Many spiritual practices mimic awakening.
Some mimic noticing what we are, which helps us actually notice.
And some mimic living from noticing what we are.
NOTICING WHAT WE ARE THROUGH POINTERS
Pointers that help us notice what we are tend to mimic what we naturally notice when we notice what we are.
This may sound obvious, but there is more to it.
Some pointers help us notice some of the characteristics of what we are. We may notice that what we are does not have a boundary, it’s timeless, it’s what space and time happen within, it’s what our experiences happen within and as. Looking at each of these, one at a time, we get a sense of what we are. It becomes more familiar, easier to notice, and the center of gravity of what we take ourselves to be can shift more into this. The Big Mind process is an example of these types of pointers.
Some help us relate to the content of our experience a certain way, and through that notice what we are. We find that the content of our experience happens within and as what we are. Some Headless experiments do this, and some of them do the first one.
In awakening, we notice the characteristics of what we are, and that all our experiences happen within and as what we are. And these pointers help us notice this here and now. We find it for ourselves. We notice what’s already here, and notice that we notice.
NOTICING WHAT WE ARE THROUGH BASIC MEDITATION
Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here.
Notice and see how it is to allow it. See if you can notice it’s already allowed – by space, mind, life.
See if you can notice that what’s here is already noticed and allowed.
This helps us find ourselves as capacity for our experience as it is, as that which our experience happens within and as.
It softens identification with the content of our experience. We get to see it all lives its own life. And this allows us to more easily find ourselves as what we are.
LIVING FROM NOTICING WHAT WE ARE
When we find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us, we notice that all our experiences happen within and as what we are. Another word for this is oneness.
There are two aspects to living from oneness. One is living from it here and now, to the best of our ability. And that includes inviting the parts of us still operating from separation consciousness to join in with the awakening.
When we notice what we are, several things tend to happen.
We find that the world, to us, is one. We are oneness.
Another word for oneness is pragmatic love. It’s a love not dependent on states or feelings, and it’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right.
We recognize thoughts as thoughts. They have a valuable pragmatic function in helping us orient and function in the world. And they cannot reflect any final or absolute truth.
PRACTICES THAT MIMIC LIVING AS ONENESS
Several practices mimic how it is to live from oneness, and they mimic the characteristics mentioned above.
Heart-centered practices help us shift how we relate to ourselves, others, situations, and existence in general. (Tonglen, ho’oponopno, metta, inner smile.)
Some forms of inquiry help us see through beliefs, identifications, and what creates and upholds separation consciousness patterns in us. (The Work of Byron Katie, Living Inquiries.)
Body-centered practices help us shift how we relate to our body and the sensation-component of beliefs and identifications, and through that life in general. (yoga, tai chi, chigong, Breema.)
Guidelines for living help us avoid distractions and notice what in us is not yet healed or aligned with oneness. (Precepts etc.)
Whether or not we notice what we are, these practices help transform our human self to be more intentionally and consciously aligned with oneness.
PRACTICES MIMICKING AWAKENING
The practices that mimc awakening seem to have a few things in common.
They tend to be more universal, simple, and essential. Variations of them are found in many spiritual traditions. They are not overly complicated. And they focus directly on the essentials of awakening and embodiment.
They also tend to be useful through the awakening process – whether it’s preparation, noticing what we are, living from this noticing, or supporting the unawake parts of us in joining with the awakening.
See below for a couple of drafts where I lost focus and they got overly intricate. I chose to include them to show the process, and since they have relevant pointers not included in the final version.
NOTES & DRAFT FRAGMENTS
SECOND HALF
HOW IS IT TO LIVE FROM NOTICING WHAT WE ARE?
How is it to live from oneness? How is it to live as oneness?
There is an idealized version of living from oneness. It’s how it would be if our human self was completely and thoroughly onboard with the awakening.
Here, we find ourselves as love. This is a love that’s not dependent on states or feelings. It’s the pragmatic love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right.
At a human level, we shift how we relate to ourselves, others, situations, and life in general. We recognize that the true nature of all of this is the same as our own true nature. We befriend all phenomena since none of them are inherently “other”.
We recognize thoughts as thoughts. They have a pragmatic function in helping us orient and live our life in the world, and they cannot reflect or contain any final or absolute truth.
As Big Mind & Big Heart, it looks like this.
And in real life, it doesn’t quite look like this.
Our human self will still, to some extent, operate from old habits and separation consciousness. Several parts of us still operate from separation consciousness. They operate from old beliefs, identifications, hangups, emotional issues, and traumas formed within separation consciousness. When these are triggered, they may distract us from noticing what we are, and we may live from these even if we notice what we are. Even if they are not triggered, and even if we notice what we are, they’ll still color our perception and how we live our life. And we can invite these to join in with the awakening.
This means that living from oneness has two aspects. One is living from it here and now, to the best of our ability. The other is inviting all parts of us – the ones still operating from separation consciousness – to join in with the awakening.
PRACTICES THAT MIMIC HOW IT IS TO LIVE AS ONENESS
Several practices mimic how it is to live from oneness.
If we notice what we are, they support us in living from this noticing. They help shift how we relate to ourselves, others, situations, and life in general. They help transform our human self out of old separation-consciousness habits and into living more consciously and intentionally from oneness. And they help transform the parts of our human self still operating from separation consciousness – AKA remaining beliefs, identifications, hangups, emotional issues, trauma – to align more consciously with oneness and in the process heal more deeply.
If we don’t notice what we are, these practices do much of the same. They help transform how we relate to ourselves, others, and our experiences in general. They help shift us out of old separation consciousness habits and into befriending ourselves, others, and life. They help transform parts of us operating from separation consciousness and wounds, hangups, painful beliefs, and emotional issues. They help prepare the ground for actually living from noticing what we are. And they may make it a little easier for us to notice what we are.
So what are some of these practices? They include heart-centered practices which help us shift how we relate to ourselves, others, situations, and existence in general (tonglen, ho’oponopno, metta, inner smile). They include forms of inquiry that help us see through beliefs, identifications, and what creates and upholds separation consciousness patterns in us (The Work of Byron Katie, Living Inquiries). They include body-centered practices which help us shift how we relate to our body and the sensation-component of beliefs and identifications, and through that life in general (yoga, tai chi, chigong, Breema). And they include guidelines for living (precepts etc.).
Finding ourselves as capacity for the world, we find ourselves as oneness, and we find ourselves as a love that’s not dependent on states or feelings. And yet, our human self still operates to some extent from separation consciousness. Many practices help us shift how we relate to the world and they help parts of us operating from separation consciousness to align with oneness. This helps prepare us for actually living for oneness, and when we notice what we are they help us live more intentionally from and as it.
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OUTLINE
- notice what we are
- characteristics
- how relate to content of experience
- living from it
- heart-centered practices
- helping parts of us operating from separation consciousness to align with oneness
- befriending, understanding, dialog
- inquiry into beliefs/identifications
- several benefits
- helps us in our daily life
- helps us notice what we are
- helps us prepare for living from it
- ….
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FRAGMENTS
As we find ourselves as capacity for our experiences, we notice that all our experiences happen within and as what we are. And here, we notice oneness. This field of experiences, the world as it appears to me, is one. Thoughts make distinctions,
Living from noticing what we are has two aspects: Living from it in this situation. And inviting the different parts of us still operating from separation consciousness to align with oneness.
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When we notice what we are, the question then is how to live from it.
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Several practices mimic this. They help us shift out of old habits created from separation consciousness, They help us shift our relationship to whatever we experience, and they help transform parts of our human self still operating from separation consciousness so these are more aligned with a conscious noticing of oneness.
Before and within noticing what we are, several different practices can help us transform our human self – and the different parts of our human self – so it’s more aligned with oneness recognizing itself. These parts were formed when we operated from separation consciousness, and they may still operate from separation consciousness even while there is a noticing of what we are, so these practices help these transform and realign with a more conscious noticing of oneness.
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These practices give us a taste of how it is to live from oneness. They make it easier for us to notice what we are. They help transform us in a way that helps us in our daily life. And they help prepare the ground for actually living from oneness.
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This is a big topic, and I’ll just mention a few things here since I have written about it in many other articles.
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We find that as what we are, we are oneness and this is expressed as love for all of existence. In a very real way, we are oneness and love.
At the same time, parts of us as human beings will still operate from separation consciousness, so we are invited to allow these to align more consciously with oneness.
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To us, the world is one.
It’s always been that way, it’s only been covered up by taking thoughts held as true, which creates the appearance of us fundamentally being a separate self within content of experience with the rest of our experience as the wider world and “other”. The function of thoughts is to make distinctions, which is essential for us to function in the world, and when held as true, these thoughts then makes it seem as if the distinctions represent real and fundamental separation.
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We also recognize that the function of thoughts is to differentiate, and if we hold that differentiation as true, then we
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The spiritual practices that mimic awakening tend to be the more universal, simple, and essential ones.
They tend to be useful through large parts or all phases of the process – from preparation to noticing to living from this noticing. They help us in our daily life. They help prepare the ground for noticing what we are. And they help prepare the ground for living from it.
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There is an element of fake it until you make it here, but