Identifying Nonduality: A Guide to Recognizing Our True Nature

by John Sefton

Awakening to our nondual nature is possible without traversing an immense path and without exiting our everyday life. Since having a nondual realization in 2004, the author has studied and practiced many contemplative traditions including Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Christian Mysticism, Taoism, and Advaita Vedanta. The crucial lesson that was learned is that when we seek nondual awareness through sheer force, that becomes the obstruction to its realization. What this book offers is a way to transform the energy of seeking into direct recognition itself. We’ll discover that the ultimate state of being that we’ve been searching for is always self-existent and present as our own awareness. The key step is for us to immediately and directly wake up to this pure presence, and that is what's revealed in this book.

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 27, 2021

Reviews

[James Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguments are constantly being made for the so-called perennial philosophy, which posits that most if not all religions and philosophies are trying to describe the same underlying experience, in this case, the realization that at the deepest level of being we are all an impersonal awareness. This book makes the same argument, and in a professedly nondenominational way. But its approach is squarely in the camp not just of Zen Buddhism but of Soto Zen, which in contrast with Rinzai Zen (Rinzai emphasizes direct pointing in person-to-person transmission) recommends just relaxing into awareness. Just! More easily said than done. Granted, it may be a supremely simple (not necessarily easy) thing to shed duality for nondual Awareness, if there even is such a thing ontologically; I'm reminded of John Stuart Mill, who wrote, "The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious." There may not be a Thing called Awareness, and in this sense the realization promised by those like author John Sefton may in my humble opinion be what Theravadan Buddhists would simply call anatta, "no-self"--a way station on the way to the non-experience of cessation, also called extinction, nirodha, and stream entry (terms usually ignored in Zen and completely absent from this book). Whatever this pristine impersonal awareness is, the book points out that it's not amenable to conceptualization or description. It's also a given that most of the statements about it, including those in this book, are neither objectively demonstrable nor, for those of a scientific background, falsifiable. But it's also true that there are many people who strongly assert that they've reached this perspective, and who am I to gainsay them? Either one sees the hidden picture in the drawing or one doesn't; there are few if any rational ways to change perspective except for having someone else directly point out the hidden picture, in a Rinzai sort of way. But if simply relaxing into this kind of realization were as easy as it's described, many more people would be reporting this nondual perspective. Accordingly, there are those (e.g., see Daniel Ingram's strong words at https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-c... ) who advocate strongly against this you're-already-there-and-only-have-to-realize-it approach. Nevertheless, I can accept that it might be a path (or, more technically, nonpath, at least eventually) for those who are so inclined. And John Sefton in my opinion does a very good job of saying all that can be hinted of about the process while pointing out common pitfalls. I wish that he had been a bit more forthcoming on the relaxing-into-awareness part, but I recognize that that might be too much to ask any commentator, and a good reason for koans to exist. At any rate, I appreciated Sefton's balanced and compassionate approach. He made the topic about as logical as it can be made to be, and he did it in language that is as plain as it perhaps can be made to be. Even if you end up not agreeing with the premises, the book is a good exposition of a subject that beggars precise exposition, and I recommend it highly despite my stated reservations.

[vidyuth Kini · Rating 5 out of 5]

masterpiece

I’ve read a lot of books on nonduality. All the famous ones and quiet a few off the beaten path. Still this one brought something fresh to the table. It didn’t real old, tired or repetitive. Just pure resonance. It could be the same for you.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

He goes into the idea that our consciousness is part of an Eternal, Universal Essence that pervades all and is common to all beings, while I few consciousness as an individual experience within each human (and existing to a certain extent in other animals). Still, his is some of the most beautiful language around the base operation of consciousness that I have come across, and his instruction to access it is pretty clear and understandable.

[Tom Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heart of The Matter.

The heart of the matter is, as was, and ever will be... the heart of the matter. Said, sung, yelled or wispered; yes, sometimes we do need someone to state the obvious. Sefton has done us all a big favor.

[Phil Calandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a unique explanation of Nonduality. The author claims that nonduality is our very Identity and Reality. We are all an Impersonal Awareness at our deepest level of Being. It should be noted that most religions/philosophies describe the same underlying experience. This Impersonal Awareness is also known as "Awakening," "Presence," "God," and "Enlightenment". The author claims to have had a Nondual Realization in 2004 and has studied and practiced many contemplative traditions including Zen, Dzogchen, Taoism, Christian Mysticism and others. The author explains a method, "Relaxing into Awareness" in order to achieve "Awakening," however, this explanation seems rather nebulous and the practice is not adequately detailed. The author claims that awakening to our nondual nature is possible without any formal path and without a total disruption of everyday life. Unfortunately, this is masked by our dual natures that are necessary to exist in the relative world.

[Vindya Donahue · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Author does a Great Job bringing the understanding of non duality to a beginner. I am just starting this journey on non duality, and this book is like a dummies guide to the untrained mind.

[Reevrb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read on Non-duality realization and the ego traps from the mind.

[April]

not good.