Are You Awake or Asleep?

This article by Jane Hope was previously published on the Awake in the World 2013 blog.

Awake in the World 2013 is a four-day “festival of meditation, arts and social vision” organized by the London (UK) Shambhala Centre. It is set to start on September 12th.

Jane Hope is a Shambhala shastri, author and founding member of Shambhala London.

by Shastri Jane Hope

Have you ever questioned whether you are awake or asleep?

I am sure that, like me, you have wondered how much of the time you are really awake. I mean really awake, not just daydreaming or re-living your daily melodrama. So what does it mean to be really awake in the world? Imagine two scenes.

You are sitting in the garden having breakfast. You are irritated by the noise of the planes and start thinking about a flight you’ve booked. “I hate Ryanair — they treat you like cattle and charge you for everything.” You remember you’ve invited some people round for dinner. You wonder why you invited them — “I don’t really like them. It’ll be boring. They are so fussy about food — I can’t remember the list of things they can’t eat.” You listen to the children in the playground over the wall and get irritated. “Why do children have to shout all the time?” You look at the garden and get depressed by the amount of work it takes. It goes on and on and on…

The same place:

You are sitting in the garden having breakfast. The toast is crisp and the marmalade is delicious; sweet and bitter at the same time. You watch the goldfish chasing each other round the pond and listen to the sparrows chirping. Occasionally you think about your plans to go to Athens. There is a really sweet smell from the lavender bushes. Somewhere in the distance you can hear a police siren. The neighbors are talking to each other in Chinese — you wonder what they are talking about. It is a warm morning and you enjoy the tea and toast with the sunshine on your face.

When we are really awake our senses are open; we can hear and see and taste and touch. When we withdraw into our world of opinions and daydreams and melodramas we don’t experience the richness of the world. Thinking is not the problem — it is our addiction to filtering everything through the web of self-obsession. It is as if the world did not really exist.

Being awake in the world is being open and curious and alive — the world is always more interesting than our internal monologue. When we are awake we discover a big world. We are open and responsive both to the beauty and the pain that we see around us. If we are not awake, we won’t even see that the world needs our help.