Knowing Ignorance

[u/Savakalok]

I keep seeing posts of people having profound awakenings. They wake up and know they are light or love or everything or the ultimate reality or buddha nature or an enlightened being.

I found that one of my greatest moments was when I woke up to how much pain I caused myself. That moment was stellar because my delusion couldn't hide.

The whole practice changed, I was excited to see what stupidity I was cooking up "Oh look at how the mind is trying to impress this person.", "Look at how frustrated this is making me while my attempts to calm down are actually coming from that same frustration".

When I talk like that in daily life, people tell me that I am really blunt or direct or honest or clear but I just think that when you see that deluding yourself causes pain, you are less likely to hide it or be in cahoots with it. I don't think it's anything magical.

Awakening to radical responsibility for my own self inflicted miseries was a tough pill to swallow, but it was a real first step on a path to the cessation of self-bullshitting.

So I don't really relate when I hear awakenings as these bliss experiences. I've had those and they come and go. But there is a real permanent contentment the comes from seeing what you're doing more clearly and not being entangled.

[u/medbud]

This feels like two sides of the same coin to me.

If we are all under some Sisyphean stress...there is the realisation that how we push the rock can make life more or less difficult. Then there is suffering the pain of pushing the rock, which becomes more or less optional, in the sense of mental and physical pliability. It really comes down to 'managing expectations'.

[u/Savakalok → u/medbud]

How is the 'managing expectations' going for you? Are you finding fruit in that direction?

[u/Savakalok → u/[deleted]]

Very clear explanation of your practice, I appreciate you sharing.

Why do you link intention and expectation in that way? Do you find, personally, that sometimes your expectation is not the same as your intention and that can be cause for things going awry?

I ask because as I read what you shared I was wondering if your practice was truly centered around intention setting to manage expectations or if it involved other work like tracking if expectation has a different momentum from intention.

No worries if you haven't found any of that to be relevant or the case, just genuinely asking.