The Buddha's awakening just doesn't mean the Bodhisattva suddenly awoke as if from a deep sleep and became aware. Rather it means the Bodhisattva awakened to something or saw something he had not previously seen whereby his former ignorance was removed. This is a very important point that is often overlooked in Buddhist circles. I maintain that what he awakened to was the animative principle or, the same, the life force. I need to add that it was not an intellectual understanding, something that could be disputed in academic circles or on an on-line chat room—your typical male ego piss match which, let's face it, is rubbish.
Awakening to something profound which transcends our species specific human condition; which has gone unnoticed until the moment of seeing it, directly, is not something for the racquetball court of the human intellect with its language tools and language games (including scientific models). Our understanding is about on the level of a seven year-old child that when asked, "What moves your arm up and down?" responds with, "My bones." Human beings are so deeply fixated on their biological bodies that they can't envisage a life force or an animative principle that governs the body but is not the body. It is like the difference between the radio signal and the radio with its batteries, speaker, antenna, and other parts which act to amplify the radio signal.
Inasmuch as a human beings remains deeply fixated on their corporeal bodies they can be said to be asleep to their true nature which animates them. The depth of this slumber of ignorance can become so great that humans will believe that life is a product of the corporeal body just like hearing music on a radio is believed to be caused by the radio when the radio is really only amplifying an invisible signal.
To be sure, each one of us has over-identified with our psychophysical body to such an extent that we believe it is who we are (asmi). We bought into the protein package from birth. We identified with its physical form, its feelings, its mental images, volitions and consciousness. Never once did we learn that we were asleep; being unawakened to the truth that it is not who we are. In this sense, true awakening is realizing who we really are, rejecting the illusion; no longer clinging to it in the way we did before.
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