Christopher Titmus
What is your definition for spiritual awakening or awakening in daily life?
An awakening moment, a sudden insight, a fresh way of looking at things, marks a break with the past and the old ways of looking at things or sheds more light on old insights.
To experience an insight interrupts the conditioned view of a story, a situation, an event, and shows it in fresh ways. Insights have the capacity to set new directions, or at least generate a rupture (בֶקע, קֶרע) in the old way of looking. Awakening changes the view of a situation and has the capacity to change the situation itself. We can use insights and awakening inter-changeably or described awakening as the profoundest of insights.
There is no such thing as spontaneity or mystery in such events that break from the past. We use this language when we are unable to perceive the conditions and contingency factors that generate the awakening. Awakening can include insights into the ordinary and everyday. In conventional experiences, we might well say, “I suddenly woke up to what was happening.” Awakening also includes insights into the unformed, unmade, and limitless. (I have written an article for the next issue of Dharma eNews 22 on the exploration of the Deathless. You will see that the Buddha has used 108 words or more for the ultimate). The ultimate is a realm for awakening and insights that can emerge in fresh ways over the years. A deep awakening shifts consciousness, so to speak, from relative to ultimate. This awakening, if authentic, never fades away. It sets the priority for one’s life. It does not have to be a specific event (like the Buddha had in Bodh Gaya) but can emerge gradually clear in the passage of time.
Dharma regards awakening and insights as expressions of truth. In other words, truth is not a set of designated words such as found in science (evolution, Big Bang, DNA etc) since these words may change in the passage of time. Truth is not found in religion such as the word God, the Book or the Tradition, since these words represent different meanings also. Truth serves as the transforming element, revealing the capacity for fresh possibilities or making fresh possibilities clear to us.
Consciousness has the infinite capacity to have access to fresh insights into all manner of circumstances in daily life. We make ourselves available to endless fresh insights. That does not mean to say that there are many truths. If there were multiple truths, humanity could never find any agreement. Truth is one without a second. It is the truth of awakening, even though the language or non-language may vary. We protect truth by realising that the break from the past, the old, the habit – reveals a fresh view on matters. We protect truth when we say, “this is the view” rather than claim, “this is the truth.”
We may claim that truth is beyond words, beyond language. We may claim that truth is inexpressible. We have to be careful with this view. We are not concerned with the elimination of language, nor in engaging in philosophical linguistics. Dharma practitioners do not reject words, or the construction of language. We regard words as a tool, neither rejecting words, nor blindly accepting them. Dharma does not fall into the Western categories of science, religion or philosophy due to the limits of language and claims. Dharma shows as a direct encounter with an experience or a situation to transform it, including our perceptions. We can tell whether an awakening, a “truth”, has changed an event, a situation, through what arises afterwards. What difference does it make? Does it open up our world? Does the insight awaken inner power and authority? Does it change the way we feel, think and act?
Awakening and insights impact on matters worldly and spiritual, the left hand and right hand, so to speak. There is no hierarchy between the worldly and the spiritual. Worldly insights include realisations about the ordinary and the everyday – personal, social, political and global. We are deeply interested in our relationship to the world, our relationships to each other, to the nation state, to money, ethics and so on. This is worldly life.
We are equally interested in the spiritual. This includes insights into meditation, depths of consciousness, transcendental experiences, the sense of the spiritual in nature, the arts, silence and depths of awareness. Dharma belongs neither to the worldly nor to the spiritual categories. It does not give self-existence to either.
What matters is the freeing up of the inner life, a total engagement with life, and a liberation that embraces the entire field of birth and death. A deathless element here reveals itself through the wisdom of seeing clearly dependent arising.
Dharma has an abiding interest in the “truth” that sets us free.
Please share with us an insight you've recently had.
I live alone. Of course, Nshorna and the three children live nearby and so call in regularly – baby sitting weekends. I practice football with Kye, my 9-year-old grandson on Saturdays and so on. Nevertheless, I have the opportunity to experience at home silence that offers access to receptive levels of consciousness, for fresh insights, for new priorities. I keep notebooks and jot down reflections, look at what the Buddha said, stay rather still to allow a fresh awareness around any matter to sink deeply. Here are some recent insights. I won’t go into detail. I would describe the insights as further expressions of previous insights.
1. The importance of the feature film (the Americans call “movies”). I have been watching films that convey a truth, reveal a slice of life, shedding light on the human situation. DVDs today often provide extra features such as views of the director, alternate endings, unused clips and access to particular scenes. There are wonderful Dharma teachings taking place through feature films. In the next issue, I am listing 20 films and why I regard them as deeply significant.
2. I am currently working on my poems. It is a long task since there are around 250 poems written since the 1980s. I read last December a wonderful book on poetry “The Ode Less Travelled” by Stephen Fry. He said that we need to know the metre of poems to write real poetry, even if we don’t use the metre. He said it was like playing the piano. We can get our feelings out by hitting the piano keys, but when we know how to play the notes, we can play music. I am now slowly going through my poems and transforming them into iambic pentameter form. You may have to google iambic pentameter for an explanation. It is the most common metre used in English poetry so the words are in tune with the heartbeat.
3. I am travelling less. Currently, it is the longest time I will have stayed at home since I moved here nearly 30 years ago. I have not gone before more than two months since the 1970’s without taking a flight to somewhere. I am giving more time to silence, reflection, writing and watching films!
4. Transition Town Totnes has started up Transition Street Totnes. People in the street get together to share ways that we can reduce our use of energy. The government has provided a grant for this project. (See http://christophertitmuss.org/blog/ ). I am looking at ways at home to conserve more energy. Reduction of flying cuts down my carbon footprint pays respect to ageing (66 last month) and more time to be engaged in Totnes. We have regular speakers on various issues coming to the town. Insights come from listening.
5. I am taking more and more interest in food – buying food from local market, examining the triple nightmare of fat, sugar and salt, and diet for a sustainable planet. Dharma, diet and sustainability have an important relationship.
6. I have been blessed with wonderful intimate and personal relationships over the years. I have been blessed to make the transition to deep friendship when the intimate relationship concluded. To start a new relationship would have the feeling of renewing the past in some way. To start a new relationship would mean less time at home, less time with family and less time for writing. I feel blessed to be in a lovely rhythm and have no wish to interrupt it by falling in love!
I find that all six points above are rich areas for further insights, discoveries and realisations.