How to wake up
Through conscious suffering
This is an excerpt from the book I just finished: Wake the F Up: The Essential Guide to Awakening. I am sending it out to publishers now.
“What we call suffering and experience as suffering, is not actually suffering. It is confusion, illusion, misperception, like seeing a snake that turns out to be merely a crooked stick. “Suchness” is the only thing we ever really experience … Reality is not as we might imagine it to be, difficult and painful. It is always only just as it is: suchness.“ Norman Fischer, Zen teacher
It might come as a surprise that your suffering can help you wake up, yet it is one of the most powerful methods available. Indeed, as we walk directly toward, and through our fears and pain, we end up on the other side to a place where our true Self lives.
For most of us, however, accepting pain is one of the hardest things to do. This is because when in a state of egoic mind we are terrified of pain. Our ego, which is built to protect us, thinks pain will result in death. Because the primary goal of the egoic-mind is to avoid and prevent all pain from happening, it absolutely refuses to accept that pain could be beneficial or worse yet, that the ego actually caused the pain! In other words your ego will fight to death (and it is ego death) to defend this stance.
Yet by accepting pain and walking through it you will:
reduce your immediate suffering
build the capacity to hold pain
stop fearing pain as much
discover your true Self beyond pain
How to suffer consciously?
“Brokenness is not in the way; it is the way.” James Fadiman
The method of consciously suffering requires the following five things:
Accept that pain will happen
Be willing to feel suffering
Notice the stories and attempts to escape
Feel the pain completely and directly
Unconditionally accept the pain
Here, in one paragraph, Eckhart Tolle describes the entire process of conscious suffering, from accepting pain and noticing the stories we make up, to becoming aware of what is behind the pain or loss, which is ultimately peace,
“When this happens, don’t deny, or ignore the pain or sadness that you feel. Accept that it is there. Beware of your mind’s tendency to construct a story around that loss in which you are assigned the role of victim. Fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity are the emotions that go with that role. Then become aware of what lies behind these emotions as well as behind the man-made story: that hole, that empty space. Can you face and accept that strange sense of emptiness? If you do, you may find that it is no longer a fearful place. You may be surprised to find peace emanating from it.”
Here I describe each aspect of conscious suffering.
1. Accept that pain will happen
“Should there be pain? Yes Why? Because is “Is” – simply and utterly- here. “ Amoda Maa Jeevan
Although it should go without saying, to benefit from this Method, you must realize that there is pain inside of you and that there will likely be more pain. To use the words of Michael Singer,
“If you want to be free, you must first accept that there is pain in your heart. You have stored it there. And you have done everything you can think of to keep it there, deep inside, so that you never have to feel it. There is also tremendous joy, beauty, love, and peace within you. But they are on the other side of pain. On the other side of pain is ecstasy. On the other side of pain is freedom.“
This pain is very real, you will feel it, it won’t feel pleasant and it may feel like it may never end. When this happens, you will probably not enjoy it and your egoic mind will fight you every step of the way, adding to your pain.
As you do any inner work, strong emotions will usually rise up within you. Thus, it’s useful to expect this to happen. As you dig into your psyche and open up, you will likely feel very strong and unfamiliar sensations. You will probably cry, yell, swear or generally freak out. Yet with any emotions clearing, release is a necessary component. Often the outward expressions cause a release of energy from the body as well as the mind.
2. Be willing to feel suffering
“Without the willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to love, no willingness to die, no willingness to live, no willingness to be. “ Gangaji
The next step is to be willing to feel suffering. This means facing the fear and doing the work, no matter what, as described here,
“We must again and again face fear until we can do so without being thrown back into the pattern of lower-self functioning. Then we are united with a far greater wholeness, and whatever we have genuinely asked in our souls to know and to live comes toward us more or less effortlessly. All we need do is stop avoiding our true selves.“ Richard Moss
The reason most of us do not engage in inner work is because we are not brave enough. We lack courage. We think that looking closely at ourselves and taking full responsibility for our behaviours, will be painful and we are too afraid to engage, especially not knowing where it might lead.
Too many of us know what it feels like to open up and be shamed or rejected. Thus inner work seems like a fairly big risk. That’s why most of us start our inner work as last resort. We have usually run out of other options. So courage is vital. This means you have to be willing to take a chance without knowing if you will ever benefit.
Most people are understandably not willing to experience pain unless facing dire circumstances. But if we don’t we build up an invisible suit of armour that protect us but also prevent us from feeling anything at all. And, worse, it prevents us from waking up.
In other words, when suppress parts of yourself and build a wall around yourself, you cut yourself off from others, but worse, you stunt your own self-understanding and growth. In our protected state we think we are safe when in reality, we have created a self-made prison. So unless we are willing to let our guard down and possibly be hurt, we will never be truly free.
3. Notice the stories and attempts to escape
“You will never be free however, until you get to the point where you are willing to release the initial pain instead of avoiding it. You must transcend the tendency to avoid the pain. Michael Singer
The third step is to notice the ways in which your egoic mind makes up stories and excuses to avoid facing your pain. In doing so it stunts your growth and keeps you asleep.
Your ego is a master of coming up with excuses and dramas to cover the truth. It will tell you that you are not at fault and that all investigation into yourself is unhelpful and dangerous. As you observe the patterns of your egoic mind, you will see many ways that these attempts to escape play out.
The stories you make up are fabrications that disguise what is really going on. Your egoic-mind will come up with several stories in order to protect itself, and go unconscious, as explained here.
“When we experience painful emotions or feelings, our mind will immediately, often frantically, start telling a story in order to construct a scenario that will explain why we feel the way we feel… But anytime we contract from the direct experience and spin a story, we have gone unconscious. As soon as we go unconscious, what ever emotion happened at that time will be locked into our system. It will stay there and regenerate itself over and over again until we find the capacity to experience that emotion without going unconscious in any way.” Adyashanti
Your ego will freak out, cry and throw a tantrum, anything to stop you looking at your egoic-mind. It will mask your pain with happy thoughts and tell you that things are not that bad. It will urge you to push your feelings down to the bottom of your feet or at least out of sight. Even though it knows that none of these coping techniques will end the pain in the long run, it’s the nature of the ego to do this and keep itself alive.
4. Feel the pain completely and directly
“Wise beings do not want to remain a slave to the fear of pain. They permit the world to be what it is instead of being afraid of it. “Michael Singer
The fourth aspect of conscious suffering is to feel the fear and pain all the way through. This means feeling it fully, completely and directly. Gangaji captures the idea here,
“The “how to” of suffering is to suffer “all the way.” It is to suffer with full consciousness. To consciously suffer is to consciously recognize the impulse to escape and instead face directly whatever is appearing, be it grief, horror, extreme loss, or sadness.”
This means staying with the sensation of the pain instead of running or rationalizing. It means turning around and meeting it. It means facing directly whatever is tormenting you
In practical terms this means feeling it at a deep felt-sense and going deeper and deeper until you reach the ground of the original feeling. Then going even deeper. You may feel a whole host of emotions. Feel them all. You can name them if you want (e.g. I feel despair, I feel hatred, I feel powerless, etc.).
Here Gangaji defines what happens during a direct experience,
“In general, direct experience reveals a deeper emotion. Irritation is perhaps just a ripple on the surface. Deeper than irritation, there may actually be rage or fear. Again, the goal is not to analyze it, but to directly experience it. If rage or fear is revealed to be beneath irritation, then let your awareness go deeper; let yourself be absolutely, completely angry, or fearful, without acting out or repressing. “
5. Unconditionally accept the pain
The last aspect of conscious suffering involves unconditional acceptance of the pain. This goes beyond the normal idea of feeling pain to a much deeper level of integration. The acceptance arises from deep within.
As Amoda Maa Jeevan says, the pain must be felt with an “intensity of presence” which is beyond what we deem to be feelings or emotions, as explained here,
“Most often, especially if pain is severe, this means facing fear, rage, grief, helplessness and aloneness. These stormy clouds invite you to fully “feel” where feeling has been previously denied. If you are willing to fully feel, without reservation (in other words, with an intensity of presence), the heart breaks open wider than the pain and the suffering, into an unadulterated acceptance of what is.” Amoda Maa Jeevan
Many suggest that the pain actually “dissolves” when given unconditional attention. Or rather, negative feelings dissolve and are replaced with a more positive ones, as Gangaji says,
“In the midst of any emotion, so-called “negative” or “positive,” it is possible to discover what is at the core. The truth is that whenever you really experience any negative emotion, it disappears. And when you truly experience any positive emotion, it grows and is endless. “ Gangaji
Conclusion
In summary, the method of conscious suffering involves using your suffering to awaken. It means looking directly at your own pain and feeling it directly, completely, and all the way through. By doing this and overcoming your attempts to escape, you:
reduce your immediate suffering;
build the capacity to hold pain;
stop fearing pain as much; and
discover your true Self beyond pain.
Ultimately in this place that is beyond pain – the abyss or emptiness - you are aware of your true Self, which is consciousness. As Gangaji says, “In the core of suffering is revealed the jewel of what is real, what is true, who you are.” In this state, you no longer run from negative states or seek more positive ones. You reach true equanimity; a whole new dimension.
Note: This is an excerpt from the book I am writing: “Wake the F Up.” Thanks for joining me on the journey! This Substack is completely supported by you the readers. The best way to support me is to buy my books, invite me to speak or become a subscriber here.