Awake in This Life

As we learn to stop moving, we come to the realization that there is a largely unfamiliar part of us that has never and will never move at all. Re-familiarizing ourselves with this space is an amazing, often tear-filled homecoming into grace. The mystery is that we are individually and collectively each quite homesick for this place of grace, and that homesickness shows itself all of the time. Most often it happens when our individual egos experience a feeling that something is wrong, that something is somehow either lacking or too much, or of a deep anxiety about our circumstances. Sometimes we even feel excruciating psychological or physical pain. This makes us feel either a need or a compulsion to reconnect with grace. Whatever the case, if in meditation we follow these egoic senses to their origins and we constantly uncover “who,” or better yet “what,” exactly is feeling them, we will put ourselves on the Path that leads us directly into a home where we are forever able to live as an expression of grace.

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As heady as all of these words might strike us, pointing to Infinity is fairly simple. In fact, everything is Infinity, so there is no way to avoid it. Knowing this deeply, all things change to reflect our realization, and we begin to inhabit a different place of being. Just sitting still ignites a mysterious process. It’s not unlike water of stillness being poured on the dry sponge of the contracted, always moving small self. The more stillness, the more the small self expands its form into an uncontracted Big Self. Once this expansion begins to occur, we become more intensely aware of everything that arises in life. In fact, the whole world can open us up to an intense fire of Freedom. As we soak our contracted sense of self with this timeless and boundless communion with everything and then allow all of our action to come from this infinitely expansive and fluid place, we can’t avoid becoming profoundly helpful. This helpfulness spontaneously expresses itself as we become what Buddhism refers to as bodhisattvas.

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Unfortunately for our greedy egos, awakening to an enlightened perspective cannot happen without stillness. You might be one of those exceedingly rare individuals who awakens without the support of either a teacher or a regular stillness practice. But the Enlightenment that the mystics and sages speak about can only ever show up through stillness. As much as our egos would love to have it their way where they can manage the entire process of Awakening, authentic transformation, from the narrowness of the small self to the spacious Ultimate Life of the Big Self, happens only when meditative stillness becomes part of our more active lives. Sadly enough for our overachieving egos rushing to Awaken, meditation is the shortcut, since meditation is stillness, and stillness is the unbounded estate of Enlightenment.

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There is a difference between consciously aligning our lives from stillness and not feeling any need to get out of bed in the morning. A commitment to stillness doesn’t mean that we should absolve ourselves of any directed activity. This is simple laziness, which is nothing other than avoidance, and avoidance is an attachment to something other than what is arising in the present moment. All practitioners can fall prey to their attachment to nonattachment. This clinging to nonclinging impedes Awakening as well as anything else on the Path and is quite a common ailment among even the most experienced of those who meditate. It is possible for any of us to grasp at our sense of the Absolute. Even those of us teaching can find ourselves attached to our teaching. Instead of still seeing ourselves a students of the Dharma who happen to be a little further along the Path than the people who see us as teachers, we can begin to think of ourselves as being beyond the need to practice. Being wary of this hazard deepens our practice as well as our approach to expressing ourselves fully through conscious living. But the fact remains, whether we are attaching to the Absolute or to the world, we are still locked into, and caught by, the cause of all suffering—attachment. In the end, these and all other forms of clinging are what force us off the summit and back down the slopes that we’ve previously climbed, thus preventing the unfolding of Awakening.

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The meditative mind is silent. It is beyond thought…[T]he meditative mind is the religious mind—the mind that is not touched by the church, the temples or by chants… Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

—J. Krishnamurthi

Be still and know that I am God.

—Psalm 46

In walking just walk. In sitting just sit. Above all, don’t wobble.

—Yunmen

Awakening to the Truth beyond name and form involves little more than a continual uncovering of the stillness that is always present. It is forever both within and around all things in the Universe. Awakening to an enlightened perspective, therefore, embodies this ever-present calm. But we need to consciously and continually practice our uncovering of stillness and quietude, since neither will be realized unless we deliberately weave surrender into our intention to wake up. Practicing stillness can be a challenge for most of us on the go, especially since it takes time, commitment, and patience. Most people who I’ve met who are engaged in this great process have, at one time or another, realized that there is no shortcut to stillness except, quite simply, not to move either mentally or physically. This may sound obvious enough, but its application can get difficult, since being still and quiet goes against much of our conditioning.

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It can be helpful to know that, regardless of our situation, whenever we make a decision, we always have three options: 1) we can leave the circumstance, 2) we can act to change the circumstance, or 3) we can completely surrender to the circumstance. There really isn’t anywhere else we can possibly go. Even if we decide not to decide, we’re still making a decision—one that is really just a disguised version of leaving or turning away from what’s going on. Since avoidance of any kind is a form of attachment, it can only provide temporary relief from what is causing us distress and may even work to increase our pain as well as the pain of others.

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A practitioner at a retreat that I was leading challenged me to simplify Awakening into as few words as possible.

Amazing, I thought silently, we are always looking for ways to speed up the process. Of course, I was including myself in this commentary since I had asked basically the same question of my teacher some years earlier. The response that my teacher gave me was immediate. (more…)

A teacher once told me that real spiritual practice was analogous to quieting life’s stream. Meditation begins to slow the flow of everything in our lives. As the rush of life’s stream begins to lose intensity, we can observe the stones upon the riverbed that impede the free and unobstructed flow of our living. As the flow slows down, we become keenly aware of every eddy, every whirlpool, and every rapid. What’s more, we can see the causes and conditions that lead to all of the obstructions to the simple flow of our life.

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