Awake in This Life

Awakening into an enlightened perspective happens when we intentionally open our hearts and minds and let go of all thoughts and feelings that relate to a separate sense of what we’ve always known as a self. This self isn’t anything fixed. It is our mistaken belief that this sense of “I” is the cause of all pain. The source of our suffering isn’t that we have an “I,” or an ego, but rather that our ego’s clinging keeps us blind to our natural state of boundless grace atop the Mountain of Spirit. Ego isn’t the problem; rather its fixations and its inertia are what prevent the Divine from shining through us.

The deep, felt sense of grace in our bodies that often accompanies a profound spiritual opening to Truth is often blissful. So, it is common for a practitioner’s ego to identify any profoundly expansive feeling with Enlightenment when in fact the experience is still confined to the perceptions of one’s individual body and mind. Just because an experience feels as if the ego has been transcended doesn’t mean that it has. Experiences of total self are constantly confused with experiences of no self, yet in terms of Awakening, the difference is profound. Confusing childlike innocence, for example, with Enlightenment gets us into trouble, because childlike innocence is not outside the bounds of ego but rather totally subsumed by it. Children see, in other words, the Universe as an extension of a “me” that gets to define what is “mine,” while the enlightened among us have let go of this form of clinging. To an Awakened person, the me and the mine have given way to a vast sense of undivided awareness we might call “All.”

I remember when a woman got upset with a teacher giving a Dharma talk on this topic. Basically, he was emphasizing that the gift and curse of adulthood centers around our ability to reflect on our minds and bodies. This reflection allows us to go past mind and body if we don’t attach to any part of the process. “Little kids,” I remember him saying, “can’t do this like we can.”

“Kids are always better at it than we are,” the woman countered after his talk. “Isn’t that what we’re trying to do here? Reclaim our childlike states of innocence?”

He gave an interesting response saying that “While childlike states of innocence are beautiful to experience, the experience is never anything other than a pointer to what is beyond the experience itself. It’s not that the Infinite only extends outside of us. It extends within us as well. As such, this thing we call me is like a screen door to the Universe, swinging open and closed, never really keeping anything in or out. So it helps to recognize that any state we might reach is simply pointing us in a certain direction. For any of us to cling to any thought or feeling of what Awakening might be like merely sets the small self up to manage our search for a deeper spirituality that we’ve mistaken for childish egocentrism.”

It is critical for the sincere practitioner to realize that Enlightenment mustn’t be confused with the feeling of a state of bliss or the emotions that might accompany these sensations. Enlightenment shows up when both the mind and body are dropped from the experiential continuum. Mind and body, in other words, are seen for what they are: temporary experiences, whose versions of truth are always and forever partial. This realization unties and extends past all boundaries of thought and feeling. It’s as if a divine transplant occurs, exchanging our fixations with what is beyond fixation. As strange and as threatening as this may sound to the ego, this shift is the way we begin to embody an enlightened Illumination.

Having said this, our felt sense of this Illumination is both an invitation to the party of Awakening and a simple reflection of our individual sense of Truth. It is not the Truth itself any more than our image in a mirror is real. Any felt sense of the Truth beyond name and form invariably points us directly into the light of Awakening. Your sense of Truth is important, but it isn’t the whole story. In fact, your sense of Truth, as well as my sense of Truth, is always partial. Our feelings and emotions are centered and oriented in personal experience, yet they are only an expression of our most basic fixation on our own egocentricity. On the other hand, authentic spiritual practice systematically exposes our egocentric limitations to the clear light of Truth. Awakening to this light cannot be understood as a personal experience, since the latter inappropriately confines the Infinite to the boundary of our own personal thoughts and feelings.

While egos might bristle at any mention of Truth (Whose Truth? Truth is culture bound! Truth is relative!), it is important to recognize that we are only pointing toward the Infinity that gives birth to every form and mind-identified version of Truth. It is beyond any egoic script that might sound like: “That was the enlightenment experience that I’ve been waiting to have. I guess I’m done since it feels like I’ve been successful in letting my ego fall away.” It is beyond any attachment that might suggest that there is no such thing as Truth since any version of Truth is only a relative experience. The Truth that Awakening offers up is beyond all relativity. It isn’t mine, nor is it yours, nor is it anyone else’s. It is that spark of divinity that shimmers in all things whether we consciously recognize it or not. It is the brilliant chaotic Uncertainty that surpasses any categorization or tradition, whether or not we want to comfort our egos by attaching to labels like Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Jew. It is a Truth that goes beyond and yet brings everything along with its expression. This is equally everybody’s Truth, and, if we’re ready to receive it, we’ll find that it is always showing itself at the core of everything that we might ever think or feel.