LIBRARY

Attention is like fairy dust. We cast it upon the beings, doings, and things that we value. What we care about responds, becoming more alive, energized, and even sparkling.

It’s no wonder that spiritual teachers throughout time have urged aspirants to have clear intentions and focus. Gathered attention has power; and when one’s attention joins another’s or even a whole group’s, attention can be profoundly powerful.

In my teaching, I have consistently offered guided meditations. Each meditation is an opportunity for listeners, and myself, to join our forces of attention to elicit aspects and expressions of wakeful consciousness. These meditations have been informed by my own inner journeys as well as the pointers that I have received from my teachers.

In my youth, I took Paramahansa Yogananda to be my teacher, despite the fact that he had already passed beyond this world in 1952 (several years before I was born). I would listen to those who continued on with his ministry, when they offered instructions in meditation posture and heartful receptivity. I particularly recall the following evocation: Speak to God in the language of your heart repeating, “Reveal Thyself. Reveal Thyself.”

With this simple, short, guided meditation, I was given a means to channel both my love for God and my desire to know God. It helped me attune to my heart’s depth and to become practiced in openly listening and sensing. I became conscious of holy desire, a portal to deeper union with the ground from which the desire to know God arises. It was a conscious experience of desire that differed greatly from my experiences of unconsciously acting upon or suppressing desire.

Many guided meditations aim to bring that which is unconscious into consciousness, as well as to dismantle structures of mind. I was largely exposed to such guided meditations in my years studying with Adyashanti. Assumed reference points were called into question, as he pointed to awareness as a fundamental aspect of Self. In the meditations he guided, Adya would ask, “Does awareness have an age? . . . a gender? . . . an edge, or boundary?” As I listened and came to know awareness more intimately, I felt limiting reference points loosen and default perceptions dissolve.

While these guided meditations were freeing, others pointed to what remains when overlying structures yield or are simply sidestepped. One pointer that Adya has wisely given is to ask, “Is peace present here now, already (before I go looking for it)?” This question redirects attention away from mind, to direct experience in ever-present being.

My own interest when guiding meditations has largely been to keep attention on an atmosphere of deep calm, providing a context into which structures of mind and separate self can let go. I feel this approach connects mind and body and anchors attention and body awareness in nourishing aspects of spirit, including silence, peace, vitality, and spacious freedom.

Guided meditations play an important part in clarifying how one can give the precious gift of attention. They offer means of repatterning how attention is directed. Attention is often filtered through the thinking mind and the me-centric view. Guided meditations point beyond these filters to direct experience and knowledge in being. They offer an avenue, beyond thought and separation, to an atmosphere of peace in which the sense of self or “the meditator” can find ultimate rest in universal consciousness.

If you would like to explore further . . . Open Gate Sangha offers guided meditations as video and audio teachings (for free), and as audio downloads from our online store (for free and varying prices). Follow these links for Adya’s video and audio teachings, and store downloads, and Mukti’s video and audio teachings, and store downloads. Enjoy!

© 2025 by Mukti Gray. All rights reserved.

Healing love comes from an undivided presence. It requires a departure from ego that is based in division and lack. For a love that heals is born of wholeness and of a complete alignment with the truth of circumstances.

Within each one of us is a home for wholeness. It becomes known when we cease looking for a time or a self that is “different,” “improved,” “better.” Coming into wholeness is both a falling into the moment and into essential being. Not an improved being, but a forgotten being that always was and ever shall be a pure expression of the interconnected whole.

In a divided world, based in fears of the future and of “other,” it may be more important than ever to become intimate with the moment and to remember the eternal that is the source of all.

For when one’s consciousness resides in the present, not only in mind but also in body, the light of consciousness fills the spaces of lack. The emptiness becomes warm, shining presence.

With care, and with a courageous curiosity that genuinely wants to see beyond initial conclusions, consciousness meets and embraces the thoughts and feelings that have been held apart, that have waited for its light.

With the gift of our undivided attention, we join. We turn toward, align with, and come to know the hidden essence in what has been suppressed and denied.

We open to the moment, just as it’s unfolding, and discover anew the power of true listening and bearing witness to ourselves and to each other.

Each one of us knows that thoughts can be scary, and feelings can be strong. Do you also know that each of us has been innately empowered with a consciousness, of thought and feeling, that can never be harmed? When we recognize and remember that we are not defined by what we are conscious of, but by consciousness itself, we have powerful choice. We have choice in what thoughts we pull toward us and give our energy to, and those we release and free. We have choice to allow ourselves to feel, knowing that the human heart can yield, giving way to the universal heart that can never be broken—for by its very nature, it has no boundaries.

A choice is continually before us to return again and again to the expression of being that is unbounded and undivided. It takes up what is “broken,” “flawed,” and “wrong” and allows them to be bathed in the healing light of awareness and a consciousness of wholeness.

When wholeness perceives form truly, it sees itself. It does so without resistance, for it inherently knows that nothing can be set apart from the whole. And there is great power in this knowledge, for it transmutes resistance and energizes transformation.

Life seeks transformation in the whole, by the whole. It’s not waiting for death. It is waiting for you. The immeasurable you who is no less for its limitations and no greater for its infinitude.

What will you give the full measure of your attention to this moment? What is here that calls for the light of your awareness? Or is the light of awareness calling you?

Free your mind and open your heart by allowing fixed positions to dissolve. Fall into this moment again and again, and become the healing presence of wholeness that expresses as love.

© Mukti Gray 2024

Devotion is an offering of time, energy, and attention that requires one to give and even to pour out. And while the extended hand is giving, so to speak, it cannot grasp. Grasping arises from a sense of egoic self that is based in lack. True devotion is never founded in lack and therefore has the power to deliver one beyond the strictures of ego-identification.

Devotion to truth becomes possible when one drops the focus on egoic desires and deficiencies, allowing for a direct encounter with what remains in their absence. This direct encounter is a shift from the illusory to the true and real.

At first glance, a desire for the true and real may appear like any other desire that is based in lack. But on closer examination, and by inquiring “What is this?” one can discover that the desire for truth arises as a movement of Consciousness to know Itself. When you turn your attention within and trace the desire for truth back to its root origin, you can experience your human consciousness returning home to the very seat of Consciousness Itself.

This return can be catalyzed all the more when one’s inquiry or fresh curiosity is imbued with devotion. An attitude infused with sincerity when inquiring “What is this?” presents more like “I don’t know (the truth, or where this desire for truth comes from), but I intuit that such knowledge is available, and my heart is fully open and committed to receiving it.”

It is this very openness of heart that gives power to devotion, as openness gives space for fullness to reside. Such fullness is not only a counterpoint to all lack; it is a movement toward unity and wholeness. In unity, self is revealed as the One, the same One expressing as all of life.

© Mukti Gray 2024

Tijdens een interview kreeg ik eens de vraag: ‘Wat is een emotie?’ Er verscheen een brede glimlach op mijn gezicht, en ik antwoordde: “Dat is een raadsel!” Daarna begon ik uit te leggen dat ik emoties heel sterk voel, maar dat het voor mij een raadsel blijft wat ze zijn, een mysterie dat omarmd moet worden.

Zo dadelijk zal ik meer zeggen over het omarmen van het mysterie van de emotie.Voor nu nodig ik je uit om af te gaan op je rechtstreekse ervaring van emotie en mijn observaties te vergelijken met die van jezelf. Een emotie lijkt zich in het begin aan te dienen als een samenballing van energie, die vervolgens waargenomen en geregistreerd wordt als een gevoel. Het woord ‘emotie’ wordt vaak gebruikt als dat waarnemen en voelen een toestand wordt.Vaak vindt er dan een identificatie met die toestand plaats waar bewustzijn zich naar voegt; ‘Ik voel verdriet’ wordt dan ‘Ik ben bedroefd’. Als er sprake is van identificatie raken de ervaring en het gevoel de ervaarder te zijn met elkaar verstrengeld. Als er toegewerkt wordt naar bevrijding, wordt die verstrengeling weer opgeheven.

Onderzoekende vragen als ‘Wie is er dan bedroefd?’ of ‘Wie voelt er dan verdriet?’ worden meestal gesteld om de aandacht weg te halen bij de ervaring en het gevoel de ervaarder te zijn te vervangen (als er geen ervaarder wordt gevonden) of de eigen aanwezigheid te omarmen, vrij van identiteit. Als de identificatie wordt losgelaten, kan de emotie die overblijft helder gezien en geobserveerd worden (als die nog aanwezig is) en kan die innig omarmd worden. Bij het observeren van een emotie kan het zijn dat je er niet uit komt als je probeert vast te stellen wie het is die de emotie ervaart. Maar zelfs zonder subjectgevoel kan er toch sprake zijn van een hele hoop gedachten die tezamen een verhaal vertellen over de emotie. De meeste verhalen versterken de emotie of brengen haar juist tot bedaren, of ze doen het allebei een beetje.

GOED OF FOUT
Ik herinner me nog heel goed hoe Adya mij niet lang nadat we elkaar hadden ontmoet iets duidelijk maakte in een café op een van onze eerste afspraakjes. Ik vertelde hem dat ik die dag nogal geschrok- ken was op het werk. Een leidinggevende met wie ik heel goed door één deur kon en die een soort mentor voor me was werd ontslagen, ondanks het feit dat degene die hem ontsloeg me twee weken daarvoor had verteld wat een goede verkoper mijn leidinggevende was en dat ik heel veel van hem kon leren. Het besluit van die persoon om mijn leidinggevende te vervangen door iemand met meer naamsbekendheid kwam als ‘fout’ op me over. Adya vroeg of hij iets mocht inbrengen dat zou kunnen helpen, en toen ik aangaf dat ik dat fijn zou vinden, zei hij: “In zen wordt ons geleerd om de dingen niet te bekijken in termen van goed of fout.”

Ik had zoiets nog nooit gehoord, of nooit werkelijk gehoord. Ik voelde de onderbouwing van mijn conclusie dat het ‘fout’ was onder me vandaan glijden, en mijn hele verhaal stilvallen. Ik kwam open te staan voor onbekende mogelijkheden. In die open- heid was ik bereid een nieuwe weg in te slaan in het gesprek en te luisteren naar wat Adya nog meer te vertellen had. Als ik erop terugkijk, werd ik een zenleerling op het moment dat ik hoorde wat hij toen zei.

Onderzoeken wat emoties zijn vraagt om een helder doorzien van de etiketten en verhalen die over gevoelens heen gelegd worden. Die overdekkingen hoeven niet meteen afgewezen te worden, maar het kan handig zijn om ze tijdelijk terzijde te leggen om zo een frisse blik te kunnen hanteren. Een emotie omarmen begint vaak bij de eenvoudige erkenning dat er gevoelens aanwezig zijn en jezelf de ruimte geven om te voelen wat er gevoeld wordt zonder dat te koesteren of je ertegen te verzetten. In mijn gesprek met Adya in het café koesterde (versterkte) ik het gevoel van ‘fout’ en verzette ik me ertegen. Zelfs als je merkt dat het een gevoel van verzet is waar het om gaat, kun je ruimte maken voor dat gevoel zonder je te verzetten tegen het feit dat het er is en ervoor openstaan om het met nieuwe ogen te bekijken.

Getuige zijn is kijken door wat ik graag ‘de ogen van de Levenskracht’ noem. Het gaat dan om observeren vanuit dat wat altijd in stilte door jouw ogen heeft gekeken en onophoudelijk getuige is geweest van alle ervaringen in je leven zonder ze in te kaderen in de tijd, voorkeuren of conclusies. Als het verhaal terzijde wordt geschoven en gevoe-lens met zorg en liefde worden waargenomen en beschouwd, krijgen ze de kans om zich energetisch te ontvouwen en uit zichzelf tot uitdrukking te ko-men. Op die manier werken gevoelens en emoties toe naar hun eigen bevrijding, zonder inmenging. Die avond in het café, vele jaren geleden, gaf Adya een weg aan naar emotionele transformatie. Door je bereidheid te tonen en om hen te geven, kan ook jij een model zijn voor anderen door die transformatie in jezelf teweeg te brengen, in het hier en nu.

On this New Year’s Eve, many people the world over will be joining in a chorus of “Happy New Year!” And I imagine just as many are asking how happiness might be revitalized once again. In this new year’s dawning light, I invite you to join me in exploring the nature of happiness, its foundation, and its furtherance.

I imagine most would agree that the happiness we wish for one another is a pleasing state, one of contentment, fullness of being, and even joy. Whatever its degree, from ease to elation, I propose that happiness is founded upon sufficiency, not lack.

It is a core orientation to lack, in oneself or in others, that perpetuates dissatisfaction. Habitually rejecting what is within us, or before us, and seeking “more, better, and different” perpetuates struggle, opposition, and the sense that life is inherently problematic.

When I first heard Adya speak of the nature of egoic seeking, my ears perked up. He conveyed that when a seeker obtains the object of their search, they are only temporarily happy. He proposed that such happiness is due to the absence of seeking in the moment of finding, and not due to the object gained.

The point is to question the dynamics of seeking as well as one’s identity as a seeker. You may find that happiness is fundamentally linked to an absence of the seeker-identity, as well as to an absence of egoic identities in general. Seeing these workings clearly brings new possibilities for responding in moments of resistance and seeking.

Within seeing itself is awareness free of struggle. To reside in freedom from struggle, one must stop. Let personal thoughts, feelings, and the circumstances be, and open to the inherent allowance of pure awareness, which is already free of wrongness and lack.

Return again and again to commune with the sense of what remains, free of unconscious patterns and notions of self. The initial doorway is awareness, free of struggle. At first awareness may appear overly simple. Over time, its allowance and freedom register more and more fully in your mind, heart, and body—your whole being. Embodied awareness is the ground of true satisfaction and, yes, even happiness.

I hope you hear my good news. You are not the seeker. Your true identity and happiness are not bound by the temporal world of gain and loss. Your essential nature is not bound in wrongness and lack. The ground of being, your being, is ever-present, just behind your thoughts, feelings and struggles. It is eternally open, allowing, free, sufficient, and whole. Your communing in and as your eternal nature is my unceasing wish for you, my wish for your happiness.

© Mukti Gray 2023

Change. No change. Both are the comforts and challenges of life. Both can drive the spiritual search, in which permanence and impermanence can be resolved in the knowledge of one’s true nature, in the knowledge of the ground of being, all being.

Open Gate Sangha is amidst change as Adyashanti retires at the end of October and as I come forward as head teacher. For some this change is not so significant. Perhaps because what calls them to Open Gate teachings sounds louder and shines brighter than any particular voice or face of this teaching; perhaps because they’ve solely known Adya from his recorded talks, which continue to remain available; perhaps because they’ve internalized his presence in their minds and hearts so completely that he is more near and alive than he ever has been. Yet for others, this change feels monumental. For them, and perhaps for you, Adya has been their one true teacher, with a connection so exceptional that it can never be replaced. I, myself, have called him “the liberator of my soul” and others have described him like a north star who has changed the course of their life, their destiny.

From wherever you are, I ask you to join me in paying special tribute to Adya at this juncture, to take a tremendous pause and to accede space in your heart, mind, and being in order to deeply feel, honor, and celebrate the brilliance that Adya has been and will forever be.

For myself, Adya is given primary place in my heart, and I bless him going forward. And each heart has capacity for many, with every person or being who finds its place in one’s heart doing so uniquely. As you may know, I was born to two Catholic parents who became interested in the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda when I was quite young. Yogananda had passed on from his body a couple of decades prior. When my exposure to Yogananda’s teachings was new, I told my mother that I did not feel particularly close to him. She told me that I could develop a relationship with Yogananda like I had developed a relationship with Jesus, by speaking to him in my heart and by listening to his words and stories of his life. I followed her advice, and before too long, I associated Yogananda with a felt sense of inner guidance, blessing, and sacred presence. For a good many years, I ascribed the divine presence within me to be Yogananda, and by doing so this presence held my attention, my devotion, and my heart. And the presence within flowered and grew stronger, especially as I attended the ground of peace within.

I share this because I feel the sense of spirit within can often come alight in relationship to a face without—a teacher, a guru, a guide, a lover, a friend. And we can find teachers everywhere, even in some of the people who challenge us most. But a true teacher without, always points to the eternal and essential presence within that has no face, even as it wears many faces. To borrow a sentiment of Yogananda’s, the spiritual aspirant’s task is to discover that the One within you and the One within the guru (or spiritual teacher) is the same One in all of life.

The task of orienting to oneness remains the focus of Open Gate Sangha teachings. Open Gate will continue to make Adyashanti’s and my teachings available to those who are called to peace, truth, and oneness. Our staff and organization continue to be rooted in principles of integrity, sincerity, and loving awareness, and welcome those whose lives are founded in these same principles, and who dedicate themselves to spiritual practice and cultivating depth and clarity.

While the underlying focus and principles at Open Gate Sangha continue, we also begin a new chapter. I envision this next chapter to present the legacy of Adyashanti’s teachings in both similar and new ways. Please read on to learn more about how you can participate. What I’m most excited about is to see how these next years with Open Gate Sangha will contribute to your lives and to the changes occurring in our world.

I encourage you to remain engaged and to dive deeply into spiritual practice. By way of support, we will continue to offer free Wednesday broadcasts and also the Sunday Community Practice program twice a month. One free Wednesday broadcast each month will be a replay of a previous talk by Adyashanti, others will be talks of my own and responses to submitted questions. And during one Sunday Community Practice each month I plan to bring forward a written or spoken teaching of Adyashanti’s and delve into it further by giving commentary and sharings.

We will continue to make Adya’s talks available via our subscription services on YouTube and The Stream. Periodically we will also offer special programs, such as online retreats or talk series, and interviews. And at some point, I would like to offer a light sprinkling of some in-person programs, including retreats.

A deep commitment of my own has been caring for both Adyashanti and this sangha (i.e., community members). Of great importance to me is how Open Gate Sangha’s teachings will carry you and others going forward. Behind the scenes we have been working, as we are able, on a Living Legacy project. Previously unreleased audio and video from our archives are being digitally formatted, making them ready for downloading or streaming. Talks are continuing to be catalogued—described and identified by subject and keywords for greater searchability. We are visioning ways to curate the material for students and practitioners who want to explore specific topics and territories of awakening and embodiment. By building our active library and presenting Adya’s teachings in new ways, we very much hope to keep his presence near and dear, living and potent.

You can be of great support in keeping Open Gate Sangha’s teachings alive. Most important is how you receive and live the teachings, and join others in doing so. And you can join our work by volunteering or by making a donation to the our Living Legacy Fund. We would greatly appreciate your support in making this vision a reality.

Please know that you can continue to send messages to us here . . . perhaps to love bomb Adya, or to share how Open Gate Sangha is making a difference in your life. Thank you for being a part of our circle of community and conscious living, now and ever forward.

© Mukti Gray 2023

When I was a practicing acupuncturist in the ’90s, working in a clinic, I regularly contemplated “What is healing?” In the context of Chinese medicine, I routinely considered how to support energy and its flow, direction, and resilience.

I was new to Adya’s teachings and studying them very actively also at that time. I contemplated the nature of awareness and consciousness and the various states it would flow into and out of . . . flow that also revealed directionality and health or lack thereof. In both the body and mind, when energy and consciousness pulls inwards toward stagnation or contraction, it becomes stuck and blocked. The mental correlation would be concretized and identified.

What I encourage is your own exploration of states of mind as states of conscious energy, energy that can be spacious, fluid, and dynamic as much as it can be contracted, stagnant, and corrosive. This activity of witnessing and exploring states of mind and energy can shift consciousness from a sense of being that’s compulsively personal to a sense of being outside of the conditioned push and pull of desire and aversion.

Now, consider that these pushes and pulls are imbued with a consciousness of their own. A consciousness that insists “Pull!” or “Push!” “Get this!” or “Reject that!” By introducing these directional states to stillness and space, the energies of assertion and denial are supported to entrain and repattern to greater ease, flow, and health  . . a health in which the body thrives and in which the mind clarifies and brightens.

We are conditioned beings. All of life is. Our innate conditioning is patterned to organic rhythms of nature. A primary task of a spiritual practitioner is to steward the conditioning that they experience and express away from ego-identification and toward greater integration with the inherent, organic rhythms and intelligence of life.

One can do so by sensing the space in which patterns arise and take shape and then return to space  . . and through recognizing aware space as the very essence of this life, of this moment.*

In the context of sensing or abiding as aware space, stuck patterns of ego can reharmonize and return to organic rhythms. The release of contracted patterns can even brighten in recognition of aware space. Aware space can be known as the essence forming all patterns and the essence from which all life expressions are never apart.

Meditation is an arena that is conducive to returning to essential being. It can reveal that you are fundamentally aware space appearing as a human being. Over time, meditation can also reveal how aware space can shift from contracting into overly identified, egoic states (of division and separation) to gathering anew in the potency of an incarnation consciously lived. This ever-present opportunity is calling.

*In order to get a sense of aware space, Mukti invites you to read, or reread, a previous teaching that she wrote about meditating on global awareness, called Embodied Awareness.

© Mukti Gray 2023

When Adya suggested “The Way of the Tao” as the theme for this quarterly newsletter, I sat with what I’ve read or been told of the Tao. I also sat with my direct sense of the Tao, known instinctively, intuitively, and in lived experience.

Although the true Tao is beyond words and definitions, I put to pen this summation of my recent reflections: The Tao is the living spirit of the Void, the potent Womb of Emptiness that births a creation, imbued with organic intelligence. This intelligence is ever-reshaping and changing creation in response to its conditions. Yet this intelligence is paradoxically constant in Its dependence upon the forms of the natural world that give Emptiness living consciousness and expression. It is the Stillness that moves all things and that enfolds the return of each to their Source.

When I consider how Taoism can inform our practice, I recognize an invitation to shift away from efforts to establish order, harmony, and peace primarily with the thinking mind. I recognize an invitation to attune to the natural order, inherent in this very moment. To a mind overly preoccupied with defense against chaos, initially this departure from referencing thought can be disconcerting. However, as the mind is directed to attune to the organic rhythms of life successfully managing itself, thoughts can find their place—their notes in the larger orchestra of this moment.

The breath is often a rhythm for the mind to attune to, for its sustaining notes of in-tide and out recall attention to the organic rhythms and intelligence of the natural order. The intelligence born of the Tao that lives in each of us recognizes itself in this natural order, an order that gradually returns harmony to the thinking mind, enfolding it and refreshing it in the ever-new moment.

The sound and movement of each breath, as well as sights, smells, sounds, and vibrations in the environment express the natural order inherent in this very moment. And each of these harmonize with the drone note, or the sustained chord, of Emptiness—expressing as underlying and all-pervading silence and stillness.

In meditation and contemplation, one can attune not only to the natural order of what appears to the senses but also to the “pause notes” and “chord of silent Stillness.” This is all possible when one’s mind eases into a receptive state, such that the song of the moment in its entirety flows into one’s awareness and one’s awareness merges into the moment.

A person’s mind, and a person in general, can develop an appetite for attunement to natural order and to inherent stillness. Thus, many are drawn to time in nature and some to time contemplating an inquiry such as “What is stillness?” or “What is stillness?” or “Stillness is what?”. In meditation, one’s attunement to the pause between sounds or to the pervading silence may result in one’s consciousness merging with Stillness or with the dark velvety empty expression of Void (perhaps most familiarly encountered as one’s consciousness enters sleep). It is in these times of communion that one’s consciousness can come into accordance with the Tao and know the perfume of Its intelligence guiding the course of life.

What a tremendous invitation! Such an invitation is ever available to restore what is out of sync . . . and indeed all notions of ourselves, to the enfolding wisdom of the unfathomable, natural order.

© Mukti Gray 2023

Life is full of twists and turns, falls and crescendos. Even in meditation, one can be faced with a myriad of movements of body and mind, and surfacing emotions or gifts of grace. Born into this world of time and space, we are spatial beings, and we regularly sense for direction and most certainly place . . . for ourselves and nearly all we encounter. When I first heard that to come upon the liberated state was to move beyond the duality of referencing subject and object, I wondered if it was even possible. As I gave time to meditation and my mind began to quiet enough that my powers of observing became clearer, I noticed the initial motions of my thinking mind moving toward the back of my head with thoughts about the past and moving forward with thoughts about the future. I’d observe other consistent spatial pathways, such as movements of mind upward when daydreaming and downward when becoming sleepy. With each movement of mind, my inner gaze—or spotlight of attention—would follow.

At first I would give these movements of mind and attention free reign, intuiting that to resist them would not be conducive to peace. I could feel that holding the body aligned in meditation posture was helping align even the movements of mind. Even so, the movements continued to map thought and experience in a multitude of directions, seeking place, order and understanding for each.

It was the times when I gave the inner gaze a place of its own that peace became more potent. As one to experiment, I’d direct my inner gaze simply forward, at the level one might look out at a vista on the horizon, yet with eyes closed. At other times, I would hold my inner gaze at the third eye. I have also meditated with my eyes open and my gaze toward the distant floor beyond the tip of my nose, as instructed in Zen. In each case I would practice zero strain and repeatedly return when my mind and gaze would wander. Each approach offered nuances of change in the state of body-mind consciousness.

With my body and gaze learning sense of place in meditation, my attention needed the same sense. As I would listen and register the world around me, my attention would slow and unfurl from tracking objects, as it realized it did not have to place them at a spatial distance or outside itself. It began to sense self as unboundaried awareness, an awareness in which the surroundings arise. It began to sense that it need not work so hard to reference all things as objects because it could express as the primary object of aware space in which all things appear.

Meditation has now become a forum to recognize the moment’s pristine simplicity. Even the movements of mind and body notice the peace of this simplicity in contrast to the contractions and complexity of patterning to which they had become habituated in their less conscious states.

This simplicity is available to you now, as ever. It is not of subject or object, although one might say it is of both. Above all, no conclusion or words are needed when the referencing of mind and body settle into simplicity, for in simplicity all find true return.

© Mukti Gray 2022

I once was asked in an interview, “What is an emotion?” Spontaneously, a wide grin spread across my face, and I responded, “That’s a mystery!” I went on to share how I feel emotions very deeply, but what they are remains a mystery, a mystery to be encountered.

I’ll say more about encountering the mystery of emotion soon. Now I invite you to draw upon your direct experience of emotion and to compare my observations with your own. Emotion seems to arise first as a constellation of energy, that is then sensed and registered as feeling. Often the word “emotion” is used when the atmosphere of sensation and feeling become a state. Frequently, the state is then identified with, shaping consciousness; “I feel sadness” becomes “I am sad.” In states of identification, the senses of experience and experiencer are intertwined. In movements toward liberation, this intertwining becomes unlinked.

Inquiries like “Who is sad?” or “Who feels sadness?” are commonly asked to allow the mind to shift focus from the experience and to displace the sense of experiencer (if no experiencer is found) or to encounter presence, free of identity. As identification is relinquished, it is possible to clearly see and observe the remaining emotion (if any does remain) and to intimately encounter it.

In observing emotion, one may come up short when trying to locate who is experiencing emotion. Yet even without a sense of subject, there can still be a host of thoughts that create a narrative about the emotion. Most narratives either stoke or mitigate the emotion, or do some of both.

I clearly remember a statement that Adya made to me not long after we met, while at a café on one of our early dates. I was sharing with him about a shock I’d received at work that day. A boss that I was very close to and a true mentor was let go, despite the person who let him go telling me two weeks earlier what a wonderful salesman my boss was and how I should pay close attention to all that he had to teach me. This same person’s decision to replace my boss with a V.P. of Sales more well-known in the industry, landed as “wrong” in me. Adya asked if he could share something that might help, and when I gladly agreed he said, “In Zen we are taught not to see things in terms of right or wrong.”

I had never heard, or truly heard, such a statement before. I felt the ground shifting out from under my conclusion of “wrong” and my whole narrative coming to a halt. I could sense unknown, open possibility. In that openness, I was available to join in a new direction of conversation and to listen to more of Adya’s sharing. Looking back, it was upon hearing his statement that I became a student of Zen.

Studying emotion involves clearly seeing through labels and narratives overlaid upon feelings. These overlays need not be rejected out of hand, but it can be helpful to suspend them in order to look afresh. Encountering emotion often begins simply with acknowledging that feelings are present and with allowing oneself to feel what is felt without indulgence or resistance. In my conversation with Adya in the café, I was indulging (stoking) and resisting the feeling of “wrong.” Even if the feeling that’s present is noted to be resistance itself, it is possible to allow that feeling without resisting its occurring and with an openness to seeing it anew.

Bearing witness is to see through what I like to call “the eyes of Spirit.” It is to observe with the sense of what has been silently looking through your eyes and witnessing all of the experiences of your life with constancy and without reference to time, preferences, or conclusions.

When narrative is set aside and when feelings are witnessed and regarded with care and love, they are supported to energetically unfold and to express of their own accord. This is how feelings and emotion move toward their own liberation, without interference. Adya modeled and stated a path to emotional transformation that night in the café many years ago. Through willingness and care, you too can be a model for others by engaging this transformation within yourself, in the here and now.

© Mukti Gray 2022