The Mind Opens

Awakening can hurt a bit. One metaphor for awakening is “the mind opens.” The process of awakening and the result beggar description, so any term for any of it is necessarily metaphorical and inadequate, but the mind opening is perhaps better than many because we now know that the human brain has two distinct halves, and the opening of the mind can feel as if the two halves of the brain are splitting apart.

It is perhaps more uncomfortable than painful and it usually doesn’t last long. And the effects of awakening are to feel a profound sense of peace. Awakening also feels good physically, all over. So the discomfort of awakening is a trivial cost relative to the benefit.

The mind opening is also an apt metaphor in the sense that awakening allows for increased sensory awareness, which is often an early effect of meditation. Lots of people report that, when they go outside during or after a meditation retreat that the light seems lighter and the colors all seem brighter.

And your mind can fall open, apparently of its own accord. Trying to determine causation for awakening is not a question Buddhists spend much, or any, time on. At least one Zen teacher has said that awakening happens by accident, but that we can make ourselves accident prone with meditation. If anyone knew a reliable formula for ensuring awakening, it would quickly become common knowledge. Remember that the Buddha’s own reaction to his awakening was to think that he could not possibly explain what he realized to anyone else. He only decided to start teaching after another deity implored him to do so.

If he knew an easy formula, he would have taught it. So, as always, the answer is to keep up your consistent meditation practice and wait for your brain to fall apart.

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