I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word wakefulness.
Not mindfulness as another thing to accomplish. Not meditation as a way to make yourself calmer, happier, more successful, or less anxious.
Just wakefulness.
To be awake for your life.
Think about the Zen tradition. There can be an incredible amount of structure. You bow a certain way. You chant at certain times. You hit the bell a certain way. You eat a certain way. You position your bowls a certain way.
From the outside, it can look incredibly strict and disciplined. Almost constricting.
But the point isn’t really conformity.
The point is: Are you awake?
Because if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to miss the bow. You’re going to miss the bell. You’re going to forget where you’re supposed to put the bowl.
The discipline gives you an opportunity to cultivate wakefulness.
Are you fully here for what you’re doing?
Are you actually present for your experience?
And after all these years of sitting, meditation has become much simpler for me.
Sit with what is.
That’s it.
It doesn’t sound like a big deal. And sometimes it isn’t particularly pleasant.
Maybe your body hurts. Maybe your mind is agitated. Maybe your heart feels heavy. Maybe you’re unhappy with what’s happening in your life.
And yet there is something incredibly peaceful about simply sitting down and letting things be the way they are.
How do you do that?
Wakefulness.
You can’t be completely caught in your conditioned mind and wakeful at the same time.
If I’m aware that my mind is agitated, then I’m not the agitation. I’m aware of an agitated mind.
That’s a subtle but enormous difference.
The mind is conditioned. It looks at the present through the filter of the past. It has ideas, beliefs, memories, preferences and fears.
It says:
I like this because it feels good. How do I get more of it?
And:
I don’t like this because it feels bad. How do I get rid of it?
Then there’s the deeper, more ancient part of the mind that’s constantly scanning for threats.
We don’t have to worry about bears and lions every second anymore. Although there actually was a bear down my street not too long ago.
But generally, we’re not living in the woods, constantly wondering whether something is going to kill us.
Our nervous systems, however, are still carrying a lot of that conditioning.
So now the boss becomes the threat.
The mortgage payment becomes the threat.
An email becomes the threat.
A conversation becomes the threat.
And suddenly something happens and there’s this enormous wave of anxiety.
Wakefulness allows you to notice it.
Oh. There’s that ancient part of my mind that thinks there’s a threat.
And then you can look around.
I’m in my house.
The air conditioner is on.
I have electricity.
I’m sitting here.
I’m not currently dying.
Nothing is currently trying to murder me.
Things are actually pretty okay right now.
That’s wakefulness.
Instead of immediately getting sucked down the rabbit hole of anxiety, stories, aversion and the desire to escape, you recognize what’s happening.
And then you can notice the other side, too.
Oh, there’s the part of my mind that wants to feel good.
It wants comfort. Pleasure. Happiness.
And then there’s the part that says:
I don’t want to feel this. How do I get rid of it?
That’s aversion.
The goal isn’t to get rid of any of this.
Good luck trying to.
The goal is to develop a new relationship with it.
A relationship based on wakefulness.
Because wakefulness isn’t caught.
It’s open.
I often think of the sky.
The sky isn’t caught by the clouds.
It isn’t caught by the rain.
It isn’t caught by the thunder.
The sky is spacious enough to allow all of it to pass through.
In the same way, there is an awareness underneath the thoughts, feelings, sensations and stories.
A silent awareness that can witness all of it.
And that’s what we come home to.
The silent witness.
The awareness.
Wakefulness.
And this isn’t just something we cultivate on the meditation cushion.
That’s where we practice it.
But then we bring it into everything.
Walking to your car.
Walking from your car.
Eating.
Showering.
Doing the dishes.
Talking to somebody.
You can drop the story in your head and feel your footsteps.
Feel the breeze on your face.
Notice the temperature.
Look around.
I notice this every year around this time. I come back from Maine in the middle of August and suddenly the crickets are chirping during the day. The sunlight hits differently. The angle of the sun has changed. The temperature is different. You start noticing a couple of yellow leaves appearing on the trees.
You might try to convince yourself, It’s still summer. It’s still summer.
But everything is already changing.
That’s life.
And the practice is simply to be awake enough to notice it.
The easiest way to practice wakefulness is to ground yourself in the senses.
Feel what you’re feeling.
Hear what you’re hearing.
See what you’re seeing.
Feel your feet when you’re walking.
Come into whatever you’re actually doing.
Not because you’re trying to achieve some special state.
Just because you’re here.
And this is where I think meditation gets very different from a lot of what is being sold as meditation today.
I’m not interested in promising you that meditation will make you feel good all the time.
I’m not interested in telling you that all your problems will disappear.
I’m not interested in promising that your mind will become permanently quiet and peaceful.
That’s not real life.
And yet there is an enormous amount of meditation and spiritual teaching built around exactly that promise.
Happiness.
Success.
Manifestation.
Changing your frequency.
Changing your vibration.
Getting everything you want.
But think about what that actually reinforces.
If I tell you that meditation can help you manifest everything you desire, what could possibly feed self-centeredness more than that?
I can get everything I want.
In Buddhism, desire is often described as a cause of suffering.
So why would I want to build a meditation practice around getting everything I desire?
And even if I get what I want, then what?
I’m going to be happy.
Okay.
How long did that happiness last the last time you got something you really wanted?
Think about relationships.
Someone desperately wants a relationship. They finally get one. Maybe the first few months are rainbows and unicorns.
And then reality shows up.
Because reality always shows up.
Life is messy.
Relationships are difficult.
Bodies age.
People get sick.
People die.
Things change.
You cannot meditate your way out of impermanence.
You can’t hold onto happiness forever.
You can’t avoid pain forever.
You can’t always get what you want.
And even when you do get what you want, you eventually want something else.
So why would I strengthen that tendency through my meditation practice?
Why would I sit down and say:
Let me meditate so I can feel good all the time.
Let me meditate so I don’t have to feel the things I don’t like.
Let me meditate so I can control this moment and make it what I want it to be.
That doesn’t seem particularly wise to me.
Instead, what if meditation was much friendlier?
What if you simply sat down and saw how things actually were?
You could notice the mind thinking:
Oh, wow. Look at that. The mind is thinking.
Oh, look. It’s really worried.
And instead of fighting it:
Worried mind. Good to see you. I know you’re trying to help me, but we’re okay right now.
Then you notice where the fear lives in the body.
Oh. There’s tightness in my chest.
And instead of trying to make it disappear:
Yeah. I see you.
That’s scary to think about.
That could happen.
Let’s feel afraid for a little while.
That’s kindness.
That’s unconditional friendliness.
And imagine what kind of life you would live if you went through your day like that.
With that kind of compassion for yourself.
Even when the ugliest parts of you show up.
You could notice:
Oh, look at that. There’s that cranky old man.
He’s tired.
He’s stressed from work.
He doesn’t want to deal with the kids arguing over a toy.
He’s been up since five.
He only got six hours of sleep.
His boss came back from vacation and is already annoying him.
Yeah. Sounds like a hard day.
No wonder you’re grumpy.
I’d probably be grumpy too.
There’s nothing mystical about that.
You’re simply relating to yourself with kindness.
And you’re doing it from wakefulness.
You’re not caught in the anger.
You’re aware of the anger.
You’re not pretending the anger isn’t there.
You’re not trying to make it go away.
You’re simply seeing it clearly.
Wow. The mind is really like this right now.
The heart feels heavy.
The body is tense.
This is a lot.
And then:
Kindness.
You soften around it.
You make room for it.
You hold it with some tenderness.
That doesn’t mean you stop acting.
You still go to work.
You still have conversations.
You still solve problems.
You still take care of your responsibilities.
But you’re doing it from a wakeful place rather than from a completely conditioned and self-centered place.
That’s the practice.
And eventually, something changes.
I don’t mean that everything changes.
I mean your relationship to everything changes.
When I sit now, I’m just sitting.
When I’m walking, I’m just walking.
When I’m eating, I’m just eating.
When I’m on retreat, I’m just there.
And there is an incredible freedom in that.
I don’t need the moment to be different.
Even if I’m achy.
Even if I feel a little sick.
Even if my mind is agitated.
Even if my heart is heavy.
I can just be with it.
That’s what makes practice so meaningful to me.
I’m not practicing because I need something from the practice.
I’m practicing because this is what I’m doing right now.
And there’s a surprising amount of joy in that.
It’s so simple that it can almost seem ridiculous.
But when you get it, you get it.
Maybe all I have is this moment.
And right now, this moment happens to be like this.
I don’t need to do anything to make it different.
That doesn’t mean I give up on my life.
I still engage with my life.
But I don’t have to constantly feed the demand that life become something else before I can be okay.
My mind will continue to have preferences.
It will continue to want things.
It will continue to imagine a better future.
That’s fine.
I don’t have to believe everything it says.
I don’t have to organize my entire life around it.
I can wake up.
I can notice.
I can be here.
And maybe this is one of the most important things meditation can teach us:
You don’t have to ask anything of this moment.
What would it be like to stop asking the moment to make you happy?
To stop asking it to make you calm?
To stop asking it to make you successful?
To stop asking it to remove your anxiety?
To stop asking it to be different?
What would it be like to simply let the moment be exactly what it is?
No questions asked.
There’s a tremendous freedom in that.
And when something painful is here, we don’t just tolerate it coldly.
We can meet it with warmth.
With compassion.
With tenderness.
We can say:
Okay.
This is what it’s like right now.
Let’s be here.
That is wakefulness.
And meditation gives us thousands of opportunities to practice it.
You get lost in thought?
Come back.
You get distracted?
Come back.
You get angry?
Come back.
You get anxious?
Come back.
You start judging yourself?
Come back.
You can start over a million times.
That’s one of the beautiful things about meditation.
You don’t have to get it right.
You just keep waking up.
And eventually you begin to notice the difference between being aware of a thought and being caught in a thought.
Those are two completely different experiences.
You can have thoughts.
There’s nothing wrong with having thoughts.
The question is whether the thought has completely sucked you into it.
It’s like watching a movie and suddenly forgetting you’re sitting in a movie theater.
You’re completely gone.
Meditation is learning to recognize that you’ve been pulled into the movie and simply coming back.
Back to the breath.
Back to the body.
Back to the senses.
Back to this.
Not because you need this moment to feel good.
Just because this is where you are.
And you can soften.
You can take a deeper breath.
You can relax your shoulders.
You can let your body soften.
Maybe even a small smile—not because you’re pretending to be happy, but because you’re bringing some friendliness to the experience.
It’s okay for life to feel like this right now.
It’s okay for my mind to think like this right now.
That’s a radically different way of relating to life.
And perhaps that’s what we’re really cultivating through meditation.
Not a mind that never struggles.
Not a life without pain.
Not permanent happiness.
Not control.
Wakefulness.
The ability to be here for whatever is actually happening.
The ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
The ability to meet ourselves with kindness instead of constantly trying to fix ourselves.
The ability to experience life without demanding that it give us something in return.
Sit.
Wake up.
Feel what you feel.
Hear what you hear.
Think what you think.
And let the moment come to you exactly as it is.
You don’t have to ask it for anything.