God's Luminosity, Suffering After Awakening, & the Widespread Misrepresentation of Enlightenment

Contemplations on the path of enlightenment...

Length: 2,500 words, ~20 minute read

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I was in Cambridge, UK a couple weeks ago for my fiance Tanja’s PhD graduation ceremony. It was a beautiful time; Cambridge is lovely—architecturally and restaurantily orgasmic.

At one point over the weekend, I was alone, taking some time to myself, walking through the city…

Inspired by the The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, which I had purchased earlier that day, a mantra appeared in my mind:

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

I began rhythmically repeating this over and over to myself as I walked and gazed around…

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

“Self-luminosity of the changelessness.”

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Something had begun to ‘click’ more deeply for me while reading about the “self-radiance of mind” in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying…

And now, repeating this mantra to myself, I began to enter a vivid mystical awareness…

In which all ‘material’ and subtle phenomena in the field of awareness were revealed to be a kind of ‘light show’ self-generated by and entirely constituted of the changeless essence of being.

I could feel the presence of utterly still, unmoving emptiness ‘behind’ and ‘prior to’ all phenomena…

(Sidenote: “Emptiness” can be a confusing word. For me it indicates that which is “empty” of all definable attributes. That which is unthinkable, inconceivable, unresolvable, irreducibly mysterious—the weightless, sky-like essence of reality. The still, silent clarity of which all is made, in which all things rise and fall. Also known as “God,” “Tao,” etc.)

And I could directly see and feel that all phenomena are nothing other than the self-iridescence or self-fragrance of this changeless emptiness. It is simply in the nature of this emptiness to effortlessly shine, sun-like, and its luminosity just so happens to appear as infinite-dimensional patterns of energy that we then interpret as ‘life,’ ‘world,’ ‘universe,’ etc.

It is truly astonishing that the effortless self-luminosity of our changeless essence should happen to look like THIS. One balks to consider the infinitude of intelligence required to manifest and orchestrate this infinite-threaded, ever-self-rearranging tapestry, in which every thread is profoundly interdependent and interconnected with all other threads, each one spontaneously co-arising with the whole. This is the artistic handiwork of limitless genius.

Indra’s Net, artist unknown

The self-luminosity is not in any way separate from the changeless emptiness. Like light-rays of the sun or waves of the ocean, phenomena are entirely comprised of that which gives rise to them. The world is made of clarity. All phenomena are made of unthinkable peace.

And all forms are perpetually cradled by that numinous peace—automatically accepted, exactly as they are. This is the meaning of unconditional love.

I’ve had this realization many times by now. It is something I can tap into at will most of the time—a kind of ‘background’ knowingness that I can bring to the foreground. Yet each time ‘I’ ‘experience’ it—or rather, each time THIS sees itself through ‘me’—is (subtly) distinct. Sometimes different aspects or flavors are emphasized. Sometimes the knowingness is only faint, and other times it is immense, impossible to ignore, or even all-devouring.

This time around, in the UK, was quite a powerful ‘zap’ of enlightenment. It felt like I was seeing and feeling the elegant ‘seamlessness’ of form and emptiness—of self-luminosity and changelessness—of Creation and God—with a new level of intimacy and sensitivity. This felt refreshing, relaxing, reassuring, delightful. I was gawking around, smiling like a dumbstruck Labrador.

“reality is kool, u guyz”

My Ongoing ‘Process’ of Self-Realization

This recent deepening felt like a further confirmation that:

1. “I” am still very much on the “pathless path” of enlightenment (in truth, we all are, as it’s the only path, though there are countless apparent [fun and beautiful and terrifying] detours and sideshows)…

2. “I” am largely not in control of this unfoldment, it is ‘doing itself’…

3. There is no finish line. Reality opens to more of itself in each moment. Endlessness is the destination.

4. One does, however, reach greater and greater degrees of certainty/conviction that THIS is indeed an indivisible, infinitely intelligent, loving, trustworthy mystery—changelessly at rest in its essence, yet apparently dancing with itself in numberless ways via its self-luminosity—and that “thou art THAT.” Said another way: Reality *is* enlightenment, and you are reality.

5. As your sensitivity and intimacy with reality deepens, the true ‘view-less view’ of reality will tend to integrate more and more wholly into all bodies/levels of your operating system, gradually reformatting your being-ness in ways ranging from subtle to profound. Many of your conditioned ways of being will tend to gradually shift or fall away; you will tend to feel yourself becoming a more honest, artful, omni-accepting, less-tortured expression of what you are.

Suffering After Awakening

Riffing further on point #5:

Interestingly, a lot of our human biological and cultural imprints/conditioning seem to be incredibly deeply ingrained—so much so, in fact, that enlightenment seems unlikely to reset/rewrite these imprints in one lifetime.

This is something of great interest to me at present, having suffered a lot in recent months, apparently due to a dual-triggering of deep-rooted biological survival programming, as well as primordial early-childhood trauma.

In this video, Thich Nhat Hanh provides some interesting perspective on the question of “suffering after enlightenment”:

In short, to paraphrase, he says, “Yes, there is suffering after enlightenment, but an awakened being is one who knows how to make good use of suffering to cultivate understanding and compassion—the foundation of happiness.”

Interesting and useful perspective, for sure.

I definitely see how my suffering in recent months has been deeply medicinal in various ways: I believe it has made me more humble, more heart-opened, more aware of others’ pain, more sensitive, more grounded, more human.

I can also see that this is at least somewhat due to the way I have held my own suffering. I can see how deep suffering can easily drive someone in the opposite direction, toward bitterness, resentment, meanness, violence.

I’m finding it really interesting to notice how pain and suffering continue after deep awakenings.

Widespread Misrepresentation of Enlightenment

I feel like enlightenment is widely misrepresented as “the end of suffering.” People say things like, “After enlightenment, there is no one there to suffer anymore.”

This is misleading. For one, there is no definitive destination of ‘enlightenment.’ There’s an endless unfoldment of reality opening to ever more of itself—seeing itself ever more clearly and all-encompassingly. One may say that although reality itself is enlightenment, the apparent process we go through of realizing ourselves as reality is an endless ‘enlightening.’

For two, the whole “no one here to suffer” chorus is kinda semantic foolery, I feel. Yeah, sure, on one hand you gradually see that “you” are not really ‘here’ in the way you thought you were. It turns out that there is no ‘you’ apart from unsayable reality itself.

BUT, let’s be real: As long as you’re human, there’s still going to be a mind-body structure viscerally manifesting within consciousness, and consciousness is still going to poignantly feel the vicissitudes of sensation that course through said mind-body structure.

And some of these sensations just straight up aren’t gonna feel good. Yes, increasingly they can be experienced more so as non-solid, ever-shifting ‘textures’ and ‘flavors’ of energy—and yes, this can help—but sometimes the ‘flavor’ of the month is just gonna be shit-poop, no matter which way you frame it, x-ray it, or sugarcoat it via non-dual gymnastics. 💩

If a buddha’s sweet 18-year-old dog dies, there’s gonna be pain and sadness and grieving that arise—unless said ‘buddha’ is actually just a frozen-hearted Jed-McKenna-ite who sealed themselves off in ‘non-dual’ dissociation land.

“If you cannot weep with a person who is crying, there is no kensho."

— Yamada Koun

Yes, pain and sadness and grieving are part of the perfectly-imperfect poetry of the ‘great completion’ of reality—and yes, self-realization helps you see this with ever greater clarity—but these feelings still hurt. Perhaps even more so after the sensitization-increasing process of awakening.

“Hurts more, bothers you less,” as Ken Wilber says.

So, anyway, this is really alive for me right now. I feel like enlightenment is being pervasively misrepresented as a fantasy land of perpetual bliss, when this is not so. So it goes.

Why Call it “Liberation,” Then?

You may wonder, “But, why then is enlightenment often referred to as liberation?”

Well, it is a tremendous ongoing liberation. It’s a huge relief. I think I sometimes forget just how much relief awakening actually brought to me. It’s the difference between feeling like a rapidly-expiring meat-skeleton in an alien, hostile universe VS increasingly feeling and knowing that you are one with a completely trustworthy, unconditionally loving, essentially indestructible intelligence—the only thing that exists. You gradually see-feel with increasing clarity that in essence, you were never born, you never die, and you are forever at peaceful rest in your heart of hearts.

This is massively freeing. You increasingly experience things like:

• Knowing that life takes care of itself, and everything is always okay.

• Knowing you can surrender the entire world into God’s care and all will be well.

• Knowing that even if the entire universe is destroyed, everything is completely fine.

• Feeling whole and complete, just as you are.

• Seeing the fundamental innocence and wholeness of all beings.

Creation is revealed as the utterly astounding wonderland that it is. Your capacities to ‘hold space’ and accept reality increase dramatically. Large quantities of fear and falseness and inhibition dissolve from your being-ness, liberating you to be who you actually are to a previously unimaginable extent.

Writing those last few paragraphs was helpful for me to really see and remember just how vast the difference is, between forgetfulness and remembrance.

I feel freshly aware of why consciousness work is thus the most powerful and impactful work any of us can do, on both an individual and collective level, if we wish to create a more gorgeous human experience.