Book Reviews By Joan Tollifson
“What the…”
I just finished reading Darryl Bailey’s new book “What the…” A Conversation about Living – it’s a great book. Darryl delivers his usual essential message with the spare and eloquent simplicity of his previous books, but this book includes some of his personal story, his journey and how he came to this understanding. It also poses five questions for inquiry and exploration to help one open to the felt-reality of what he’s pointing to: that time is an illusion; that it is always Now; that there is no way to know or say what this immediate, vibrant happening actually is; that everything is changing and that no separate or persisting “things” ever actually form or exist; that without thinking, there is simply this vibrant happening; that there is no “I” who is in control, making choices or making anything happen; and that everything is happening on its own. He emphasizes that everyone is a completely unique expression of the universe, that his life cannot be a model for anyone else, and that everything is unfolding in the only way possible.
Dismantling the Fantasy and Essence Revisited.
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Darryl’s books and talks are perhaps the clearest, cleanest, most elegantly simple and direct descriptions of what is that I have ever come across. The radical message they deliver is expressed in a way that is refreshingly original, lean and spare, unpretentious, poetic in its beauty, free of dogma or excess baggage of any kind, and radical in the sense that it goes directly to the root. Uncompromising in its simplicity and its refusal to indulge our desire for self-improvement, this message is a description of what is, not a prescription for how to fix it. And ultimately, it is the dismantling of all descriptions, leaving only the vibrant aliveness of what is.
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Darryl shows you that in reality there is no solid or enduring form and no separate self with individual free will, that everything is as it is and could not be otherwise: “Whatever we are now, whatever we’re doing now, is an inexplicable movement accomplishing itself. Nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away from it.” I can’t recommend these books highly enough.
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Darryl’s background includes many years of Vipassana meditation and other awareness and concentration practices, along with Western psychology, recurring contact with J. Krishnamurti, and a significant connection with the Advaita sage Robert Adams. Darryl has an earlier book, Buddhessence, that beautifully distills and clarifies the essential, core teachings of the Buddha, and I highly recommend this book as well.
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Darryl currently lives in Winnipeg, Canada and offers “explorations” at a local yoga center. He has worked as an ice fisherman, bus driver, suit salesman, childcare worker, carpenter and maintenance man among other things. Darryl’s books and talks are very highly recommended.
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Book Review by Piers Moore Ede
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“In my humble opinion Dismantling the Fantasy is an immediate spiritual classic.
Buy this book, give it to your friends and family, leave it on buses to make its way into the world.”
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Reviews for Dismantling the Fantasy from Amazon.com
“This little book is both profound and beautifully written. It provides a refreshingly different expression of non-duality, almost poetic in it’s simplicity. It commences with a short parable about a cloud, followed by 3 long dialogues. The cloud, with it’s ever-changing shape, is a powerful analogy to our own conceptual world, and one that is echoed beautifully throughout the book. There is a wonderful sense of flow, enhancing the book’s message that life is a constantly flowing stream wherein nothing is separate or ‘real’. The style of writing is so gentle and intimate that one is not inclined to struggle ‘intellectually’ with some kind of conceptual understanding (as is our habit), but simply to flow along with author as he gently dismantles our delusions! He concludes with this sentence: ‘If you ever acknowledge the river fully – even once – those delusions can’t maintain themselves.’ Who would we be without our delusions? This book will help you on that profound journey.” – C. Morris
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“Dismantling the Fantasy is a powerful little gem of a book. With clarity and directness Darryl points to the heart of nonduality; the absence of a separate self and the illusion of free will.
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“This is like looking at the surface of a river and believing that there are separate ripples influencing each other. There are no separate ripples. There is only the moving and shifting of one flow of water.” “We can’t say anyone does this dynamic, or directs this dynamic, because all that’s ever experienced is this dynamic.” “There is no you that can avoid it or get it wrong. There is only a mysterious river expressing itself.”
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One of the most concise and refreshing books on nonduality that I have read in years, Dismantling the Fantasy carries the sweet perfume of good news remembered.” – R. Haigh
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Reviews for Essence Revisited from Amazon.com
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A wonderfully clear and compassionate book of nonduality, which points gently but relentlessly to the nature of reality as an ever-changing, unformed movement or flux.
This flux appears as a world of separate `things’ through the spontaneous arising of thoughts, concepts, boundaries and selves, all of which are essentially illusory and transient.
This idea of separation leads on to further stories such as free will or determinism, or `cause and effect’ which would only make sense if the world was truly fragmented.
Seeing through these fantasies leaves just THIS: the inexplicable natural process of life accomplishing itself, with no need to vainly try to change or resist what could not possibly be otherwise.
I love Darryl’s analogy of the stories of thought being like the `holiday brochures’ of life, which we sit in the hotel reading, when by merely stepping outside we could be in reality itself!
This book expresses the essence of Buddhism, Zen, Advaita and Taoism but without any of the dogma and ideology that is so often a part of the package. Also I have found that terms such as `emptiness’ and `nothingness’ in some of the more traditional `philosophical’ writings can be misleading. Darryl however has a knack for using expressions which resonate simply and effortlessly.
On a personal note, I remember when my father died my well-controlled idea of self blew a fuse and there was no sense of control or understanding left. Strangely I felt like I was simply moving with the much larger flow of life itself. A flow unhindered by trying to know what was going on. There was still grief but everything appeared lighter and less troublesome. I remember at the funeral part of the service included the phrase `a peace that passeth all understanding’, and these words took on new meaning as I realised that understanding does indeed have to be `passed’ in order for peace to be revealed.
I gradually re-entered the `normal’ consciousness of my separate self, with all the associated confusion and suffering. However, reading this book has reminded me of this sense of being life itself, undefined and not limited by the illusion of `knowing’. This time though there is no accompanying grief, just a sense of vibrancy and acceptance of this perfect uncertainty.
There is so much more I am overflowing with but I’ll stop now as this is only really a `holiday brochure’!
Needless to say this book has my highest recommendation! – Roger P
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Darryl Bailey is a rare voice in nonduality.
The prevalent trend in satsang circles these days amounts to a form of repackaged idealism. We are told things like “you are the unlimited unbroken witness of all that arises” or “you are the eternal knower.” One typical assertion tells us that “In order to claim legitimately that knowing is absent, its absence would have to be known and, by definition, knowing would therefore be present.” This type of circular argument is supposed to establish that conscious knowing is never absent – yet all that is confirmed here is something known as the ego-centric predicament. Every time that we look for consciousness, we’ll find it – the looking mechanism depends on it. It is a purely dogmatic procedure to then conclude that this conscious witnessing is always the case – unlimited and eternal.
What this type of awareness teaching does is to encourage the seeing through of the separate self… only to replace it with a bigger self – a transcendent eternal witness.
Darryl is having none of this here. There’s no dismantling of a fantasy in order to replace it with another one.
Darryl unwaveringly chips away at the unreasonable delusion of an independent, autonomous agent. It’s not that ‘you’ are not separate or are without agency – it’s that right now all that can be found is an event – a happening… in real time… THIS! Only the happening exists (so to speak). Anything that we try to pin down or formulate in (and about) this happening is found to be without true substantiality. This insubstantiality (or emptiness of inherent-ness) is totally thorough going. Forms, energies, mental constructions, perceptions and so on are without true enduring substance – and this includes some of our more sacred concepts.
Nonduality is a breathtaking revelation that does not have to entail idealism or solipsism (or the supernatural.) Darryl’s clean and clear commitment to the exploration of this ever-fresh event is a rare breath of (ever) fresh air. – R Haigh
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