Dorothy Hunt on The Heart of Awareness

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dorothy Hunt, who serves as spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sanka, teaching the spiritual lineage of Addy Ashanti, who invited her to

share in the Dharma in two thousand four. Dorothy is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy and has practiced since nineteen sixty seven. Her published works include Only This and Leaves from Moon Mountain. Her new book is Ending the Search from Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness. Hi, Dorothy, Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Eric. You're the author of a book called Ending the Search from Spiritual Ambition to

the Heart of Awareness. And I'm really excited to jump in and talk more about the book. But we'll start like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her grandson and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about

it for a second. He looks up at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Sure well, I have various ways that I might look at that parable. I mean, the most obvious one is that reality to me is whole, the wholeness of being, So we're going to have everything that is in the

wholeness of being. So you know, in that sense, the one is whole, you know, and the and the one that I would call reality or what's most deeply true about us, UM is actually we feeding us with its own awareness, its own experience, its own really love of being. You know, I think that's why we must have this world and our lives. That's something in us being itself really just loves to be and it can be everything. That being said, you know, it's this infinite potential that

could be anything. And UM as such, you know, we carry the seeds of everything within us. So we have the seeds of kindness and compassion and awakening and love and all of that, and then we have seeds of hatred and greed and fear and um, all those so called negative things. And really we get to see which ones we water, you know, which seeds we want to water with our attention, because anything that we give attention to,

we give reality to. There are millions of things happening right now in the world, but you and I are giving our attention to this conversation. So UM it's true. It's those seeds that are in us, and so often we're apt to just project the negative to other people and say, well, it's them that's the problem, you know, us and them, without really realizing that we wouldn't see it over there if it weren't in ourselves. So it's kind of a humbling process. Um, this thing called awakening

to see that everything is an inside job. But it's an all. It's an inside job in the sense of, you know, what's what's out there is in here. Um. It may not be expressed in the same way because we have these very unique expressions, but but there's something that's awake to the whole show, and and to me, that's that's where that the deeper dimension of peace and love and compassion is going to be found. It's not going to be found in the mind that thinks it

separate from all of that. So those are just a few thoughts about the parable. Okay, great, we'll get more into this. But you are a teacher in I don't know if I'm gonna get the words right, you know, I don't know if you this is how you would refer to it. But you've learned from a couple of different people, but one of them is is Audi Ashanti, who listeners of the show will know because he's been on here two or three. He's been on here a

couple of times, and so listeners will know that. And so I'm just saying that to sort of frame it up and to frame up that your teaching is similar to his end that the key focus is on awakening

to our our true reality. So just to give listeners sort of an overview of where we're headed, I want to start off with just talking about the title for a second, and in the search from spiritual ambition to the Heart of Awareness, I'd like to first start off and talk about what spiritual ambition means to you, what that term means, and then what is it's for lack of a better word, it's more useful, cousin if ambition is and hit what what is? Because well, we'll get there.

I'll let you. I'll let you take from there. To start, Spiritual ambition is the desire to get something for the me. Most people really come into the spiritual search wanting to feel better. We're wanting some way out of suffering, wanting to be some place else or someone else, or you know, something should be different about life or their life or or whatever. And so there's an ambition when we begin to want something that we think isn't here, you know, that we want to get we want to get it um.

And so frequently we're looking aside at teachers or books or practices or whatever, of which are fine, but we're looking out there for something that is already in here um. And so when we begin to be quiet, perhaps or have spiritual practice of some sort, that that invites us to turn our looking backwards, to turn and look for who's looking, Who's who's searching? Who? Who? Who is that that you know? Well, well it's me, it's me. And then you know, if we take it a little step further,

then who is that you know, who is it that's searching? Um. So that in the book there's quite a bit of attention to self inquiry um as it was introduced to me through the teachings of Rahmaa Maharshey. But I just shan'ty certainly talks about self inquiry as being one of the practices that I think all of us eventually will come to who or what is this person called myself?

You know? Uh, if we really want to awaken to the truth of what we are, because otherwise we just maintain an identity with only one body mind and one set of you know, thoughts, memories, consciousness and so forth, as that's the extent of who we are. And so we're always searching for what's beyond, or what's faster than that, or what will bring us out of where we are into someplace else. So ambition is really to get something

for me. But when we wake up to who or what we truly are, we realize that one doesn't exist in the way that we thought. It's not who we really are those thoughts about ourselves, and so, you know, the ambition piece becomes overtime, so assumed by the realization that what we are, what I am is, what you are, what your listeners are, what what life is. Bottom line

there is there's a unified reality. So I want to read a line of yours because I think it touches on this And this is one of those things that's come up on the show a bunch of times, and it's just a paradox, and yet I keep trying to talk about it as if that will resolve the paradox. But which I know it won't, but it's still important to talk about. And you say you desire spiritual awakening, yet maybe told by those you imagine are awake that either your desire is not great enough, or your desire

is the obstacle. And I think that is the paradox that for me, sits right in the heart of all this, is that it is some degree of desire. You call it a spiritual impulse, being a gift to us, that there's this impulse towards awakening, towards wanting to know the truth, and that maybe to varying degrees, driven by a desire to escape suffering. And I agree with you. I think that's where it starts for most of us. And there's

still an element of that that remains. But it's the desire or the spiritual impulse to even look, to even take the time to ask the questions, to to do any of that is what at least sets the ground for most people. There are cases of people who just spontaneously wake up, but most people who wake up, it's as a result of some degree of effort that's being put forward. So I'm just wondering if you could talk about the role of desire, effort, and grace in in

how all of this happens. Yes, I always loved what Nizargadada said about effort. He said, if efforts required, effort will appear. If no effort is required, no effort will appear. And so there are different times in our spiritual quest, we might say, where there's perhaps intense effort for some people.

But then there's a time where that effort is seen to be or at least we begin to realize that that effort is not actually helping, that it's just taking us further and further from the moment we're in, from the silence or the peace or the joy that's already here if we just stop long enough to notice what's already in in the true heart that we share. Um.

So there's a time for both. And you know, you said what what might take the place of ambition in your earlier question, And I would say, perhaps it's intensity, the intensity of our desire for truth, or our desire to for whatever it is, whether for God, for um, the meaning of life or love or you know, whatever it is. That that really is the juice behind our spiritual search. Um. And sometimes the effort gets us to a certain place, um, and then we can't go any further.

It doesn't take us further because the efforting of our egoing identified consciousness will only take us to the edge of the known, because it doesn't live in the unknown, and what we're seeking is basically unknown. So you know, we can use practices and types of meditation and you know, various things that we've been drawn to. We can use all those things, but realize that at some point, you know, they can only take us so far, and then we have to look look beyond, we have to look into

the unknown. And it's it's at that point that a lot of seekers, you know, back up because the mind doesn't much look looking into the unknown. It gets scared. So you know, we may get to that edge many times um before we're willing or have the grace, because I think it all is grace. I mean, grace is here all the time. Basically, it's just like Rahma and mahas she says, it's it graces an ocean. It depends

on the size of the container that you take. You know, if you only take a thimbleful of that ocean, that's that's what you'll experience. So our capacity to receive. Grace can change as this goes on. But you know, we're invited when we take that backward step, when we look more deeply into the question of who or what am I? Or what is life? What is true? You know, will come to a place where there's the not knowing and are we willing to stay put and just allow the

silence to reveal whatever it wants to reveal. And then you know, at that point we've become so much more receptive that it's not a matter of efforting anymore. It's

a matter of receiving. Yeah, this paradox sits right at the heart of my, for lack of a better word, spiritual life right now, because I've had a couple of different awakenings that were that were fairly intense, and they were the result of a strange combination of putting myself in a place where I am really putting forth effort, and by effort I mean devoting time, energy, money to

go to places where I can be more quiet. And yet the moments themselves have come when in the midst of that there's this I don't know how to make it happen, letting go right uh completely, And so then what I wrestle with is I get back into the world, and it feels like there is more effort required to go and find the quiet and do all of that, and that it feels like sometimes in the world itself, when I let go of effort, it doesn't happen is

quiet in silence and deepness. What happens is distraction, right, What happens is I suddenly become very interested in whatever the various interests I have in life, some of which are are are healthier than others. And the one that came to mind was guitar playing music, which is a wonderful thing in a lot of ways, but it's not headed in that same direction. And so I'm kind of in that like I don't know if I want to use the word stuck, because I don't I don't think

that's quite the word. But I'm in a what feels like some sort of limbo state to me sometimes lately, I think that life is like that in the sense of expansion and contraction, and contraction not being a dirty word, not necessarily something that's wrong, or maybe a better way of saying it would be, you know, there's a realization there are these moments or glimpses of our true nature, and then there's this sense of how is that getting expressed? You know, because each of us is an expression of

this mystery. From my perspective, you know, every single one of us is an expression, and it's you know, there's a creation in it. There's a creative process that's happening. So when you play guitar, if it's something that you love, do you know, then to me, that's an expression of the divine um in whatever ways. If we think that our spirituality has to only look a certain way, then we might be judging a human dimension of our lives

in a way that's maybe not necessary. I'm going to read another line of yours because I wanted to discuss this, and you just let us right into it, or we let ourselves into it. If you're drawn to interior silence, this is your soul food. If you are drawn to music, this is your soul food. If you are drawn to service, this is your soul food. I'm not suggesting that everyone

needs to be drawn to silence. I just ask if you could explore that a little bit more, because although I agree that these other things are soul food, in a way, they don't seem to, at least in what I've seen and again and and in my life, they don't seem to lead in the same way to what we would think of traditionally as an awakening. So I'm just kind of curious about your thoughts about is there a path for people who don't want to be silent

but are interested in truth? What does that look like? Well, I think everyone will probably find a little bit of a different way. You know, if you're really interested in truth, then um, spending time in silence and stillness is incredibly useful, incredibly helpful. It doesn't have to look like I have to be on my cushion so many hours a day or whatever, but just even just many times in the day, we can just stop and be quiet and notice, is something already quiet before we try to be quiet? Is

something already still? Is something already actually even at peace? When don't we just stop stop to notice? But sitting in silence with an intention of finding out what is true? What is real? Who am I? Whatever those existential questions might be for for any of us, And they have to be important, you know, if they're not using it, you know, and we're probably not going to continue. So the reason I wrote that as I did is that everything is an expression from my perspective of what we are.

There's there's nobody, nothing that's happening that's out of the expression of fullness. That doesn't mean everything is coming completely directly from our deepest nature. Obviously, there's a lot of misunderstandings, innocent misunderstandings, ignorance about our unity and so forth in this world, as we all know. But you know, we're here to be ourselves, you know, because when we discover who or what that is, we see that that's what everything is and everyone, and so there isn't a sense

of it should look a certain way. But I do think if you are interested, if one is interested in in truth, then then you'll put your attention just like you're saying you've been doing. You know, you spend time on retreats, or you've found a spiritual teacher that you resonate with or whatever, and and that seems to be kind of guiding you at this point, right, Yes, it is.

I kind of wonder about back to your earlier question about enough desire lack of desire, you know, but but yes, in general, yes, obviously I am very focused on this in general because I do a show about it every week, and you know, so, yes, in general, right, yes, yes, I guess that's safe to say. I do think that desire is not wrong. It's just let's discover what it

is that our deepest desire is. Whenever I meet someone um for the first time, whether it's as a psychotherapist in the old days or now as a spiritual teacher, I will frequently ask what's the deepest desire of your heart? Because it's sort of as the rudder you know, that's guiding us whether we know it or not. And to become conscious of that, what is the deepest desire? You know, if it's to make a million dollars, well, go for it. But usually if one questions is that really your deepest desire?

You know, then you know that they will find or we will find something that's deeper than that. It's like, what what do you think that will bring well and bring freedom, bring happiness or whatever it is we imagine, right, to really be willing to go through the levels of desire and discover what's really most important. You quote that idea that the problem, like you said, is not desire, it's the depth of your desire, or selling yourself short

in your desire, in that you're not desiring enough. I mean, that's not quite the right word, but it's the best one I can use, right, Yeah, it wasn't a good is if I recall the quote that you're talking about, you know, he says, by all means, but increase and widen your desire, you know, to to have nothing but truth, you know, will fulfill it. Because what's wrong is that our desires are so so limited and limiting. They're going

to arise if they arise. So part of coming I think, into a different relationship with ourselves is realizing that um, things are as they are. You know, what is is what is? Uh don't mean that what is of now is going to be what is the next moment? But if we can accept that this is actually here. Yeah,

I thought, I I thought I wanted this. I had I had someone who came to see me some time ago and they really were interested in non duality and really wanting to work from that perspective, and so forth and so on. And we got about maybe three months into the therapy and he said, you know, I really don't want this, you know, I said, great, great, you know,

we know what we need. You know, can you follow your own inner teacher, Can you follow your own inner guidance and go find what it is that you want If this isn't isn't it? So he left, you know, and I, you know, was my blessing was. And I go, oh, this is somebody who's resisting and I should keep them and blah blah blah. I just have a deep faith in how life is moving. There's an intelligence that's that

work in life, whether we notice it or not. But but you know, I gave him my blessing and he went off, and you know, about six months later he came back and he said, you know, I think I really do. You know? He needed to go find find that out in some other way and and and he you know, had to do openings and so forth since then. But part of it is is honoring our inner knowing, I think. And so many of us grew up thinking that we couldn't trust that, you know, or that it

led us in the wrong place. And sometimes it seems to sometimes it sure does. Yeah, But but also our suffering brings us to you know, often brings us to our knees and to a place of surrender that would not have happened apparently without those difficult and challenging things. And I think that's completely true, and it rings true in my life, and that idea about knowing what you really want. I think one of the challenges that a

lot of us face in this world. I do, I know a lot of people that I work with do, is that maybe that ultimate desire is to awaken to our true nature and to find, you know, peace and wholeness. And yet we go through a process of being misled about what's actually going to do that. Oh, this is what I want, and sometimes we you know, we get it,

we don't know that's not it. Or at least for me, it's been this increasing refinement of what it is I'm really after and starting to see through the illusions of what doesn't do that. It sounds like it should be this linear process, and I think the overall trend for me is towards an increasing refinement. But you take a couple of steps forward, then you take a couple back, and then you know overall it's still moving in the

right direction. But it's just not like one step after the other, it's like just straight there it's a more of a zigzagging path, at least for me, has been well for most for most people. I think that that is true, and and it's also a path that's fraught with failure. And ultimately, you know, waking up to our

true nature is the is the failure maintaining separation. But but you know, some of us apparently need to do and be and go and experience whatever it is, you know, and then we're called back something like you were speaking of earlier, that I speak about in the book, this impulse that's quiet. It's not necessarily demanding, Hey look at me, look at me. You've got to figure out who you

truly are. It just quietly calls us, and we have these experiences that I feel like they're pointing towards something that all of us have had, you know, like those moments where something vaster and freer and piece more peaceful than that our mind could ever be, show themselves, reveal themselves, and then we want more, and then you know, will leader's wherever it does. But I think it ultimately it goes back, and it's not a straight path necessarily, and

yet it's always been what we are. It's like that very well worn, you know, analogy of the ocean and the waves. But you know, no matter what's happening on the surface of our mind, it's still is the ocean moving. It's still is the heart of awareness, the source, whatever name we're going to call it. You know, without that, we don't even know what our experience is. So it's feeding itself, all of these experiences that there's a current

that's moving underneath the surfaces of things. And if you, if you're willing, if one is open and have the has the movement to really just keep diving down through experiences, and sometimes we have to live them out, but sometimes we don't. We can just you know, really really look deeply at what this experience is. Maybe it's a negative experience.

What's underneath that, what's underneath that, what's underneath that you know, and you can't help if you go deep enough in any experience, you can't help but bump up against your true nature, because that's set the ground of everything. I want to read something else that you wrote that I think speaks a little bit to the conversation we're having about happiness and and what we think will make us happy. You say, when we do experience moments of happiness when

a desire is fulfilled and the mind is content. We imagine these moments were caused by something outside of ourselves, But the reason we are temporarily happy has nothing to do with what just happened. We are temporarily happy because we temporarily stopped wishing to be someplace else. Our mind rested for one moment, stopped its craving and straining for one moment, and we simply experienced our natural state, the heart of awareness. Yes, and to realize that at some point,

you know, whenever it is we do. You know, we can even pose the question, well, what would it be like if every moment, or more and more moments I wasn't trying to be in another different moment? What if I were actually able to just notice that there's something present to this one, you know, And that presence, we think is is our mind. Actually there's something that's present to the mind, that's moving. So we keep looking back in a deeper place or a more mysterious place that's

present no matter what. And when we stop wanting to be someplace else, we're here. And that's what our true nature is. It's always here now it's it's here. It doesn't live in time, it's timeless, so it's it's always that kind of eternal now sense of being right here, right now for this. You know, my very simplistic meditation is simply being here or what's here, you know, because that is our true nature. It's here for what's here.

And then when we're not trying to have a different moment, we often will be moved in ways that sometimes are unexpected or may be challenging if we have difficult things to face into. But nonetheless there's a movement that comes from a different source of strength and powering wisdom. You wrote in the book that you say someone wants asked me what did Adyashanti give you? And you answered nothing. He gave me nothing, and that was as greatest gift.

Can you elaborate on that? But no thing, but no thaingness. If we we want to, we want to get something from this spiritual search, right we want to get something for the me. That's the ambition we were talking about early on, you know, and to realize that there's nothing there for the me because this process sees through, it sees the transparency of the me. In no way is

judging or refusing these human expressions. In fact, there's a much greater understanding and com passion for them, even even expressions that we think of as as negative in ourselves are in the world. But um, you know, he doesn't give you, uh, here's six easy steps. You know. It's it's like really encouraging his students to find out for themselves. You know, he's an amazing teacher, but he doesn't spoon feed they At least it never happened in my experience

with him. You know, it was more just an invitation by by where he was coming from to to meet him there. And that's that's the nothing we can really it's it's not nothing in the way the mind thinks of it. It's the emptiness. It's the openness. It's the ungrasped ability or the unspeakable nous of our true nature. We can't really define it because the mind can't go there, the mind of thought, you know, not big mind, but

the mind of thought can't go there. And so once we I've been to that, you know, you realize there's no way that I could say what this is. And yet you know we feel it, we into it, we

sense it. Um, but it's it's it's nothing that you can define something you said there resonates with me with audio Shanty two is also I think possibly the biggest teaching for me has been to truly examine my own experience, not what I've read in the books that should be happening, is to truly just try and stay with what is it like for me truly, And really that's an encouragement that has been really helpful for me, particularly as someone who has read I mean, I've read more spiritual books

than It's just it's preposterous, right. I think a lot of us fall into that, and and so I've heard all this stuff. I know intellectually the right answers, right, but it's it's that I move away from my direct experience to those ideas, and I think, what, for whatever reason, it's not like he's the only person who has said that.

There's something about the way he says that and has emphasized that that worked for me that got me to to stop to some degree and try and stay with my own experience, which is you know that comes and

goes the ability to do that. And there's the other thing about him and for me is there is some mixture of deep kindness wisdom, and but there's also some fierceness to it, and that appeals to me in some way that it's it's not this soft thing which a lot of the language in this space can get to be that way, And there there's something to that that has drawn me towards him. Yeah, I think. I mean part of that, I think is the v in training as well. You know, there's a certain fierceness about that

kind of training. He doesn't come off as fierce in that in any kind of punitive way. It's just it's a loving compassion that that sometimes you know, if one is familiar with Manjushi, the buddy fat Wisdom, you know, who carries a sword, there is a sword that cuts through illusion and and that can feel very challenging to our egoic mind, the mind of identified thought, do you know? And and so I think that, um, when truth is moving, it's not asking permission to should I say this? Should

somebody like it? Should they not like? Do you know? It's just moving? And so you know, when when we're in a position of being the so called teacher, really realizing that you can't really teach what you are you, you can only point, you know, and encourage people to find out for themselves, which is what you were saying, is has been so helpful, and I think it is.

It's when we want the truth more than we want life to look a certain way, the truth begins to reveal itself, and until then we're just always trying to have life look a certain way. Um. And so when we really get bitten by the bug, so to speak of, you know, really desiring what's true more than anything else, more than anything I've read, more than anything anyone's told me about, more than anything I think someone else might

have experienced, I have to find out for myself. And that's that's a really important piece in the so called spiritual journey. It really is. It's it's become clear to me how important that is. And one of the things that drew me to Buddhism initially was that idea of don't believe what I say just because I say it. Try it out for yourself. That has been so helpful for me, because of my mind will start to say, but wait a minute, is that really true? Is that

I don't know about that? And I can just go, well, this is an intellectual point to be debated. I just have to look and say is that true for me right now? And and here's what is what is true? Yes, because if if you know, if there's anything that truth as it's moving in the in the body mind organism, there's anything that I think shows it's there more than any thing else. It's authenticity, you know, it's it's here now, authentic, honest, you know, it isn't It isn't trying to put on

a false face. And you know, our identified images of ourselves, we're always trying to do that, you know, be seen a certain way. But this is not like that. This doesn't have to it's not upholding any identity. It's not upholding an identity with the absolute. I am God, and I am the only thing that exists, and I am you know, it's or I'm just this poor little, helpless you know, human being. It doesn't have any power. You know, it's justn't identifying with anything, and it's not trying to

um defend anything. That's an incredible strength. When we come into our own experience of perhaps when our defenses become more poorous or or or dropped all together, you know, it can feel vulnerable at first, you know, this is openness feels wonderful, and it's the vastness, you know, and all in all and all of that. But when openness starts moving in the body mind, it can feel vulnerable, especially at first because we're operating without so many you know,

defenses and so so many masks. You know, we're moving from behind the mask in a more authentic way. Yeah, I would say that mirrors my experience for sure. Well, Dorothy, we're near the end of our time here, and um, I really have enjoyed the conversation. Um again, your book is called Ending the Search from Spiritual Ambition to the

Heart of Awareness. Will have links in the show notes to your website and all the ways that people can find you and your work, and you and I are going to have a conversation after this in the post show, and so listeners who want to be part of that and hear that if you go to one you feed dot net slash support and become a patron of the show at the ten dollar level, you get to hear all of the additional conversations as well as extra many episodes and all that. But Dorothy, thank you so much

for taking the time I've enjoyed it. Well, it's my pleasure. Eric, thanks so much for having me. Okay, take care bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One you Feed podcast Head over to one you Feed dot net slide