ID Music: Adyashanti III-V
North America's Gnarliest Mix for not demanding that reality be the way we think it should be
As we bring our five part Adyashanti series1 to a close, I'm doing the thing I've wanted to do since the first time I picked up Falling Into Grace. I’m pruning it.
This isn’t because the book is bad. As I wrote in the first Adyashanti newsletter, it’s one of the most useful books about Zen or Zen-derived concepts in my library. It’s certainly the most marked up! I worked as an editor for years, and still do freelance grant writing and editing projects. It’s a natural tendency that gels with my ADHD. It’s hard for me to stick with doing one activity at a time, so if I’m reading and crossing things out, making notes like “nope” or “use one word, not three words that mean the same thing” in the margins, I’m a lot less antsy.
I knew I was on to something when I’d try and read from Falling Into Grace at morning meditation practice at the Zen Center. Guiding teacher Linc understood the concepts I was talking about pretty quickly, and cautioned me against turning noobs2 off by focusing on the core Buddhist concept3 of “non-self.” Suggesting that P(ositive) M(ental) A(attitude) might actually be harmful for some people is not going to be well-received by other people. As Adya returns to repeatedly in his book, telling people that they’re not who they think they are can be extremely disturbing:
As soon as we imagine ourselves to be somebody separate from everyone else, from the life that we see all around us, we'll naturally have an inner sense that life is something we need to control. In order to stay safe, secure, and separate, we need to control not only ourselves but others, and the circumstances all around us.4
On some level we all know that everyone suffers, and nothing lasts5. But trying to convey that “Daniel Chamberlin” isn’t actually a guy, but is just another thought, is a whole other level. Even without the existential crisis this idea can provoke, it’s a slippery concept. I think that Adya does a wonderful job of explaining it, but the explanation is spread out over 234 pages, and interspersed with stories and asides that might work great when listening to him speak. But as I tried to get to the good stuff I found myself skipping around and getting confused while the handful of dedicated visitors who showed up to our dharma room at 6:30am were starting to look at their watches and hope they could still beat the breakfast rush at the McDo down the street.
Eventually I separated the parts that worked for me from the stories that are Adya’s trademark style6 and came up with the following breakdown. As Dōgen wrote 700 hundred years ago, “Your search among books, sifting and shuffling through other people’s words, may lead you to the depths of knowledge, but it cannot help you to see the reflection of your true self.” This is my attempt to translate Adya’s knowledge into something that I can hear clearly, and then apply to my own practice, both on my cushion and out in the wider world.
When I think of myself in binary terms, as something separate from everyone and everything else, I will want to control those separate things in order to protect myself.
But I don't control anything. I can't even control the thoughts that flow through my mind. Why would I expect to be able to control reality. Why would I hope to force people and circumstances to conform to my thoughts, or my ideas about how life is supposed to be?
My identity – my ego, my self – is a thought. I am not my thoughts. I am not my name. I am not myself. "I" points to the non-self that I am. “Chambo” points to something intangible that exists in a place before thinking happens. I am not a thought. I am something that cannot be contained in a thought. I am something so undefinable that we can only describe it by saying what it is not: non-self. I am something that watches the thoughts.
And then I’ll pass the talking stick back to Adya who really drives the point him in a beautiful and almost concise passage two-thirds of the way through Falling Into Grace’s 234 pages:
Out of this ground of being, what we've seen is that we can't actually look to thoughts to tell us what's ultimately true and real. In this deeper awareness, the way that we use thought and language becomes much more fluid, because we don't have to protect our thoughts. We no longer have to assert our beliefs, which are merely thoughts, in a domineering manner. In other words, the way we speak the thoughts that arise in our mind, and the way we communicate, are done from a much lighter place, because we know that reality is something that arises from beyond thinking. In this way, thinking becomes a way to express ourselves, not a means to demand that reality be the way we think it should be.7
This idea of letting my internal thoughts and external communication exist as an expression, but not a directive, is a tremendous relief. Whether I’m maniacally holding forth on the freedom and joy of being a relatively unknown and financially unsuccessful middle-aged artist in my talk at Death Factory last Sunday; or yelling about fascists in underground metal on the anxiety bird website8; or debating with Wife Rachel about whether or not we should roll the windows down in the car, I have achieved my goal by communicating my thought. Just as my goal with yoga is to be in my body, and my goal with zazen9 is to sit and meditate.
It’s also an illustration of the rest that I find in Joko Beck’s talks about giving up hope, without giving up work. Accepting the reality of a cruel world that is entirely out of my control from the micro to the macro level. From irritation that the bluetooth won’t connect, to the despair of watching powerful entities do nothing as continued waves of preventable suffering and death from Anthropogenic climate violence or the COVID pandemic continue to break on this near shore. Also no attainment, with nothing to attain. Rest in life as it is. Don’t be an asshole. And if you’re juiced up maybe be a little more kind.
Gratitude to Adyashanti for giving me so much to think about. These three episodes of ID Music are pretty mellow, relatively speaking. The final one has some grindcore (with trumpets!) but the other metal is a delightful cover of A-Ha.
And thank you as always to you – wherever you are – for being here and reminding me that I am also not alone.
blessing up and blessing down,
DC
P.S. Rachel and I are heading to Northern New Mexico for a week of wedding celebrations with two beautiful friends. Void Contemplation Tactics will resume transmission upon our return in mid-September. In the meantime you can dig into the archives here on the website, in the Mixcloud archive, or the newsletter-exclusive download library.
If you know anyone who might find value or otherwise enjoy some aspect of Void Contemplation Tactics, please pass it along.
My reach is limited on social media, which I’m increasingly convinced is a good thing. As Dōgen's teacher told10 him, “You don't have to collect many people like clouds. Having many fake practitioners is inferior to having a few genuine practitioners. Choose a small number of true persons of the way and become friends with them.” Or as we used to say at Arthur, “smiles and whispers between those who know.”
ID Music 20220812
North America's Gnarliest Mix for the discovery of no-image
For this week's practice, we'll sit with a soundtrack of didgeridoo-like synth sirens, lap steel improvisations inspired by memories of psychedelic states, and other invitations to slow down and find a comfort from inside you. Our practice begins and comes to an end with Steve Stapleton and Diana Rogerson's soliloquy for their daughter Lilith.
Special thanks to friend-of-the-show Dirndl for coming through to the Death Factory artist talk last Sunday!
We also return to the surprisingly brutal teachings from the spiritual thinker Adyashanti about the freeing practice of letting go of self-images both good and bad.
artist – work
Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith (edit)
Carter Tutti Void - v3
Dirndl - Half-bottle of Old Crow
Gaul Plus - Motorcycle Angel
Trust - Bulbform
AFx - famsubBass
Silky Disturbance - Empress
Olivia Newton-John - Have You Never Been Mellow
Oni Ayhun - OAR003-B
Fever Ray - Mercy Street
Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
Arafat Brigande feat. King Lopo - Whereabouts (Spacebase Version prod. RAS G)
Nurse With Wound - Soliloquy for Lilith (edit)
☸️ Adyashanti - Falling Into Grace
ID Music 20220819
North America's Gnarliest Mix for when our desire to control life causes suffering
For this week's practice, we'll continue our series looking at language from spiritual thinker Adyashanti on how our desire to control life causes us to suffer.
Our soundtrack includes an exceptionally mellow 1974 selection from the Strata East Catalog, "contemplative improvisations at the axis of new age noir, prayer rug jazz, and twilit ambient," "deep and organic techno music, based on Ostinato percussion," and work from the Brussels-based Mexican artist Vica Pacheco exploring "mutation and the energies that are released from new forms of life."
Our practice begins with a letter of gratitude to John Coltrane from Zekkereya El-magharbel, documenting the trombonist's deep appreciation of "the geometric patterns explored by Coltrane [that] abolish tonality, while still preserving a strong functionally harmonic core."
artist – work
Zekkereya El-magharbel - daytimes p.1 (edit)
Theemble Al-Salaam - Peace (Salaam)
Skyminds - Jungle Mist
Vica Pacheco - Las Manos
Black Bones - Nairobi Night Train
Tochra - Senbazuru
The Mars Volta - Blacklight Shine
Zekkereya El-magharbel - daytimes p.2 (edit)
☸️ Adyashanti - Falling Into Grace
ID Music 20220826
North America's Gnarliest Mix for not demanding that reality be the way we think it should be
As we bring our Adyashanti series to a close, I'm condensing a few of the ideas about control that are scattered throughout Falling Into Grace's 234 pages. This sets up the big finale where he delivers some truly beautiful language about using thinking as "a way to express ourselves, not a means to demand that reality be the way we think it should be."
We'll also hear post-Emeralds synth bliss, the trance-inducing buzz filled sound of the obokano, deathgrind trumpets, bass-forward avant-garde pow-wow music, and heavyweight dronegaze covers of British and Norwegian pop songs.
artist – work
Imaginary Softwoods - Innerglow Portal
Grandmaster Masese - Omoraba
Shackleton - The Majestic Yes
Hagop Tchaparian - Raining
EMÆNUEL - Bhadralok
L - Azrini
Joe Rainey - turned engine (feat. Allie Bearhead)
Knoll - Throe of Upheaval
Flying Saucer Attack - The Drowners
Suede - The Power
Nadja - The Sun Always Shines on TV
A-Ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV
Imaginary Softwoods - Aqua Drawer Lamp
☸️ Cosmic Chambo Paraphrases Adyashanti
You can help make Void Contemplation Tactics an emotionally rewarding and/or slightly less unprofitable project by sharing this post, subscribing for free, subscribing for money, and/or purchasing music from the artists we play on the Inter-Dimensional Music airwaves. Breathe deep in the Bandcamp library. And thank you.
Graphic design is my passion, but my visual art practice started out with long-exposure night photography. The image on my parody book’s cover is an outtake from Artificial Night Lighting and Photosynthetic Organisms, a small 2008 student exhibition at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. You can find the full series on my portfolio site.
Zen Mind, Noob’s Mind is a good or maybe terrible name if I ever do a little tract to pass around at my next public thing. © Cosmic Chambo Studio MMXXII it’s mine I own it now so don’t even think about it.
This is one of the the three (or sometimes four) marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, non-self, and sometimes emptiness. Lots more Buddhist number tricknology here.
Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace (Sounds True, 2011), 37.
Along with Ezra Bayda’s “equanimity in discomfort,” and Joko Beck’s “we can rest in life as it is,” Lewis Richmond’s restatement of the Three Marks of Existence as “everything is connected, nothing lasts, and you are not alone” in a 2010 interview with Tricycle Magazine is the teaching I return to most often.
I’ll once again direct the curious reader to similar critiques from the Guru Rating website. E.g. “he strings cliches and phrases together instead of talking in paragraphs.”
Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace, 147.
I’m on Twitter @CosmicChambo. My account is locked for many reasons, and like Inter-Dimensional Music, it is extremely not for everyone. With a private account it’s easier for me to manage my compulsion to check the account constantly, and I’m much more comfortable workshopping ideas. The good ones end up here in Void Contemplation Tactics though, so you’re not missing much. Feel free to DM or request access but you have been warned.
literally "seated meditation"
Okumura Shohaku, The Mountains and Waters Sūtra: A Practitioner's Guide to Dōgen's "Sansuikyo" (Wisdom Publications, 2018).