When we no longer suffer, awakening has come. Awakening and the end of suffering are the same.
I have always found the idea of awakening or enlightenment fascinating. I googled “enlightened people” and found it simply fascinating to read about it. But I never really had an idea or an inkling of what it might actually be. The enlightened must be something very special. They have a gift, a knowledge or something that the rest of us, the unenlightened, don’t have.
Some are struck by enlightenment, like a thunderbolt. Others find it after decades of searching. After decades of meditation. Or with a guru. So it seems rather unlikely that you could experience awakening yourself.
And yet it is so simple. With the concept of the ten fetters, Buddha himself provided a step-by-step guide to awakening.
Awakening is the end of suffering
Ist das Nicht-Wissen überwunden, steigt wahres Wissen auf, das zur Ernüchterung führt und wir erkennen:
Nur Nirvana ist Frieden!
Life is difficult. Or can be difficult. There are times when everything is going well. And then there are times when it is not going well at all – and we suffer as a result.
Then we are stressed, annoyed, angry, anxious, frustrated… Something is not right, is incorrect, feels wrong, could be better, must be better. It is not as we would like it to be. We have to do something about it, because it can’t go on like this!
What we would like to have and what we have are not the same.
If we don’t get or have what we want, it doesn’t feel good. When we long for something, when someone criticizes us, when we are lonely, we feel pressure on our chest, a tight throat, or a burning sensation in our stomach. It may feel like something has hit us. Painfully.
What happens next? Do we accept the uncomfortable feeling when we are criticized? The pain when we are lonely? That it doesn’t feel good when we don’t get what we crave?
Or do we fight against it because it can’t or shouldn’t be that way?
We get upset. We get angry, have discussions with an imaginary opponent, are tense, irritable, angry, sad, frustrated.
It feels good and right to react like this. But it doesn’t really help. Instead of feeling better, everything gets worse. It feels even more uncomfortable now. The pressure on the chest, the burning in the stomach – they’re getting stronger.
So we are hit for the second time. The unpleasant feeling, the pain, gets stronger – we suffer.
In short: we experience a situation and the sensations that go with it. This is followed by a reaction.
The situation and the first sensations are unavoidable. The reaction is.
Awakening does not mean going against or fighting what is happening. Even if we don’t like it.
This resistance falls away by itself in awakening. It is not behavior therapy, suggestion or training. It is effortless. Effortless.
When the resistance to the sensations disappears, we can deal with the situation much better. Anger, longing, rage, fear and everything that makes us suffer will no longer arise.
When we no longer suffer, awakening has occurred.
Awakening and the end of suffering are the same.
In awakening, there is no more self or I whose desires and needs have to be fulfilled. Experiences are not right or wrong. They are simply what they are.
When we no longer struggle, peace has occurred. Happiness. Freedom.
It is not easy to describe awakening. It is easier to describe what it is not. We have certain expectations of awakening, some of which only become clear to us in retrospect. Because there was always a self that imagined awakening in a certain way.
For me, it felt like I had put down a heavy backpack. A burden that was suddenly no longer there. So awakening is above all a loss. A loss. A relief. A disillusionment.
It is not a new belief.
It is by no means something that can only be bestowed on a select few. You don’t have to search for it for decades either.
It is not a practice of new behavior or thought patterns.
It has nothing to do with self-realization or self-optimization. It is rather the opposite, because the self was an illusion.
It has nothing to do with being a “good person”.
You won’t find out who you really are either. You won’t become wise, perfect, omniscient or special.
It is not a state of consciousness, or any kind of state at all. It feels totally normal. More normal than anything before.
It is not a state of everlasting happiness, harmony or unity.
You will not always feel good. Unpleasant things will not disappear, you will even feel them much more clearly.
You won’t be floating above it all either, so nothing will touch you anymore.
You won’t merge with anything or anyone.
Buddha explained that there are 10 assumptions or 10 fetters that stand in the way of awakening. If you want to know what they are, read on here: Through the 10 fetters to awakening.