The Waking

                             Image to accompany Roger Thisdell’s ‘cosmological’ map, described below In the previous blog I wrote about the ‘do nothing’ meditation and Tilopa’s advice to “just rest”. This blog is about more structured approaches, specifically maps of the awakening process and the stages one goes through on the path to liberation. At the risk of losing readers before I’ve even started I should say that I don’t use maps to guide my practice. I’m more of a ‘do nothing’ sort of person in the way of the previous blog (https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2024/06/develop-inner-peace-and-clarity-tilopas.html). However, I do find maps very interesting and I think they might help some people to get up off the couch, put their footie boots on and get onto the pitch (the European Football Championship is on at the time of writing…). And the authors of the...

   Some of us have lives that are very focused on ‘doingness’, on being active and productive, setting and achieving goals, spending our days moving from one job to another, perhaps without ever giving thought to what lies behind all that activity. In this post I’m contrasting this with ‘beingness’, referring to the state of simply existing, without judgment, attachment, or aversion. It is the natural, uncontrived state of awareness that is often obscured by our habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. By cultivating beingness we develop: Presence . Being fully present in the moment, without distraction or mental wandering.  Acceptance . Accepting things as they are, without judgment or resistance. (BTW, ‘acceptance’ is not the same as ‘putting up with’) Non-attachment . Letting go of our attachment to thoughts, emotions, and desires.  Non-conceptualisation. Experiencing the world without the filter of our concepts and labels. Unity . Recognizing the in...