So I've been talking about awakening.
And I thought it would be useful to illustrate what I mean by that by discussing an experience of awakening that I had myself.
Over the course of the years,
Over since.
.
.
The mid-late 1970s.
At different times I've had a variety of awakening experiences.
So by awakening experiences here,
I just mean experiences of seeing things It appears to be,
As they really are,
A feeling of profound expansiveness,
Profound connection with other things,
With the rest of life.
Feelings of real love,
Goodwill,
Well-wishing towards everything.
Peak experiences and they last for a while.
Pass away and So I'm not making any claims about being anything like a Buddha.
Or being enlightened.
Anything like that.
But I've had these awakening experiences and they're important.
So I think about them as mild,
Moderate awakening experiences and they've left me changed.
After experiences like that,
One's frame of reference changes.
One sees things differently,
Feels things differently.
Experiences life differently and it's really benign,
Really pleasant.
So here's a recent one.
A friend of mine Uh.
.
.
Was staying,
Was living in a retreat centre in the mountains of southern Spain.
And he'd invited me to.
.
.
Join him there for a solitary retreat.
He'd set me up in a hut at the retreat center.
Give me food and firewood and leave me to my own devices.
Running water.
It was great.
Um.
.
.
So I flew in,
He picked me up at the airport,
Brought me up to the hut,
And it was a really,
Really,
Really lovely spot.
I mean,
Up in the mountains,
Just through two peaks as we arrived,
Beneath a crystal blue sky,
I could just see the Mediterranean.
Glinting in the distance,
Wide open expansive views in all directions,
A wonderful,
Quiet,
Tranquil,
Open spot.
So I settled down that night and the next day the rains came and they were torrential,
They were biblical.
It was rain as nobody up in the mountains can ever remember.
Roads were washed away,
Terraces were washed away,
Landslides.
And my friend and I spent a couple of hours sort of splashing through mud,
Frantically trying to dig channels to draw the flooding waters away from the hut.
We did that.
We succeeded.
We created two big channels.
We dragged the water away from the hut,
Or at least led the water away from the hut.
And although it was still raining and still.
.
.
Gushing everywhere.
I was dry,
Warm and safe.
I was not going to be disturbed because the rain made.
Very,
Very unlikely.
And i had enough food and enough firewood to see me through my time there it was just perfect conditions for meditation just perfect So I settled down to meditate.
And I found myself in a rhythm.
Over time,
Just spending maybe an hour or so.
Seated in my meditation bench,
Meditating and then getting up and sitting in an armchair,
Staring into the log burning fire.
And I just alternated that.
Occasionally having meals.
Going for very,
Very short walks with rain gear.
And it was very peaceful.
Wonderful,
And my mind began to settle.
And mine began to settle.
I settled into.
.
.
This lovely routine.
Of being up in the mountains meditating.
And then one day just as.
You know,
Just before a fire goes out,
You sometimes see this last flicker of flame.
I had this last flicker of thought and it went No more thought.
That was it.
No more food.
My thoughts just died down,
Died away.
And.
.
.
I was left in this wonderful very peaceful.
Very calm,
But A profound state of mind.
Experience without an experiencer.
And simply aware of.
Everything that was going on around me.
Um.
I don't mean that I was aware of everything,
But my awareness was just what was happening in the moment.
On what was happening in the moment.
Rain.
A mountain.
Forest trees.
The geckos behind the log burner chirping away.
The occasional insect crawling across the floor.
Um,
Some flowers that I picked.
Put inside where I was meditating,
Just noticing.
Their sparkling beauty.
Just noticing what was going on.
Just sitting with whatever was unfolding.
What was unfolding within me.
Feelings appetite changes in my body sensations.
Noticing what was going on outside me.
And just at ease with the unfolding fabric of Experian.
In a certain way,
There was no inside and no outsideness to the experience.
There's just experience.
A continuous fabric.
Of changing experience,
Changing,
Changing,
Changing,
Changing.
Always changing and always wonderful.
Always magnificent.
Wherever you looked everything was just as it should be.
Everything was just the unfolding of condition.
Conditions unfolding in the moment.
Trees growing,
Leaves falling,
Soil being made.
Sun occasionally flickering through rain falling plants growing water gushing Just stuff going on.
Stuff going on.
Endlessly,
Endlessly,
Endlessly.
Wherever you looked,
Stuff going on.
So a wonderful,
Wonderful.
Experience profoundly content profoundly calm very very happy And over time it passed.
And gradually thoughts started to reemerge.
But by and large,
The thoughts that reemerged tended to be just very,
Very positive.
Um very very happy Very,
Very content.
And this state of mind gradually.
.
.
Tailed away into something more resembling the kind of mode of consciousness that I'm more familiar with.
But also very much more positive.
Than the mode of consciousness with which I'd arrived.
Up the mountain.
And that lasted for weeks,
Months afterwards,
Gradually,
Gradually,
Perhaps tailing off into something more familiar.
But not quite.
Experiences like that leave one change.
They.
.
.
Increase one's sense of empathy one's sense of love one's feelings of acceptance,
Of allowing.
They leave one.
More connected with the flow of life.
All around.
They're really,
Really desirable.
And yes,
It was a mild,
A moderate awakening experience,
We could say.
It wasn't the sort of.
.
.
Earth-shattering experience that people like the Buddha report or some of the Christian saints.
Nothing like that And certainly,
I'm not saying I'm enlightened.
Or awaken.
But I would say that my belief.
Inner self.
I don't really have one.
And even in a certain way.
The idea that I have a soul.
That there is something akin to a self.
Within my experience.
I don't quite get it.
I don't think like that.
I don't,
I can't.
I didn't see it.
Are So I'm just getting on with stuff,
Of course.
And continuing to do my best.
My best for my clients,
My best for my family.
Best for the circumstances in which I find myself.
But experiences like that leave unchanged.
And leave one changed in.
Really desirable ways.
You find yourself quite naturally wanting to act in ways which are more beneficent.
Just wanting to be a good person.
Be kind.
Be decent.
A bit more loving you find yourself just doing that And.
.
.
It's a good thing.
So.
.
.
What I'm talking about in these.
.
.
Videos is a journey.
Towards that kind of state,
A journey towards awakening,
A journey towards awakening experiences.
And it's not something that you can grasp.
It's not something that you can strive to do to achieve.
It doesn't work like that.
But you can set out on a journey,
Start doing things.
Some of the meditation practices,
Start engaging with the world around you in certain ways,
Start cultivating certain values and ideas.
And gradually gradually gradually.
Things deepen,
Things settle.
Things open,
Things broaden.
And maybe.
.
.
Maybe.
Awakening experiences will show up.
And if they do,
That's just one.
So although awakening experiences are available And in a way,
In a certain way,
They're no big deal.
Preserve of saints.
They're just available to ordinary human beings who engage in a path,
In a journey.
Towards awakening.
The thing is that it's the journey itself.
That is the real value,
The journey itself.
And although you can use the idea of an awakening experience,
An idea of an awakening experience to orient you,
In a certain direction.
To grasp for,
To strive towards awakening experiences is self-defeating.
In the end,
It's a self.
That wants to be awakened.
It's not going to happen.
It doesn't happen like that.
And one way you can come away from that kind of self-defeating,
Grasping thinking.
Is simply to enjoy the journey itself.
To meditate for the sake of meditating.
To engage with the natural world for the sake of engaging with the natural world.
To cultivate.
Positive emotions and positive feelings because they are good in themselves.
To do.
.
.
Behave ethically because it's just good in itself.
And you do that.
Things will unfold as they do.
Things will unfold as they do.
