Awakening, Not Woke

“When asked ‘Are you a god?,’ Buddha  said ‘No.’  ‘An angel?’   ‘No’  ‘A saint?’  ‘No.’

‘Then what are you?’  Buddha answered, ‘I am awake.’ “

 

Buddha’s enlightenment was not a matter of faith nor an acceptance of dogma nor a conversion to a creed or a doctrine. It was an experience of awakening to the Mystery, to a true nature that realizes it is intimately connected to the nature of all sentient beings. It arose from a physical and mental disciplined practice, a rigorous inquiry, a relentless questioning, a determination born from doubt that lay the foundation to the possibility of awakening from the slumber of ignorance, to clearing the clouds and revealing the true light within. 

 

The same conditions that lay the groundwork to awaken to our own true nature are also useful in discovering the nature of social injustice, awakening to the true history of what we have done to murder, enslave and marginalize fellow sentient beings and why we have done it and what allows us to do it and to keep on doing it. Through a rigorous practice of reading, reflecting, researching, conversing, we can wake up to the lies and deceits of people in power who profit from our ignorance. 

 

The state of awakening is an ongoing work in progress, a verb that is ever-flowing, open, changing, inviting necessary courageous conversations and creating an atmosphere of needed respectful discussion that shines yet more light into the thousand dark corners of our misunderstandings. It thrives on disagreement, multiple viewpoints, new perspectives and diverse voices encouraged to speak without fear of rebuke or shame or anger.

 

That whole necessary verb has now been sadly reduced to a rigid, inflexible, unyielding noun— woke. Woke sets needed fluidity into stone, hardens insight into platitudes and scripts, discourages our efforts to reach across to the other through its “Gotcha!” atmosphere. It reduces complexity to right and wrong things to say or think, evokes knee-jerk reactions and combined with the horror show of the no-accountability-medium of Twitter and its like, further divides us and feeds our fear, stress, anxiety—all of which shuts down our ability to think. While I applaud the movement to further awaken ourselves to injustice, I fear that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by reducing the complex act of perpetual awakening to yet another dogma that distances and divides us. 

 

May I politely suggest that we unthaw the petrification of “woke” and return it to its proper place as a verb of “awakening?” And while we’re at, combine the social justice way of connecting with the “other” with the Buddhist idea of awakening to our deep connection to the true nature of all sentient beings. There’s something for your “to do” list.