Through having lived as many lives I have, I notice that all sorts of experiences and states come and go. I have experienced millennia of mostly “ordinary” states with times of profound despair, mind-shattering pain, and amazing bliss. I have noticed that what I am is that which all this happens within and as. Experiences come and go and what I am doesn’t come and go. Of course, I am whatever state is here but it doesn’t last. Only being capacity for all of it runs through it all.
If you want to call that awakening, be my guest. But it’s really very simple. It doesn’t require fancy words, or rituals, or mythology, or even labels.
– from Dialog with someone who has lived innumerable lives in many places in the cosmos
To me, it seems that awakening is inevitable (?) if we just lived long enough, perhaps for centuries or millennia. And it wouldn’t seem like anything special. It would just be a natural part of maturing and having lived for a while.
Over time, we get to see that any and all content of experience comes and goes, including anything we think we are, and any identifications we may have. We dream, and are someone different. We have an identity for ourselves and in the world, and something happens and it goes away. We think we are something in particular, and those thoughts go away for a while and we are still here.
So if we are not fundamentally anything within all this that comes and goes, what are we?
What are we more fundamentally? When I look, I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the experience of all of this. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.
This is what we may discover through basic meditation, and also what we may – inevitably? – discover if we would be around for a few millennia.
Basic meditation is, in many ways, a condensed micro-version of this. We compress what would happen naturally, over many many years, into minutes, hours, days, and months.
And we can support that process through other explorations, including inquiry.
Here are two dialogs on this topic: Dialog with someone who has lived innumerable lives in many places in the cosmos | Dialog with one who has lived eons and has a mystic streak
INITIAL DRAFT
IF WE LIVED FOR EONS, WOULD AWAKENING BE INEVITABLE?
To me, it seems that awakening is inevitable if we just lived long enough, perhaps for centuries or millennia. And it wouldn’t seem like anything special. It would just be a natural part of maturing and having lived for a while.
Over time, we get to see that any and all content of experience comes and goes, including anything we think we are, and any identifications we may have. We dream, and are someone different. We have an identity for ourselves and in the world, and something happens and it goes away. We think we are something in particular, and those thoughts go away.
So if we are not fundamentally anything within all this that comes and goes, what are we?
What are we more fundamentally? When I look, I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the experience of all of this. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.
This is what we may discover through basic meditation, and also what we may – inevitably? – discover if we would be around for a few millenia.
Basic meditation is, in many ways, a condensed micro-version of this. We compress what would happen naturally, over many many years, into a noticing over minutes, hours, and days.
And we can support that process through other explorations, including inquiry.