Waking up entails first realizing you are asleep, or at least questioning whether or not you understand the way things are. You suspect that there is more to this life than the status quo of mundane human habit patterning and cycling. At this point you have a base-level gut feeling that things may not be what they seem, and that you just need to figure it out.
The process of waking up that follows is best explained as a process of disintegration followed by a process of reintegration.
Disintegration is necessary because up until the point of setting out on a path to awakening you feel an intuitive sense of being a separate being in a world which is simultaneously familiar and foreign to you. This sense of separateness becomes utterly unbearable. Going about your life in the usual way, in attempt to fulfill the longings themed around the common sense ambitions of status quo humanity, seems pointless. You feel dreadfully unfulfilled as a result.
Thus, your inquiry into the nature of Reality begins. Whether inquiry is prescribed to you by a teacher or guru or whether it arises spontaneously from the depths of your dread makes no difference. You want to know who you are, what you are, or even more basically – if you are. You want to know if there is an actual purpose to your life, a reason for living. And this procedure of inquiry begins to necessarily dismantle whatever sense of security you once had in your old ways of thinking and being in the world. You begin the process of disintegration – the picking apart and scattering around of all you thought you were and all you believed to be true. None of it holds up, and you feel a mess.
There is a point at which the disintegration process reaches a kind of critical mass, at which point it escalates beyond the point of no return – at least no return in the old sense, in which you could just turn around and forget you ever started on the journey in the first place. But if you’ve reached the point of no return, your awakening is almost guaranteed in this lifetime (barring you don’t physically die before the process is complete).
In hind sight, the best response to having reached the point of no return would be to simply let go and allow the fall to take place. It would be best to just give up and let the process finish you off. But hardly anyone does this. 99% of the time, people will fight tooth and nail to conjure up an old familiar sense of self. You will almost certainly to put tremendous energy in propping up the lie just to try to feel a sense of being secure or grounded, even though you know deep in your bones that this is not your destiny. The driving force of this resistance is none other than fear – primal, pure and condensed.
Fear is never overcome through force of aggression, for aggression is the expression of fear in its most basic form. The only antidote to fear is courage. Contrary to what you may believe about courage, its expression is not emotionless or stone cold. The expression of courage, in its most basic form, is surrender. But again, this surrender is probably not what comes to mind when you first think of it. You probably see a frightened soldier hiding behind a mound of dirt, bullets whizzing by, raising and waiving a white flag. But that’s not the kind of surrender that positions you for awakening. The type of surrender that is the expression of true courage is a willingness to experience whatever comes, eyes wide open, unflinching. When the activity of aggression as the expression of fear is finally realized to be pointless, corresponding to feelings of utter exhaustion, one may – if they are so fortunate – choose to turn and face their difficulties head-on. No shields. No anesthetic. And this is precisely the right move to make. This is what allows the disintegration process to complete itself.
This is not the end of the pain, but it is the end of the old way of relating to it. In your mind you know there is no guarantee of success. There’s no way to know for sure whether you will awaken today, or 12 years from now. But in either case you know that the necessary response is the same. There’s only one option left: courage, surrender, willingness to experience whatever comes. During this final stretch (although you may not even know it is the final stretch) there will be times of peril and times of peace. Sometimes you will feel as though you can get through anything this world (i.e. your mind) throws at you, and other times you wish you never would have undertaken this path in the first place. But you walk on. There’s no going back. The moments of peace along the way provide just enough nourishment to sustain you as you travel straight into the unknown. You can’t see more than two feet in front of you at any given moment, but you are becoming acclimatized to the uncertainty. Your tolerance for ambiguity and mystery is steadily rising. Things are getting better.
The full disintegration comes when you least expect it. No willful act can bring it about. There can be no intention at this point. I’m dead serious about this. Neither can there be intention of non-intention, for even THAT gets in the way. You must simply keep going, welcoming everything that comes on its own terms, until you literally forget that your path has an end point…
And then it happens.
The way it happens, the experience of it, is not the same for everyone, and so there really isn’t any reason for me to describe any particular experience in detail. But when it happens you will know. What can be said about the final disintegration is that it is a dying before death. You will die that day, but you won’t be dead. And having died, you will no longer fear death – at least not for your own sake. When you disintegrate you see that there was never a separate you in the first place. Your complete dissolution doesn’t hinder the Universe, for you understand quite clearly that whatever dissolves and reappears can be nothing other than the same THAT which is both the source and essence of everything. You realize the essential non-duality of the All, and that there is nothing other than the All. In losing everything, everything is gained. In realizing that you are nothing, you comprehend that you are everything, and that there is no in-between. At this point you are no longer sleeping. The eyes of wisdom are flung wide open. You wake up.
But (of course you knew there had to be a “but.” There’s always a “but.”), the completeness of disintegration is not the end of your journey. This is perhaps the most common misunderstanding on the path of awakening. The finality of disintegration is not to be denied, so the newly awakened is not deluded. And yet, there is a tendency of the newly awakened to try to take up residence in the All, to plant their feet in the Abyss, as though their personality could be an adequate expression of the ineffable Reality they realized they are. When the sense of separateness is disintegrated and Reality is apprehended, there tends to be an ever-so-subtle contraction of the remaining tendency toward identification, which is just enough to delude the individual into thinking, “I am the All.” When you first awaken, this will likely occur. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, as it is almost entirely unavoidable. Few, if any, have traversed the path of awakening and not fallen victim to this subtle duality that remains after the disintegration process.
It is here when the recognition of the necessity of reintegration becomes paramount to any genuine and complete teaching on awakening. But this begs the question, what could possibly be the source of the remaining identity-delusion? What allows the self-contraction to remain in this subtle form? You traversed the treacherous path of disintegration, whereby you faced your fears and ended the activities of aggression and replaced them with courage and surrender once and for all!… or did you?
If you know anyone who has awakened and fallen into the, “I am the All,” trap (which, like I said, happens to nearly all of those who awaken), you’ll pick up on some of the dismissive ways they respond to “worldly” concerns. They may appear calm and collected most of the time, and make statements about how they just don’t get why everyone is so upset about the economy, or their sick grandmother, or their tooth pain. Don’t they see that it’s all an illusion? Isn’t it just easier to realize it’s all a game, a drama, a production on the Universal scale, and then to just sit back and watch, unattached? When you occupy this point of view, it feels like you’re invincible. No one can touch you because “you” don’t exist – only “You” exists, which includes you and you and you.
The funny thing is that this position cannot be sustained forever. Your newly inflated ego will become increasingly frustrated with others for not recognizing the Truth. You wish they would just leave you alone, or that they would just snap out of their delusion so they would stop bothering you. And it’s here that, if you’re lucky, you’ll notice that you are once again resisting life as it shows up for you. You are expressing an unwillingness to experience whatever comes, which is the expression of that same cause which put you through so much misery in the first place… Fear. You thought you had rid yourself of fear, which is what allowed you to take on this new Universal point of view as, “I am the All.” But a seed of fear remained, and now it has grown into another obstacle that must be dealt with in order to reach a truly complete and unshakable awakening.
It is only natural for you to think that if this subtle fear-based duality remains, this calls for further disintegration. You will likely opt for attempting to go through more of the same. This makes sense. But, the path of awakening is such that it doesn’t have to make sense. You must accept that the process of disintegration has truly come to an end (because it has), and that there is only one way to finish the job. That is, embarking on the path of reintegration.
To travel the path of reintegration you must allow yourself to care. You have to find your raw, unconditioned tenderness and vulnerability and refuse to cover it over. You must allow life to touch you. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is the most necessarily activity at this stage. In allowing yourself to care as a human being cares, you directly face your fears pertaining to going back into a life that resembles what you thought you had escaped from. But there is no escape. There never was.
So, while the path of disintegration was the path of, “Not this, not that. None of this,” the path of reintegration is, “This, and this too. All of this.” You must return to your body, to your human relationships, to your job, your spouse or significant other, your kids, your neighbors, your daily chores and responsibilities, and you must do so with fully engaged presence. It will hurt at times, and it will be pleasurable at times. You must learn to let go into pleasure as well as pain. You must allow yourself to get attached, to have an opinion, to have wants and needs. In doing so, you will be scared that you are simply putting on the same old chains that bound you to a life full of suffering and despair, which you set out to escape from in the first place. But you will not know the difference between where you started and where you will find yourself again until you walk the path.
The funny thing about reintegration is that it doesn’t stop. The process becomes more stable, in that you learn to settle into the flow of life, and your existence is experienced as the expression of both the Universal and the personal, eating together, playing together, sleeping together. It doesn’t ever truly end because there is no where you can fix a position in this Reality. There is only opening, and presence, and participation. And that’s why you hear the most profound teachings describing the most seemingly mundane experiences as being undeniable expressions of awakening. Ryokan:
If someone asks what is the mark of enlightenment or illusion,
I cannot say…….wealth and honor are nothing but dust,
As the evening rain falls I sit in my hermitage
And stretch out both feet in answer.
It’s true that the process of reintegration following disintegration leads to the stabilization of a natural, ordinary awakened state. But there is a danger in disclosing this information, and there’s a clear reason why some traditions and teachers have elected to remain silent about it. The reason is simple. So simple, in fact, that I might suppose that it’s implied in the context without any further explanation. It’s too important to miss, however, and so there is a strong motivation to share it with anyone who may not be picking up on it, or perhaps just doesn’t want to believe in the truth of it. There’s something of a moral imperative of the awakened to shed light on the dubious errors in judgment made both by awakened individuals of less sophistication, skill, or care, and also of those who will have a difficulty beginning the journey on the right foot due to the confusion that arose due to hearing too much, too soon.
This trap, which is set at the very start of the path by teachers or authors of books (many of whom are well meaning, no doubt) is the idea that for the person who has yet to undergo a path of disintegration, there really is no path. The teacher might tell you, “You are already enlightened. There’s nothing to do. There’s nowhere to go. The path just leads to more seeking and suffering. The path is the problem. Avoid the path forever and you will be awake forever.” And that, my dear friends, is complete and utter bullshit.
Yes, Reality is the way it is. It has always been the way it is. The root cause of our errant perception of separateness is ignorance of the truth of Reality. But you can’t transform by simply hearing a description of what the end result is like, anymore than you can read the menu instead of eating the meal and feel that your hunger is truly satisfied. If you’re going to wake up, and to really apprehend just what it means to be integrated, whole, and ordinary in the most profound sense, you need to embark on the journey of disintegration first. You must die-before-death before you can be reborn for the last time. Only then will your human life realize the expression of the truth that this is how it has always been.
I’ll close this essay with Master Dogen, who sums up the entire path of awakening, including disintegration and reintegration, in the opening lines of his Genjo Koan:
As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings.
[Sam: Before you awaken, you are better off having a view like the one stated above.]
As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.
[Sam: The culmination of the disintegration phase brings this into clear apprehension.]
The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.
[Sam: We move from disintegration into reintegration, coming back the mundane, which is now also anything but.]
Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.
[Sam: In other words, the final result is not static. There is always engaged activity. There is always a choice.]
I sincerely hope this essay is helpful for those at all stages of the path. If anything, it may help you not to sabotage yourself along the way.

32 comments
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December 5, 2011 at 9:27 am
redsparklegirl
Hmm… I debate commenting.
I am at that point in ‘the journey’ where I have reached the end of disintegration, as you describe it. But am really having trouble with the idea of reintegration. It just doesn’t feel right to me, intuitively, and I must trust my intuition. You will likely say it is only my ‘ego’… I’ve never liked that categorization. I’m me or more me, no dichotomy, no distinction… bright or brighter.
What feels more true to me is that ‘disintegration and reintegration’ is the way it used to play out. We are now entering a new time where it is something altogether different and not yet experienced by any enlightened human, anywhere, ever. There is more ‘awakening’ to do, as the reintegration you describe is still as one functioning within the dream… lucid, but still the dream none-the-less.
A delightful read. Thanks for posting. :)
December 5, 2011 at 9:38 am
Sam Watts
Thanks for the comment, redsparklegirl. I’m glad you enjoyed this post.
I’m not here to put down your experience, so there’s no reason for me to diagnose whether or not your lack of intuitive pull toward reintegration is some sort of maladaptive ‘ego’ activity. I don’t think that is necessarily the case, but it is a possibility. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with ego. Ego is thought, and thought doesn’t scare me. For whatever reason we humans tend to attach a certain over-importance on certain thoughts as opposed to others. The ego is a problem only in that regard, but not inherently.
Anyway, I do think that if you have completed the disintegration part of the path of awakening, reintegration will come knocking at some point. It may come in the form of a general sense of dissatisfaction. If you allow your thoughts to be honest, you might think, “What they hell, man. This shouldn’t be bothering me.” That’s your cue.
I don’t know if being awake today is all that different from times past. It was never reserved for monastics or forest dwellers. Awakened people have been engaged in everyday life as long as there have been awakened people. The challenge of reintegration is nothing new.
December 5, 2011 at 9:46 am
A Common Misconception « freestyle awakening
[...] laid out a general sketch of the path of awakening from beginning to end in my previous post on Disintegration and Reintegration. In this post I hope to elaborate on a common misconception that frustrates many a spiritual [...]
December 5, 2011 at 9:57 am
redsparklegirl
But that’s kind of my point… what you are describing is how it HAS been, but maybe something new is emerging. Something no one has experienced ever.
December 5, 2011 at 10:01 am
Sam Watts
Ok, I see what you’re saying. Perhaps you’re right. What signs are pointing you to the possibility of the emerging of this something new?
December 5, 2011 at 10:09 am
redsparklegirl
Umm… there are no ‘signs’, just my inner experience. Its this inner knowing that I cannot deny or suppress. I look for a reflection of this knowing ‘out there’ in what others have said and are saying about what is happening, but I have yet to come across it. It is beyond my articulation at this point.
December 5, 2011 at 11:39 am
awarenessishere
Hi Sam—I hear you when you suggest there is an I AM trap, that then begins to resist the world and worldy and unawakened others and slips into the mind movement of toward or away, like/dislike
This is not my experience here six weeks awake–rather in this vast acceptance and delight that I am is the understanding that there is perfection everywhere, even in the worldly world, and the minds dancing there. I am wondering if the diversity and uniqueness of each instrument, as it opens fully to Self, also plays a different tune of awakening…?
It’s not that the world is unreal, it’s that the mind that filters it is unreal. So from here, I do not dismiss reality and human suffering, but rather would point to the sufferer as unreal.
in awareness,
Lori Ann
>>If you know anyone who has awakened and fallen into the, “I am the All,” trap (which, like I said, happens to nearly all of those who awaken), you’ll pick up on some of the dismissive ways they respond to “worldly” concerns. They may appear calm and collected most of the time, and make statements about how they just don’t get why everyone is so upset about the economy, or their sick grandmother, or their tooth pain. Don’t they see that it’s all an illusion? Isn’t it just easier to realize it’s all a game, a drama, a production on the Universal scale, and then to just sit back and watch, unattached? <<
December 5, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Sam Watts
Hello Lori Ann. Glad to hear you’re doing well.
Though not to be discounted, six weeks is super fresh. I don’t want to rain on your parade, but the likelihood of this spiritual high lasting is not very good.
It’s nothing to be worried about, and I wouldn’t expect you to be at this stage anyway. Simply be aware of the fact that awakening is not all sunshine and roses, and you’ll be 10x more prepared than most folks who are where you’re at today.
December 5, 2011 at 12:17 pm
awarenessishere
I like that Super Fresh! I feel like produce. :-) I’ve posted your Intergration/Reintegration all over facebook, link to your blog. It is a valuable pointer.
I would point out here, that this expression has had many disintegration and reintegrations in the decade before this latest profound death of Lori Ann. This death was preceeded by a year of dreams (at night) in which this was foretold to me, as coming soon to a theatre near me.
I invite you to also be open to what is not-known….the knower is sometimes wisdom speaking, but often too Sam, It’s the mind, slippery mind, that is so sure of what it knows….you know?
In my blog, I am careful to say >>In the entries ahead, I will chronicle my experience as barely dry hatchling. I am a discoverer here, not knowing the terrain, yet delighted in navigating this unknown world as awakened Awareness. These dispatches from the frontier, from the place you too are going, might encompass an entirely different range of encounters than your own inevitable awakening. For you see we are each a unique point of view and expression for Awareness. And paradoxically we are all One.<<
I'm curious to follow you, and will keep tabs.
In Fresh Awareness!
Lori
December 5, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Sam Watts
Lori Ann, I like your style.
I accept your invitation to remain open. It’s all I know at this point, anyway, regardless of how matter-of-fact my writing style may come off.
December 6, 2011 at 5:28 am
Monkey Mind
Spot on, including the post-enlightenment integration stuff.
One little detail: falling into the “I am the all” trap isn’t a reliable landmark indicating the completion of dissolution. It’s there all along, and particularly strong just prior to complete dissolution as well as after. That brilliant, beautiful spark of fear.
At least, that’s what I’ve seen.
Cheers,
Florian
December 6, 2011 at 9:02 am
Sam Watts
That’s true, Florian. The “I am the All” trap can happen prior to full disintegration, so it’s more a side effect of a landmark than a landmark itself.
But man, this particular trap tends to be really sticky for a lot of people post-disintegration. Depending on the tradition it manifests as either “I am the All” or “There’s no sense of self anymore!” Two-sides of the same coin, really, at least at this stage. It gets really potent, building someone WAY up without thier even realizing. Every self dies, even the self that thinks it has no self. Death is always painful.
Loving your feedback. Thanks.
December 18, 2011 at 9:06 pm
dominic724
OK, Sam. You have read VN, so you know where am coming from.
1) What’s your take on the “no-self” trap ? Can you please say a little more about that?
2) How do we know when disintegration is done ? I read what you wrote above, do you have any further comments ?
3) Is there such thing as “practice” at this point, or do things seem to happen more or less “on their own” ? Is whatever we do just slowing/speeding a process that would already occur ? This last question has been returning to mind recently – have not had a meditation practice since July, and have been wondering if there is anything to be gained through more practice.
Whatever you can share in addition to the elucidation of the blog, of which am continuing to read the archives, would be appreciated. There are people to talk about these subjects with, but they don’t see any farther than I do. Kind Regards , dominic
December 19, 2011 at 8:33 am
Sam Watts
Good questions, Dominic.
1.) You may need to provide some context to your question so I know what kind of response you’re looking for. But, in general, “no-self” can become a trap because it becomes a belief one uses to reconstruct their identity. In other words, the ego doesn’t disappear when egolessness is realized. Ego is empty, just like your body. But your body doesn’t disappear when you awaken, and neither does your ego. By think that it’s gone, the ego finds a false sense of protection, and thus feels invincible. This is the “pride” that comes before the “fall”, so to speak.
2.) There are a few ways people discover that the disintegration is over and done with. The first, which is less likely, is that they simply recognize that they’ve taken it as far as they can go. They’ve done all of the practices, and taken them to the point of collapse, and there’s nowhere further they can go in that direction. The second way, which is like the first but far more likely, is that they feel like they’re done, but then start to question it. So, they do the same thing they did before, just more of it. Only this time, there’s no further going beyond. They find that they can’t step off the edge of no-edge. Yet, things still aren’t quite right. So, they start looking/seeking again, and they find that some really wise teachers are pointing them back into reality. The third, which is what occurred for me, is that the direct of practice just sort of reverses itself, without warning. It turns on a dime, and the practice of being open and willing to experience whatever comes leads one right into their body, their relationships, their work, their life in general, in a way that feels at first like regression, but is later realized to be the next stage.
3.) Again, there are three things that come to mind. First, active resistance is to be avoided at all costs (a no-brainer, right?). The second best thing you can to is to do very little. Just show up to your life, whether in formal practice or not, and just pay attention with eyes wide open. That’s not a bad way to go. The third way, which is what I prefer, is to learn to participate in – or with – the process. If the path is throwing you into your body, why not consciously work with your body (yoga, qigong, basic exercise). If your plopped back into relationship with others in a new way, why not intentionally practice in a way that will open you up? There’s nothing wrong with doing something on purpose. Realizing no-self doesn’t render you incapable of doing things on purpose, paradoxical as this may seem.
December 19, 2011 at 11:08 am
dominic724
Thanks for getting back so quickly, Sam. These comments are much appreciated. Am going to let your responses percolate. Sent the article, questions and responses to two friends who are in the same place; we are all standing on the other shore, holding our oars, trying to decide what to do with them !
December 30, 2011 at 9:42 pm
joshualeehanna@yahoo.com
When you fall into thinking “I am the all”…
If it leads you to experiencing that you are the all. Then this is what you have been seeking all along.
If the ego wants to be “the all” and be proud of it. That is the trap. It will lead you to a delusion of grandeur sense of “am i turning into god”? The truth is you are, and you have been, but so is everyone else. If your ego can recognize that then you can know peace with all people.
Some of us “seekers” are seeking something that can be found. Its just a bit more rare.. The direct experience of oneness with the whole. (Self Realization) Is realization through experience, Not Intellect.
THIS: is why all this philosophy will never satisfy you. The soul (subtle or astral body) Can be experienced, The vibrational bliss that animates your body can be experienced. Usually when someone is seeking, their intuition is wanting experience and soul perception. Rather a great Philosophy lesson on oneness with the universe.
The divine can be experienced, this is what the “awakened” presence is guiding you towards.
January 4, 2012 at 9:16 am
Sam Watts
Hi Joshua,
I don’t think we’re flying in the same sky, and that’s OK. Awakening to the astral/subtle continuum of consciousness is not insignificant; but, it’s also NOT full disintegration – at least not in my experience. It goes much deeper than this, for nondual realization is beyond subtle bliss.
If you’re content with where you’re at, sweet. If not, than old Sam here is telling you there’s more to realize. It’s up to you.
January 2, 2012 at 2:30 pm
New Light Awakening
Aloha Sam… thanks for the GREAT article.
I read it a couple of weeks before my disintegration reached the no separate-self recognition (no ‘I’, no ‘me’). Then, I was in therapy, coming to terms with huge childhood abuse issues. I likened what you wrote about disintegration to how it seemed my then-‘self’ had somehow dissolved when it was seen that massive abuse had been ‘forgotten’ then ‘remembered’. Big shock, ya.
Here’s the sweet kicker: I’m now into a deeper disintegration that is experiencing such a flow of naturalness to the entire process. None of it now seems like drama, despite how dramatic it was. Things are in perhaps a disintegrated plateau, and that’s fine. There is no me, I am NOT the ‘All’ (had that silly phase in the months prior to the therapy stuff), yet somehow I am a cog in the wheel that knows it is also the wheel and that’s just not a big thing. It’s just .. natural.
I started this little comment with an idea of asking you something, but have forgotten the question as posting these words took me deeper, and I’m ready to go enjoy that.
Will stay tuned.
Lisa
January 4, 2012 at 9:27 am
Sam Watts
Yeah, questions resolve themselves sometimes, before they are even asked. No biggie.
I should make clear that while I chose to describe the culmination of path of disintegration in terms of “I am the All,” it’s polar opposite, “I am no Self,” is also just as likely. More than anything, disintegration leads many folks to an experience of feeling completely off the hook. The truth is, disintegration only gets you partially off the hook. It clears up a lot of bogus, shitty conditioning, and of course you feel immensly free.
But, as Dogen so eloquently stated, “In attachment blossoms fall; in aversion weeds spread.” You won’t know what this means until it hits you like a piano falling from the enth-story of a New York City high-rise.
Sometimes when I write about this, I feel like the bearer of bad news. Maybe it’s more a feeling of being a party-pooper. I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade; nor do I consider any stages of the path as insignificant. It’s all good stuff. I just want to encourage people to keep their eyes open 8-|
October 16, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Mark Flinton
7.10) “Having directly known that which is not commensurate with the allness of All, I did not claim to be All, I did not claim to be in All, I did not claim to be apart from All, I did not claim All to be ‘mine,’ I did not affirm All.”~ M 49.237.11)
“They perceive All as All. Having perceived All as All,they conceive [themselves as] All, they conceive [themselves] inAll, they conceive [themselves] apart (or coming) from All, they conceive All to be ‘theirs,’ they delight in All. Why is that?Because they have not fully understood it, I say.”~ M 1.25
New to this site… very useful… and great blogs (is this a blog post?)
Anyway, thank you
February 4, 2012 at 6:22 am
Ona
This is one of the most sane, sensible and clear explanations of awakening I’ve read. Thanks for that.
February 4, 2012 at 8:46 am
Sam Watts
Thank you, Ona. That’s what I was going for, so I’m glad it worked.
February 7, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Alan
Hey Sam, glad to see you are still at it! And you’re so much better than I used to be at dealing with the, erm, comments. ;)
February 7, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Sam Watts
Alan, thanks for dropping by. I think you and Duncan were two of the first to leave comments here. Nice to have you back.
For what it’s worth, I think the comments you dealt with at OE were probably harder to handle than what I have going on here. You didn’t do badly, all things considered.
February 19, 2012 at 2:57 am
Pej
Hey Sam,
Thank you for this post and your blog overall. I haven’t witnessed anybody present this process with as much clarity and insight as you have. I myself am at the “I am the all” stage of the process now apparently. It’s funny hearing you describe my state of mind. I didn’t realize this was even a common experience, and now it appears just a stage in this process… I don’t know much about enlightenment as it sort of found me (I never purposefully sought it), so now I’m backtracking trying to figure out what’s going on. You have been a great help to me and my understanding. Thanks again. Best wishes. Pej
July 10, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Planetone
Hi Sam Watts. Interesting stuff. I’m wondering whether at this stage I need to let ‘disintegration’ complete or if I should be taking up the task of ‘reintegration’. Although I didn’t know I was on any path at the time, I thought I had ‘died’ many years ago. It is (was) quite (utterly) striking, but I didn’t really have any idea what had happened. For a long time I don’t think I considered it had anything to do with ‘spirituality’ as recognised. But one clue I got was subsequently reading Daniel Ingram’s book which has led me to wonder if it was what in there he calls an A&P event. At that point I started moving towards regular practice to get things moving, having eventually realised i might be on some kind of path. :) I guess there is clearly further to go but I’m not quite sure in what direction! Does it matter? How to tell?
July 10, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Sam Watts
Thanks for the comment. My take is that it can take a while to figure out what you need to do; or rather, what you need to STOP doing. I don’t know enough about you to know where you’re at. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve got a ways to go before reintegration becomes the majority function of practice. The good news is that what you actually “do” for practice isn’t much different in either case. Basically, pay attention. Notice. Allow. Notice when you lose presence, and then bring it back. Pay less attention to the experiential effets and keep your mind on applying basic skills. You’ll get there!
July 13, 2012 at 2:07 am
Planetone
Thank you Sam.
October 17, 2012 at 9:43 pm
ohnwentsya
Reblogged this on 2012 Spirit In Action and commented:
wow, this person has given me an amazing gift. all these years i thought i was awakening and falling back asleep but that’s just the nature of reality. you can choose to return to that bliss state to find comfort, but life isn’t going to be automatically comfortable all the time after you wake up. it is your perspective that changes, not the discomfort. this blog was for me, jsut now, like the monk coming to the door to call the other monk who had been meditating for days on water buffalo and no one had seen him-and the monk in the hut replies “I can’t get out, my horns won’t fit thru the door”. all my confusion and tightness just dissolved and the space inside my head expanded way beyond my head. how funny that i could forget this!
October 17, 2012 at 9:57 pm
ohnwentsya
Thank You, with all my heart! I have been awake a long long time but forgot somehow, lost in experience that was not magically perfect all the time, believing those who told me I cried so I couldn’t be awake. reading your post just now i felt the space inside of my head, inside of me expand and all the worries and confusion and mental prattle just evaporated. I remember now, everything is so clear again. i knew all the words intellectually but i forgot the feeling of nonattachment, the feeling of being able to experience without choosing to suffer. Even the Dalai Lama says he has to work at his own practice to keep from being brought down by the suffering of the world, i wonder now how i thought i should be more resilient than the incarnation of the God of Compassion?
i honor your kindness in sharing this, and you have my unending gratitude for playing alarm clock when i had allowed life to play “snooze button”;-)
Love and Blessings,
Dorian
October 18, 2012 at 4:10 am
Sam Watts
Dorian, I’m glad this message made its way to you via this post. I never expected anyone to find such significant benefit from my throwing this stuff up on the web. It’s humbling, because it’s so much bigger than little ole Sam and his wee corner of cyberspace! Thank you for taking the time to share your reaction. You no longer need to be afraid of anything – not even fear itself.
October 31, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Joshua
Thankyou for this post. I am successfully reintegrating as i write this.
Although when you are disintegrated you forget the intuitive feel of what you like doing or what you should be doing do I had to kind of just try things and keep going until my day is once again filled with activities.
I was diagnosed with major depression in the midst of it all. But the was three weeks ago so maybe not depression.
Which was around the time I “died”, I was like a beggar stripped of all life holding a cup out to god. Or so it felt. Nothing and no one was familiar.
It was like I was an alien that had been thrust into a human body, and all of the memories and experiences that were held in that body have slowly started to attach themselves to me. And I becoming more an more at one with that person, experiencing whatever comes bad or good.
Have I changed? I doubt it but maybe. But I know I have learnt to enjoy the simple pleasures again, because they are there along with all of the pains that I was trying to distance myself from.
I wish Serenity and patience to all who are experiencing disintegration, it will pass and you will feel “normal” again. Trust the process.