The Emptiness of Preferences (Excerpt) 

“Our lives ARE a sand mandala....and a cosmic sweep comes along..” Love that perspective of the beauty of the journey, the focus on the present moment and the impermanence of it all. Freeing!

No matter what Adya speaks about there is always a peaceful joy felt inside.

Enjoying the process, over outcome, is the spirit I bring to making dinner and feeding my family. Hours spent on a meal, only for it to be eaten and enjoyed within 20 mins ❤️🙏🏻

Whatever you r doing do it in a beautiful way ❤

"Whatever you do, do it in a beautiful way." Uhhhh...that got me. Thank you.

We might see a lot of chaos in the world today, but I also see an emergence of light coming from all of you too. It’s an amazing thing to witness so many people awakened and trying to bring more light to the world. Keep on keeping on, everyone!

✨ Beautifully reflected 🙏

Hi Adya. The translation I have, translated by Richard Clarke, reads: "The great way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences." he takes your well expressed point.

It is all about not being attached to outcomes.

Funny how Adya always seems to say exactly what I need to hear. Thank you Open Gate.

"maintain some connection to the beauty of existence..."...yes, so staying in fullness of truth. Thank you, thank you, thank you.💓

This teacher is a blessIng to my life. Sooo grateful to the wisdom. I got my priorities straightened due to this channel.

This reassured me a lot. Believe it or not one of the things that has stopped me stepping over that _line_ in meditation, is that I might stop liking my favourite music, or lose my sense of humour. It sounds pathetic but my life as its been from conditioning has heavily relied on my love of music to get through it.

Thank you! Its been so hard to retain the connection to the beauty this year, and for the first time this made me remember. Not to think I've lost it. But it's all a circle, our lowest and highest always meet. It's not hopeless!

12:00 When he started talking about the conversation having good intentions it reminded me of the quote 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

“...to retain some connection with the beauty of existence.” Boom.

often overwhelmed by your beauty Adya...SO grateful for your presence on this planet and that I am blessed enough to have you in my sphere.

Sand mandalas are a profound object lesson to me that I often return to as a metaphor for skillful attitude.

🍁🍂 Buddha teachings are powerful 🤞🏻🍃

Heartfully engaged in whatever we are doing💜🙏👌👏👏👏👏👏

I love this line from Conversations with God: Desire Everything - Need Nothing - Choose what shows up

Omg this is perfect 👌🏾 (thank you!) 🙏🏽

I chant this translation, and I love it... The Great Way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose. When pref'rences are cast aside the Way stands clear and undisguised. But even slight distinctions made set earth and heaven far apart. If you would clearly see the truth, discard opinions pro and con.

This is so beautiful 😍

"But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice." Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Amazing that it showed up in my feed. Needed this. Thank you! :)

Adya' mah boy, this is tops. Subbed.

one quality this man have is he is not talking in absolute this make it very clear how you can practise it and at the same time it create a equal relation as showed here in this conversation it also is the way i think It’s not about having no preferences. It’s that you hold them with a kind of lightness.

Just being present at all time🤩😀🥰😘

I trust Ady.

Namaste master Adyashanti ❤️🤗

great!

♥️🦋

🙏

I wonder if it’s possible to truly have no preferences, in the sense of being equally content with, for example, undergoing the most horrific torture possible and having a nice dinner with friends? Your initial reaction might be something like: “Of course not. The level of contentment in those situations would be vastly different, even in the case of an enlightened being.” But if all suffering has been eradicated for good (which is the defining characteristic of enlightenment imo), then how can there be differing levels of contentment across situations? According to Buddhism, the complete eradication of suffering is in fact possible, but if it is so (and I am substantially skeptical of this claim), I imagine that only a very select few have managed to “attain” such a “state.” If push came to shove, and these supposedly “self-realised” non-duality teachers were exposed to prolonged, excruciating pain, I’d be willing to bet that almost all of them would suffer in some way. Such an experience may prompt the consideration that there is “further to go,” thus spurring them on to actual liberation, rather than the liberation that one can fool themselves into thinking they have attained when in a cozy, relatively pain-free situation.

Amazing. Thanks a lot

"The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences over values of things" Me ;)

Chinese version"無人相，我相，眾生相，壽者相，” be translated into Japaness is" Non male, non female, Non god, non devil" that means it is not anything, at same time, it is anything.

😀

desire tells you who you are ☝️

Just saw that likes so far are 444!!. Bless!..🙏🌷

Yes when it comes to neutral actions such as deciding to eat an apple versus an orange then those preferences are ok and don't need to be debated. But when it comes to actions which cause suffering such as eating meat then it's not a neutral action anymore. In that case an animal mom will say something. I will say go whole food vegan to end the suffering. Not everything is relativist. The world we live in is our responsibility and a compassionate person speaks out and in cases of emergency I intercept.

I do have an attachment to the outcome. But I always try to engage in a goal with a self observing mind. I try to fight for something with integrity but when it is becoming obvious that I cannot reach a goal or change an outcome I want to be able to accept that eventually. If I want peace and freedom, I need to find a way to accept what seems to be not acceptable.

And non-attachment to preferences.

Is there a purpose of having a conscience.......Or is it just a mechanism of the ego?

Well the reaction of the kid is kind of the point of that mandala...😁

Emptiness could not translated into "空“， I prefer to translate "空“ as "existence", like "quantum", is it non-existent or existent?

You just say.