Awakening
I prefer the word awakening rather than enlightenment. Enlightenment carries many borrowed images, ideas of arrival or permanence. Awakening feels humbler, more honest. It suggests that something begins to open — not all at once, not forever — but enough to let life be met more directly.
Across many traditions, when a ceremony begins, a candle is lit, water is offered, and incense is burned. These are not decorations; they are symbols of awakening. The candle gives light by disappearing, illuminating itself and others at the same time. Water, when still, reflects everything just as it is — without preference, without judgement. Incense spreads its fragrance everywhere, dissolving as it moves, touching everything without discrimination. Awakening, too, makes us less solid, less fixed, more available to what and who is here.
invitations
Notice a moment today when things feel quieter without effort. Let yourself rest in the gentle pause, sensing what is already present. You might like to explore this more deeply with a Meditation called ‘What is this?’, a simple 10-minute practice of presence and inquiry. Try it here.
Let an experience pass through you without trying to hold on to it. Allow sensations, thoughts, or feelings to move freely through your awareness, like water flowing in a quiet river. Simply notice, without needing to name or fix anything.
Observe where you soften when you stop waiting for something special. In the body, in your heart, in your attention, notice the spaces that open when striving eases. Yin Yoga can be a beautiful way to explore this softening in a gentle, guided practice.
Ask yourself: How might awakening show up as simple presence rather than a big experience? Notice how life unfolds when we meet it with openness, curiosity and a soft heart.
Moments of awakening make us more here, but here in a way that doesn’t stick. Like water, they adapt to the conditions they meet. Like a mirror, they reflect fully — and then let go. Often we imagine awakening as detachment or neutrality, but that is only a metaphor. As humans, we are capable of creative engagement: meeting life fully without clinging to it, responding without hardening around experience.
For me, awakening is often very simple. It is the moment when the inner commentary quietens by itself — when self-referencing stories, worries, and anxieties pause — and suddenly there is space to hear, see, smell, taste, and feel more clearly. In these moments, we meet the world without so many filters. Not as an idea, not as a project of improvement, but as something alive, immediate, and shared.
