Stop Chasing Peak States (Awakening Is Closer)

In this dharma talk, we explore one of the most misunderstood traps on the spiritual path: chasing peak experiences and mistaking them for awakening.

Bliss, euphoria, awe - these states come and go - they are temporary. But what is it that always remains? Before the bliss? During the bliss? After the bliss?

Are we overlooking the quiet knowing or awareness of these experiences in our chase to have them?

Awakening isn’t becoming something new. It’s recognizing what never left.

Please note: This track was recorded live.

Transcript

A common quote in Buddhism,

Or a familiar quote in Buddhism,

That says,

If you see the Buddha on the road,

You should kill him.

Sounds rather shocking.

It sounds kind of like a violent quote.

But what the words are pointing to are that if you see the Buddha on the road,

If you see the Buddha as something outside of you,

Something separate from you,

Something different from you,

Then you are imagining that you are not a Buddha,

And that becoming a Buddha has become a concept,

An idea of something,

And you should immediately kill that concept.

You should immediately kill that idea.

And so we talk about this a lot here on the spiritual path.

We talk about it in our Dharma talks,

That this is not a path of becoming something.

It's not a path of attaining something.

It's not a path of addition.

It's a path of subtraction,

Of negation,

Of seeing what we are not,

So that what we are can be revealed.

And so,

The last few weeks,

Where we've been working with these mantras,

The peace is not chasing,

Comparing,

Resisting,

Judging,

The narrating,

What we've been doing is really seeing how the separate self constructs itself.

Right?

When I think about,

I want something,

I'll be so happy when I get over there.

And then in those thoughts is a little thought created me that all of my attention goes to,

That if I can just get there,

I'll be so happy.

And in identifying with the thought created me,

Giving all of our attention to this,

We miss seeing the reality of what we are.

We completely just overlook it.

And so,

The mechanism of how the separate self constructs itself is very clever,

And it's very persistent.

So,

We've seen,

And we've talked about many times,

How all of us have had the experience of chasing happiness in the external world,

In the material world,

Looking for success,

For recognition,

For praise,

For new material objects,

For new experiences.

We've all done that.

Right?

And it's really what brought us on a spiritual path,

Because we thought,

Well,

I'm not finding the peace and happiness that I'm looking for.

I'm doing all these things,

But it just,

I get it.

And then that happiness just kind of falls right through my fingers.

And then very cleverly,

The separate self reinvents itself on the spiritual path,

As we've talked about,

Where it now becomes a spiritual,

You know,

The ego becomes spiritual,

Right?

And it starts chasing new,

It chases the teachings,

It chases new books,

It chases new teachers,

It chases retreats.

It wants to look more spiritual.

Maybe we want to change our name.

Maybe we want to get the OM license plate,

Right?

We're kind of trying to add on spirituality to ourselves.

And now we've really,

What we're doing is really chasing spiritual materialism.

And we've talked about that,

How it's just the same separate self,

Just now disguising itself as spirituality.

But then it reinvents itself again.

And now it's chasing peak spiritual experiences,

The bliss,

The euphoria,

The wonder,

The awe,

The ecstasy.

And then at the same time resisting anything that's ordinary,

Anything that's mundane,

Anything that appears to be unspiritual.

And so we kind of prop up this idea that,

No,

No,

No,

This is what spirituality is,

This is what the end goal is,

It's the state of bliss.

And therefore anything less than that is not it.

And I do think that probably everyone has had spiritual experiences,

These peak experiences,

Whether you would even describe it as a spiritual experience or not.

You've had these moments of awe and wonder and the bliss and the euphoria that comes with it.

And so I think we can all relate to that.

And I do think in particular,

Though,

On the spiritual path where we do tend to label it as a spiritual experience,

What generally precedes it is a great deal of suffering,

A great deal of being really wound up,

A lot of contraction,

A lot of tension,

A lot of really being lost in our suffering and believing the story of me in that moment.

It's so believable and it's so real.

And then something happens,

Some insight comes in,

Something just happens,

And the whole thing unravels.

And there's this big expansion,

Right?

Because we were so tight,

We were in this little ball,

And now it just unravels.

And there's this big expansion,

And there is this sense of just relief and the sense of euphoria and the sense of bliss and wonder and just this feeling of like,

Ah,

Yes,

This is it.

This is what the spiritual experience is.

This is enlightenment.

This is awakening.

Then after a little while,

The bliss starts to fade and the euphoria starts to fade and the wonder and the awe all starts to fade because these are all temporary experiences.

And then very cleverly,

The separate self comes in and it says,

I had it.

It didn't have it.

It wasn't there for it.

But now it's claiming I had it and now I've lost it.

And now I've got to get it back.

And on goes the search for awakening,

Enlightenment as something outside of me,

As something separate from me.

And in the search for the me that's going to be enlightened,

The search for the me that's out there somewhere that I could just get it back,

We are distracting ourselves once again from what has always been here.

We completely miss it once again.

The knowing that was here before the peak experience,

The knowing that's here in the peak experience,

The knowing that remains when the peak experience disappears,

The knowing that is here through all experience,

Unpleasant experiences arising,

Passing away,

And the knowing of it,

Pleasant experiences arising and passing away,

And the knowing of it,

The field of awareness in which all experience is taking place.

The awareness,

When we ask ourselves,

Am I aware,

That feels,

And I'll just,

The awareness doesn't move,

But it feels like when we ask ourselves,

Am I aware,

Or what is it that's knowing this experience right now,

That it feels like the awareness goes from the background to the foreground,

That all of a sudden we're aware of something,

Not a thing,

But the awareness,

The resting in awareness that was always here,

Now all of a sudden it kind of moves from the background to the foreground.

Every time we ask,

Am I aware,

What is it that knows this experience?

What is it that knows hearing?

What is it that knows seeing?

That there is this field of awareness that is always here,

That doesn't come and go,

That experience comes and goes,

But the field of awareness is what this is all happening in.

And I know we have to be careful here,

Because the mind immediately wants to turn this into a concept,

The mind immediately wants to claim it,

Right,

The separate self here,

Sorry,

Wants to claim it,

Oh,

I am awareness,

That's what I'm saying,

I am awareness,

Turning this into a thing again.

And we have to be so careful here,

Because the mind can't know this,

This is before mind,

Mind is an activity,

A process,

Thoughts,

Images,

Concepts,

Mind arises,

It's arising within something,

Not a thing,

Within the field of awareness.

And every time that we check,

And we say,

We ask ourselves,

Am I aware?

We never can come back and say,

No,

No,

It's always there,

Not separate from experience,

Right,

Not separate in that,

Just as a wave is not separate from the ocean,

Right,

But the wave kind of having a form,

Right,

But not separate from the ocean.

So the,

The experiences that are happening,

That are coming and going,

Are not separate from the knowing of them.

But the experiences do come and go,

They are impermanent,

This is what we keep identifying with,

The experience,

Which is just coming and going,

And missing what is always here,

What has never left,

What is so close and so familiar,

And yet we completely miss it,

Because we are looking for the bells and the whistles,

We're looking for this extraordinary experience.

And we're missing the quiet knowing that is always here.

And that doesn't mean that,

Of course,

As experience arises,

Pleasant experiences,

Unpleasant experiences arise.

There is something sentient here,

Right,

A little different where the wave analogy falls down,

There is something sentient here,

Feeling something that,

Not a thing,

But there are feelings arising here,

Thinking arising here,

But no one behind it,

Where we identify with,

What we identify with.

And in recognizing the awareness that is always here,

The knowing of experience,

The knowing of the hearing,

The knowing of the seeing,

In the recognizing of this,

We give room for the experiences to arise and pass away without getting attached to them,

Without creating an identity around the experience,

The temporary unfolding experience.

So if it's a pleasant experience,

If it's a euphoric state,

If it's a blissful state,

Not getting attached to it,

Not claiming it,

Not identifying with it,

And really allowing ourselves to fully feel it,

Like,

Yay,

Enjoy it,

Feels good,

Or just a nice cup of latte,

Or the chocolate cake,

Or,

You know,

Whatever the experience is that's arising,

Like,

Yes,

Pleasant feelings arising,

But there's not an identification with it anymore.

Because there's a knowing that,

No,

There is something here,

That is always here,

The awareness,

The field of awareness that all of this is taking place in,

The knowing of experience.

And if it's the unpleasant experience that's arising,

The unpleasant feelings,

There's not indifference to the unpleasant feelings,

Simply because we know that our true nature is this field of awareness,

This knowing,

There's not indifference to the unpleasantness,

There's just not the identification with it.

Unpleasant feelings arising,

Feeling down arising,

Feeling sad arising,

Feeling disappointment arising,

And passing,

Nothing there to cling on to,

So we're not identifying with it any longer,

We're not creating suffering around it any longer.

And we're not looking outside of ourselves for what we think this is.

We're no longer looking for the peak experience,

Which is fleeting,

Which comes and goes,

And we can create a lot of stress and a lot of suffering and spend a lot of money trying to find these peak experiences that simply come and go.

And in knowing,

It's like,

What is it here that's knowing this,

Recognizing that in the knowing is the ease,

Is the absence of the struggle,

Is the peace,

That experience can come and go,

But this isn't what we're chasing,

That we allow experience to unfold,

To come and go,

But without chasing any of it,

Without making an identity out of it,

Without thinking that what we are doing on the spiritual path is trying to get to some experience,

Some state,

And then get it to stay there,

Because it will never stay.

And that's not our true nature.

So,

When we ask the question,

Am I aware?

What is this that knows a feeling,

That knows hearing,

That knows seeing?

What is this that is knowing this experience?

Now,

We're looking in the right place for what we have been looking for the whole time on the spiritual path.

It's like we're running around the house,

And we're looking for our glasses,

And we're running into every room,

And we're opening every drawer,

And then eventually we kind of,

Oh,

Hang on,

Are they on my head?

Right?

We tap our head.

Oh,

Yeah,

There they are.

Right?

And it's not wrong that we were looking for the glasses,

But we were looking in the wrong place.

It was so much closer than we realized,

But because we are looking for the peak spiritual experience,

Because we are looking for the harps and the angels singing,

And we imagine this to be something,

This grand super experience,

We miss seeing what is always here,

The natural awareness,

The knowing of experience.

And so,

When we think about the mantras that we've been using,

Peace is not chasing,

Peace is not resisting,

We can remember to include in the chasing that it's not the chasing of the peak spiritual experience.

It's not the chasing in anything outside of us.

There is nothing that becomes enlightened.

No one awakens.

Right?

And the peak experiences,

The blissful,

The awe,

The wonder,

Those experiences will still come and go.

But we recognize we're not attaching this as kind of some end state in spirituality,

And then missing what's already here,

What never left us.

Or on the other side of that,

Then,

And the peace is not resisting,

To remember to include.

And we did talk about,

You know,

How we do resist the neutral moments.

But now,

Again,

It's so clever,

It kind of says,

But no,

But this is a more spiritual moment.

If I'm at the monastery,

It's more spiritual.

If I'm in nature,

It's more spiritual.

If I'm at home,

Doing the dishes,

Doing the laundry,

Like that's not spiritual.

Right?

And so how we push back on all these ordinary moments,

The knowing is still here,

The awareness didn't leave us.

And yet we've already shot over,

We're looking for something else.

We're already looking for something else.

So in recognizing,

In recognizing the chasing of the peak and the resisting of the,

Of what we consider to be the ordinary,

The mundane moments,

In recognizing that we bring in mindfulness,

Right?

All of a sudden,

There's mindfulness of it,

We're noticing it,

Right?

And through mindfulness,

We identify less,

Right?

The identification starts to fall away,

There's a more of a sense of relaxing into the body of being with what's here.

And then we go one step further.

What is it?

That knows this experience?

What is it that's knowing this experience?

And in our attention,

Then kind of,

You know,

Again,

Turning away from the separate self and kind of turning more towards the knowing that has always been here.

And just a resting in the knowing.

Now we've gone that,

We've,

We've,

We haven't just come into being with what's here in the moment,

This experience,

We've gone one more step in the knowing of the experience.

And it's like,

If you think about with the camera,

If our,

If our focus is very narrow,

Let's say we're lost in our thoughts,

We're lost in the separate self,

Lost in the thinking,

Our,

The,

The lens is very narrow on something.

And then mindfulness comes in,

And it starts to open up the lens,

Right?

Open up the,

I think the aperture,

Right?

So now we're kind of,

Ah,

Yes,

There's not just the me that needs to get something,

There's,

Ah,

There's feelings here,

There's sights here,

There's hearing here,

There's,

There's,

There's,

You know,

We,

We start to come more directly into our experience.

There's,

There's a,

Ah,

You know,

Feeling,

Hearing,

Touching,

Tasting,

Smelling here,

Seeing,

Right?

So we're,

We're not in the story anymore.

And there is more of a direct experience.

But in asking the question,

What is it that knows this?

What is it that's knowing?

What is it that's aware of this experience?

Now we,

We almost,

It's as if we're walking behind the camera now and saying,

What's looking through the lens?

Now we're really looking at what is looking through the lens.

And as St.

Francis of Assisi says,

What's looking is what you are looking for.

It never left you.

It never was separate from you.

It was never something that you needed to attain,

That you had to do a million things to be more purified,

Or do all these mantras,

Or do all these prostrations to finally feel worthy of this.

It never left you.

What's looking is what we are looking for.

It's so close,

It's so intimate that we completely miss it.

But in that simple recognition of the what's looking,

The what's knowing,

And I'm trying to use just different ways of expressing the same thing,

In that recognition,

The identification with anything else softens.

Things can come and go,

But there's just no identification with the,

With the experience as it comes and goes.

There's no solid center at the center of us that's all contracted around it,

Right?

There's a more of a sense of openness and spaciousness because in the knowing,

There are no boundaries.

There are no boundaries,

Right?

There is an openness to it for all experience to be able to take place,

For it to all come,

You know,

Arise in and pass away.

And,

And because it's so ordinary,

It's so close,

It never left us.

Life very much looks the same as it did before the recognition.

As they say in Zen,

Before enlightenment,

Chop wood,

Carry water.

After enlightenment,

Chop wood,

Carry water.

Right?

There isn't,

It's not this,

You know,

We imagine this as this massive transformation.

All of a sudden,

We're floating everywhere and we have this new aura and everyone notices this,

Notices that we're this special being now.

That's the ego's idea.

Of what enlightenment is and the ego isn't here for it.

But what does change is just this inner freedom.

That the struggle is absent.

There's no longer a struggle in life.

We stop identifying with things that are just temporarily passing through,

Because that's not our true nature.

It's,

It's coming and going and coming and going.

We're,

We keep grasping and grasping and grasping and it keeps falling through our hands and we keep wondering,

Why do I suffer?

Why do I suffer?

Because that's not who you are.

The ultimate nature,

The ultimate nature.

Conventionally,

Yes,

There is,

There is an appearance of Meredith,

An interdependent,

Impermanent,

Interconnected,

Arising and changing,

Changing moment by moment by moment.

And all of this is happening in this field of awareness that never leaves.

And so the,

The,

The change that we perceive,

It's not huge,

It's not huge.

It can feel huge if we've come out of a lot of suffering,

But don't mistake the bliss,

The euphoria,

For the recognition of what was already here.

That's what we mistake.

It's,

It's just this quiet knowing,

Quiet awareness.

That we can check anytime.

You don't need to go to India.

You don't need to meditate for 20 hours a day.

Am I aware?

What is it that's knowing this experience?

And now we're asking the question in a way that's looking for what's looking.

And there's just a,

It's very quiet.

There's a sense of ease,

Of peace,

Because there's no struggle in it.

And there's no struggle against whatever experiences arising.

Unpleasant feelings arising,

You're fully there with the unpleasant feelings.

They're not going to last.

They come and they go.

No making,

No making an identity out of it.

The pleasant experiences come,

We enjoy them,

Yes.

Pleasant experiences arising,

No making an identity out of it.

Ah,

Now I've got it.

That's just the separate self coming in again to claim it and to continue,

To continue kind of pulling us along as though what we are doing out,

What we are doing on the spiritual path is looking for something outside of us.

It was never separate from us.

It's so simple that we overlook it.

It's so ordinary in many ways that we simply overlook it.

And this is why they say,

If you see the Buddha on the road,

Kill him.

Because Buddha was never something separate from you.

It was never something for us to attain,

But we have mistaken bliss,

Euphoria,

Peak states for enlightenment.

And if that's what we continue to think enlightenment is,

We will never see,

We will never notice,

Or we will never notice what it is that's looking,

What it is that's knowing.

The resting as just allowing things to arise and pass away,

Not to avoid life,

Not to go to nihilism,

Not to deny that there's a sentient being here that's having an appearance for who knows how long,

So far almost 61 years,

We'll see how much longer it lasts.

But this,

Whatever it is here,

Is always changing,

Always changing.

But there is the awareness that this is happening in is never changing.

And so with direct inquiry,

When we're asking these questions,

Just like we do with the self-inquiry questions,

When we ask,

What is it,

Or from where does that I thought arise?

Who is the owner of those thoughts?

When we ask those questions,

It's not meant to have an intellectual answer,

It's meant to silence the mind,

To bypass the mind.

The mind can't get this.

The mind won't get this.

And you might find some resistance in the mind right now to it,

Because it can't get it.

It can take us so far,

But it can't get this.

And yet,

Every time you ask the question,

In pulling your attention to what it is that's looking,

And what appears,

As I was in the background,

Coming to the foreground,

In that sense,

There's a resting in the openness and the spaciousness of awareness,

In the ease,

In the absence of the struggle,

In the absence of the struggle.

There is so much struggle in spirituality,

In trying to get something,

In trying to get somewhere,

In attaching to different experiences,

And we are simply missing the mark.

We are missing the mark.

So,

This talk is just a reminder,

A reminder for us that what we are looking for is not outside of us.

And yet,

Every time we go looking outside of us,

We're missing what it is that's here.

What's looking is what you're looking for.

Thank you.

Reviews

With deep gratitude and love, Meredith La 🪷🙏💖🙏🪷

Very clear and well said Meredith 🦋🥰