On Waking Up

By Solala Towler

Part of us is awake and another part, fast asleep. What we do with cultivation practices is awaken that part of ourselves that is asleep.

How can we awaken the sleeping part of ourselves? How can we truly experience that part of ourselves that lies dormant, like a caterpillar in our cocoon (a self created one at that)? How can we really truly experience ourselves as Immortals or Transcendents? How can we slough off our cocoon and emerge as the dazzling butterfl ies we truly are?

Zhuangzi tells us that we are all dreaming and in that dream we even try to interpret our dreams! Th at is what we do when we try to fi gure out with our mind what it is that is happening within and without us. What is the reason? What is the destiny (ming) or karma that is leading us on through the hurry-scurry of our day-to-day lives? And how can we connect and call forth the immortal nature of our true and real selves? Zhuangzi says,

Th ose who dream of a great feast may wake up and weep the next morning. Th ose who dream of weeping may actually enjoy a great hunt the next day. While they are dreaming they do not know they are dreaming. In the middle of a dream they may even try to interpret the dream! It is only after they awaken that they know they have been dreaming. At the time of the Great Awakening we will all wake up and see that it has all been just a dream.

— Chapter 2

Often when we dream we think that is happening or what we are seeing is real. Th en we “wake up” and realize it was actually “just a dream” and that what is happing “now” is real.

Th ere is a famous story in Zhuangzi about how he once dreamt he was a butterfl y, fl ying about on his own happy butterfl y way. Th en, upon awakening into his human body he could not help but wonder if was truly a man who had dreamt he was a butterfl y or whether he was a butterfl y who was now dreaming he was a man!

So, how do we wake up to what is really real?

First we must understand that so-called reality has many layers or dimensions. It is not a matter of some things are real and others not. As in quantum physics, two things can exist or be real at once. Th is includes seemingly opposite realities.

Buddhists say that everything in the universe is inherently empty, that nothing is “real” in itself but depends on every other thing; nothing exists of itself but in relationship with everything else. Daoists also say everything exists and is given meaning only in relation to everything else. In chapter two of the DaoDe Jing we see:

Under Heaven everyone knows that the existence of beauty depends on the existence of ugliness. Everyone knows the capacity of kindness depends on the existence of the unkind. Existence and nothingness are mutually born, diffi cult and easy complete each other, long and short shape each other, tall and short rest upon each other, sound and silence harmonize each other, before and after follow one another.

When I take a group of people to China we are all having a special yuen fen or destiny connection with each other. We are all having our own personal unique experience together as well as having a group experience.

Th is is pretty much how the world works. We are each having our own unique and special experience of the world as well as having a group

So that question is: do we want to remain asleep and oblivious to the world as it really is? Or do we want to wake up and experience it the way it really is on a deep and personal level? Zhuangzi says:

It is when we give up our personal views that we see things as they truly are. In seeing things as they truly are we arrive at complete understanding. To reach complete understanding is to reach true happiness. To reach true happiness is to reach completion. To reach completion is to enter Dao.

Daoist cultivation techniques are all designed to help us wake up. Th ey give us the experience of enlarging or deepening our experience of ourselves as well as the world around and within us.

Qigong and taiji help us to experience ourselves as truly multi-dimensional beings. At the very least they help us to be more sensitive to the rhythms and currents of the energy fl ow within our own bodies. Deep meditation practices allow us to drop down into layers of experience that we are often not privy to in our so-called awake lives.

Our bodies, our own energy pathways, remain the same as they did in ancient times, when Laozi wrote his treatise on self-cultivation. Of course we have many diff erent health concerns that people did in ancient China. Our environment is much more polluted and psychically overwhelming. Our diet is, for many, very diff erent even than our own grandparent’s times. We are dealing with stresses Yet the techniques that the ancient Daoists developed still work as well as they did in Laozi’s time and before. As a matter of fact, they are a powerful antidote to the modern world’s ills. Chinese medicine systems, as well as Ayurvedic, Tibetan and other ancient cultures, still work. Th ey can all work on bringing us into balance — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. And the more in balance we are the easier it will be to wake up.

Probably the most important thing is that we wish to wake up. Not everyone does. For many people it is not even an issue. Th ey would rather stay asleep and feeling a false sense of safety in that. But for those of us who wish to experience life in all its multi-dimensional aspects, waking up is the right thing to do. And in that awakening, we are fi lled with light, en-light-ened, and ready to take on both the joys and challenges life has to off er. Th en we can, as the ancient Daoists said, “be at rest even when we are not at rest.” Th en we can go forth into each day of our lives with an open mind and open heart. Th en we can truly call ourselves zhen ren or authentic beings, alive to all the miracles and magic in the world and within ourselves.

Solala Towler founded the Abode of the Eternal Tao in Eugene, Oregon, in 1993. He also created Th e Empty Vessel magazine, which he published quarterly for 25 years until 2018. Solala has had 12 books published on the Taoist arts, and off er tours to China, I Ching readings and courses in Taoism. He can be reached at solala@abodetao.com/www.abodetao.com.

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