“Awakening implies an opening of the inner being that allows us a deeper access to ourselves and a broader knowledge and understanding of what we might call universal consciousness.”
— Anna Wise, Awakening the Mind

In the state of “waking up,” we’re able to access wisdom, solutions to problems and inspiration. We’re simultaneously transformed as we come into contact with this all-encompassing essence. And we access states of deep peace, contentment, oneness, bliss, knowing, grace, inspiration and a feeling of coming home.

The short, momentary glimpses of awakening begin to alert us to our true nature and, in Japanese Zen Buddhism, are called Zensho. 

As we become more sensitive and available to these Zensho-glimpses, they become increasingly longer, more expansive and frequent. At times, they can seem to take over our life. Or they enter into ordinary, everyday experiences.

Awakening is energetically infectious! The more we open and surrender into such momentary states and glimpses, the more we tend to become available to deeper awakenings. Once initiated in our system, awakening continues to expand and build upon itself.

Zensho can thus awaken within us a profound hunger, a deep longing to have a more ongoing access to our awakened essence. Some people describe themselves as on fire with such longing, yearning wildly and heartbreakingly for the Beloved and for total immersion in this sea of awareness and love.

The painful irony is that we cannot simply generate such moments of awakening. Instead, we learn to notice the subtle impressions and signs of falling into awakening and glimpsing our true nature. We learn to relax and become available to expanding into the field, becoming sensitive, open and aware of our essence and the greater essence of life. 

As inspirational modern Zen teacher, Adyashanti, humorously advises that awakening is like having an accident. You cannot make it happen, you can only make yourself more accident prone.

Once we know the truth of this deep level of awareness, such knowing can never be taken from us. Even if we dip in and out of conscious contact with it.