Awakening Presence is a compilation of talks by several senior nuns of Amaravati Monastery and Chihurst Monastery. These include a talk from Ajahn Uppekha. The talks examins among other topics in detail the ‘stuff ” of awakening – showing how the states that we continuously try to avoid are the very states that, examined in the light of Dhamma, can lead to freedom. From the book:
We want to identify with what we imagine we are: the thoughts coursing through our minds, the feelings that arise in our hearts, the sensations of our bodies. We want to be ‘good’, ‘pleasant’, ‘worthy of respect’. So the first step in this practice is to challenge that sense of who we think we are. How do we do that? By questioning, by investigating: ‘Who is it that is thinking inside this mind? Who is it that is suffering in there? Who is it that conjures up this strange train of thought?’ The natural pattern of the deluded mind is to think that suffering happens outside of oneself – that there is something or someone out there to blame: ‘The reason why I am upset is…’ Each of us can fill in the blank with our own story; someone or something outside of ourselves has hurt us, irritated us, upset us. We come closer to the truth by recognising that we’re upset, because our minds are generating random or obsessive thoughts that can feel very disturbing. We do not feel in control or in a state of equilibrium. So we attempt to find order in our mind by changing or adapting to our conditions. That’s part of being a social creature: we try to ‘fit in’.
Download the free PDF e-book here (121 pages):
Awakening Presence
