If you use Ian's awakening model, an awakening is a multi-level understanding with lasting impact.
This usually requires different sorts of "understandings" to line up. I.e. you may feel something in the head, in the heart, in the body, believe it, think it... simultaneously.
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It doesn't need to hit all the notes at once, but generally the stronger and deeper the awakening, the more parts of "you" are affected.
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In myself, I know there are things I understand intellectually, but struggle to accept emotionally, things I feel that I can't reason with. Etc.
One thing that happens a lot in meditation for some people is these sorts of "aha" moments where you have a sudden mini-understanding.
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Sometimes these feel really transformative, but aren't.
"Ha, I'll never do that again!"
"Oh, now I understand!"
Week later, back to normal.
One way to model this discrepancy is to say that you haven't understood that thing as well as you thought, because it isn't integrated.
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Maybe you understand, intellectually, that:
"This relationship sucks"
"This job will kill me"
"It doesn't make sense to worry"
"I really like cheese"
or some other profound insight besides, but the feeling body doesn't see it, and you're not tuned to remember it notionally.
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So you can converse and sound like you have this font of self-knowledge, but when it comes time to just act in the real world, you:
Don't deal with the relationship.
Don't find a new job.
Don't stop worrying.
Don't buy cheese.
Don't stop suffering.
And so on.
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Here's a few fun things I've learned to do with meditation, that I always forget how to do:
Stop conscious mental chatter
Cool off "hot" emotions (anger, fear, grief etc.)
Not suffer when in moderate pain
Recognize trauma through body language
Anticipate emotions in people
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Almost all of these are useless, because I can't remember how to do them about 90% of the time when I need it.
Partly it's uneven awakenings, where I temporarily "realize" how to do something. Partly lack of practice.
So if anything, I'd always say "practice more, and better".
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If you're worrying about the technicalities when you're up against them, you either need a practice breakthrough or a teacher breakthrough (or group rituals, but that's not my area of expertise really).
If you aren't coming up on them and you worry, you're wasting practice time.
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Good time to worry about what object of attention you'll notice upon coming up on a realization: never, IMO.
You will know you're coming up on something when you're coming up on something. You will probably not know *what* it is, but for that you might want to do some research.
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When I was doing Jhana work, I had no idea I was doing Jhana work.
I just started getting the side-effects you'd associate with that, and got some help.
That said, most help is useless. No two teachers will tell you the same, which tells you something about teaching this stuff.
A big part of the problem is that how people come to realizations is highly subjective.
My hunch is it has more to do with what you're missing than what you have.
If I tell you what I experienced, it will do you almost no good unless you have similar issues as I did.
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If you do have similar issues, you may fall through a trapdoor after a quick conversation, even just a line, and have one or more understandings.
This is sort of how Zen practice is mythologized, even if it isn't always practiced that way.
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