"Even more, there is no “one” who is even awake, for the
sense of individuality is gone."
I wrote this on 10 February 2010 as well - the part that
thinks I'm awake or not is not who I am, what I am is forever
already 'awake'.
"Consciousness has returned to a clarity, a clearness that
is no longer deluded or confused."
True clarity is in seeing that all apparent delusions and
confusion are only insubstantial mind movements happening in a
clear cloudless/thoughtless sky of Awareness. That cannot be
confused and is ever in equanimity with regards to apparently
confusing thoughts. This True Clarity is the natural Clarity of
your Being, which is ever clear and beyond all confusions.
Realizing this, you can never 'get out' of clarity - it is not
something that rises and sets.
"Some days it is as if my awareness is on a roller coaster,
going up then down, over then under and around. Moments of utter clarity then moments of
delusion. "
Clouds come and go in the sky of awareness, awareness
itself doesn’t go through a roller coaster ride. Sky-like
Awareness becomes apparently obscured by fixation and
identification with the clouds of thoughts, but only apparently so
from the perspective of thought (like you mis-identify yourself
with a movie character on the cinema screen and start thinking
'where was the screen?') - not from the perspective of Awareness
itself - the ever-shining sun behind all the dark clouds. Even
dark clouds are revealed owing to the Presence of Awareness.
It is not an obscuration of Awareness, it is the evidence of
Awareness.
If you no longer have doubts on who you are, you will not
for a moment think that you have 'lost awareness'. Even the most
(apparently) deluded of all thoughts are still wordless
vibrations/energy arising in and as bright vivid Awareness. So
what's wrong with right now unless you think about
it?
Second article: http://tomstine.com/more-on-being-half-awake/
"After the first awakening, it seemed that I fell back
asleep. I couldn’t forget what I realized, and yet, I felt somewhat
lost again. And yet, much of my life was different. I couldn’t stay
asleep for long without the memory of that awakened state touching
awareness. It really was more a contrast between the awake state and my new half-awakeness.
But after a month or two, it became apparent that “half-awake” was
very different from asleep. There was a sense, however, of going
“in and out” of awakeness, but never that full experience of
awakening that I
had."
This doesn't sound like realization to me, only passing
recognitions. This occurred between 2007 to 2009 for me, where
there were apparently many 'in and out' of awakeness and
recognitions.
"In the past 6 months, something new has become apparent,
something different from what I had been experiencing. Now, I can’t
really say that I’m ever really asleep. There is no more sense of
“in and out.” Presence, consciousness, whatever word you care to
use for the reality of what we are, is always “just inside my
perception,” if that makes sense to you. It is like I can see it
just out of the corner of my eye. Not really, but that’s the sense
of it. “It” is here, now, present, and doesn’t leave, even in the
midst of being occupied by a thought, belief or problem. I’m never
asleep, even though I’m not fully awake."
This is my experience now. But the reason why there is no
'in and out' is not mentioned. The no 'in and out' is a result of
the realization of Being, a deep certainty. As I
wrote:
9th July
2010
I remember that thoughts of losing
awareness used to happen quite often for me in the past. But this
is all seen to be totally baseless and ridiculous
nowadays.
All thoughts of "I lost awareness" or "I
need more effort to maintain awareness" or anything along that line
implies having had some 'recognition' or 'experience' of Awareness,
but not having the Realization of Who You
Are.
This is why, looking back, I think Thusness
was very apt in telling me the difference between Experience and
Realization last year. He said "You may have the blissful
sensation or feeling of vast and open spaciousness; you may
experience a non-conceptual and objectless state; you may
experience the mirror like clarity but all these experiences are
not Realization. There is no ‘eureka’, no ‘aha’, no moment of
immediate and intuitive illumination that you understood something
undeniable and unshakable -- a conviction so powerful that no one,
not even Buddha can sway you from this realization because the
practitioner so clearly sees the truth of it. It is the direct and
unshakable insight of ‘You’. This is the realization that a
practitioner must have in order to realize the Zen satori. You will
understand clearly why it is so difficult for those practitioners
to forgo this ‘I AMness’ and accept the doctrine of anatta.
Actually there is no forgoing of this ‘Witness’, it is rather a
deepening of insight to include the non-dual, groundlessness and
interconnectedness of our luminous nature. Like what Rob said,
"keep the experience but refine the
views"."
And this is just the case. Having an
experience of Awareness still leaves doubts (including doubts like
'I lost awareness', 'I need to maintain it', etc). This is because
you have not resolved the question of your true identity. You can
have a clear sense of presence and spaciousness, and yet have no
real understanding or insight and an unshakeable
conviction of Who They Are which turns their sense of self
and identity upside down. It is the realization beyond a
trace of doubt the undeniability of your true identity as that Pure
Awareness.
If you realized this, then doubts like "I
lost awareness" will not be arising, and even if it had, the
thought is completely seen as an illusion - an
illusory thought arising in the undeniable presence of YOU. Such
habits of mind once seen in the light of realization will
never be able to shake you from true seeing and
being - it is simply exposed for being an illusion which they are,
like the words 'this place is dark' written on the wall revealed by
bright light in the room simply reveals the illusion for what it
is. See how baseless those words/thoughts are in the light of clear
seeing?
So it is not about sustaining a state of
experience, it is seeing how this is your True Self, what
you already are, and no illusion will be able to shake you out of
that - for it is not a state or experience that requires
maintenance, rather it is the undeniable Presence of What You Are
and all thoughts and illusions that comes up still only come up in
that Undeniability of Immediate Presence and are immediately seen
as illusions.
Through Realization, your so called
'understanding' (though it is not a conceptual understanding) of
Awareness will shift from being 'experience' or 'state' based to
clearly seeing how Awareness is the undeniable ground of Being and
Knowing in which all phenomena comes and goes, and yet Awareness
ever remains unmoved.
Can you escape the present moment? No you
can't. Can you escape You? No, of course not! Every attempt to
avoid Presence is still experienced in unavoidable and undeniable
Presence.
So the difference between experience and
realization is this - in realization, Awareness is vividly and
clearly experienced, but more than that, it is a clear
insight into that fact of your Being that burns away all doubts and
questions until only the Light of Awareness remains and is clearly
seen to always be so. And in that unshakeble certainty of Being you
clearly see you do not need to maintain anything - you simply Are
That.
It is not an experience, but
the realization, the understanding (but it is not a mental
understanding but a feeling/being-realization), that makes you
unshakeable in the face of doubts by exposing them as the illusion
they are. Without the realization, doubts will be
‘believed’.
Lastly, never think that this realization
that I am writing sounds 'difficult to obtain' as I can assure you
it is Not. It is simply an ever-present and immediate fact
of your being shining in plain view waiting to be discovered and
realized. It is not a state that you need to gradually develop over
time through some kind of technique - rather, it is always already
timelessly present right here and now. You simply need to know what
and how to investigate (e.g. self inquiry) and you are on your way
to true insight and freedom.
"At some point along the way, no one can say when, no one
ever knows when or how, something within simply ceases. The
psychological sense of self, the “ego” as it is often called,
simply goes from the foreground of awareness to the background. It
becomes irrelevant. It ceases to be of importance. The Buddha knew
what he was talking about when he spoke of Nirvana, for that word
simply means
“cessation.”"
This is not Nirvana. It is still the I AM
stage.
Regards
AEN