Awake and Alive
Being What You Already Are
Learn how to live free in the world
page 21
If you are sure you want to awaken, take the first step now and drop all your cherished beliefs and concepts. Lose complete interest in everything that's important to you. It is especially important to lose interest in yourself. Throughout our lives we continually create an imaginary entity known as me. We are taught to do this from childhood by well-meaning parents and family. Originally quite enjoyable, this self-creation process eventually proves to be endless, fruitless, boring, tedious, and frustrating. Our attempts to fulfill the ever-changing desires of this fantasized me are not only boring. They can also be harmful and prevent us from enjoying our life.
Page 30
The terror of nonbeing controls our every movement. The truth is the cessation of the ordinary notion of who we are leads to incredible freedom and joy. The very experience we fear most is the source of our liberation.We are programmed to treasure and adore the imaginary, predictable, boring, trivial, self-centered ‘me’. The self, which we create moment-to-moment, is historic, meaning it occurs in space and time with a beginning and end. The manufactured self is born and eventually dies. It is both good and bad, knows right from wrong and experiences before and after. This made up self-identity deeply values its endless and meaningless preferences, opinions, feelings and beliefs.
Page 31
If we stop creating this imaginary self, nothing remains. It is entirely gone, like waking up from a dream. When the body and mind die physically, the historic self dies also. Our physical body and thinking mind are who and what we believe we are. Of course, in one sense we really are this body and mind. However, we are simultaneously so much more, infinitely more. The more part is difficult to describe but can be experienced directly. I mention we are so much more than we believe we are because it is important to hear this truth even if it makes no sense to you now. Who we are in the absolute sense is not definable or limited by space and time. We are one with and literally the same as the Absolute.
Page 57
Before our awakening, whether we realize it or not, we are essentially a programmed automaton. We persist in the false belief that our programming is our identity. This belief does not serve us well, and if we cling to it, we will be discontented and forever searching for release. One way out of this inherently frustrating and hopeless search for more and better is to observe the content of our mind as often as possible. A related method that will work better for some is to deliberately switch the focus of our observation from our thoughts to the physical sensations in our body, such as the rising and falling of the breath. It can also be helpful to direct our attention outward, focusing intently on the sights, sounds and smells of the natural world. When deeply absorbed with our own suffering it is especially helpful to focus on the experience of others and attempt to assist them in the best way possible. Service to others is a time-honored spiritual path.
Michael Hall, Phd
Michael had been a clinical psychologist in private practice for over forty years and a long-term Zen practitioner. Michael had an abiding spiritual awakening in 2002 and devoted many years to helping people understand the process of spiritual awakening in daily life.