“Why do you call it Ordinary Awakenings? Isn’t awakening extraordinary?”
The short answer:
No, there is nothing extraordinary about awakening. It’s who we all are already. It’s right here. We are awareness itself. But we seldom (if ever) notice because we are so entranced and distracted by the things we are aware of. We are hypnotized by the world of forms, the dream world. Awakening is simply becoming awake to awareness. It is seeing past the veil of appearance, the dream world, to the mysterious, unknowable essence beneath.
It is the dropping of the seeker that believes there is something to find, and returning to the simple joy of being alive. It isn’t even the seeker who awakens. The seeker simply vanishes and this is awakening. When this is experienced, it is remarkably ordinary. It also seems so obvious, we might wonder how we ever could have missed it. It is the punchline to the cosmic joke. It is a delight and a relief. The seeker never was. All there is is Spirit (Nothing, Oneness, Mystery, Void) pretending to be Everything.
The longer answer:
Awakening is a homecoming to who we were before we mistakenly thought we were somebody separate. Before we thought we had lost something. Before fear became a guiding force in our lives. It’s who we are when we’re not seeking and resisting. We seek for Spirit, and we resist seeing that all there is is Spirit. We’re funny that way. We’re constantly looking for something that we already are, and yet are in deep resistance to finding. This is the drama that makes the world go round.
Most people don’t go around claiming to be seeking Spirit (which we could also call by many other names). They seek happiness, peace, fulfillment, purpose, balance, wholeness, you name it. In truth, they seek the end of seeking. This is only found in Spirit. So whatever we think we are seeking, we are actually seeking Spirit. The realization that we are spirit is what brings about the end of seeking, which in turn brings about those things we claim to be looking for. They’re already here. We never lost them. We cannot lose them, because we cannot lose what we are.
The apparent problem is that we actually don’t know who we are. We are confused, and in our confusion we believe we are separate and lacking. This gives rise to the ego-mind, which leads us on an endless quest to find unity and wholeness, two things that we can never find, because we already are.
The ego believes that awakening to our natural state is a kind of superhuman accomplishment, a near-impossible phenomenon. It believes that something incredible must happen before we can arrive there. It will remain steadfast in its goal of seeking and resisting to obscure the ever-present joy and exquisitely ordinary beauty of who and what we already are.
Beneath all of our confusion about all this, we already know that all there is is Spirit. We know that everything is perfect the way it is. We know that nothing needs to be done. We know there is nothing to attain. We know that who we are is uncaused joy and peace. And we know that it’s been this way the entire time. We just like to pretend otherwise. Like I said, we’re funny that way.
Prior to awakening, we typically walk around all day thinking we are making choices, doing things, thinking thoughts, feeling feelings. But what if choices only appear to be made? What if thoughts arise from nowhere? What if feelings simply come and go? Are you controlling any of it? Is that even possible? Did you decide to read this, or did it just sort of happen? It’s worth meditating on: “Who is this “me” to whom this is happening?” “Where is this me? Can I find it?” “What is this me?” “What am I?” “Am I deciding anything, or do decisions just happen of their own accord?” If we were really in control of our thoughts, feeling, and emotions - wouldn’t the world look drastically different? Why would we ever struggle? Wouldn’t we just choose to be happy all the time?
The final realization in awakening is that there is no me. There are no individuals. This isn’t an intellectual understanding, but an energetic shift, an embodied knowing. When this shift occurs, the illusion falls away, and only Spirit remains. We see that what we previously thought was me is only Spirit playing the character of David, or Lisa, or John. There is no longer the sense of an isolated individual who is the owner/operator of a body-mind. This is the big difference. Otherwise, life still goes on much the same. As the old saying does, “Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.” Everything still gets done, but now there is an awareness that “no one” is doing it. It’s all Spirit. It’s all divine play.
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”
-Chogyam Trungpa
The beauty of awakening is that there is nothing that you need to do. In fact, there is nothing you can do. It will happen when it happens. The seeker likes to think of it as something it can acquire (if it just seeks hard enough!), when in fact, awakening is more like losing everything we thought we had. It is the very loss of the seeker and the realization that this is all there is. There is only Life, living itself. There is only Spirit, expressing itself in infinite form and appearance. There is only Nothing appearing to be Something. There is only Being. We can call it whatever we like. There is no true label.
We can’t be separate, because there is nothing to be separate from. All is Spirit. All is a mystery. All is a miracle. We can’t get away from it. It’s so obvious, and so wonderfully ordinary.