In my experience, awakening to what is, is the end of suffering. However, it’s not as I imagined it would be. I used to have fantasies about how awakening to the simplicity of being (also known as enlightenment, nirvana, satori, etc.) would mean that everything would be lovely all the time. I wrongly imagined that it would mean that all the “bad stuff” would disappear.
But it’s not like that, in my experience. Rather, it is the complete welcoming of all of it. Nothing goes away. Nothing changes. Rather, reality is no longer imagined to be something apart from what is happening right now.
This is it. This right now. There is nothing apart from this. So welcome it all because it’s already happening anyway. And finally, it may be possible to discover that this is who you are. Being yourself couldn’t be simpler.
~ Joey Lott from The Best Thing That Never Happened
It’s a complete welcoming of all of it, since that which already “allows” and “welcomes” is what awakens to itself as that. It’s a shift in identity, out of ideas and images to what all happens within and as. It’s very ordinary, since it’s already here. It’s very simple. It’s complex too, in the different ways it’s discovered, expressed and clarified. And it’s difficult to put into words since words is contained within it, and it cannot really be touched or described by words.
Also, as he says, nothing changes in that content of experience is free to stay the same. And everything changes since it’s a dramatic shift in identity.
It’s also interesting how some spiritual traditions, and some individuals, get absorbed in clarifying this, sometimes making it appear special and invaluable. While it also is very ordinary and simple, and our lives and the content of our lives doesn’t necessarily change.
And although it is ordinary and simple, it is also invaluable. It allows for a life lived from more clarity and love. And our life may change for the same reason, aligning with clarity and love.