Shambhala Sun - John Tarrant: “Sudden Awakening”

John Tarrant, who wrote The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life, a book that almost literally saved my life the last time I was seriously depressed, has a great article up on the Shambhala SunSpace blog about sudden awakening and the use of koans.

John Tarrant: “Sudden Awakening”

Awakening can come gradually, almost imperceptibly, or in a sudden, life-altering flash. But however it happens, what’s important is that awakening is real and possible.

Like life itself, Zen’s enigmatic koans offer us a path to surprising, unpredictable transformation.

When will it happen to you and what-donkey, broom, or morning star-will trigger it?

By John Tarrant

Here begins the new life
-Dante Alighieri

At the heart of Zen, and of all Buddhism, is a story. One night in secret, a prince departed from the palace and from everything he knew and loved-his wife, his newborn child, his wealth, his power. His charioteer brought him his white horse, the hooves muffled with grass. The earth spirits supported their steps so that they made no sound and the guards did not wake as they passed. After the first stage of the journey, the prince exchanged clothes with a beggar and sent his companion and the horse home. This was the beginning of a long road out of the self that the prince had been.

Years of mental and spiritual exercises followed. The journey culminated one night when, while meditating, he looked up and saw the morning star. He was overwhelmed by the delight, freedom, and love that came with being human. After this he was known as the Buddha, and for the rest of his life tried to convey to people how they could have that same awakening. In terms of consciousness, what happened to him might be called an extreme makeover.

In even the simplest life, pain and disappointment accumulate, and at some moment everyone longs to walk through a gate and leave the past behind, perhaps for an earlier time when the colors were bright and the heart carried no weight. The quest for a fresh start is so fundamental that it defines the shape of the stories we tell each other.

A Jane Austen heroine shakes off the weight of the past and walks out the gate into a favorable marriage; a Dostoyevsky hero has a good dream in his prison cell and the next morning he is ready to confess; the Ancient Mariner blesses the sea snakes and begins to care about humanity. Most novels depend on such a possibility waiting in the wings for the main character, and the story of the Buddha is a novel in this sense. But do these transformations occur in stories because they are unlikely things that the mind needs to imagine-like escaping from pirates or having a prince offer you a glass slipper-or are they possibilities that wait inside every life?

Generally, we doubt that people change very much or quickly. It’s a mark of sophistication not to expect New Year’s resolutions to stick. Religion and psychotherapy are interested in changing people, but whether they succeed depends on what you mean by change. An Olympic swimmer, unusually strong-willed and with a number of gold medals to his name, once told me that even he needed six months of training to achieve the very smallest change in performance. Nobody actually thinks that they will get the key to happiness from “thinking positively,” any more than they believe that they will get “thin thighs in thirty days.” People read the fantasy the way they read romance novels-because they like to dream, not because they think the reality it presents is within their reach.

On the other hand, altering consciousness has proven an abiding human passion, whether through martinis, peyote, rituals, music, or meditation. So whether consciousness can be transformed in a fairly permanent and benign way seems an important thing to investigate.

And what has Zen got to do with this? Zen takes the story of the Buddha seriously. It offers a kind of journey that we might follow if we wish and dare, a journey that is a natural path for a human being to take. Zen offers some tips, in case they might be useful on the journey, an account of a few things noticed about the mind. These observations are simple but have profound consequences for what it means to be human. Here are some of them.

1. Buddha’s Story Is What’s Happening To You Now. The journey of the Buddha isn’t a literal journey that happened long ago. And it’s not what your life will become. It’s here now, and paying attention helps you to notice that. If you look into the life you have, your looking will lead you into a new life. What you meet on the way is part of the way.

2. Longing To Be Somewhere Else Is A Virtue. The longing for a fresh start is an ancient and basic feature of consciousness. All art and work of the imagination is touched by it and depends on it. Taking it seriously is a step to finding a new way of being.

3. Mind Is Your Friend. Skepticism is real too, and you might as well embrace it. Doubt seems to have an element of longing mixed with disillusionment. However, if you look into doubt closely, it might be your friend. It might lead you to disbelieve the thoughts that keep your reality in place, which might be a good thing.

4. Go Ahead, Get Enlightened. It really is possible for people to make fresh starts, complete turnovers in their way of being. This is not a delusional event and has nothing to do with believing in something. It is a natural human capacity for transforming consciousness.

5. More Uncertainty Is Usually Better. Awakening depends on the richness of uncertainty and not knowing. It depends on not being certain that you are confused, suffering, or the wrong person in the wrong place.

6. You Can Learn It. This reorganization of consciousness can happen spontaneously, but it can also be learned or acquired.

7. Try This Method Today. You can achieve awakening through immersion in the koan-a story or dialogue that you keep company with day and night. It can’t be addressed rationally, and yet it might transform your consciousness. Zen can be a lot of other things as well, but transformation is at the core.

8. Love Is Real. When the beliefs have fallen away, love and delight show up as basic features of consciousness.

When you set out on the Buddha’s journey, you have no real assurance that any awakening is possible. People might urge you on, but they could be deluded, or they could be right about themselves but not about you. “Maybe I’m just not good at this,” you might think. You could watch Buddhist teachers closely to see if they seem to be enlightened, but the more closely you look at anyone the more mysterious they become. Close observation doesn’t necessarily prove much. The Zen solution is to expose you to endless koans. It’s a try it and see approach.

Go read the whole article.

Tags: Shambhala Sun, John Tarrant, Sudden Awakening, Buddhism, meditation, koans, Zen, love, Buddha