The Waking

   I first had a go at this topic back in April 2023 (in https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2023/04/what-is-awakening.html), where I was mainly concerned with encouraging people away from the idea that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for ordinary people to attain enlightenment. In that blog I referred to it as ‘awakening’ because it is easier to get one’s head around the idea of having awakening experiences or being somewhat awake than of being a bit enlightened! Although I don’t identify as a Buddhist I appreciate a lot of its ideas and Buddhism has a formal way of describing enlightenment. An enlightened person is often described as someone who has extinguished the three defilements, which are, according to Doug’s Dharma (Smith, 2024), which is a reliable source on secular Buddhism:     • Greed     • Hatred     • Delusion I can see that and yet I prefer to think of it in more positive terms. So, although I see the absence...

  The Octagon in Ely Cathedral A dear friend, who wishes to remain nameless, reminded me that many who work don’t have time for long meditations of the kind I have mentioned in some previous blogs. It reminded me of that old joke: Student – “How long should I meditate for?” Teacher – “Aim for about 20 minutes a day to begin with.” Student – “But I’m far too busy to meditate that long!” Teacher – “In that case meditate for 40 minutes a day.” Sorry about that... It did get me wondering though if there are practices that can reliably evoke deeper levels of consciousness but without the long practice durations that usually takes. After all, many things can rapidly raise our level of consciousness, from a beautiful natural scene, to a piece of music or art, to visualising a loved one, and many more. Not many things can achieve that reliably and ‘to order’ though! And even people who do have the time may find it useful to evoke deeper awareness quickly for a moment of creative inspiratio...