The Awakened State
Most of us, sit on the cushion in order to get some place.
We want to get "it." We are all looking for the grand finale—the awe
inspiring moment of insight that ends all moments of insight, enlightenment.
Then we get frustrated when it doesn’t come. We think, “I think too much to meditate!” or “Some
thing must be wrong with me…I’ve tried to meditate and I just don’t get it.”
We seem to believe that realization is a matter of tweaking
this or that, or seeing things from a more “spiritual” point of view. It just
doesn’t seem to work that way.
Ultimately, meditation is concerned with the awakened state.
It is about surrendering to the basic state of wakefulness that underlies not
only, the rapturous moments of bliss and the agonizing moments of heart-ache,
but the terrifyingly mundane spells of boredom we all cycle through.
Wakefulness isn’t some-thing you get, earn, or acquire. It
isn’t something to be understood or figured out. Understanding and
accomplishment are conditioned states of mind born out of effort. The
unconditioned mind is spontaneous or effortless. Therefore, relaxing into
unconditioned awareness is about consenting to the naturally emergent isness that is the ground from
which all conditioned phenomena arise. The unborn mind is not the product of
philosophical algorithms or psychic visions of a spiritual realm. So, there is
no need to indoctrinate yourself with an enlightened point of view. Just fall
into the unelaborated immediacy of the present moment, which is the spontaneous
emergence of a bird outside the window just before it becomes a bird outside the window.
The awakened state isn't a point of view, it is view without
any point.
Meditation is the non-practice of not tampering with
anything including the tendency to tamper with everything. Realization is the
perfection of simplicity.
