We often hear people say that they have reached some kind of awakening, epiphany, or something of the sort.
Perhaps they have. Or not. More often than not they are only making a statement from their particular position.
It is impossible for us to make a statement that is absolute and not subject to change. How about this statement itself? Is it absolute? This statement and the statements that it refers to are not uttered in the same sense. It is only a perspective. It is better that we don’t ask such questions.
We often think that we have reached an awakening. For example, I feel some kind of awakening every month, every semester, every year, or even everyday. However, from a historical perspective, we are only expressing our feelings and understanding of the moment. As a matter of fact, everything changes with time. This seems to even apply to our love for a person. You say to someone, I love you to eternity. This statement actually conveys your experience, understanding, or promise at that moment. And yet life is as contingent as the passage of time is certain. At another moment, under another circumstance, you might put aside what you said, make light of it, or even betray it entirely.
I think it is better to understand “awakening” as a process. In our lives we are constantly experiencing moments of awakening, which occur regarding our individual lives, communities, institutions, national culture, nature and the cosmos, the unknown, and what we normally fail to pay attention to. With every moment of awakening a new consciousness arises. Generally speaking our awakening relies upon a variety of things, such as the development of methodology, change of positions and language, exchange between things formerly alien to each other, fluctuation of words, and the practice of meditation. Our awakening is always situated within history.