Posts

If the universe speaks, it’s a good idea to pay attention...

Image
I’ve written a couple of these blogs about transcendent personal experiences while meditating, mainly to give an idea of the sorts of experiences that are possible, particularly if spiritual awakening is on your mind. I said very little about longer term implications and now seems like a good time to say more about that in the hope that it will be helpful to those wondering about the direction to take in their life. I mentioned a kundalini experience from decades ago that had a profound effect on me, not least in terms of taking up a meditation practice which has only deepened over the years and been one of the most positive influences in my life. (see the blog ‘A kundalini experience while meditating’, 11th February 2023) On the other hand I had another profound but different experience about five years after that, only this time I did not follow it up and yet it is the only time in my life when I had a very clear and transcendent vision. I’ve never written about it before and only me...

Oneness, separation and awakening

Image
Don’t take this blog post seriously - it’s just me speculating out loud about a more universal context for awakening experiences. So imagine: You are the universe / everything that is / infinite mind / God / the Tao (take your pick). You wonder about your potential. To find out, you create levels or layers of yourself. You finally explode into physical form in the singularity that will eventually be known as the ‘Big Bang’. Every level is a manifestation of your being and awareness. At the densest level there is enough consciousness to experience, but this level is so dense that the life forms you manifest come to experience themselves as separate entities that are alone and unsure about where they came from. You (still oneness) are aware of that experience. Some of these life forms notice that, when they look inside themselves, they can catch glimpses of their origin. In other words, you created a mirror and looked at yourself. Now you are one and also not one. Now what? In this view,...

Words and Ultimate Reality

Image
  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...

Can meditation help prevent suicide?

Image
This post is a small deviation from the main theme of this blog, which is about awakening to deeper insights into human possibility. This blog post is more to do with the potential of meditation to heal the mind. I write from both personal experience and also knowledge of the research showing that meditation is widely relevant and helpful. We know, for example, that meditation can play an important role in preventing suicide by offering individuals a powerful tool to understand and manage their thoughts and emotions. One of the fundamental principles of meditation is cultivating mindfulness, which involves observing one's thoughts and emotions without judgment. This practice helps individuals develop a deeper understanding that thoughts are transient and not necessarily true reflections of reality. By learning to detach from negative thoughts and observe them from a place of non-attachment, we can gain a more helpful perspective and recognize that these thoughts are not definitive ...

Awakening to inner stillness: A practice shared by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Subtitle: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once meditation practice

Image
  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 ...

What are the jhanas and how can they help awakening?

Image
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...

What is awakening?

Image
  As I hope you can tell from the posts I’ve included in this blog so far, I like brevity and clarity. With the help of a friend, I recently had a go at summarising the first big step of awakening (in the sense of ‘realising enlightenment’ rather than ‘getting up in the morning’, what some refer to as the ‘transformation of consciousness’) in one sentence, and began with, “Being aware of the mind.” We thought that might be a little too brief though, so then we came up with, “Being aware of awareness itself, rather than all that stuff you’re thinking about or looking at“. I’m sure we could play around with this for a long time, but I think this points to the essence of it.  I wanted to do this to help those who are just starting to consider this, so they don’t think that awakening is some deep experience that you have to work on for years just to get a glimpse of. It’s not like that. If you realise that awareness exists and it is independent of all the content of awareness – th...