Last evening we talked in terms of becoming enlightened, mirroring the words of Thay in “The Other Shore.” To me it is a welcome experience to be enlightened, but it is more like becoming awakened. The dormant potential of being human emerges into being felt and ardently experienced.
Becoming awakened, enlightened, is nothing really extraordinary or exceptional. It is no elitist experience of those who spend quiet years in a secluded monastery. It is something that can happen in all of us and on a daily basis. We all have the seeds of enlightenment. We each have Buddha nature. We have within us the essence of being awakened, of being a Buddha.
Nothing needs to be added for us to become an awakened one. No water needs to be poured over our heads, no one needs recite prayers over us, no oil is needed for anointing. Nothing needs to be added from the outside, we have all we need within us. Awakening just needs the right conditions, just like any germinating seed.
I have found that I primarily need to allow the energy to flow and not impede it. The key to awakening is concentration, and that involves a total lack of effort. It involves a removal of the hindrances, the obstacles.
Concentration allows awakening to happen every day. It opens the way to insight and allows awakening to happen. Concentration makes evident a deep understanding of the true condition , the true situation. In the midst of concentration, there are no impediments, there are none of the distractions typically coming from religion, entertainment, politics , cultural artifacts.
I consider the most difficult obstacle to concentration and the experience of awakening is the “I”, or self. The “I” is a major obstacle to awakening, to enlightenment. Concentration can happen when the “I” is aside. When I step out of the “I” role, Buddha nature is able to awaken and emerge.
This recently has been most evident in how I employ the breath as a means of concentration. I have realized that it is not effective for me to tell myself ” I am knowing my breath.” Deep concentration happens when I tell myself “The breath is being known.” Mindfulness, concentration happens when the “I” is left aside.
For me, learning to put the “I” aside is key to awakening, to every day enlightenment. The effect is transformative, and is more than just allowing insight to occur. In addition to insight, this experience of awakening is an embrace, a release, a surrender.
Living awakened is a transformed, liberated way of living.