The Simplicity of Awakening

The Simplicity

Of

Awakening

Pointers To The Ease of Being

Based on the Meditations, Investigations, Contemplations and Experiences

of over Forty Years of Spiritual Search and Practice

By Colin Drake

Copyright © 2015 by Colin Drake

First Edition

All rights reserved.  No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted, for commercial purposes, without written permission from the author.

Published by Beyond Awakening Publications, Tomewin

Cover design, photography and other titles by the author:

Beyond the Separate Self

The End of Anxiety and Mental Suffering

A Light Unto The Self

Self Discovery Through Investigation of Experience

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Awakening and Beyond

Self-Recognition and its Consequences

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Awareness of Awareness - The Open Way

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Happiness That Needs Nothing

Pointers to That Which is Always Here

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Freedom From Anxiety and Needless Suffering

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry From Beyond The Separate Self

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry From Being A Light Unto The Self

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry From Awakening and Beyond

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry From Awareness of Awareness

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poetry From The Happiness That Needs Nothing

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Humanity Our Place in the Universe

The Central Beliefs of the Worlds Religions

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of these titles are available as: e-books and in hard copy at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ColinDrake

Contents

Introduction

Chapter Synopsis

Preface – Awakening is Extremely Simple

Prologue – Simplicity and Complexity

One – Two Very Simple Meditations

Two – Internet Discussion About Awareness

Three – The Ease of Being

Four – The Simplicity of Zen Awakening

Five – Internet Discussion About Awakening

Six – Compassion and Spirituality

Seven – No Higher or Lower, Sacred or Profane

Eight – ‘Mental Illness’, Awakening and ‘Others’

Nine – Internet Discussion About Enlightenment

Ten – Fear of Death and Lack of ‘Spiritual Achievement’

Eleven – Nurturing The Bliss

Twelve – Awakening and Suffering

Thirteen – The Myth of The Awakened State

Fourteen – Reason - Its Uses Before and After Awakening

Fifteen – Internet Discussion About The Absolute

Sixteen – Awareness - The Myth

Seventeen – A Creation Story

Eighteen – The Juice is in the Resonances

Nineteen – ‘Levels’ and ‘Facets’ of The Absolute

Twenty – Two Sides of The Same Coin

Twenty  One – Different Strokes for Different Folks

Twenty Two - To Do or Not To Do-That is The Question

Twenty Three – Simplicities and Glimpses of ‘What Is’.

Appendix One - Investigation of Experience

Appendix Two - Instruments of The Absolute

Addendum – All or Nothing

The Author – A short spiritual biography

Glossary

Bibliography

Introduction

What follows is vital to ‘new readers’ whereas, those of my previous books may skip to the ‘chapter synopsis’ if they wish.  This is not advisable unless they have realized that, at the deepest level, they are Pure Awareness – the constant conscious subjective presence.  Also the first portion contains information regarding the framework within which this book was written and its objectives, which I hope would be of interest to all readers.

The main aim of this book is to act as a stand-alone guide to, and practices for, Awakening and is mostly composed of articles, replies to questions and discussions on Awakening (in an Internet group dedicated to this) since the publication of Freedom From Anxiety and Needless Suffering.  The thrust of the book is that the initial Awakening which reveals that, in essence, we are Pure Awareness is very simple to obtain.  Then this needs to be established by repeated Awakenings due to the natural tendency to ‘nod off’ and re-identify oneself as a separate object in a universe of separate objects.  When one is awake then anxiety and unnecessary mental suffering disappear, for these are caused by this misidentification which causes us to see each other, and the world, through a murky filter of self-interest, self-concern, self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, self-loathing, the list is almost endless.  It is this world-view that causes the anxiety and mental suffering based on concern for the future and feeling we are bound by the past. 

On Awakening one discovers that there truly is no separate self and so this filter is removed allowing us to see the world ‘as it is’ with no self-concern for the future or past.  When one fully realises that there is no separate individual self then all the needless burdens of self-image, self-importance, self-promotion, self-interest, self-cherishing, self-hate, self-loathing, self-anything ...  are lifted and remain so as long as one remains awake in this realisation.  This gives a great ease and lightness of being which is (en)lightenment in the literal sense of the word ...

The main theme of this (and all of my) book(s) is that of self-identity – who, or what, are we in essence? What is it that is at the core of our being, deeper than the surface level of mind/body, thoughts and sensations? To discover this is vital, for without a clear idea of one’s essential identity one cannot relate to the world, and others, in an appropriate way.  For, if we believe that we are separate objects, in a universe of separate objects, then we will naturally treat ourselves and others as objects, which I think we can see to be an unsatisfactory arrangement.  For this tends to lead to blatant self-interest and exploitation of our fellow beings, the outcome of which is apparent in the modern world.

So the quest is to inquire and discover that which is beyond objectification, the deeper level that is the perceiver, the subjective level in which objects (thoughts and sensations) come and go.

The easiest way to  find out is to investigate our moment to moment experience, which reveals that our deepest essence is Awareness, and the framework for this investigation is given in appendix one.  At this stage we need to become clear as to the meaning of the term ‘awareness’ which has two meanings which we must not confuse.  The phrase ‘awareness of Awareness’ utilises both of these meanings and for this reason I have used a capital letter (when using this expression) for the second one so that they may be easily distinguished in what follows[1].

The first occurrence (awareness) is synonymous with mindfulness, that is ‘seeing’ with the mind, or keeping (something) in the mind.  It also means ‘becoming conscious of’, noticing, or perceiving, as in ‘I became aware of …’ This is the normal everyday usage as in the OED definition of ‘aware’ – having knowledge or perception of …

So the term ‘awareness of Awareness’ means becoming conscious, or having knowledge or perception, of Awareness.  We now need to define this Awareness which is simply the total ‘seeing’ and perceiving (or seer and perceiver) of everything detected by the mind and senses, whereas awareness (becoming aware of) is the partial ‘seeing’ of those thoughts/sensations on which the mind is focussed, or which are noticed.  So these are not different, awareness just being a limited version (or incidence) of Awareness. 

This is easy to directly experience by closing one’s eyes and seeing whether you can simultaneously be ‘aware of’ (notice) all of the thoughts/mental images and sensations that are occurring.  This is found to be impossible and yet these are all there in Awareness, which becomes apparent when one focuses one’s mind on , or turns one’s mind to, any of them….  and there they are! About this I wrote the following in Beyond The Separate Self:

It is obvious that we would not ‘know’ (be aware of) our own perceptions without Awareness being present.  This does not mean that we are always conscious of each one of them, as this is dictated by where we put our attention, or upon what we focus our mind.  However, all sensations detected by the body are there in Awareness, and we can readily become conscious of them by turning our attention to them.  It is also true that our thoughts and mental images immediately appear in Awareness, but these require less attention to be seen as they occur in the mind itself.  So Awareness is like the screen on which all of our thoughts and sensations appear, and the mind becomes conscious of these by focusing on them. 

Take, for example, what happens when you open your eyes and look at a beautiful view: everything seen immediately appears in Awareness, but for the mind to make anything of this it needs to focus upon certain elements of what is seen.  ‘There is an amazing tree’, ‘wow look at that eagle’, ‘what a stunning sky’, etc.  To be sure, you may just make a statement like ‘what a beautiful view’, but this does not in itself say much and is so self-evident as to be not worth saying!

The point is that the mind is a tool for problem-solving, information storing, retrieval and processing, and evaluating the data provided by our senses.  It achieves this by focusing on specific sensations, thoughts or mental images that are present in Awareness, and ‘processing’ these.  In fact we only truly see ‘things as they are’ when they are not seen through the filter of the mind, and this occurs when what is encountered is able to ‘stop the mind’. 

For instance, we have all had glimpses of this at various times in our lives, often when seeing a beautiful sunset, a waterfall or some other wonderful natural phenomenon.  These may seem other-worldly or intensely vivid, until the mind kicks in with any evaluation when everything seems to return to ‘normal’.  In fact nature is much more vivid and alive when directly perceived, and the more we identify with the ‘perceiver’, as Awareness itself, the more frequently we see things ‘as they are’.  [2]

This Awareness is the constant conscious subjective presence in which our thoughts/mental images and sensations arise, abide, are spied and subside.  Before every one of them Awareness is present, during each one of them they are ‘seen’ by This and This is still here after they go.  Just check this out now – notice that before each thought/sensation there is Awareness of ‘what is’ (the totality of these at any given moment) , during each of these there is Awareness of them within ‘what is’ and after each of them has gone there is still Awareness of ‘what is’.

Rumi described this as: the clear conscious core of your being, the same in ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue.  That is to say the Awareness in which the ecstasy or the self-hating fatigue appears.  Now generally you would just be aware of, and affected by, the phenomenal state.  If, however, you become aware of the Awareness in which this state is occurring and can fully identify with, and as, this Awareness then the state loses its power to affect your equanimity.  For Awareness is always utterly still and silent, totally unaffected by whatever appears in it, in the same way that the sky is unaffected by the clouds that scud across it.

For more on Awareness, its correlation with nonduality and the wholeness which envelopes all manifestation see chapter sixteen.

It is this identification with Awareness that can be achieved by ‘investigation of our moment to moment experience’, see the appendix.  When this is successfully accomplished and you can see that at the deepest level, you are Awareness itself then this is an Awakening.  If this cultivated by remaining ‘aware of Awareness’ (and identified as Awareness) then this leads to full Awakening.

At this stage it would be advisable to carry