These days, I find myself enjoying finding ways to talk about awakening in a way that’s as grounded and sober as possible. I have written about this in other articles and will give the essence here.
TALKING ABOUT AWAKENING
Talking about awakening is, in many ways, the least important part of it. What it’s about is exploring it for ourselves and how it is to live from it.
Still, what our heart is full of, our mouth speaks.
And it does have a function.
It may invite some to explore it for themselves.
It may serve as a pointer for how to explore it.
And it creates a kind of map which can be helpful for others exploring the actual terrain.
At the same time, it’s inherently futile. Words create imagined boundaries, and what it points to is without boundaries.
THE ESSENCE OF AWAKENING
For me, awakening means to notice what I am. To find myself as capacity for the world, and what my field of experience happens within and as.
That’s the essence of it. This can be understood in a psychological sense. No matter our general worldview, we have to admit we experience through and via consciousness. All our experiences happen within and as consciousness. To ourselves, we are consciousness. (We cannot be anything else.) We are what our experiences happen within and as.
Saying that we are this human self is not wrong. It’s how others see us and it mostly works in daily life. We may also assume that we most fundamentally are this human self. But in our own immediate experience, we are consciousness. We are what our field of experience – which includes this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.
Awakening means to notice what we already are in our own immediate experience. And this can be described and understood in a relatively simple way.
WHAT COMES WITH AWAKENING
When we find what we are to ourselves, we may also notice a few other things.
My field of experience happens within and as what I am. To me, it’s one. It’s a seamless whole. Any distinctions come from an overlay of mental representations. To me, I am oneness and all of existence is one.
This too isn’t very mysterious. It’s a function of noticing what I am and finding myself as capacity for the world as it appears to me.
Also, to me, all of existence is consciousness. To me, all my experiences happen within and as what I am. To me, they share my true nature. To me, they are consciousness.
SMALL AND BIG INTERPRETATIONS OF AWAKENING
What I have described here is the essence of awakening.
It’s also what we can call the small or psychological way of talking about awakening. It’s the most sober and grounded way of talking about it that I have found so far. (Which perhaps says something about my own limitations!) It’s the way of talking about it that requires the fewest assumptions, leaps of faith, and big words.
There is also the big or spiritual interpretation of awakening. Here, we take a few leaps although – in some instances – these leaps are also grounded in what we can notice.
When we notice what we are, we also notice that to us all of existence inevitably happens within and as consciousness. It appears as consciousness to us. To us, the true nature of all phenomena is the same as our own true nature.
So it’s natural here to take the leap and say that all of existence inherently is consciousness. And from here, we can say that all of existence is Spirit, the divine, God, Allah, Brahman, Buddha nature, and so on.
After all, that’s how it inevitably appears to us.
Whether all of existence actually is like this is another question. There are some hints suggesting that it’s the case – ESP, distance sensing, distance healing, and so on – but this is for another article.
THE UPSIDES AND LIMITATIONS OF A SOBER APPROACH
There are several upsides to a sober and grounded approach to talking about awakening.
It can be relatively simple and pragmatic.
It makes it available to more people.
It demystifies the topic.
It can make sense to people who are not into spirituality.
And there are also some limitations.
It speaks to only some people and not others. That’s the limitation inherent in any approach, and that’s why we have a wide range of flavors and approaches.
There are sides to awakening that are better pointed to in another way, for instance, a more poetic or metaphorical one.
If it’s presented in a simple and clear way, we may understand the thoughts and assume that means we get what it refers to. (Even if one is a pointer and the other is direct noticing.)
Depending on how it’s expressed, it can sound a bit boring and uninspiring. I love this aspect of it since it means that if we are still attracted to it, it comes from a deeper and more sincere place in us.
OTHER APPROACHES TO TALKING ABOUT AWAKENING
When we talk about awakening in another way, it generally comes from two places.
It can come from clarity and wisdom, and perhaps personal preference or a strategic choice.
It can come from lack of clarity, unexamined beliefs, and emotional issues.
And it can come from any combination of those two.
Here are some examples if we come from clarity and wisdom.
We may come from a tradition or culture that emphasizes another way to talk about it. For instance, one that’s more devotional, poetic, or metaphorical.
We may have a personal skill, orientation, or preference that leads us to use a more devotional, poetic, artistic, or metaphorical expression.
We may choose a more devotional, poetic, or metaphorical expression as a strategy, in order to reach certain people, speak to people at a certain phase of the process, highlight certain aspects of awakening or the divine, or evoke something in the recipient.
And here are some examples if we come more from lack of clarity.
To us, awakening may be a story. We may not have a reference for it from our own noticing or even a memory of noticing. That makes it an open field to imagine just about anything into.
We may mix up direct noticing with imaginations and fantasies, even if we notice what we are. And this can happen for a variety of reasons.
We may be caught up in what we have heard from others, whether this is our culture, spiritual tradition, spiritual teachers, or someone else. We may use this in how we talk about it, even if it doesn’t fit our direct noticing.
We may not prioritize intellectual honesty, so we mix up stories with our direct noticing.
We may be caught up in beliefs and emotional issues, and this fuels certain stories that are not supported by our direct noticing.
We may confuse the side-effects of an initial awakening with its essence.
We may take our immediate perception as reality itself. For instance, we may notice that to us the whole world appears as consciousness, and jump to the conclusion that all of existence is consciousness.
THE RICHNESS OF MULTIPLE APPROACHES
There is a richness in how we collectively perceive and express all of this, and that’s not a coincidence.
We may notice different aspects of what we are. We come from different cultural and spiritual backgrounds. We have preferences and talents in talking about it in different ways. We may choose certain ways to talk about it as a strategy, to speak to a certain audience, or to evoke something in the recipient.
We also have our own lack of clarity, blind spots, unexamined beliefs, hangups, and emotional issues that filter our perception and expression.
And all of that creates a richness we all benefit from. It creates a fuller picture.
There are valuable pointers in the expressions that come from direct noticing, no matter what form those expressions take. And all of it – the clarity and wisdom, and the confusion and hangups – is our mirror. It’s up to us to sort it out for ourselves, through our own explorations and direct noticing.
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