The 'Process'

I will try to get more specific about the messy details of what I'm referring to as awakening here, which might make it somewhat more uncomfortable for me (and for you too perhaps if you happen to be going along with me). 

So this one step (I mentioned in that last post) that waits to be taken at any time, let me give specific examples. We've all had our moments. Beautiful, meaningful, spiritual... but looking back I find one moment that for me was a real turning point, an awakening (small a), and it wasn't particularly pretty... Without relating a life story here I'll just try to drop in on this one scene which had been slowly built up to. 

~So here we find our hero at night in his car driving very slowly and awkwardly due to the weight of what is perhaps the heaviest emotion yet experienced, leaving what has been a wonderful marriage of 25 years. I only make it a few blocks before I have to stop in a dark empty parking lot to 'regroup'. Without the need to navigate the road safely thoughts become free to really start sliding down what is perceived as a dark and dangerous spiral. There is this strong emotional pull to follow it down farther than I've gone before and there is nothing to stop me now. But then suddenly this (I don't know how to describe it) seeing/space/interruption,  and the thought appears “so THAT'S how you do this”. Something in me is suddenly interested and observing how all this drama is being created on the spot. I had assumed that I was being swept along by this sad turn of events, by the unfortunate way that things were, but something suddenly wakes up enough to see how all this is being created by me at this moment. How all my suffering is self inflicted.~ 

Let me tell you there were no angels singing here at this point or anything like that. In fact there was a LOT of resistance to seeing this. It still felt very important somehow to follow those emotions down that dark path (like I just had to) but this sensation of stepping back and seeing from a different space was interesting enough that it stopped the momentum and a thought came that said “I know it feels important and that you have no control here but let's just see if we can pause this drama for 5 minutes. If after that you still want to continue down this path then fine, you can”. It was difficult to even admit to myself that pausing was a possibility. Looking back it feels rather like an adult was talking to a child that was having a tantrum. At any rate pause I did and at the end of the 5 minutes or so instead of continuing the mental slide I started the car and drove off. 

It now feels as though this little event was the beginning for me of the process of watching my thoughts (I say 'my' thoughts but really they are just thoughts. Mine to watch but not really me). After that began a process of catching my thoughts in action or  of seeing them in in the act of building a story and an identity. Waking up to seeing it being done in “real time” as it were. The moment of catching this, seeing the whole story created in thought in this moment, was at first almost always accompanied by an “AARRGGH!” response. The character in the story does NOT like to see this, it's painful, but this for me this is the process of waking up and it can be messy and embarrassing.

As an example it might go something like this. Say some interpersonal tension has appeared in my life between me and my boss, friend, wife, colleague, whomever. While I am alone working I find thoughts arising around this story. Typically imaginary mental conversations that took place or could take place in the future (conversations where of course I invariably emerge victorious). Whole mental movies in fact with expected reactions of the other person and responses from me and on and on. With these thoughts come corresponding reactions in the body. The tension, stress, fear, adrenalin, what have you. And then something notices what is going on. That stepping back and my see that it's all just a story. 

“No really? 

But this is no story, this is REAL! I  should be mad about this! Look what he said to me, look what he did. He is so wrong and I am definitely right. And look, I can prove it definitively with these excellent arguments that will really put him in his place so completely. Artfully and beautifully even. So clever. Not only will I convince him and everyone else that he is wrong but if I arrange and perform it just right, with great subtlety, I will even come across as wise, spiritual, patient, knowing, kind and all the rest. And no one will know that all this has been carefully planned and calculated (or at least be able to prove it) and so I don't have to admit it to myself and will feel free to take these desirable characteristics into my identity and believe in this current updated in the story of me”.

But actually yes. 

This is a complete fiction being created right here and right now for the purpose only of maintaining this fictional character called “me”. This has N O T H I N G to do with that other person whatsoever. What ever is happening is only happening here and RIGHT now for my benefit (or otherwise). All else is imaginary and if believed is endarkening. 

Or I could be catching a story that does not seem especially stressful. It might be beautiful and inspiring thoughts about some wonderful future. For me it amounts to the same. If thoughts are occurring I must see them. I would say that no struggle is actually necessary or even helpful here. Just seeing clearly what it is that is happening is enough. Just to notice it. I said in an earlier post that this felt like a hard step to take due to all the resistance but really there is no effort involved. For instance how much effort does it take for you right now just to notice the sensations of feeling your tongue in your mouth? That's how much effort we're talking about. Once I am noticing thoughts happening they typically lose steam, but at any rate they are seen to be just thoughts and are not identified with anymore. As I watch them they are unthreatening and it doesn't particularly matter if they stay or go. Just as long as they are seen. But they sooo want to come back and will return within a few seconds without very alert attention. That's fine. If I stay very alert “like a cat watching a mouse hole” I am free and clear. 

So (uncomfortable as it may be) here in front of me is this one step to take to awaken, that is really no step at all. It's just seeing what is right in front of me, whatever that is, and the resistance to seeing it if that is present. Am I engrossed or immersed in thinking or am I seeing it happening 'in real time'? It's one or the other. If thinking is happening I must see it happening. This is the step before me as I can describe it at this time. I don't need to take a workshop, or meditate, or read a book, or perform any practice to take this step. I don't need anyone else to show it to me. In fact I see any practice toward this as an act of avoidance, of stalling for time. This step stares me blatantly in the face. I either face this or turn away. Am I ready to see right now how I'm engaged in endarkening myself or not? This choice is always right before me. It doesn't happen in the future. It either happens now or not at all. 

So, OK, are you ready? Don't look away!

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So now to shift gears slightly:

You could perhaps call this a door. Whether or not there is anything beyond this I will leave to you but I would assert that if one is busy contemplating what might be beyond then one is busy MISSING this one step. It's only hard before you take it. After you take it it disappears completely. It was just an illusion anyway. It's like a story I heard that went something like this (rewritten from memory): 

“Master, how can I become liberated”?

"Ask who has bound you”

After a week the disciple comes back

"No one has bound me”

“Then why ask to be liberated”?

So to me it is seeing how I am busy working with all my will and attention to be unfree. Once I face this it disappears. I either do this or not. But like I said it's all just a story of liberation. A collection of thoughts. It only seems to matter within the story and regardless of what occurs here 'Awakeness' or 'This' is not touched. Once these thoughts are no longer focused on the story of a 'me' to be freed is gone.

So the above is what I'm calling here (for me at this time) 'the process of awakening'. What I would call 'Awakeness' is something else and indescribable. An Is-ness that is already aware of itself regardless of what ever might be occurring or arising. A quote by David Carse points to this for me so beautifully:

“On the one hand there is everything; everything known, felt, thought, believed, everything that exists or doesn't exist, everything possible and impossible. Everything that was, is, or ever will be, or never will be. And on the other hand there is this. And everything is not. And this is”. 

But Awakeness is not special. It is totally ordinary and natural. There is nothing you can do to get it and nothing you can do to lose it. 

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(Oh and by the way, as a post script to my story I should add that after a year and a half of living quietly alone watching and healing my wife and I slowly and beautifully came back together. Isn't that how fairy tales typically end :)