Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness

by Dorothy Hunt, Adyashanti (Foreword by)

Overview

What is life when seeking ends?

Just what is, nothing more or less—

an ordinary person doing ordinary things,

not wishing to be more or less,

content to simply be herSelf.

—Dorothy Hunt, Only This

Do you ever feel as if your spiritual search is getting you nowhere? That despite sincere intention and effort, you’re reaping frustration instead of fruit? In Ending the Search, Dorothy Hunt unravels a dilemma that has vexed countless people on a spiritual path. "You may have tried all manner of practices, meditation, guru shopping, chanting, prayer, and still you have not attained your heart’s desire," she writes. "This book is about the ego’s spiritual ambition, its search for its idea of ‘enlightenment,’ its struggles and its eventual fate as seeker becomes the sought."

Ending the Search explores the deep spiritual impulse to awaken and the ways a future-focused mind "co-opts" or veils what is timelessly free, loving, and ever present. Dorothy invites us to follow our longing for truth, love, or enlightenment back to their source—the Heart that is beckoning us beyond separation. While describing and honoring different practices and paths taken in one’s search for Truth, she emphasizes the practice of self-inquiry as taught by Ramana Maharshi. We are invited to search not for an idea of something "out there," but for the true identity of the seeker, the unnamable Mystery that is compassionately aware, existing right now in each of us. The book also looks at the processes of embodiment and surrender, the need for "ruthless honesty" without self-judgment, and in its concluding section, shares a vision of life lived authentically.

"The spiritual search is a call to remember who or what you essentially are," explains Dorothy Hunt. "What ends the search is actually present from the very beginning, beckoning you to come Home. In truth, you are what you seek, yet you must make the discovery for yourself." This is your invitation, with Ending the Search.

Highlights:

• The nature of spiritual ambition

• When practice becomes problematic

• How the thinking mind separates us from the moment

• Silence and stillness, our greatest teachers

• Ego and the trance of separation

• The human heart as a doorway to the infinite

• The freedom of Presence

• The price of Realization

• Gurus, spiritual teachers, and charlatans

• Undoing core egoic beliefs

• Resting the mind in the Heart of Awareness

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683640639
Publisher:	Sounds True, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/01/2018
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dorothy S. HuntDorothy Hunt serves as spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha, teaching in the spiritual lineage of Adyashanti, who invited her to share the Dharma in 2004. She is the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy and has practiced psychotherapy since 1967. Her published works include Only This! and Leaves from Moon Mountain.


AdyashantiAdyashanti is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence. His books include Emptiness Dancing, The End of Your World, True Meditation, The Way of Liberation, and Falling into Grace.

Asked to teach in 1996 by his Zen teacher of 14 years, Adyashanti offers teachings that are free of any tradition or ideology. "The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all." For more information, please visit adyashanti.org.

Table of Contents

Foreword Adyashanti xi

Introduction xiii

Part I Beginning The Search 1

Poem: Excerpt from "The Invitation"

Chapter 1 What Ends the Search Begins the Search 3

Chapter 2 Spiritual Impulse and Spiritual Ambition 11

Chapter 3 Silence and Stillness: The Greatest Teachers 21

Chapter 4 Paths and Practices in the Search for Truth 29

Chapter 5 Peace, Ego, and Inquiry 43

Part II Seen And Unseen 57

Poem: "The Footprint of the Divine"

Chapter 6 Background and Foreground 59

Chapter 7 The Heart of Awareness 71

Chapter 8 Presence and Personhood 81

Part III Caught In The Jaws Of The Tiger 95

Poem: Excerpt from "The Invitation"

Chapter 9 Caught in the Tigers Mouth 97

Chapter 10 Dying for Truth, Yet Afraid of Disappearing 105

Chapter 11 Enlightenment Cannot Be Bought or Sold 119

Chapter 12 Burning in Loves Fire 133

Part IV The Search Ends In What Never Ends 141

Poem: Excerpt from "The Invitation"

Chapter 13 The End of Seeking 143

Chapter 14 Awakening Is Only the First Step 155

Chapter 15 Resting the Mind in the Heart of Awareness 161

Part V Undivided Love 167

Poem: "Until we have fully"

Chapter 16 Love Flows from Emptiness 169

Chapter 17 Love Contains Both Joy and Suffering 177

Chapter 18 Fierce Grace 185

Part VI Living Awake, Living Now 193

Poem: Excerpt from "The Invitation"

Chapter 19 Embodiment Unfolds Itslf 195

Chapter 20 Living Awake Is Living Now 205

Chapter 21 Awakening and Surrender 215

Chapter 22 Freedom from Freedom 225

Chapter 23 Myths of the Spiritual Life 233

Chapter 24 An Afterword about Words 237

The Invitation 243

Acknowledgments 247

Notes 249

Bibliography 255

Permissions 257

About the Author 259

Editorial Reviews

01/08/2018
Hunt (Leaves from Moon Mountain), spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha and founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy, shares her broad spiritual wisdom in this unwieldy book on fighting the ego in order to live a fulfilling spiritual life. Writing for those who feel the “spiritual impulse” toward enlightenment—she calls this by many names, including “truth, love, God, Self, Buddha-nature, freedom”—Hunt begins with a Sufi fable of a stream wishing to cross a desert. The wind offers to transport the stream, but only if the stream agrees to an identity transformation. This circular evolution (stream to rain to stream) is a metaphor for a person’s spiritual journey: “We begin the search from the end and end the search where it begins.” To demonstrate her points, Hunt frenetically crisscrosses traditions and quotes liberally from spiritual teachers (particularly Ramana Maharshi and Ramesh Balsekar). “One has only to taste the words of the ancient Indian Rishis, the Taoist sage Lao-tzu, the Buddha, Jesus... to begin to resonate somewhere to that unspoken truth that touches the heart,” she writes. Although Hunt’s freewheeling text will disappoint readers looking for a more formalized method, the book effectively considers how different spiritual traditions confront negative, ego-driven attitudes. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

[ENDING THE SEARCH] effectively considers how different spiritual traditions confront negative, ego-driven attitudes. ” —Publishers Weekly

“A very inspiring must-read! When one truly takes Dorothy’s book to heart, you’ll absolutely die before you die. In one way she describes a step-by-step journey of taking inquiry all the way, and in another way the utmost humanness of her direct experience made me laugh out loud or cry. One will be pierced by the felt sense of her expression—very sweet and unwaveringly clear.

Dorothy is an elder who needs to be listened to, one who brings a much-needed feminine flavor of connectedness down to earth, encompassing Love, realness, and true spirituality. Knowing Love is kissing you from the inside will help you move from a comfortable awakening experience to total surrender to Love, leaving no stone unturned.” —Marlies Myoku Cocheret de la Morinière, psychologist and spiritual teacher, interviewed in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom

“Ending the Search is a delight to read. Dorothy Hunt writes beautifully about her own search and discovery, while sharing the wisdom she has found. She points out the traps of seeking and guides us to our inner teacher. Highly recommended book to remind and reassure us that we are already home.” —Loch Kelly, author of Shift Into Freedom and Effortless Mindfulness Now

“Reading Dorothy Hunt's book Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness is to experience the nondualism she writes about, a difficult task accomplished through images, stories from wisdom traditions, and her own experience. A compassionate, accepting companion who through her palpable presence invited me to enter the deep, silent dimensions of my being, trusting the deep spiritual impulse within.” —Diane Deutsch, PhD, Jungian analyst

“Ending the Search is an invaluable resource for beginning and experienced seekers alike. Dorothy offers an orientation to the spiritual journey that is clear, accessible, and broad, illuminating the commonalities among seemingly disparate paths and practices, and ultimately inviting the reader simply to be freedom itself rather than endlessly and fruitlessly searching for it.” —Jon Bernie, spiritual teacher and author of Ordinary Freedom and The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is

“Essential for anyone on a spiritual path. While embracing the full range of the human condition, Dorothy Hunt poetically reminds us of our divinity. Her direct expression illuminates the many ways our sense of lack or longing perpetuates our searching. She takes us back home to our ever-present essence, where our searching dissolves into being.” —Zaya Benazzo, cofounder of the Science and Nonduality Conference

“In this precious book, Dorothy Hunt offers us the profound wisdom of her amazingly broad and life-long engagement with the world’s quintessential spiritual wisdom, especially as this culminates in the boundless vista of serene nondual awareness. The nectar of Dorothy’s words reveals a living truth that quenches, satiates, and finally dissolves all forms of struggle and entrapment. Dorothy weaves together rich experiences from her own life and exquisite teachings from ancient masters. She opens the loving jewel of timeless awareness in a myriad of ways that dissolve all needs whatsoever. You will be profoundly rewarded by joining Dorothy at the end of the path and basking in the delicate and loving way in which she shares her timeless wisdom.” —Peter Fenner, PhD, author of Radiant Mind: Awakening Unconditioned Awareness and Natural Awakening: An Advanced Guide for Sharing Nondual Awareness

“Dorothy is our guide on a delightful journey of calling off the search of striving to be anything other than what we already effortlessly are and have always been. She opens us to our true essence as the pure presence of Being. Through heartfelt personal stories, examples, and exquisite wisdom, she helps us open our hearts and rest deeply in the still, silent spaciousness at our core as the Heart of Awareness. This is a must-read and a book that is a treasure to us all!” —Diane Steinbrecher, LCSW, nondual psychotherapist, teacher, and coauthor of the forthcoming book The Treasure Within: An Archetypal Unfolding to Our Greatest Potential

“Dorothy Hunt’s latest book, Ending the Search, is a call to our deepest heart’s desire: our longing to be truly awake, alive, and authentic human beings. Her writing is food for our soul, wherein she invites us to turn in and tune in to not just the silence that arrives when we stop identifying with our thoughts, but to the Stillness that is present, whether the thinking mind is quiet or active. Her writings are living prayers, not for some ‘thing,’ but for awakening beyond the shore of separation to our essential nature, to knowing the underlying Mystery that has given birth to each of us, and the entire universe.

In Ending the Search, Dorothy beautifully reveals how enlightenment entails a shift in identity, where we discover how our true identity as essential nature lies in all movements and moments of life. This is a profound guidebook for those sincerely wishing to end their search for enlightenment. It is full of inspirational stories, exquisite signposts, and wisdom born of a life where no leaf remained unturned in coming to realize what enlightenment truly is. And most of all, this is a book of love, for love pours through every page. Love of truth. Love for how all things can be pointers to our essential nature. And most of all, love for no reason at all, because, as Dorothy so beautifully shows us, our essential nature is love incarnate.” —Richard Miller, PhD, author of iRest Meditation: Restorative Practices for Health, Resiliency, and Well-Being

“From the beginning of seeking to the embodiment of awakening to our true nature, this book has something for every person on a journey to freedom from suffering and the delusion of being a separate bounded ‘me.’ This book is both a guide and an encouragement. Read it slowly and enjoy the clarity of a truly awakened guide.” —Teah Strozer, head teacher at the Brooklyn Zen Center

“This wise and compassionate book does what all great teachings do: pull the rug out from under your spiritual enterprise and drop you again and again into the groundless ground; the luminous essence; the timeless, ungraspable Now. Yet it does this dismantling with utmost grace and love, with parables, poetry, and the author's personal experiences, so you feel yourself being lovingly accompanied to your own demise. Ending the Search strips away everything you thought you were—and leaves you with the indescribable richness of what you actually are.” —Stephan Bodian, author of Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness

“This is a beautiful, gorgeous book, written from the Heart. Dorothy is authentic, genuine, down to earth, wise, and deeply attuned to the subtle nuances of life. Her words invite the listening silence and the spacious openness from which they have emerged. The whole book is an expression of the unconditional love that embraces everything. Dorothy sees and writes with an exquisite tenderness and sensitivity, illuminating with great clarity what is always already fully present—our True Nature, simply waiting to be noticed. She doesn’t get stuck on one side of any apparent polarity or in the language of any particular tradition. At once transcendent and most intimate, delighting in the simple wonders of everyday life while also opening to the no-thing-ness of it all, Dorothy’s teaching moves freely between relative and absolute. I love the ways she shares her own journey in this book, and it’s obvious how her work as a spiritual teacher is informed by the richness of her own life as psychotherapist, poet, nature lover, cancer survivor, wife, mother, grandmother, and much more. This is a book that I very highly recommend, one that can wake you up to the wonder that is right here, right now.” —Joan Tollifson, author of Bare-Bones Meditation, Awake in the Heartland, Painting the Sidewalk with Water, and Nothing to Grasp

“Ending the Search is an eloquent, lucid, and compelling invitation to deeply inquire into who you really are and to fall into the Heart of Awareness. Whether you are a new or seasoned seeker, Dorothy Hunt’s wisdom-infused prose, poetry, and teaching stories will invoke your deepest knowing. A beautiful and inspired offering—highly recommended!” —John J. Prendergast, PhD, author of In Touch: How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself and retired adjunct professor of psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies

From the Publisher