Thanissara

Awakening as not an experience, it is the end of experience. It inducts you into a sphere of 'unknowing'. In daily life it is the recognition of pure consciousness, which is not bound by anything. Awakening as process – consciousness evolving and awakening itself through the forms of life. The implications of this is a tremendous sense of awe, mystery, zest. The sort of feeling you have when meeting your lover

What is to you an awakened life or an awakened moment?

I experience awakening as a process. Although I have experienced powerful openings, they are now memories, like fading butterflies. So I don't really maintain a reference point in regards to special moments or experiences of awakening. I don't see awakening as an experience. I see it as the end of experience.

An awakening life is not a static thing, as if you reach some experience that changes everything and you never then experience conflict, pain or suffering. This is a child-like idea of awakening. A trap in meditation is aiming for a special experience in the hope that it will either abdicate one from the difficulty of life, or will make you a sort of super spiritual Teflon-like power person that will have all the answers. Awakening is humbling because it inducts you into a sphere of 'unknowing', meaning that knowledge is not it. And a special experience is not it.

Awakening is not about lifting you up and out of the realm of our humanity, it's more about taking you down and through the layers of unwakened consciousness. Each dimension that is held in ignorance needs to be gathered in and integrated. I am seeing this less in terms of the personal, i.e. 'me' and 'my' awakening, but rather as a dynamic within the collective. I am not sure I can put this clearly, the best I can say about that right now is this: The fulcrum (נקודת המשען) of Awakening is less orientated around the person, it is a dynamic that is happening within everyone. It is as if consciousness itself is awakening and is moving through the forms of life.

What is your definition for spiritual awakening or awakening in daily life?

 It is the recognition of pure consciousness, which is not bound by time, space, definition or even any particular attribute, though we could use words like; aware, present, immanent, intelligent, luminous, immovable, unchanging. However, fundamentally it cannot be captured. This is one dimension of awakening.

The other is the dynamic unfolding of awakening as it moves through human consciousness. As we are engaged in the process of our personal awakening, we are deeply challenged to open up to the experience of dukkha. Dukkha teaches us. It shows us where we hold on and what we are constricted by. Ultimately, if we follow the journey of the four noble truths, as articulated by the Buddha, insight into the nibbana dhatu, the undying element, will be revealed.

Please share with us an insight you've recently had.

My monastic conditioning made me cautious to talk of personal insight. There are good reasons for that. However, I'm not particularly attached to a view as to whether or not it is good to talk about ones insights. Perhaps in our times of global crisis, when so much idiocy fills the air waves, talking about our insights is good. Insights are a dynamic unfolding, they come and they go, even being attached to our insights can be a problem.

However, related to the two dimensions of awakening that I mentioned above, I am struck by the following considerations. The first is that my understanding of 'nibbana' is that it is completely and utterly without any 'quality-ness'. This strikes me because usually attributes are put to it, for example: peace, the cool, etc. I say 'nibbana' but I am not sure I should put this word to this. Actually, I would have liked to put a word to the transcendent like universal love. However, I am struck by this sense of an utter lack of any quality-ness. I cannot even say this is an insight. It just is. But the implications have been a softening into a total sense of ordinariness, that the field of awakening is within the every-day and within the ordinary.

The other dimension of insight is seeing awakening as process. I am just working with this, I don't want to make any conclusions. I am with this sense of consciousness evolving and awakening itself through the forms of life. The implications of this is a tremendous sense of awe, mystery, zest. The sort of feeling you have when meeting your lover. You relax, you trust. These two dimensions I would call the static and dynamic aspects of awakening.

Please write any other thought or anything else that you may like to add.

Well, thanks for the questions. I would like to say a little more about the practice of awakening, but I'm aware of space limitations. In brief I see that we are developing a fluidity that can move within the spheres of dualistic consciousness and pure consciousness. Both of which are there at the same time and inter-penetrate. It's a question of agility (קלילות, גמישות) in regards to shifting focus. What enables us to do so is mindfulness, mindfulness is the bridge. Identification with thought creates 'me' and 'the world'. It captures us within the turning wheel of time. With mindfulness there is choice: do I go with this or not?  Mindfulness also allows us to recognize what happens when we let go of identification to the 'me' that is 'thinking', 'doing', 'achieving', 'failing' etc. In letting go, mindfulness recognizes that pure awareness stands before any movement, any sense of time.

So the relative and the absolute are domains, or spheres, that are there at the same time, and that inter-penetrate 'Form is Emptiness – Emptiness is Form' as in the Heart Sutra.
The entry into the absolute is to see the changeability of all dhammas (thing-ness) and particularly of thought – seeing thought as thought – rather than becoming the thought. All thoughts – everything – is arising and passing from and back into this one awareness. The fount (מעין, מקור) of all, the extinction of all, this vibrant, aware, intelligent, creative and yet still, birthing and yet unborn, the cauldron (קדרה, קלחת) of transition and transformation. This ultimate Vajra heart which dwells in no time, no place, no space, no you, no me, no going, no coming......No worries!