The Unconditional Way
Believe nothing,
No matter where you read it,
Or who has said it,
Not even if I have said it,
Unless it agrees with your own reason
And your own common sense.
-Buddha
It doesn’t take much to be subconsciously influenced, but it can take much time to uncondition one self once ingrained. It can be tricky not to let yourself be influenced consciously or subconsciously, especially when we doubt ourselves or believe someone else holds the truth we are searching for.
I see many in attempt to expand consciousness, studying various texts, reading a lot of profoundly written books, and diving into many seas of practices and religions in search to attain all they can know. It can become quite exciting to learn another’s understanding within our humble pursuit and may believe this brings us closer to truth, although we may be drifting further from it.
It is wise to know that we need to expand beyond what we presently know, as there is always something to be learned. It is our human essence to search beyond a fixed mindset into infinite understanding, to always ask why and to practice this within our experiences.
Humility says, it is wise to know nothing and it is wise to gain understanding, at the same time wisdom makes sure we are not humbly grasping something just because we think we don’t know it yet.
Perhaps not allowing ourselves be influenced takes both humility and wisdom and perhaps they go hand in hand, as to humbly admit to know nothing in search to know something is wisdom, but something is learned in knowing nothing, experience steps in. If we do not learn from our experiences, experience will continue to throw us for a loop until we do.
Experience is knocking on the door of enlightenment.
Within the many seas of understanding there is one Ocean. There is one collective consciousness, it remains as itself no matter the shape it seems to take hold. We are this as this. In the waves it makes—the crashes and the comforts, the light and the darkness. We can try to learn how to swim, but it is something we were inherently born to do without learning. We forget that we know.
We forget we are consciousness, the ocean.
What happened that made us forget how to swim, proverbially and literally speaking. Who told us or untaught us that we need to learn in a certain way or become something else in order to become ourselves? Did we tell ourselves in comparison of another’s conditioning as truth or did we become conditioned in a way not to by another’s teaching? Is it possible we didn’t forget at all?
As the sea of understanding slaps many truths upon us within the ocean of consciousness, only under the waves of experience that take our breath and hold us down in the weight of awakening waters, remembers (or knows) we are all consciousness. It exists already. Maybe there enlightenment is already waiting for us.
Our knowing is within every deep particle, cell, and core of our essence. It is our being. How could we truly forget if it is us? We may have not been taught to remember ourselves, but at some point in our lives, experience crashes the waves we interpret in their perceivable form and rests in the comfort of its truth in knowing who we truly are and truly exist as.
My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience.”
-Buddha
In other words, experience is our greatest teacher. It is more than comprehending another’s experience, as the wisdom we are searching for from another, is simply their own understanding within their experiences. There is much power in the understanding of unconditionally knowing through our unique essence of being rather than learning another’s.
As a practitioner myself, I guide in an unconditional way to trust yourself and know that you already know subconsciously and allow consciousness to come to light. I have held space as a student/teacher/practitioner in different forms and fashions, however experience lead me to teach in a form to allow an unconditional practice teach ourselves. I set up the structure to allow one to be free, free to listen to the body and breath and movement to find what works for their meditative practice. I feel called to lay the foundation of unconditional practice to guide ourselves in our own meditative way. Call it what you want—As there is no wrong way to do it, nor a one size fits all box. I call this The Unconditional Way.
I’m not saying not to practice Buddhism or study any other form of teaching. I find chanting Buddha’s Sutras powerful, as well as various forms of established breathing techniques and reverently apply them to some of my practices, as these methods can open the door to your own understanding. I am saying to be carful of conditioning. Ask yourself if something someone is teaching or sharing within their experience resonates with you giving you confirmation of your own truth. However I’ve learned to be mindful to not just accept things or adhere to another’s teaching. I found leaning towards those who guide your own knowing as truth and steering away of those who say you have to do anything in a certain way is helpful to direct yourself accordingly. Ultimately what I am saying is that once we learn we don’t have to practice in a certain way in order to become enlightened, might be the very thing that sets liberation free.
This is what Buddha was teaching—Once we listen to our knowing is when we arrive.
Abigail Risica
