Awareness Counts!
(This post is still part of the introduction to the Practice. It discusses how attention and awareness are a critical part of success. When we discuss the practice of updrafting and its modes, we will address issues of awareness as they pertain to each mode. Alternately we could, and many teachings do, focus on the state of consciousness and the development awareness, allowing that to lead into new patterns of action. There are many angles from which we can disect and approach the discussion, but Updrafting usually begins with the things we do as the entry point.)
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Our awareness or our state of consciousness is a very important part of the effectiveness of our actions. In updrafting we call an ongoing, working state of awareness a stance. There are two key reasons why the stance is critical:
- Our awareness and understanding mediates our understanding of the world. That is, it is what stands between what is real and true, and what we can perceive and know.
- Our awareness and understanding guides and colors our decision making process and therefore all of our actions.
Both what comes to us and what comes from us is affected by our stance, our state of awareness.
There are four key facets of awareness to consider in the updrafting stance. The first two have to do with freedom—-freedom from internal constraints. (Otherwise known as bad habits.) The second two concern our ability to successfully engage with our potential.
The Practice of Freedom
1) Non-Clinging : Not constraining yourself or the world
The definition of the verb to cling from Apple’s Dictionary is the antithesis of updrafting:
cling |kli ng | verb
- l) hold on tightly to : she clung to Joe’s arm | they clung together | figurative she clung onto life.
- ( cling to) adhere or stick firmly or closely to; be hard to part or remove from : the smell of smoke clung to their clothes | the fabric clung to her smooth skin.
- ( cling to) remain very close to : the fish cling to the line of the weed.
- remain persistently or stubbornly faithful to something : she clung resolutely to her convictions.
- be overly dependent on someone emotionally : you are clinging to him for security
Non-clinging defines a preferred relationship to the existing world that is not trying to make some thing, person, or reality stay put permanently. While we can enjoy or not enjoy what is currently happening we must acknowledge that it is always changing. We cannot stop that process. Clinging is an internal resistance to the creative flow of the world that disables our creative power. We we cannot hold on to anything, we can only continually create the potential for its persistence. This non-clinging relationship is emotionally and energetically another way of being than clinging to a reality. It is participating in an act of creation, manifesting no resistance to the ongoing flow of the world.
Clinging affects our ability to create in many ways.
- It distorts our ability to see what actually is.
- It distorts our ability to choose appropriate action.
- It reflects an ongoing concept that you need something to be a certain way, which is different emotionally and energetically from wanting to create it.
Non-clinging also pertains to ideas of what is possible, for many of our limitations arise from our belief in them. Having no fixed ideas of what’s possible leaves room in the universe for new things to arise, which may be grander than you could imagine. Clinging to a fixed idea will almost always limit your possibilities to those things you think of as possible or probable.
A final but critical point: we must not have a strong attachment to our results, which is another form of clinging in which we require the world to end up a particular way. We have goals and targets that guide our actions, but the results must be surrendered to the intelligence of the world as it is arising altogether. That is part of our adventure—to see what happens next.
2) Surrender/Acceptance-Freely engaging with whatever is happening
To surrender is an ongoing process of suspending judgment and fixed ideas, and willingly and completely engaging with what happens. It can become the perfect stance for engaging creatively with the universe. We still choose. We still act. But we never resist. We see everything that flows into our space as part and parcel of our life and as part of the medium of creation that we are working in. It is all an expression of what the world has become and the working potential with which we create the future.
After Freedom, Updrafting
Coherence
Coherence is the practice of finding alignment with an arising possibility. Each of us exists along with potential events, objects, and people with whom to engage. Sometimes these possibilities are right in front of us—like a bus. But sometimes we find our engagement with them through synchronicities or intuitions, and in this practice we work to develop our skills in maintaining awareness of all the potentials arising around us. Sometimes we resist these potentials (it’s one of our ongoing bad habits) like a child resists going to bed. But sometimes we find perfect engagement with these opportunities—and that is what we call coherence. We become coherent with the arising possibility and therefore can use the existing momentum of that potential to our best advantage.
Congruence.
Being congruent implies being consistent in our actions relative to a goal that we have determined. It is part of the practice to be completely aware of our actions and thoughts to the extent that we learn to maintain congruence at all times. This is counter to many of our behaviors in which:
- We act to create a goal which we secretly believe is impossible; or
- We only work half heartedly at something because we don’t believe we are worth it; or
- We do a task all the while believing it is stupid or impossible; or
- One part of an organization (or an individual) is working at cross purposes with another.
Being congruent is how we maximize the potential of all our actions align with our goals. The practice of Updrafting will develop an enhanced awareness that will mediate an engagement with the world that is richer and more dynamic. We will be able to pick up on things that we would have previously missed and accomplish things we would not have imagined.
What does the stance end up looking like?
- Ever present awareness and interest in what is, which includes all the potentials and possibilities
- Non-clinging acceptance of (or surrender to) what has become
- Passionate interest in what might be created
- Joyful engagement with the task of creating the future
After Note:
In this model we include ideas, intentions, and thoughts in the category of actions—actions that generate real potential. We will see that these internal constructs can be harmful in that we are often resistant, negative, and limiting in our thoughts and beliefs. These thought structures, which are sometimes collectively called the ego, are often erroneously believed to be our actual selves and we use them to both limit who we think we can be, but also what we expect the world to be. We will come to view these thoughts as negative actions, or unskillful actions, and we will learn to reduce or eliminate them from our acting awareness—another step in expanding our awareness of what is possible in the world.
