#294 AWAKENING: ATTRIBUTES & ATTITUDES Part 2

                         Awakening: The most important attributes & attitudes P2

The nickname “Buddha” means “the awakened” one.  Awakening or Enlightenment is simply the ability to understand and experience genuine and concrete reality of the present moment including all its components. Put in different words:  it is the ability to differentiate what we are and are not, what is reality vs. what is mind-made illusions are such as thoughts, past and future.

It is not a fantasy to fulfill, a destination to reach or a miracle to happen. No special skills, no divine intervention from a third party, no dogma and no miracle are required because we are all already “awakened”.

We call it our True Nature or pure consciousness, which will be never observed and explained scientifically

Because totally immaterial,

Because we need consciousness to explain consciousness meaning that the object cannot be the subject and the same time, i.e. w/o a mirror, we cannot see our own eyes.

In other words: we experience consciousness but we cannot calculate it.

The experience comes by practicing formal mindfulness-based meditation but also from mindfulness on the go.

To be mindful is to actively pay attention to something w/o any analytic nor decisional purpose.

Just being a mirror reflecting yourself, people, things and events as they are. It is like to focus mindlessly.

Here are few examples of mindfulness practice in non-specific order.

The goal is to minimize frequency and intensity of our emotions.

• Do not think that you are indispensable. Our ego loves it but it creates anxiety.

• Practicing mental equanimity that is a composed and evenness emotional mind, avoiding the YO-YO

       up and down such as happiness/sadness/happiness/sadness and so on.

• To realize & be mindful to the fact that we do not control too much regarding our mind, people and events.

• Realizing that all living beings are interconnected and defendant to each other’s.

• We are not a permanent, unique, isolated, independent, separate, self-sufficient entity despite what our ego and self- image are telling us. The opposite.

• Accepting things / events/people as they are and not as you want them to be unless you have some leverage.

• Accepting self as we are and expressing self-forgiveness and self-compassion in order to do the same to others. Without this acceptance, proper interaction with others is impossible.
• Being mindful to our emotions such as anger, grief, worries, craving, negative judgments, etc. in order to accept and surrender to them. Never resist or fight them!. This counter-intuitive "miracle" of accepting suffering promotes inner peace.

Without this initial mindfulness step, it is impossible to deal with our emotions in a rational way.