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Product Description
Statements such as "there is no self," or "there is only God" are very simple descriptions of ordinary, everyday existence. All that's necessary for understanding them is a clear acknowledgement of your own life experience. Few people ever admit how life actually presents itself. This book points to your most basic experience of existence and asks you to consider what it reveals. Be prepared for surprises. Spontaneously drawn to meditation at age fourteen, Darryl spent the next seventeen years exploring awareness and concentration practices from Eastern and Western traditions. He went on to connect with Jiddu Krishnamurti and Robert Adams, as well as spending nine years apprenticed to mindfulness teacher Ruth Denison and another six years as a Buddhist meditation monk in the Thai forest tradition, under the guidance of Ajahn Sumedho. With these last two he was asked to begin teaching. He is the author of several books including 'Dismantling the Fantasy' also published by Non-Duality Press.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Darryl Bailey is a rare voice in nonduality.
The prevalent trend in satsang circles these days amounts to a form of repackaged idealism. We are told things like "you are the unlimited unbroken witness of all that arises" or "you are the eternal knower." One typical assertion tells us that "In order to claim legitimately that knowing is absent, its absence would have to be known and, by definition, knowing would therefore be present." This type of circular argument is supposed to establish that conscious knowing is never absent - yet all that is confirmed here is something known as the ego-centric predicament. Every time that we look for consciousness, we'll find it - the looking mechanism depends on it. It is a purely dogmatic procedure to then conclude that this conscious witnessing is always the case - unlimited and eternal.
What this type of awareness teaching does is to encourage the seeing through of the separate self... only to replace it with a bigger self - a transcendent eternal witness.
Darryl is having none of this here. There's no dismantling of a fantasy in order to replace it with another one.
Darryl unwaveringly chips away at the unreasonable delusion of an independent, autonomous agent. It's not that 'you' are not separate or are without agency - it's that right now all that can be found is an event - a happening... in real time... THIS! Only the happening exists (so to speak). Anything that we try to pin down or formulate in (and about) this happening is found to be without true substantiality. This insubstantiality (or emptiness of inherent-ness) is totally thorough going. Forms, energies, mental constructions, perceptions and so on are without true enduring substance - and this includes some of our more sacred concepts.
Nonduality is a breathtaking revelation that does not have to entail idealism or solipsism (or the supernatural.) Darryl's clean and clear commitment to the exploration of this ever-fresh event is a rare breath of (ever) fresh air.
The prevalent trend in satsang circles these days amounts to a form of repackaged idealism. We are told things like "you are the unlimited unbroken witness of all that arises" or "you are the eternal knower." One typical assertion tells us that "In order to claim legitimately that knowing is absent, its absence would have to be known and, by definition, knowing would therefore be present." This type of circular argument is supposed to establish that conscious knowing is never absent - yet all that is confirmed here is something known as the ego-centric predicament. Every time that we look for consciousness, we'll find it - the looking mechanism depends on it. It is a purely dogmatic procedure to then conclude that this conscious witnessing is always the case - unlimited and eternal.
What this type of awareness teaching does is to encourage the seeing through of the separate self... only to replace it with a bigger self - a transcendent eternal witness.
Darryl is having none of this here. There's no dismantling of a fantasy in order to replace it with another one.
Darryl unwaveringly chips away at the unreasonable delusion of an independent, autonomous agent. It's not that 'you' are not separate or are without agency - it's that right now all that can be found is an event - a happening... in real time... THIS! Only the happening exists (so to speak). Anything that we try to pin down or formulate in (and about) this happening is found to be without true substantiality. This insubstantiality (or emptiness of inherent-ness) is totally thorough going. Forms, energies, mental constructions, perceptions and so on are without true enduring substance - and this includes some of our more sacred concepts.
Nonduality is a breathtaking revelation that does not have to entail idealism or solipsism (or the supernatural.) Darryl's clean and clear commitment to the exploration of this ever-fresh event is a rare breath of (ever) fresh air.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A wonderfully clear and compassionate book of nonduality, which points gently but relentlessly to the nature of reality as an ever-changing, unformed movement or flux.
This flux appears as a world of separate `things' through the spontaneous arising of thoughts, concepts, boundaries and selves, all of which are essentially illusory and transient.
This idea of separation leads on to further stories such as free will or determinism, or `cause and effect' which would only make sense if the world was truly fragmented.
Seeing through these fantasies leaves just THIS: the inexplicable natural process of life accomplishing itself, with no need to vainly try to change or resist what could not possibly be otherwise.
I love Darryl's analogy of the stories of thought being like the `holiday brochures' of life, which we sit in the hotel reading, when by merely stepping outside we could be in reality itself!
This book expresses the essence of Buddhism, Zen, Advaita and Taoism but without any of the dogma and ideology that is so often a part of the package. Also I have found that terms such as `emptiness' and `nothingness' in some of the more traditional `philosophical' writings can be misleading. Darryl however has a knack for using expressions which resonate simply and effortlessly.
On a personal note, I remember when my father died my well-controlled idea of self blew a fuse and there was no sense of control or understanding left. Strangely I felt like I was simply moving with the much larger flow of life itself. A flow unhindered by trying to know what was going on. There was still grief but everything appeared lighter and less troublesome. I remember at the funeral part of the service included the phrase `a peace that passeth all understanding', and these words took on new meaning as I realised that understanding does indeed have to be `passed' in order for peace to be revealed.
I gradually re-entered the `normal' consciousness of my separate self, with all the associated confusion and suffering. However, reading this book has reminded me of this sense of being life itself, undefined and not limited by the illusion of `knowing'. This time though there is no accompanying grief, just a sense of vibrancy and acceptance of this perfect uncertainty.
There is so much more I am overflowing with but I'll stop now as this is only really a `holiday brochure'!
Needless to say this book has my highest recommendation!
This flux appears as a world of separate `things' through the spontaneous arising of thoughts, concepts, boundaries and selves, all of which are essentially illusory and transient.
This idea of separation leads on to further stories such as free will or determinism, or `cause and effect' which would only make sense if the world was truly fragmented.
Seeing through these fantasies leaves just THIS: the inexplicable natural process of life accomplishing itself, with no need to vainly try to change or resist what could not possibly be otherwise.
I love Darryl's analogy of the stories of thought being like the `holiday brochures' of life, which we sit in the hotel reading, when by merely stepping outside we could be in reality itself!
This book expresses the essence of Buddhism, Zen, Advaita and Taoism but without any of the dogma and ideology that is so often a part of the package. Also I have found that terms such as `emptiness' and `nothingness' in some of the more traditional `philosophical' writings can be misleading. Darryl however has a knack for using expressions which resonate simply and effortlessly.
On a personal note, I remember when my father died my well-controlled idea of self blew a fuse and there was no sense of control or understanding left. Strangely I felt like I was simply moving with the much larger flow of life itself. A flow unhindered by trying to know what was going on. There was still grief but everything appeared lighter and less troublesome. I remember at the funeral part of the service included the phrase `a peace that passeth all understanding', and these words took on new meaning as I realised that understanding does indeed have to be `passed' in order for peace to be revealed.
I gradually re-entered the `normal' consciousness of my separate self, with all the associated confusion and suffering. However, reading this book has reminded me of this sense of being life itself, undefined and not limited by the illusion of `knowing'. This time though there is no accompanying grief, just a sense of vibrancy and acceptance of this perfect uncertainty.
There is so much more I am overflowing with but I'll stop now as this is only really a `holiday brochure'!
Needless to say this book has my highest recommendation!
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a simple explanation of non duality and explains it better than many. None quite on the same life changing, thought provoking, awakening scale as a book like SAti which I give 5 stars to, but nevertheless its a simple attempt to explain the non duality ideas. I read it in a couple of hours and passed it to a friend who also enjoyed it.
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