For some, enlightenment strikes like a blow. Others find it after decades of searching. After decades of meditation. Or with a guru. So it’s pretty unlikely that awakening could happen to you.
Spiritual awakening – a cosmic joke
What is actually meant when people talk about spiritual awakening? This text is about spiritual awakening using the concept of the 10 fetters as described by Buddha.
There is no self, I do not exist!
Continuation of What is the self?
What is the self?
Is there a self that thinks, experiences, chooses, decides, acts?
In the past, I would have answered, “Sure, there is. It’s the self! I think, I decide, I act!”
It is I who am directing my body! I am the decider, the one who says where it goes! The supreme decision center. The pilot.
But then something happened that threw my self off track. I took a closer look.
Direct Pointing – Direct experience
For the inquiry into the self illusion and the other fetters, we work with direct pointing. I would like to invite you to find out what they are.
Part 2: (My) Dialog – Desire and Illwill
This is the dialogue between Christiane and myself, taken from the Facebook group – with all spelling mistakes and forgotten words.
What happens in the shift?
To see through the self illusion we go into direct experience. Here we separate the sensual experience from mental interpretations.
In direct experience there is no self (and no other illusions or assumptions).
In seeing through the self illusion, the following happens: The no self that we experience in direct experience becomes our everyday experience. It is then no longer necessary to go into direct experience. The ego-lessness is then always experienceable. Omnipresent. Whereas, of course, in this way there is neither self nor egolessness.
So if we have to go into direct experience to experience selflessness (no self), the shift has not yet occurred.
Experiencing this shift is important, because otherwise the self illusion is not seen through and we cannot loosen the next fetters. We no longer investigate the next fetters in direct experience, but in our then everyday experience – without the self filter.
So if you notice that you are not getting anywhere in the next fetters, it may be because the self illusion has not been fully seen through.
What can you do? Just keep looking. Do all the exercises for recognizing the self illusion again and again and check: There is no self – is that true?
Through the 10 fetters to awakening
The concept of the 10 fetters is one of the Buddha’s discoveries.