Pure Potentiality: An Adyashanti Inspired Meditation

This meditation is inspired by one in Adyashanti's audiobook, "Guided Meditations." Using a Tibetan singing bowl and gentle words, it is designed to evoke awareness of the divine ground of your being, which Adyashanti calls "pure potentiality" or the "unknown self." If you like this meditation, I highly recommend his books. He has been an important teacher for me. I wish you a calm mind and an awakened heart.

Music by Christopher LLoyd Clarke.
Photo by Jose G. Ortega Castro.

Transcript

Welcome,

My friend.

This meditation on evoking the divine ground of your being is inspired by an audio book by Adyashanti called Guided Meditations,

And he offers it as a supplement to his more foundational practices in that book.

For this meditation,

All you need to do is relax into the words,

Not trying to make anything happen.

Just see what the words evoke within you.

And if you listen to the meditation over time,

Experimenting with it,

You may find that it grows in you,

Calling forth a deeper experience each time.

I've listened to a version of this meditation on Adyashanti's audio book many times over the years,

And I'm amazed by how often I feel I am listening for the first time because it's waking up something new in me with each listen.

There's no bottom to this beautiful meditation.

So let's begin.

Abiding in the divine ground.

Begin by making three commitments to yourself for these few minutes.

The first commitment is to be still,

Let your body settle into a relaxed quiet,

Not moving your body every time your mind wants to move or when you feel a little uncomfortable energy.

So just letting the body remain still and committing to that for the length of the meditation.

The second commitment is to rest in the stillness of the breath.

Let your orientation come vividly into the present moment by resting your attention in your breath in your lower belly,

Allowing the natural and spontaneous process of breathing to gather attention out of the mind,

Out of the externals,

And bring attention inside of yourself.

Start the meditation with a few minutes of watching the breath,

Allowing it to become fluid and soft.

Noticing the presence of inner spaciousness.

Existence tells us that there's actually great space between each perception,

Between each thought,

Between each feeling.

All of your experience swims in a vast field of silent,

Quiet awareness.

The third commitment is to be still.

The third commitment is that when a thought carries you away or you get lost in the mind,

You commit to simply and compassionately returning to the breath.

Delivering your attention into the fluidity of the breath's movement.

By attuning to your breath,

The breath itself can let you know when your mind begins to wander.

It might become heavier,

Denser,

Quicker.

When you sense that shift into thinking,

Just gently call your attention back to here and now back to the breath.

And now letting go of attention to the breath and focusing on the words.

The words that follow are designed to evoke a deep experience of your own being.

Just allow the words to evoke within you whatever they evoke.

The words in this meditation come from the very state they are describing.

So relax and listen to the words the way you might listen to the rainfall outside with great simplicity.

Within all of our experience,

There's something we can call the known self,

The ego,

The surface self.

It's the self that you imagine,

The sense of self that the mind creates,

Created through the mind's own inner dialogue,

The part of your mind that talks to itself about itself.

It might say,

I'm good,

I'm bad,

I'm right,

I'm wrong,

I'm worthy,

I'm unworthy.

And so the story goes,

The inner dialogue that creates an imagined self,

The known self that is known through its own dialogue.

Invite yourself now to go underneath that inner monologue,

Underneath the narrative and enter into the quiet,

Still place deep within.

Let yourself become very still,

Present,

Letting your awareness dip underneath the known self.

Not trying to get rid of it or do anything with it,

But noticing how the ego is just a collection of thoughts and memories and ideas.

Slip underneath,

My friend,

Rest in the field of quiet,

The field of awareness that this known self arises within and then disappears within.

Feel within your experience right now that more spacious sense of awareness,

The awareness that is watching this moment,

That notices the self that you imagined yourself to be.

Relax out of the narrative,

Out of the inner dialogue.

Notice the field of awareness that underlies your experience.

Feel it in your body and all around you as a very quiet presence.

And allow yourself to deeply feel that presence,

That field of open awareness.

That sense of openness,

Of a simple presence of awareness is your unknown self.

Unknown because it has no narrative,

No story.

There is no self that you're supposed to be.

This field of awareness casts no image,

Has no idea of itself.

It is simply the light of awareness.

It might sound strange to call the unknown self a self at all,

But the field of awareness is more intimately you,

More deeply the reality of you than the known self is,

Than the narrative of the mind.

It is more intimately you than anything you can ever think about yourself.

Any self image your mind can project.

This field of openness is not just something you notice,

It is intimately a deeper aspect of you,

A more fundamental description of what you really are.

It's the light of awareness that makes the awareness of this moment possible.

It's the awareness of spaciousness itself,

The awareness of inner stillness and quiet.

It has the quality of witnessing,

Watching.

It's the light of awareness that makes the awareness of the mind possible.

Since it has no form,

You can't see it as you can see the known self.

Can't see it as an image or a thought or even a feeling.

But you can be it.

So let go of trying to see it or know it or hold it and just rest as that field of openness of awareness.

Let the sound of the gong call forth the deeper ground of your being.

Blessings.

Do you see Let each gong evoke the deeper ground of your being,

Calling it forth into your conscious awareness.

Now let yourself go even deeper into your being,

Into yourself.

The light of awareness itself is an emergent quality of this deeper ground.

The deeper ground within you.

This deeper ground is pure potentiality,

Infinite reality.

The substance that becomes everything in your experience.

It's the substance that becomes everything in your experience,

But in its own ground,

Its own simplicity,

Before it becomes anything.

It is just pure potentiality.

You can taste it by noticing the divine darkness deep within you,

That beautiful pregnant void that your mind cannot touch or imagine,

That gives birth to awareness,

But is itself indescribable.

Remember you are not trying to make anything happen,

Just see what the words evoke.

Let go of imagination,

Completely let go of trying to see it as an object.

This divine ground is sometimes called the unborn because it is prior to any manifestation,

Yet is the source and substance of everything.

Intuitively feel how everything within you,

Every feeling and perception and experience,

Even the most subtle,

Have their energetic root in the unknown,

Rooted in this divine ground,

This infinity of darkness,

Known in quantum physics as the field.

Everything is rooted into this deep mysterious ground within you.

Allow that sense,

The intuition of the ground of your being,

To present itself into consciousness in whatever way it wants to present itself at this moment.

Notice that even as occasional thoughts or feelings may pass through,

This deepest ground of your being in itself is not a thought.

This ground is not thinking,

It is completely beyond the mind,

Beyond everything you feel.

Everything you feel in this moment is rooted into that ground,

Into that inner infinity,

But that ground itself is not a feeling.

It's deeper than feeling,

More fundamental.

It's deeper than experience.

It is both beyond description,

Yet vividly present,

Vividly here,

Vividly aware of itself.

Notice that this deep inner quiet,

The quietness beyond quietness,

Is intimately present,

Not separate from any experience.

It has no resistance,

No grasping,

No aversion,

No preference.

Now to help ground this meditation into your being,

Once again return to noticing the breath.

Gently include the breath and the body back into awareness.

Notice the seamless continuity from this well of deep silence,

This deep well of the unknown ground and your physical form,

They are not separate from one another.

Your body,

Your physical existence is a manifestation of that ground.

Each breath breathes from and into that ground.

All is included.

Everything is forsaken in the deepest ground of your being.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be at peace.

May all beings be free.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be at peace.

May all beings be free.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be at peace.

May all beings be free.

May all beings be free.

Reviews

Superb- the deepest meditation I have ever experienced. I love this

through this experience witness the beauty and freedom of reality. words can not describe.

This meditation helped me to reach into the deepest space of awareness I ever have. It brought clarity into my next areas of study to arrive at my next level of consciousness. Thank you 🙏🏾!

Had an amazing visionary experience after the meditation ended.

Thank you. I will return to this meditation again and again