Subjective Experiences of Awakening, Part 1, Framing

Greetings, Friendlies. :)

We ended the Pile of Provisional Positions with a hypothesis that Gotama’s awakening had neurological correlates, specifically a shift from Left-Hemisphere-Dominant-Experience to Right-Hemisphere-Dominant-Experience.

That’s great, and, it leans a little objective.

What about the subjective experience of awakening?

I don’t know how it goes for other folk, but for me, the first version of awakening that resonated came from Alan Watts. In the years following I heard many… many… many… (etc) other versions. They sometimes seemed contradicting, they often seemed incomprehensible. I gave the whole thing up and shifted my goal to something like: “improve my ethical being-in-the-world”. AKA, work on being a better person.

Chapter 37 of Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha is titled “Models of the Stages of Awakening”. He lists forty-plus models including: “The Non-Duality Model”, “The Direct Perception Models”, “The Psychological Models”, “The ‘Nothing To Do’ and ‘You Are Already There’ Schools”, etc.

Reading this was a big AHA!. There are a whole bunch of models. Many of them do seem to point at wildly different aspects of experience. [1] What that may mean is that I can find one (or a handful) that seem most skillful for where I am right now on my path.

Over the next few posts I’d like to play with articulations of awakening that most resonate, with me, right now. The idea is something like: if I have these kinds of experiences, I will think, “Yeah, this is an awakening moment kind of thing”.

No surprise, we will begin with Mr. Watts.

With friendliness!

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[1] Put a pin in this. This idea will come back around.