Meditation and Awakening

Meditation and awakening:  

 does meditation lead to awakening? Well that's an often and hotly debated question in certain social media circles, and as a long time meditation practitioner, a student and a teacher, as well as someone who has had a profound experience of awakening - I'm often asked to weigh in with my opinion. I seldom do. Honestly, it's just not an issue of which I'm interested debating upon, although I'm always happy to discuss both topics at length. For me, meditation and awakening can't be truly separated, they're not two different things with one leading inevitably to the other, and I don't believe that awakening has one true cause that can be pinpointed to anything for certain. 

meditation is what I do.

awakening is what I am.

and the two belong together, seamlessly so. 

but it might be different for you, and I'm perfectly find with that and have no need to argue otherwise, it seems there's no sure answer that will really satisfy everyone. And we don't need one. Meditation and awakening become a certain flow at some point, and again, for me at least. Every time I sit I find that I expand a little more, a surrendering occurs, or perhaps it's better said that I more clearly notice the constant surrender already now taking place. My physiology changes with meditation, my biology, I am hardwired down to my very cells for a natural awakening to occur. It's just happens and meditation is simply what I'm called to do, my sitting filled with love for the exact thing I'm doing. 

yet my own most profound awakening didn't occur while I was sitting, it was active, sudden, and lasting. It also continues, engulfing my meditation practice as an aspect of its expansion, my entire life a single process of awakening now. Meditation and awakening aren't two different things for me, one doesn't give cause to the other any more than sunset causes the moon to rise or the next morning's dawn to appear. They aren't separate events, being far too seamless to viewed apart in anyway. I'm sure someone else might provide a more definitive answer. From me...this one will have to do. Meditation is awakening. 

it's just one thing.

seamlessly so. 

~

Peace, Eric