AboutJoe McSorley Expertise I can answer questions dealing with Taoist philosophy and Zen and not the historicity and religion of Buddhism and its different schools. I studied under Dr. Richard DeMartino and Masao Abe of the Kyoto School of Zen.
Question Hi Joe,
I've not in this life time met anyone who said "Yes, I am awake"
In your experience, has wakefulness come completely, or is it a slipping in and out. Waking and sleeping still? Having times through your days and nights where you forget everything about everything, and follow your ego for a few hours at a time.
Answer Hi Shane,
You use a term I never use, ‘wakefulness’. There are a lot of terms bandied about these days in so-called spiritual circles that are not used in real Eastern philosophy. Slipping in and out of wakefulness cannot be an awakened state because it is still dualistic consciousness. True enlightenment cannot be a slipping into and out of because that implies a self or ego that is sustained as the self that goes in and out of these states. Nirvana means extinction, this is of the self, the everyday ego consciousness that is obliterated in awakening. Everyone forgets themselves, whether in sleep or in focused activity, but this has nothing to do with awakening. Forgetting yourself and remembering it is strictly an ego state, it is the separate self going in and out of ‘forgetting’. Someone who is comatose surely forgets who they are as do those who indulge in drugs and alcohol; this cannot be compared to an awakened state of absolute awareness of true self and nature.
There is this idea that we are some how an entity that has an ego. In Buddhism it is taught the self is empty, it has no real substance so there is not this ‘thing’ that has an ego. It is the very self that perceives that it ‘is’ in Buddhism that is the problem we must overcome in order to become awakened. It is not a self you add to or diminish or that it, itself, becomes awakened. This self, sense of I am, is what prevents us from seeing reality. The self is that which has the ability to self reflect and to separate itself from the rest of the world but it does not know who it is. Since we don’t know who we are we confuse our thoughts for who we are. In other words we know who we are by what we like and dislike, our history, culture, race and a million other things. We know who we are by knowing who we are not. We are not that other group, race, religion, object, etc. so we only can define ourselves by what we are not. If you were to be in total darkness with no way to perceive anything else with your mind in the moment with no thought of past, future, like or dislikes aren’t you still completely you? By the same token, if you wake up in a hospital bed and are only conscious, that is, you can’t see yourself, aren’t you fully you? You might have had most of your body amputated but since you don’t perceive it you don’t have a changed idea of who you are. Once you perceive it you then make all the judgments about your state of being and happiness. So there is a self that separates itself from the world to know that it is. This is dualistic consciousness. This act of separating is ego-consciousness; we don’t have an ego, we are the ego, this act of separating. Remembering and forgetting self can only come from ego consciousness. We don’t remember and forget an ego, the ego, who we are, realizes these states. How can you know whether you are here, gone, forgetting or remembering without having a self that separates itself from the various states of forgetting, waking, or whatever. If I remember myself then I have a self that is separate from not remembering, a thing that floats in and out and this is not true awakening in Buddhism. The state itself of drifting in and out is an illusion.
The goal of awakening is to annihilate the act of separating which is know as the Great Death in Buddhism. This great death produces great awakening. Think of it using Suzuki’s analogy. D.T. Suzuki has the analogy of a wave on the ocean as symbolic of man’s sense of self. A wave arises on the ocean and looks down and sees the ocean all around. It says, “ I am know that I am because I am not the ocean nor am I all the other individual waves, I exist separate from them”. It has separated itself from the ocean to know itself as an individual wave. This separation actually creates the ‘self’; it is both an act and a fact of this separation. Now it makes all its judgments as a separated self. In this act it is also separated from itself, it knows that it is but not who it really is. Now it tries to go outward to find itself but it cannot. When it goes inward it is also problematic, why, because the act of going inward is still the act of separating from the ocean to be able to go inward. So this wave is alienated from itself, it’s surroundings and the ocean. But the fact of the matter is, who is the wave fundamentally? Is it the individual wave? No, there’s really no such thing. So who is looking for this awakening? The fact is that the wave is really just a manifestation of the ocean; it never was separated in reality but only knew itself as separated. It has to stop the ego process, the act of separating, in the hope that the ocean can rise up to see itself as both the wave and the ocean. It is one hundred percent wave and one hundred percent ocean, not at any point ever separated. The wave seeking the ocean/enlightenment/nirvana is the ocean seeking the wave. When the breakthrough occurs it is not new or just starting but a realization of what always really was. This is a non-dual duality. Both itself as wave and ocean
In this sense there cannot be levels of development you can’t be remembering or forgetting because that is from the side of the wave or ego separation. You are not a little bit wave and a little bit ocean, you were always the entire ocean. Forgetting self is just forgetting the act of being a wave, it is not the realization of the ocean. Many people walk around all day forgetting who they are do to boredom or other things, it’s just a simple unconsciousness of the act of separating but they are still doing it or they would walk into walls. Again, to forget and to remember comes from the side of the ego/wave and is not awakening. True awakening is a thoroughgoing state and not one of degrees.
And finally, to say “I am awakened” immediately shows a separate state/self that is separate from not awakened. To say I am not awakened is to have a sense of self that is the illusion. So to say either implies separation and a self that awakens. The ocean is, always was and is not affected by the ego state of the wave. Is the wave awakened or is the ocean?
I hope this has helped you. Take care,
Joe
