The Waking

  Some days I spend long periods staring quietly out of the window, just watching what’s going on. Today, an attempt to describe ultimate reality in one word came to mind as an alternative to doing some gardening or tidying up my flat, so... If I had to pick just one word to describe ultimate reality, based purely on my experience of looking within, then it would be ‘silence’.  If I could use two words then they would be ‘silent awareness’.  Having enjoyed and found the process of coming up with these words insightful, I wondered about three words. When I sat with this awhile, what popped up was ‘sat chit ananda’, three Sanskrit words that I previously read had been used together in some branches of Hindu philosophy, dating back to about 800 BCE, to describe ultimate reality. These three words seemed to pull together my meditation experience with religious / philosophical concepts in a way that felt quite satisfying. By the way, I should add that I don’t identify as Hindu...

  Before I start this post I should emphasise that I do not gain materially from this or any other blog I have written. If you have to get through Google adverts to read these blogs then I apologise – I would turn them off if I knew of a way to do that.  Anyway, this blog is devoted to a recommendation for a meditation practice that I really appreciate and that is taught by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, who was trained in both the Tibetan Buddhist and Bon traditions. The meditation itself goes under a variety of names, but is often called something like, ‘Awakening the luminous mind’ or ‘Awakening to inner stillness.’ As with all meditation practices of which I am aware, some will find this one profound, transformative and enlightening (me, for example), while others will find it less helpful. The reason I want to recommend this practice is related to the reason why I meditate at all and that is to explore inner life and understand human potential. If you meditate to de-stress, to ...

In the blog I wrote on 7th February 2023, ‘What can happen when you meditate,’ I made a brief mention of the altered states of consciousness that are known in some branches of Buddhism and Hinduism by the Pali word, ‘jhanas’, or ‘dhyanas’ in Sanskrit. As these have sometimes been considered as steps towards awakening I thought they were worth more emphasis here.  As you can imagine, a meditation practice that has been passed on for at least a couple of thousand years will exist in many forms, and be surrounded by many and varied ideas by now. Here I’m just going to go with the version that I practise because it works for me! I’m sure that other forms will be good too – I just haven’t tried them. I think it’s also worth mentioning at the outset that not everyone gets something out of them. If you find that they are not for you don’t worry about it. There are so many other types of practice that it is probably best to just move on to something that you find more helpful.  A quic...