What is awakening? : many wonder about this
I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what awakening is, or what it isn't.
Many people wonder about this (rightly or wrongly), and struggle to find even the beginnings of an answer.
First of all, awakening is not enlightenment. These are two different things.
What is awakening?
Awakening is a different state of consciousness, close to that of a very young child, which offers a fresh and complete look at the world. Describing it is a challenge, because it goes beyond intellectual understanding, and defining it with words is therefore impossible. Words mislead, rather than guide, when they attempt to reveal to us something beyond understanding. We could say that awakening is a state in which we are connected to everything, we feel everything, and we know that we are part of this whole... without conceiving it intellectually.
Paradoxical, isn't it? In fact, we could talk about
“true knowledge”. In life, we know nothing. Human beings are born and die without truly knowing anything. But in awakening, the part of us that knows is there, it communicates with us, and we know… truly.
Awakening is not something constant, nor acquired. You can achieve enlightenment, and lose it in the next minute. You can be awake for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years, and suddenly no longer be awake. It's a bit like joy, we experience it randomly, one moment we're happy, and the next we're not. We can't really control that, but we can offer ourselves a living environment that promotes the appearance of joy. The same goes for awakening. A
spiritual and serene life, close to nature, is more inclined to trigger a state of awakening in us.
How to achieve enlightenment? Starting by giving up your search! Indeed, he who seeks enlightenment only finds it when he gives up. in Taoism, we speak of Wu Wei, or Non-Action.
It is an approach that aims to stop trying to do a thing, to allow that thing to be done. Wu Wei consists of following the Natural course, without trying to fight against it. He who fights against the current drowns, while he who lets himself be carried away suffers
the shore.
A Native American saying goes “Don’t fight against the torrent, let
you flow with him.” In Chan, and Zen Buddhism, meditation is practiced without object or motive. This is the reason why many currents practice it facing the wall. We don't meditate to achieve awakening or enlightenment, we meditate, that's all.
He who meditates to achieve enlightenment completely misses the goal.
Anyone who looks at the top of the mountain when he begins to climb it runs out of breath from the first steps, and sees nothing of the landscape, nor of the rock in which he will trip his feet. While the one who looks at the path he is on, and what surrounds him, without trying to know where he is going, he enjoys the landscape, avoids pitfalls, and really goes somewhere. For those who would like to have already arrived, the path seems too long, for those who take advantage of the path, it seems very short.
This is one of the meanings of “Here and Now” in Buddhism. Consciousness must be where we are, and at the moment we are there.
A Zen tale offers us a superb metaphor on this subject. In Japanese, awakening is called “Satori”.
One day, a lumberjack heard about a rare and legendary animal called Satori. All the hunters said that whoever caught one, alive or dead, would be a true hero. Our woodcutter wanted to know more, and asked “where do we find such an animal?” He was told that it was found everywhere, but that it was so difficult to see and catch that it was a wasted effort. Returning to his forest to cut wood, he couldn't get Satori out of his head, he wanted at all costs to see this animal, and catch it.
Determined, he began to search the woods, discreetly, to find a trace of Satori. Every day he spent considerable time searching for her, but in vain.
One day, however, he heard a little mocking laugh in the foliage, and a mischievous voice said to him: “You must be crazy or naive if you think you will one day catch me!” The woodcutter immediately recognized Satori, and decided to redouble his efforts... but nothing worked. He built traps, he tried to make noise to frighten Satori and push him into making a mistake in his haste, he instead tried to hide for hours, scanning the undergrowth.
Nothing to do, not only did he not see Satori, but the latter had taken to making fun of the woodcutter:
“Did you really think such a rudimentary trap would be enough to catch me?”
As time passed, the woodcutter despaired. But what worried him most was that he had abandoned his work, and that the cold days would soon arrive. He was then forced to resolve to cut wood again, but Satori harassed him, making his work difficult.
Every time he tried to work, Satori would tell him:
“Come on, aren’t you going to look for me today? Maybe this time will be the right one!”
Our lumberjack had no choice, if he wanted to have enough to heat himself, and enough to give the village wood for the fireplaces, he had to concentrate.
He tried to absorb himself in his work, to stop listening
Satori.
At first he couldn't do it, the nasal and mocking voice irritated him, but eventually he got used to Satori's taunts, and didn't mind.
paid more attention. So much so that he couldn't even tell if Satori had made fun of him for 5 minutes, or the whole day!
He cut down a tree, still concentrating on his work, and as it fell to the ground, a high-pitched squeal was heard.
The woodcutter, worried, went to see where it came from, and he found something stuck under the tree. He moved the trunk, and was struck with amazement: it was Satori!
In general, we have all experienced enlightenment at least once.
As children, we were close to this state. Sometimes, when we are absorbed by our work, or by one of our actions, when we are just present, and conscious, a few seconds of awakening come to enlighten us. When it’s so short, it’s hard to realize that something has happened. We felt “strange”, we
the impression of having felt dizzy, or that for a moment one was like the spectator of life, and even the spectator of oneself.
As if we were watching all this from “further away”. We tell ourselves that we didn't get enough sleep, and we forget. However, this was perhaps a fragment of awakening that was offered to us.
Achieving awakening means being present here, and now, being aware, being in what we are doing.
It is not seeking awakening. It is doing, not seeking to
TO DO. It’s living a healthy life, eating healthy food. Achieving enlightenment can be done by anyone, in any situation. In good health or sick, full or hungry, fit or tired, in meditation or at work, in full effort or at rest, in nature or in prison... but a life more serene, calmer, more calm, healthier, and more natural, promotes the emergence of awakening, which then tends to manifest spontaneously, more often, and for longer.
The frequency, intensity, and duration of wakefulness could almost be a “measuring device”, an indicator of the quality of our life. There is nothing surprising in the fact that monks cultivating their land, eating good healthy products, close to nature and serene were able to speak about notions like awakening with more eloquence than anyone else.
else. Their living conditions favored this experience.
Awakening allows us to see more things, to understand things, inside ourselves, without the intellect, without thinking. It allows us to memorize what we see, to fix it in our soul, in our mind, like a pure crystal. These memories are then, once waking is gone, like those of a distant dream. We have the impression that these memories are unreal, but paradoxically, they are of extraordinary clarity and precision. Sometimes we come to have the impression that these are someone else's memories that have been communicated to us.
This is because these memories belong to a part of us which is beyond our ordinary consciousness. These are the memories of a part of our being closer to what is divine.
What is awakening? It is the state of being that is healthy.
It is the child who learns a language to perfection in just a few months. It’s the spark in this child’s eyes when he sees a tree, or an animal. It is the Sakki of the warrior (a sort of unintelligible intuition which allows us to avoid an aggression, and to only become aware of it, at best, after the fact).
Awakening is the opening of oneself to oneself.
Awakening is our intellect giving way to our soul.
Awakening is the adult sleeping while the child observes the
stars.
It is the reflection of the moon on a sea of oil.
How to achieve enlightenment? By not looking for it, and by just being present, here, and now: by letting go.
By not seeking to act, and by not seeking not to act either.
Strange paradox... not trying to do something, and not trying not to do that thing.
Accept that Nature is incomprehensible, because beyond
the intellect, and let it happen. Simply follow it, live it.
Awakening is non-dual, it is beyond the manifestation of experience.
Awakening is so simple that it is impossible for us to understand it.