Seven Contemplations on Awakening

Imagine that you are facing a gate. On your side of the gate is the infinitely large and complex world of phenomena — the grasses in the prairies, the teeming cities, the clouds over the ocean, babies crying, wars being fought, suffering, love making, your thoughts, everyone's thoughts, the stars sprinkled in the heavens, every single appearance everywhere, every thing, every self. On the other side of the gate is nondual reality, selflessness, enlightenment, the absolute, God. The gate is the gate of awakening.

One of the most joyful moments in the life of the spiritual seeker is when we recognize that the long sought-for goal is already here. We are the pure presence the sages and poets speak about. Not our personality, but the heart of our own natural awareness is this most intimate and infinite presence.

There are contradictions at nearly every step on the spiritual path. In fact the very image of a spiritual path is a contradiction. It implies there is a distance to be traveled, that we are walking on a path that goes from somewhere far from the divine to somewhere closer, from darkness to light or from a state of less awareness to awakening.

“There is no goal other than the realization of natural freedom, effortless, faultless, and without defects, the unique fact of awareness, self-radiant and free from discursiveness.”     

— Longchenpa

Imagine the sky on a clear spring morning—utterly transparent, empty, and vividly fresh. It is alive, though there is nothing there.

What is consciousness? Consciousness is the knowing faculty, but it is the knowing faculty when it has some knowledge—it is only then that we call it consciousness. One is conscious of something, consciousness must always be conscious of something. When consciousness is not conscious of anything it is pure intelligence. It is in this realization that the greatest secret of life can be revealed.

Some years ago I went to Fez, Morocco, to deepen my practice under the tutelage of a sufi shaykh of the Qadiri order. Although I am not formally a Muslim, I was welcomed by him and in the dhikr circles I attended. One day, however, when I was visiting the house of one of his students, the student turned on me angrily for not being a real Muslim, and insisted that the only true sufi path could be found by following the Shari'a — the laws of Islam. Some months later the shakyh told me he had heard of this conflict and had been furious at his student for his narrow-mindedness.

What is music? What happens when music touches us? If we could somehow float above planet Earth and hear the abundance and diversity of music rising up from around the globe — monks chanting in cloisters, rappers hip-hopping in Detroit, mothers humming lullabies in China, string quartets performing in Vienna, distant lovers singing of their longing — what would we be witnessing? What is it that enchants us in the mingling of sounds? What is happening that moves us so?

Sufis speak of a gentle way of continual blessing available to us — a way of beauty. Following the way of beauty does not require adherence to a special belief or dogma; it is a path that simply reveals itself through our direct, intimate experience.