nisargadatta destroyed my spiritual structure, purpose, and frame of reference.
In their absence, something awoke with an upsurge of energy that seemed impossible to contain. It exploded out with the revelation of where the Buddha was pointing.
The path that Nisargadatta revealed was not a search but a find, not a struggle but an abiding, not a cultivation but something intrinsic to all. I had been committed to the long-enduring mind of practice but not the essence, not the inherent freedom immediately available. From this vantage point there seemed far too much methodology in the Buddhism I had been practicing and not enough release.
The Buddha’s Eightfold Path can either build upon or dismantle the sense-of-self, depending upon how we use it. When aligned within its proper orientation, the path appears like a perfectly formed diamond, each link complementing the beauty of the whole. After my meeting with Nisargadatta, the Buddha’s teaching became breathtaking in its simplicity and elegance. The entire path was, and had always been, accessible. Prolonged retreats in silence or conversations over dinner had the same reference point. Nothing was ever at odds with its opposite. Every practice and action had its place and appropriate time, but never contradicted nor enhanced what was already here. Everything was perfectly together, and every movement arose from that perfection.
from 1.Aligned with Awakening
As Nisargadatta Maharaj said to me in 1980, “If you keep trying to find the Buddha through your individual effort, he will recede further and further away.”
from 3. The view of interconnection
At one point in my bantering with Nisargadatta Maharaj, the Indian sage I visited in 1980, he told me that I could join him in the unconditioned if I had the courage. I asked him how I could do that, and he quickly said, “Oh, I see you don’t have the courage.” Nisargadatta was pointing out that it actually takes more courage to enter the realm where there are no problems, and therefore no problem solver, than it does to solve a problem and maintain our self-position. Having a problem actually defines the self and keeps it occupied within the noble goal of problem solving.
from 7. The effort needed
When Nisargadatta Maharaj invited me to join him in the unknown, he was offering me an invitation toward faith rather than certainty. To join him, I would have to cease cherishing my separation and resist nothing that was being experienced. For some that may seem like too steep a climb, but at least we can hear that there is a possibility of walking out of the maze.
Nisargadatta Maharaj said to me during our exchange, “Instead of trying to obtain truth, just release yourself into it. Let it grab you, and envelop you. This is faith.”
from 9. Action from Emptiness
We are encouraged to watch ourselves, probe, investigate, and understand, but not to act contrary to our assumptions. Integration and transformative spontaneity may become arrested within inaction. When I was with Nisargadatta Maharaj he cajoled, laughed, pitied, and argued in order to try and align my actions with my intentions.
“Why,” he said, “do you sit motionless, endlessly meditating, instead of acting upon what you know? How many times do you have to see it before you are willing to act?”
I had no answer.
from 10. Awakening through Livelihood, Stress and time
I was on a personal retreat at Gaia House in England a few years ago and went down to the library for a little inspired reading. I was perusing the large number of books when randomly my hand selected one and opened it. Initially I had no idea what the book was, but as I began to read, I noticed it sounded familiar, although I still could not place the conversation. I looked at the cover, and the book was a series of dialogues with Nisargadatta Maharaj. The page where the book fell open was a recorded dialogue I had with him in 1980, and until that moment I had not known that book existed or that anything I had ever said to him had been written down.
