An Awakening Experience

So I've been talking about awakening and I thought it would be useful to illustrate what I mean by that by discussing an experience of awakening that I had myself.

So over the course of the years,

Over since the mid-late 1970s,

At different times I've had a variety of awakening experiences.

So by awakening experiences here I just mean experiences of seeing things it appears to be as they really are.

A feeling of profound expansiveness,

Profound connection with other things,

With the rest of life.

Feelings of real love,

Goodwill,

Well-wishing towards everything.

Peak experiences and they last for a while and pass away.

So I'm not making any claims about being anything like a Buddha or being enlightened or anything like that.

But I've had these awakening experiences and they're important.

So I think about them as mild,

Moderate awakening experiences and they've left me changed.

After experiences like that,

One's frame of reference changes.

One sees things differently,

Feels things differently,

Experiences life differently and it's really benign,

Really pleasant.

So here's a recent one.

A friend of mine was staying,

Was living in a retreat center in the mountains of southern Spain and he'd invited me to join him there for a solitary retreat.

He'd set me up in a hut at the retreat center,

Give me food and firewood and leave me to my own devices.

I had running water,

It was great.

So I flew in,

He picked me up at the airport,

Brought me up to the hut and it was really,

Really,

Really lovely spot.

I mean up in the mountains,

Just through two peaks as we arrived,

Beneath a crystal blue sky I could just see the Mediterranean glinting in the distance,

Wide open,

Expansive views in all directions,

A wonderful,

Quiet,

Tranquil,

Open spot.

So I settled down that night and the next day the rains came and they were torrential,

They were biblical.

It was rain as nobody up in the mountains can ever remember.

Roads were washed away,

Terraces were washed away,

Landslides.

And my friend and I spent a couple of hours sort of splashing through mud,

Frantically trying to dig channels to draw the flooding waters away from the hut.

And we did that,

We succeeded.

We created two big channels,

We dragged the water away from the hut or at least led the water away from the hut and although it was still raining and still gushing everywhere,

I was dry,

Warm and safe.

I was not going to be disturbed because the rain made disruption very,

Very unlikely.

And I had enough food and enough firewood to see me through my time there.

It was just perfect conditions for meditation,

Just perfect.

So I settled down to meditate and I found myself in a rhythm of over time just spending maybe an hour or so seated in my meditation bench meditating and then getting up and sitting in an armchair staring into the log burning fire.

And I just alternated that,

Occasionally having meals,

Going for very,

Very short walks with rain gear and it was very peaceful,

Wonderful.

And my mind began to settle,

My mind began to settle.

I settled into this lovely routine of being up in the mountains meditating.

And then one day just as,

You know,

Just before a fire goes out,

You sometimes see this last flicker of flame.

I had this last flicker of thought and it went,

No more thoughts.

And that was it,

No more thoughts.

My thoughts just died down,

Died away.

And I was left in this wonderful,

Very peaceful,

Very calm,

But very profound state of mind.

Experience without an experiencer and simply aware of everything that was going on around me.

I don't mean that I was aware of everything,

But my awareness was just,

You know,

What was happening in the moment and what was happening in the moment,

Rain,

Mountains,

Forest trees,

The geckos behind the log burner chirping away,

The occasional insect crawling across the floor,

Some flowers that I picked and put inside where I was meditating,

Just noticing their sparkling beauty,

Just noticing what was going on,

Just sitting with whatever was unfolding,

What was unfolding within me,

Feelings,

Appetites,

Changes in my body sensations,

Noticing what was going on outside me.

I'm just at ease with the unfolding fabric of experience.

In a certain way,

There was no inside and no outsideness to the experience.

There's just experience,

A continuous fabric of changing experience,

Changing,

Changing,

Changing,

Changing,

Always changing and always wonderful,

Always magnificent.

Wherever you looked,

Everything was just as it should be.

Everything was just the unfolding of conditions,

Conditions unfolding in the moment,

Trees growing,

Leaves falling,

Soil being made,

Sun occasionally flickering through,

Rain falling,

Plants growing,

Water gushing,

Just stuff going on,

Stuff going on,

Endlessly,

Endlessly,

Endlessly,

Wherever you looked,

Stuff going on.

So a wonderful,

Wonderful experience,

Profoundly content,

Profoundly calm,

Very,

Very happy.

And over time,

It passed and gradually thoughts started to re-emerge.

But by and large,

The thoughts that re-emerged tended to be just very,

Very positive,

Very,

Very happy,

Very,

Very content.

And this state of mind gradually tailed away into something more resembling the kind of mode of consciousness that I'm more familiar with.

But also very much more positive than the mode of consciousness with which I'd arrived up the mountain.

And that lasted for weeks,

Months afterwards,

Gradually,

Gradually perhaps tailing off into something more familiar,

But not quite,

Not quite.

Experiences like that leave one changed.

They increase one's sense of empathy,

One's sense of love,

One's feelings of acceptance,

Of allowing.

They leave one more connected with the flow of life all around.

They're really,

Really desirable.

And yes,

It was a mild,

A moderate awakening experience,

We could say.

It wasn't the sort of earth-shattering experience that people like the Buddha report or Eckhart Tolle or some of the Christian saints.

Nothing like that.

And certainly,

I'm not saying I'm enlightened or awakened.

But I would say that my belief in a self,

I don't really have one.

And even in a certain way,

The idea that I have a self,

That there is something akin to a self within my experience,

I don't quite get it.

I don't think like that.

I don't,

I can't,

I don't see it.

So I'm just getting on with stuff,

Of course.

And,

You know,

Continuing to do my best,

My best for my clients,

My best for my family,

Best for the circumstances in which I find myself.

But experiences like that leave one changed.

And leave one changed in really desirable ways,

You know,

You find yourself quite naturally wanting to act in ways which are more beneficent.

Just wanting to be a good person,

Be kind,

Be decent,

Be a bit more loving.

You find yourself just doing that.

And it's a good thing.

So what I'm talking about in these videos is a journey towards that kind of state,

A journey towards awakening,

Journey towards awakening experiences.

And it's not something that you can grasp for.

It's not something that you can strive to do,

To achieve.

It doesn't work like that.

But you can set out on a journey,

Start doing some of the meditation practices,

Start engaging with the world around you in certain ways,

Start cultivating certain values and ideas.

And gradually,

Gradually,

Gradually,

Things deepen,

Things settle,

Things open,

Things broaden.

And maybe,

Maybe awakening experiences will show up.

And if they do,

That's just wonderful.

So although awakening experiences are available,

And in a way,

In a certain way,

They're no big deal,

Then they're not the preserve of saints.

They're just available to ordinary human beings who engage in a path,

In a journey towards awakening.

The thing is that it's the journey itself that is the real value,

The journey itself.

And although you can use the idea of an awakening experience,

An idea of an awakening experience to orient you in a certain direction,

To grasp for,

To strive towards awakening experiences is self-defeating.

In the end,

It's a self that wants to be awakened.

It's not going to happen.

It doesn't happen like that.

And one way you can come away from that kind of self-defeating grasping thinking is simply to enjoy the journey itself,

To meditate for the sake of meditating,

To engage with the natural world for the sake of engaging with the natural world,

To cultivate positive emotions and positive feelings because they are good in themselves,

To do,

Behave ethically because it's just good in itself.

And you do that and things will unfold as they do.

Things will unfold as they do.