On Waking Up

Most people are in a state of sleeping their life away...what we may thing of as "reality" is often just a part of the mass dreaming...ancient Daoists were interested in "waking up" and living their life in a full and highly conscious manner...so, how do we wake up? guidance is given on how to wake up from the Daoist prespective...this track also has the famous story of the man who could not tell if his dream of being a butterfly was actually real and so could not say if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man!

Transcript

So I call this piece,

On Waking Up.

And I like to start with a little quote by the great American poet,

Edgar Allan Poe,

That goes like this,

Is all that we see or seem,

But a dream within a dream.

Part of us is awake,

Another part fast asleep.

What we do with cultivation practices is awaken that part of ourselves that is asleep.

How can we awaken the sleeping part of ourselves?

How can we truly experience that part of ourselves that lies dormant like a caterpillar in our cocoon,

A self-created one at that?

How can we really truly experience ourselves as immortals or transcendence?

How can we slough off our cocoon and emerge as the dazzling butterflies we truly are?

Jongsa tells us that we are all dreaming.

And in that dream,

We even try to interpret our own dreams.

That is what we do when we try to figure out with our mind what is clearly beyond our mind's ability to understand.

We may wonder just what it is that the destiny,

Ming,

Or karma that is leading us on through the hurry scurry of our day-to-day lives.

How can we connect and call forth the immortal nature of our true and real selves?

Jongsa says,

Those who dream of a great feast may wake up and weep the next morning.

Those who dream of weeping may actually enjoy a great hunt the next day.

While they are dreaming,

They do not know they are dreaming.

In the middle of a dream,

They may even try to interpret the dream.

It is only after they awaken that they know they've been dreaming.

At the time of the great awakening,

We will all wake up and see that it is all been just a dream.

Often,

When we dream,

We think that what is happening or what we are seeing is real.

Then we,

Quote,

Wake up and realize it was actually,

Quote,

Just a dream.

And then what is happening,

Quote,

Now is real.

There is a famous story in Jongsa about how he once dreamed he was a butterfly,

Flying about on his own happy butterfly way.

Then upon awakening into his human body,

He could not help but wonder if he was truly a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly or whether he was a butterfly who is now dreaming he was a man.

So,

How do we wake up to what is really real?

First,

We must understand that so-called reality has many layers or dimensions.

It is not that some things are real and some things are not real.

As in quantum physics,

Two things can exist or be real at once,

And this includes seemingly opposite realities.

Buddhists say that everything in the universe is inherently empty,

That nothing is,

Quote,

Real in itself but depends on every other thing.

Nothing exists of itself but in relationship with everything else.

Taoists also say anything exists and is given meaning only in relation to everything else.

When I take a group of people to China,

We are all having a special yin fun or destiny connection with each other.

We are all having our own personal unique experience together as well as having a group experience.

This is pretty much how the world works.

We are each having our own unique and special experience of the world as well as having a group experience as fellow human beings.

So,

The question is,

Do we want to remain asleep and oblivious to the world as it really is,

Or do we want to wake up and experience it the way it really is on a deep and personal level?

Jungtza says,

It is when we give up our personal views that we see things as they truly are.

In seeing things as they truly are,

We arrive at complete understanding.

To reach complete understanding is to reach true happiness.

To reach true happiness is to reach completion.

To reach completion is to enter Tao.

Taoist cultivation techniques are all designed to help us wake up.

They give us the experience of enlargening or deepening our experience of ourselves as well as the world around us.

Qi Gong and Tai Chi help us to experience ourselves as truly multi-dimensional beings.

At the very least,

They help us to be more sensitive to the rhythms and currents of the energy flow,

Or Qi,

Within our own bodies.

Deep meditation practices allow us to drop down into layers of experience that we are often not privy to in our so-called life.

Our bodies,

Our own energy pathways,

Remain the same as they did in ancient times when Lao Tzu wrote his treatise on self-cultivation.

Of course,

We may have many different health concerns that people did not in ancient China.

Our environment is much more polluted and psychically overwhelming.

Our diet is,

For many,

Very different even than our own culture.

We are not able to control our diet.

We are dealing with stresses that did not exist in their times.

Yet,

The techniques that the ancient Daoists developed still work as well as they did in Lao Tzu's time and before.

As a matter of fact,

They are a powerful antidote to the modern world's ills.

Chinese medicine systems,

As well as Ayurvedic,

Tibetan,

And other ancient cultures,

Still work.

They can be used to treat diseases,

They can all work on bringing us into balance physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

And spiritual.

And the more in balance we are,

The easier it will be to wake up.

Probably the most important thing is that we wish to wake up.

Not everyone does.

For many people,

It's not even an issue.

They would rather stay asleep and feel a false sense of safety in that.

But for those of us who wish to experience life in all its multidimensional aspects,

Waking up is the right thing to do.

And in that awakening,

We are filled with light in light tend,

And ready to take on both the joys and challenges life has to offer.

Then we can,

As the ancient Daoists said,

Be at rest even when we're not at rest.

Then we can go forth into each day of our lives with an open mind and open heart.

Then we can truly call ourselves jönrön,

Or authentic beings,

Alive to all the miracles and magic in the world and within ourselves.

Here's my version of the famous story of Jönksa and the butterfly.

The butterfly flitted on its way,

Being mindful of the gentle breeze that ruffled its wings.

It flew here and there,

Content in its own way to wander without a goal,

Without any needs,

Except to be part of the breeze that blew past its wings as it flew along,

Unhurried,

Unfurled,

And even.

This little butterfly's life had been brief,

From caterpillar to chrysalis inside its quiet and heavy cocoon.

There it had lay for what seemed eons of time,

Quiet,

Patient,

Waiting for the moment when it could break out of its prison and unfurl its wings and fly straight into the air.

Now it did just so,

Flitting around in circles,

Occasionally meeting up with another butterfly,

Always mindful of predators and a true strong and sudden gust of wind that could tear at its thin,

Translucent wings and send it hurtling down to earth.

Now and again the butterfly seemed to have glimpses of another life,

Another form.

It seemed to be a much heavier and more ponderous life,

This other one that it caught short glimpses of.

But usually the butterfly ignored these unsettling inner sightings and just did what butterflies do,

Without thought,

Without motive,

Without any other goal than just to be what it was,

And to be what it was.

And just to be what it was,

Butterfly flying free.

And as it did so,

The day lengthened into night and the butterfly headed back to the tree where it slept through the long period of darkness.

It flew gently toward it and then suddenly stopped.

The man lay in his bed,

Bewildered,

Bemused,

Lost in thought.

It was so real to him,

This gentle butterfly life.

He lay in the early morning light,

Listening to the sounds of the village as it slowly came to wake all about him.

He heard the creaking of doors as people made their way to the privies.

He heard the sudden squall of an infant,

The bark of a dog,

The clump of an ox as it made its way out to the fields led by its sleepy master.

He heard the bells being built,

The tea kettles and the rice pots being put on for breakfast.

He lay there for a long time,

Without rising,

Without moving,

Other than the slow and deep rising and falling of his belly as he breathed his way into the day.

His dream,

That is what it was,

Had been so vivid,

So real.

He had actually experienced himself as that butterfly had felt the breeze on his wings,

Felt himself carried through the air as light as a seed,

Had thought only butterfly thoughts.

Yet now,

Here he was,

Back in his human body,

Back in the world of cause and effect.

But which was truly real,

And which was the dream?

Himself as a butterfly,

Or himself as a man,

Waiting here for his students to come and drag him out into the light of day with their incessant questions and demands.

How did he know that what he was experiencing now was not the dream,

That he really was that butterfly,

Living its simple butterfly life,

Unattached and a part of the great natural world of Tao?

He smiled in the darkness then.

Truly,

It did not matter if he was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly,

Or a butterfly who was now dreaming he was a man.

He knew what he knew,

And he knew what he didn't know.

That was what sustained him through the long days and nights of his human life.

What he knew or experienced in his butterfly life was also there,

Just outside the periphery of his vision.

He almost laughed out loud.

Imagine if I shared this with my students,

He thought.

He could just see their faces as he explained to them that he was not truly sure if what he experienced in his human life was any more real than what he experienced in his butterfly life.

He slowly rose from his bed,

And stretching out his arms above him like the slow unfolding of butterfly wings,

Went forth into the day.

Reviews

What a good story and what a good storyteller you are!
I wish I could remember my dreams. Most of the time I don’t.
Thank you for your gifts.