When I first began awakening, it was imminently clear that I was moving between two states: from my familiar state of peace into an unfamiliar state of chaos. My desire was clear: stop the oscillation into the painful state of chaos and remain at peace.
But that did not happen. My peace was increasingly punctuated by these painful awakenings. Over repeated transitions into the state of chaos, my awareness of an outer environment of sensations and a bifurcated inner environment of thoughts and feelings began to emerge. As I continued to lurch in and out of this state of chaos, these inner and outer environments hardened into a reduced self of endless desires and a world I could never have.
The trauma of the amputation began to diminish as the state of chaos became familiar. I found respite from the pain of the state of chaos in pleasures — temporary bits of inner and outer movement that titillated, excited, and distracted.
At some point the state of chaos overtook my state of pain as the most familiar, and I began to forget that I was moving between two states.
Where once I had retained an awareness during my daily transition from peace to chaos in the process of ‘sleep’, I forgot. My movement between peace and chaos became disjointed, non-continuous. Eventually, I forgot my original desire to return to peace altogether, and believed that I was my state of chaos.
My entire focus instead was on searching for and finding my peace in the chaos I believed was me. I suppressed my pain through various pleasures and distractions, but it would surface still surface and overwhelm me.
Right now I can experience these two states. I can clearly see my familiar state of chaos all around me. It is the chair I’m sitting on in the room I’m living in. It is the thoughts in my head, and the feelings in my heart. I will move through these environments during my awakening; I’ll leave my chair and go outside. I’ll think about projects, and I’ll have feel some emotions. It is a place full of walls, boundaries, constraints, and desires.
Then I can close my eyes, close my mind, and close my heart. I see, think, and feel nothing. This place is infinite, expansive, and boundary-less. This is my state of peace, and it is where I seek to return to. It is all I want.
Since I forgot where I am, I believed that this infinite space was inside of my body inside of this world. But that is not correct. My body and this world I manifest are inside of that space.
When I follow the pain all the way to the beginning, I clearly see that it begins when I awaken. Once I know that, I remember that all I want is to return to peace, and the path opens up in front of me.
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