594 Demystifying Awakening April 4th 26

Demystifying  Awakening

Important clarification  Awakening in Zen is not:

A permanent divine, and mystic bliss during which one becomes supernatural, problem free, and enjoying permanent stress-free life full of joy, pleasure, control, and power. 

In fact, it is simply waking up away from our mind-made fictional worlds.

The opposite of being Awakened is what Zen calls humans :“ Day sleep walkers, trapped in their own fictional mind-made worlds. Therefore, when being out of our daydreaming worlds, awakening will appear in all of us all the time. 

Again,in Zen practice, awakening (often called Satori or Kensho) isn't about gaining a new superpower or reaching a mystical destination. Instead, it is described as waking up to  things/ events  as they actually are concretely, rather than how we think about them.

In simple terms, you can think of it through these 3 shifts:

1.  Being fully present that is mindful of the current moment.

Most of our thinking is spent travelling in zillions of fictional "past / future" spacetimes regretting the past or being anxious of  the future - . Awakening is the shift into this concrete present, the only existing time where you are alive. It is a profound discovery to discover that this exact moment, just as it is, is complete and enough whatever its content.

     2) Dropping our permanent judgmental mind-set about everything.

Usually, we see the world through a thick fog of illusions made of opinions, judgments, labels, and plenty of negative feelings (e.g., "This rain is annoying," or "I am a failure" or “ If I get this I will be happier). Awakening is the moment when our foggy illusions are cleared up. You see the rain simply as it is and yourself simply as a living being, without the heavy, and useless baggage of labelling, and judgment.Your mind becomes a mirror reflecting things as they are. So: use your mind only when you need it rather than your mind using you all the time.

   3) New feeling of being interconnected to the outside world.

We often feel like a small "I" trapped inside a body, separate from everything else. Awakening is the intuitive realization that the boundary between "you" and "the rest of the world" is an artificial conceptual product. It’s like a wave suddenly realizing it isn't just a wave—it’s the entire ocean.

A famousZen Saying: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

The activities of your life and your mental ones don't necessarily change, but the way you experience them does. The burden of the "self" lightens, leaving you with a sense of clarity, ease, less stress, and serenity.