Transcription
I'm far less concerned whether you've had an awakening than you may be. Um, it's it's a common side effect of talking in the way I talk, right? Talking about awakening and so forth that people are going to get caught up in the idea of, "Have I had an awakening? Have I not? Um, that event that happened, was that awakening? Am I awake now? Do I, do I meet the criteria?" And so forth.
Now, I totally understand that it is an effect of me talking about it, right? Or anyone else talking about it or reading about it or any of it. One of the effects is your mind is going to get a hold of it and it's going to say, "Have I had that happen? Have I not? How do I get closer to it? How do I wake up to it? How do I, whatever? Let go of what I need to let go of so that it reveals itself." That's normal that your mind's going to try to find a strategy, right? And it's also going to look for its own relationship in regard to whatever it is, right? Awakening in this case. Not that this doesn't happen with other things, right? Look into your experience, you'll see it. This is the nature of thought, right? It's relational. Uh, it's causal. It's looking, it's seeking in nature. It's looking for something different, something other, something bigger, whatever. It's the nature of thought.
But in regard to awakening, yes, it's going to start going, "Hey, did I have that shift? I'm not sure if I had that shift. What do I do if I haven't had the shift? Should I practice differently? What if I don't know if I had the shift, but it already happened, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life not knowing? Oh my gosh, that that would be bad, right?"
What I want to point out here is the vast majority of times I care a lot less about whether someone's had an awakening than they do. In fact, I don't really care because what happens now, what the interaction, the exchange that happens in this moment really doesn't have anything to do with anything outside of this moment. So, it doesn't matter. In a sense, I could say the awakening is happening right now all the time. Always, always, always. Now, now, now. Um, and so a thought about, "Is it going to happen later? When's it going to happen?" And so forth, that's just a thought. That's just a thought, right?
The awakening is the awakening that I talk about is when you see that those thoughts are not about you. That, or a better way of saying it, those thoughts, that that seeming apparatus that's just always trying to chew on a problem, or the problem of awakening, or the problem of when, or the problem of was it or wasn't it, you know, that that that apparatus that and it feels personal a lot of times, it feels like you, like I really want to know, I really need to know, or I really am confused. Seeing that that is a collection of thoughts, number one, that's the first part. Seeing it's just thoughts, right? It's thoughts that come saying, "Hmm, I don't know. Do you don't know? Is it true that you don't know? Right? How are you going, how are you going to find out?" Look and see, is there something that all of those thoughts are pointing back to right now? Is there something that, like those those beliefs, thoughts, perceptions, assumptions, hesitations, frustrations, anticipations, assume they're all arrows pointing backwards, right? Because they say they're about you. Feels like they're your thoughts, your beliefs, your concerns, your frustrations. Follow the arrow back. Are they really pointing to something there, or are they literally just thoughts? That's the key to this, right?
See, that's all you're called to do. You're not called to get entangled in the thoughts and go, "Did I have an awakening? Didn't I have an awakening?" Or even, "Am I going to have one right now?" Don't get entangled in the thoughts. See them for what they are, their thoughts. And then try to find, do those point back to something? Are those thoughts actually referencing something? Something real, something abiding, something central, something you can find? Or are they just suggesting it? Look there.
And if this stops your mind, good. Before it stops your mind, it may confuse your mind. You may find yourself thinking like, "Oh, this is confusing. I don't know what he's talking about." Blah, blah, blah. That's fine. Do the same thing with those thoughts. Look back and see, do those thoughts refer back to something? And when you get past the confusion, confusion is just the mind going, "I'm confused. Let me find something to orient to." That's thoughts, right? Let me find thoughts to orient to. And I'm telling you, you don't need those.
If you want to talk about awakening, let's talk about not referencing thoughts. So see that confusion is really just the mind trying to grasp onto something. Give it permission to not not have to grasp, or give it permission to grasp, but not need to find anything to grasp onto. Let the mind do what it's doing. Let it make bizarre thoughts. Let it make fearful thoughts. Whatever. Right? Let that happen. And then usually, once you allow that and you've seen that these are thoughts, the next step beyond confusion is the mind kind of stops, or just gets really quiet when you look back to see if those thoughts are referring back to something. What happens? And you don't need a thought to answer that question. If another thought appears trying to answer the question, start again. Come back. See that there is nothing here in the way the mind wants something to be here conceptually. There's this is this is the end of concepts. So you're you're kind of walking off the end of that sidewalk, right? The sidewalk comes to an end. There's a famous book of children's poetry called "Where the Sidewalk Ends." Where I want you to go, where the sidewalk ends. Step off the edge. See what happens. The mind will up because it has no dominion here.
Now you're looking, is there anything there? Is there, is there a person there? That's someone, or is that someone just a collection of thoughts and has been the whole time? Now your mind may start concluding, "Well, there's nothing here." Right? Could get into a fear of like nihilism or something. That's another thought. What's here is not nothing. It's not something without thoughts. Without thoughts, it's it's neither of those, right? You're here, still here. There's this awake experience for sure. You just don't need thought to sustain it. You don't need thought to identify it.
But you can use thought as an arrow pointing back to its own source, or at least pointing back to what the thought seems to be referring back to, because it's saying, "I have these concerns. I'm confused. I want to have an awakening. I'm not sure I had an awakening." Fine. Look back and see what's that "I" it's talking about. And when your mind goes quiet, stay there. Stay in the quietude. Don't move your mind. Notice you don't have to move your mind. Notice you don't have to produce a thought. Notice you can be wide awake without defining your experience through thought. Notice everything is wide awake. And there's no need to even label things, self and other, center. These are thoughts. Without those, just this. So clearly alive, so clearly awake. No need to confirm it with a thought. And no landing on a thought that says, "Me," or "I'm this," or "I'm that," or "I had this," or "I had that," or "I didn't have this," or "I didn't have that." Right? We've we've cast those aside. We've moved beyond the thoughts. We move beyond the thoughts, then beyond the confusion. Then just this. Just stay here with me. Stay here with this. Stay here with your own awakeness. Tune into it. Notice again and again that no thought is required to confirm it. It's absurd that you would need a thought to confirm this. It's that clear.