Waking Up Is Hard To Do

by Fattah

Listen to the stillness,
Does it make a sound?
Or is it like the chorus
Of a song coming round?
Oh, my hearts a singing
With joy overflowing,
When I remember who I’m not
And don’t know where I’m going.

Things are not as they appear in this world that we inhabit. That which seems solid and most enduring is mostly air. Those who seem rich and powerful are mostly impoverished by their needs and at the mercy of their own desires. Those who should be able to do the greatest good, often do the greatest harm. The variety of entertainment we have available, which we deem a great blessing, may be a great curse. The food we consume, which seems tasty and nourishing, causes much of our ill health and disease. The education we so admire does not help us understand ourselves or each other. The religions we create often do more to alienate us from other people and the divine than they do to unify us and realize our higher nature.

I got to see through some of my illusion on our Sangha retreat several weeks ago. This separate self, which I do so much to hold onto, didn’t seem as separate as it usually does. The alienation, which I am so good at producing to keep others away, didn’t appear and without this cherished distancing I was vulnerable but without anxiety. Giving up my daily routines for the retreat schedule led to greater freedom and the loss of control over my agenda did me no harm.

We rarely get to see what delusion we live under. We are so good at creating our reality. Each of us believes we know who we are and what life is about. At the top of our agenda is protecting ourselves in the world and preserving the delusion of this separate, suffering self. We live in fear and most of us die in fear. Fear that the boundaries we have set up for protection will dissolve and we will be helpless and at the mercy of the world. Fear that we will cease to be so intensely aware of ourselves. Fear that we will cease exist. The mind will not go there. It doesn’t want to entertain that thought. That fear is so completely overwhelming.

Fear is at the basis of all our motivation. It gives us our life. Each person has their own strategy for dealing with it. Mine is spinning out alienation. I imagine that I am unlike others and the world does not have what I need. I feel isolated and alone. I feel unloved and unappreciated. It doesn’t matter how many times I have experienced this as untrue. This is my story and I’m sticking to it. This is who I am.

We all have a story that we tell ourselves and we are often not aware of it. That story is created by the matrix of who we think we are. It is so deeply imbedded in our outlook it is transparent to us. What is your story? There is an easy way to discover it. Look at your life and see where you suffer. Your suffering is rooted in and nurtured by your story. I feel alienation and am lonely because of my story. Another person may be caught up in fighting the disorder of the world because of their story. Another person may feel constantly wronged and persecuted by others because of their story. Another person may be obsessed with being comfortable and enjoying luxury because of their story. Another person may be focused on filling their life with constant activity because of their story. Another person may have an inexhaustible desire for, more material goods or wealth because of their story. It’s all a story and we are very attached to it. It gives us who we are.

We must realize that our story is not true and that is a huge jump in perception. We are so convinced that what we see is who we are, that our life is real. It’s like telling a small child that the nightmare they just had is not real. When they are still half asleep they won’t believe it. This is something I had a great difficulty with when I was young. The wolves and lions in the closet were coming to get me. The monster under the bed would grab me if I wasn’t totally hidden under the covers. This was, of course, total delusion. We are so mesmerized by our story we cannot see reality. Reality is beyond our normal awareness.

A perfect example of this is what has happened in this country since 9/11. The world has become a fearful place and we seem continually threatened by the terrorists who are poised to strike us again without warning. Some believe that they endanger our very way of life. Is this true? Is the world as we know it about to come crashing down because some extremists were able to crash a few planes into some buildings? Are we engaged in a world war because a handful of men killed several thousand people? There are many people that truly believe it.

We cannot see true reality. We have been so conditioned to see a fearful world that the world of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity is invisible to us. It takes a transcendent experience or a transcendent teacher to show it to us, to allow us to see beyond the world of the senses. In the movie What The Bleep they had an illustration of this. When Columbus came to the New world the natives could not see his ships. They had no concept or experience of them so they couldn’t see them. The shaman saw the ripples of the ships in the water and knew there was something there. After much contemplation of this phenomenon he was able to see the ships and show them to the rest of his people. We are caught on the lower rungs of reality and are so absorbed in hanging on that we cannot look up the ladder or climb higher.

Reality is we are not born nor do we die. We are not separate, suffering individuals living in a dangerous world. All the dramas of life are unimportant and meaningless. It’s all an illusion. We come from a perfect brilliant, stillness and to it we will return and all that happens in between is a fabrication that we get caught up in. We are beings of light and energy trapped in a body, chained to the earth. We come empty handed, we leave empty handed but we spend a great deal of our time here clinging to what we have created because we believe it is real.

It’s time to awaken from the nightmare. We cling to this life in terror because we are afraid to let go. We can never be happy or content in this world of the mind and senses. This life is meant for realization. We are like children playing with their toys, not wanting to grow up. Remember the song from Peter Pan, I Won’t Grow Up. We believe that growing up will destroy the world we have so carefully created. There is some truth in that. What we don’t see is that there is another, larger world out there just waiting to be discovered, another reality.

That reality is beyond time and individuality. It is beyond the fear that we are completely obsessed with, that dominates our thinking and decision making. It is the realm of the Buddhas and the enlightened ones. To us it seems so far away. One of the reasons for that is that we depend on the interpretation of the mind to define our experience, to give it solidity and to understand it. In the realm of the Buddha that doesn’t work, for the mind cannot go there. Whenever we have a transcendent experience we immediately try to identify and quantify it. The only tool we have to do that is the mind. Then we try to hang onto it and duplicate it. This is grasping. It’s all the grasping of the mind. We also tell ourselves that which I can’t understand and describe isn’t as valid as my everyday experience. It’s not real. Without a practice to support it these experiences fade away rapidly and no effort of will gives us additional access to them.

Waking up is hard to do. The mind that gives us our life is also our greatest obstacle on the path to realization. We are nearly totally dependent on it and it is almost useless in advancing us on the path. Waking up requires unlearning most of what we know. Waking up requires an open heart, which no amount of thinking can produce. We cannot think our way to freedom. We cannot create another reality with our mind that will produce it. That is what we are all so good at, creating our own reality. We have been doing this our whole life. We create this fearful existence and the suffering that comes along with it.

Waking up requires a practice, a teacher, and a Sangha to support it. There are many great adepts who have done it on their own but most of us need help. A practice is necessary to quiet the mind and discover our habitual patterns of thought. A teacher is necessary to help us see our delusion, which we are often blind to, and to help free us from the blocks of our adaptive childhood. A Sangha is necessary to support us in an endeavor that is nearly totally alien to our culture and upbringing.

How solid is your practice? Are you working at it daily, hour by hour, minute by minute or are you devoted to enjoying life, accomplishing a lot, or trying to be happy? Who is your teacher? Are you studying with an adept or are you content with reading books and following the mental directions you constantly give yourself that produce your separateness and suffering. Where is your Sangha? Are you practicing with a group of seekers or simply hanging out with friends and relatives that help you sustain this individual neurosis we maintain.

Waking up takes us beyond this individual, mental existence. It’s a whole different ballgame. Waking up requires us to stop telling ourselves that the world is a certain way. Waking up requires us to stop judging ourselves and others. Waking up requires that we suspend our beliefs and enter the present moment. That’s a lot to give up. We have a huge investment in this self, this past we have created and identify with, in a future that we want to project ourselves into. The truth is the past does not exist and there is no future. These are creations of the mind.

Rumi says:
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.”

That breeze is always blowing. It has been blowing for thousands of years. We are so immersed in our concerns we don’t feel it. Feeling it requires us to drop our guard and open to a different way of being in the world. In our minds we are so far away from awakening. As long as we identified with thinking waking up is hard to do. In our hearts we are not separate and afraid. In our hearts every moment has potential insights to free us. In our hearts life is precious and utterly mysterious. In our hearts waking up is easy. In our hearts we are free.

May all beings awaken,
Not one left behind.

Amein