I was watching that Angelo video again when I saw that you had posted. This is what I’d written so far:
Again examining the thought “I am not awake.”
“I am not awake” has often seemed like one of those thoughts that does in fact correspond with reality. (Initially wrote “often seems,” but changed that to “has often seemed,” which feels more accurate, which is interesting, because that’s putting more emphasis on the past.)
It has seemed straightforward, accurate, and honest to say, “I am not awake.”
But what does any of that mean?
Who or what is that “I”? Who or what had that thought?
And what would it mean for that “I” to be “awake” or not?
This is the bit I was curious to hear again:
“Well, who had that thought? What is that thought referring back to? Because before that thought appeared — the ‘me’ thought — or before the thought appeared that said, ‘I'm not awake,’ was there not something wide awake here? Was there not something completely conscious? Of course there was. . . . What is the ‘I’m not awake’-ness even referring to? Is it referring to the wide openness that's always here before, during, and after that thought? That doesn't quite make sense, does it? That wide openness — is it awake? Is it not awake? Is it green, yellow, blue, orange, big, small? Right? None of that makes sense. So, what is this not-awakeness? What is it referring to?”
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I read your message, finished rewatching the video (and finished copying the quote above), and am now returning to your message.
Angelo seemed to imply (though I want to listen to it again) that being “awake” is nothing fancier than being conscious, being aware.
i concur.
..but to be pedantic, my take is that he said that they are both thoughts - no different to each other.
Yep. “I am awake” and “I am not awake” are both thoughts (if that’s what you meant), no different from “I am a penguin” (so he said).
But, let’s see . . .
My brain was playing with the idea that maybe “awakening” is as simple as realizing that awareness, awakeness, is always here — well, maybe along with seeing that there’s nothing here to label “I,” just an ever-changing collection of sense perceptions and thoughts.
Hmm . . . I feel like I already see all that.
And then the mind starts to say, “But . . . ,” and even last week, this probably would’ve continued with, “I don’t feel like I’m awake,” perhaps with an exclamation point and a comment like “Aagh!”
But now I can barely even start typing, “But I don’t feel like I’m awake,” without questioning it and feeling like it doesn’t ring entirely true, or actually more like it doesn’t even make much sense.
Who or what is this “I”? There’s no coherent thing or being to slap that label on. There’s just an ever-changing pattern of thoughts and sense perceptions.
(And, sure, it’s useful in the relative world to give that pattern a name, just like it’s useful to give a hurricane a name, but that doesn’t mean that underlying the pattern called “K” is some essential K-ness.)
And what would it mean to say that that pattern is or isn’t “awake”?
Mind is now circling back to stuff I said yesterday.
It’s maybe not entirely meaningless to distinguish between “I am not awake” and “I am awake,” but . . . hmm . . .
I don’t believe something the mind is offering up: that it’s a continuum and that it’s somewhat arbitrary where you draw the line between “awake” and “not awake.” That seems like a wrong-headed way of framing it, like there’s an incorrect premise in there. I think there’s a good reason the Southern school of Zen won out in China: because awakening isn’t best described as “gradual,” as the Northern school described it. But, it now occurs to me, maybe there’s nothing “sudden” about it either? Those are just the wrong categories? But “sudden” is less misleading than “gradual”? (I hope and trust that you recognize that this isn’t idle intellectual philosophizing. I’m trying to put what I’m seeing about experience into language as best I can.)
So, like, yeah, I can see that things about my life are very gradually changing as I do whatever it is we’re doing here. But that shouldn’t be understood as “gradual awakening.” The awakeness has always been here. So what’s happening is . . . um . . . maybe not even gradually
realizing awakeness. Gradually
assimilating awakeness? And there might be some sort of little quantum shift at some point when more of that assimilation clicks into place all at once in a way that is experientially new? But that’s not really “sudden awakening” exactly? But it kind of is?
Nope. It’s hopeless (as I already knew). It’s no wonder Zen always resorts to paradox, poetry, or just doing weird shit. But I do wish they’d grope at describing it in regular language a little more often.
..and the really big one is what you previously said "I imagine there's probably a good bit of it that I don't even think of as thought but just think of as reality."
Recognizing this changes the 2nd+ arrows into decreasing presence.
I’m thinking that the key thought that I’ve spent most of my life thinking of as
reality is the “I” thought, right? By “key,” I mean that this thought, when mistaken for reality, is apparently at the heart of all the trouble.
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Need to do grading. Ugh.
An adaptive response to this is "Well, here we go again. i wonder what is behind it?"
Well, here we go again: delaying getting started on work (but less emotion involved than many days recently). I wonder what’s behind it . . .
I appreciate your note that shifting to attending to the sensations “might change the experience or not, but learning will likely happen that will change future experiences.”
K wanted so much
to find awakening now.
Frogs croak, people think.
:-)
I’ve composed a haiku here and there. But the ones that are coming to mind are all a little snarky.
A motel billboard:
“We treat you like family.”
Let’s stay someplace else.
[Deleted a lot of stuff I wrote here about delaying getting to work.]
OMG, more delaying!
Tightness in chest.
Lips narrowed and tightened.
Tension in jaw.
“WTF?” thoughts (gentler than yesterday’s).
Opened a student’s Buddha story.
Just read it, for goodness’ sake!!!
Love the premise: Siddhartha's palace exit interview, formatted as a human resources document.
(Realized that my students can still delight me with their premise, because at least that presumably didn’t come from an AI.)
“Reason for leaving: Other.”
OK, I've gotten started . . .
[Deleted stuff I wrote here about about discouragement about my slow progress and a student who used either AI or other uncited sources.]
