In our journey towards freedom, we draw inspiration from the eastern wisdom traditions. None of these practices rely on dogma or ritual. We study and practice what the Buddha taught as well as apply the teachings of the way of the Dao, which predates buddhism and gather strength from the elegance of the Dzogchen school of thought. All of these ideologies promote a thorough evaluation of our reality, shorn of a reliance on just knowledge or conceptualization. In being guided by these ways, all you really need is the ability to question. To question your assumptions, your conditioning and your moment to moment experience of all that you encounter.
In starting the journey to ending the self and to freedom, consider and spend some time with the following questions:
What about your experiences is constant or stable?
What about your experiences is satisfying in a lasting way?
What about your experiences is under your control?
In contemplating these questions, you might think that some of your experiences are satisfying like say eating good food. But is it? How long does the satisfaction last? A holiday? Again, for how long? And if you contemplate even further, aging is unsatisfying, sickness is unsatisfying, not getting what you want is unsatisfying, being separated from what gives pleasure is unsatisfying and contact with what is unpleasurable is unsatisfying! The realization that everything is actually unsatisfying does not need to be discouraging. Think about all the energy and time you spend in chasing after what will ultimately change and end. The realization that this is so, that all things are unsatisfying is actually very liberating, because this leads to stopping expecting things to please, to provide lasting happiness. And this helps us to be at peace with all things. If this truth is really seen, there is the generation of joy that doesn’t rely on any circumstance.
About control, you might think that say bending your arm is an experience that is under your control. However, a little deeper contemplation reveals that you are in no way in control of even the presence or the arising of your arm! What role did you play in giving rise to the arm that you are now bending? Also, you might have an accident or an illness and lose control of your arm’s movement. What then? Do you ultimately have any control over something as basic as even your arm? Similarly, which experience is actually controllable? It might appear that way, but all experiences are actually beyond our control. We just think that they are! Everything arises and ceases. Everything is inconstant and impermanent, most of all, our experiences like our thoughts, feelings and sensations. Are your thoughts and sensations yours to control?
Such is the simple truth that the Buddha saw. That all phenomena are inconstant and impermanent, ultimately unsatisfying and not ours to claim or under our control. This is not dogma or religion. A few moments of contemplation will reveal that they are the truth.