You Can't Make Awakening Happen

In the Q&A part of our Sangha, we briefly look at how we shouldn't try to force awakening or try to kill the ego. The more we grasp at awakening, the more we are fueling the ego and moving further away from waking up.

Transcript

And even, Just to be clear too, What we're, At least what I am teaching here, It's not that we're destroying the ego, We're not trying to kill the ego. The ego is an illusion, You cannot kill something that doesn't exist. It's an illusion, It arises, Right? Every now and then the ego will have some good advice, Every now and then. Mostly it's pretty bad advice. But it's to be discerning of it. It's just to be discerning of it and to see it's not me. It's not me. Just because those thoughts are arising, Sometimes there can be something helpful there. But it's to be more discerning, Like we just, Whatever it says, Go, Oh that's true, Hooked right up, That's true, That's me, That's me, Oh I was a loser back there, Oh I should have answered it this way, Oh this should have happened, Right? And instead it's just seeing like, Oh okay, It's just, You know, It's just kind of mental formations, Right? The volition in here, Yeah. So I don't have to get caught up in it, But, And it will still for some time, Even through, Even in seeing when we're seeing, You know, How we're arising as the five aggregates, Seeing the nature of reality, Everything interdependent, Interconnected, Impermanent, Right? It doesn't mean that the ego then just gets blown out. I mean, Actually sorry, I should say, Because there are some people that say that, Like Eckhart Tolle says his was just completely blown out. That is very rare. That is very rare. For most people it's a, It's a gradual awakening, There's a seeing of reality, There's a little bit, You know, All the ego comes back in again, But not getting, You're just not so caught up in it as you used to be. It's just like, Oh that's right, I forgot for a moment, I forgot, I forgot, Okay, Okay, Back, Back, Yeah, It's not me, It's just an illusion, Right? I'm just not getting, We're not identifying with it any longer. And it does take quite a while to be, You know, For these, These habits, Because the volition is there. We've been doing it our whole lives. And so very rarely does it get blown out in one thing. Usually it's, It's a gradual process. It's a gradual process and just becomes, You become, As you're saying Haley, Like less and less attached and you're just seeing it. And then every now and then it hooks you in on something, You're like, Oh, That was a good one. I didn't, I didn't see you hiding back there. Oh, That was a, That was a very clever disguise. And it's why Alice, Like you were saying, Like I did that whole egos, Ego game series, Right, To see all the different ways or some of the different ways that the ego, You know, Catches us off guard, You know, The controller, I'm the one controlling the, The, The judge, Of course the judge, The chasing, You know, The resisting, The comparing. And it's just, You know, All of it, Just this image of me, Just this image of me. It's always, There's an image of me here, Right? But if you can see it too, Like, Oh, That's just a perception of me right now. Just like, Oh yeah, That the ego's kind of just got this perception of me. I don't have to take it seriously because it's going to change in five more minutes, Right? And then another image of me is going to, I don't take that one seriously either, Right? And so it's just that seeing it and seeing it. Now, Alice, You're saying William James calls it the education variety of a spiritual awakening. It's been you at age 68, Still learning. Hang on, It, Still learning, Still growing, Still awake. And I think, I think the more that we also, It's kind of, Kind of like that beginner's mind of, You know, In Zen Buddhism of always having, Like, Don't get too, Don't get too calm, You know, Don't get too attached to the awakening state either, Right? Because, You know, It can take a while before, Before true, And even in an awakening state, Like nirvana, It takes a while. Actually, I'll just say that. It takes a while. So don't get attached to the awakening state. When it's arising, Like, Nice, The conditions are here. I didn't make it happen. I didn't make it happen. None of us can make this happen. If we could, We'd just follow a recipe to make it happen. You can't make it happen, Right? The, You know, The Zen saying enlightenment is an accident, But, But practice makes you accident-prone. But if you're grasping your practice too, Then no, That's not helping. So again, You want to have a nice balance with your practice. You do need to be, You know, We do need to be meditating on a gradual path. You know, Definitely meditation is super helpful, So we can be mindful, So we can contemplate, So we can investigate, Inquire what it is that's here. So it's super, Super helpful. But there's no guarantee on how this is going to happen, On what the conditions are. Like, We think it's going to happen. How many of us have imagined, I'm on this retreat, And oh, And just all of a sudden everyone else is going to get up when the bell rings, But not me, Because I'm just going to be so enlightened. And we imagine eventually I'll get up and I'm floating and everyone will recognize, You know, Kind of have this ridiculous idea of, Like, When it's going to happen. I mean, For Eckhart Tolle, It happened on the bathroom floor, In his suffering. I mean, A lot of the time it's in our suffering. You know, It's in that, You know, We have those periods where we're feeling, We're very present, There's not any grasping happening, And those are the conditions. And then something comes along and it can be like, Oh my god, I thought I was past all this. And it can be in that, That all of a sudden there can be a much deeper awakening, A much more stable awakening. So you don't, We don't know how this is going to happen. We don't, We can't force this to happen. We can keep doing the conditions that are more likely to make it happen, But not to grasp at it, To be okay with where you are, You know, Where the ride is now, You know, To be okay with where it is now. I mean, If this is, This would be good enough, I'd be good with this, You know, And to, To have a little bit more, Or less grasping again at the awakening. We need a certain amount of desire to be on this path, Of course, We need a certain amount of desire to be on the path. But if we start grasping at this too, And how we think it's going to happen, You know, And start getting lost in those fantasies, That's not it. We just have to keep, It's just, It's to keep coming back, Keep coming back, Seeing how we're getting lost in the illusion, Just to keep coming back. You forget, You come back, You forget, You come back. And to really have that sense of a beginner's mind. There's always something to learn. There's always something to learn. We, You know, We shouldn't, Even if you've become enlightened, There's still something to learn. And again, It's not you becoming enlightened. That, I mean, That's, That's, Again, The big joke. Who is it that's becoming enlightened? The ego thinks it's becoming enlightened, Right? You're not becoming, You know, You won't be there when it happens. You won't be there when it happens.

Reviews

That’s how I interpreted William James. The educational variety of a spiritual awakening is a slow, day by day learning that happens over a lifetime and not the Eckhart totally sudden awakening or instant awakening.

tiny Buddha had a great quote this week. Asking, is it the journey or the destination? Answer, it’s the company. 🌹🥰🌹🥰🌹

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

Great perspective 😎🙏🏻