The Phase Change We’re Looking For

I think most of us imagine awakening as some kind of event.

Some insight happens, there's something that takes place, and then a shift in state.

Like water boiling and becoming steam. Two different states of being. One ordinary, one divine.

So we practice with that expectation in the background of our mind: If I just keep practicing, eventually something will occur.

And for a long time, it feels like nothing significant is happening. You sit. You reflect. You try to be present. You work with your mind.

And still, life looks mostly the same.

What if the change isn't what we think it is?

What if the phase change is real, but it’s not where we’re looking.

It’s not a shift into a special, higher state of being. It’s not a mystical experience that replaces ordinary life.

It’s a shift in orientation.

Shantideva says in the Way of the Bodhisattva:

Childish beings look out for themselves,
Buddhas labor for the good of others.
See the difference that divides them!

This is the phase change: the shift from the self being the center of our life to bodhicitta being the center.

It's not how calm you feel. How stable your meditation on the nature of mind might be. It's not the hours you've meditated, or the visionary experiences you've had.

It's what your life is organized around.

At first, this might sound like a simple shift in intention, from focusing on yourself to caring for others.

But the shift to “others” is not just a moral obligation or a conceptual intention. It’s also perceptual, rooted in our experience.

As fixation on self loosens, the boundary between self and others becomes less solid. So bodhicitta is not just: “I will help others.”

It begins to feel more like: “There is no clear separation between self and other here.”

Orienting around bodhicitta

When we start practicing, our orientation is largely self-referential. I want to feel better. I want to understand the nature of my own mind. I want to wake up.

This is where we begin, but gradually as our practice deepens something starts to shift. We start to see more clearly. We can understand our own suffering. We can see others struggling in the same way. We see how everything is organized around the fixation and confusion, around "me."

Before the phase change, our practice and our life seem separate, at odds with each other. There are moments of practice, and then the reality of everything else we need to do. We try to find time in our day to practice.

After the phase change, we live a life dedicated to practice. Everything becomes the basis and support. Every situation is included. From sitting each day, to making breakfast, to going to work, to dealing with stress and pain and love and everything in between.

The path is no longer something we try to find and walk, it is how we live.

From the outside, nothing dramatic may have happened. But internally, the organizing principle of our life has changed.

That's the boiling point. That's the phase change.

Awakening as Process, Not State

From this view, awakening is not a state. We don't attain awakening. That's a misnomer.

It's a continuity of orientation.

You are on the path. You are in the process. That's enough. Trust the process.

And the process is not somewhere else. It's your life.

Every retreat. Every conversation. Every frustration. Every responsibility you have. Every relationship you are a part of. All of it becomes part of the path.

There are no edges. Or more precisely: wherever you find an edge, that is where you have more work to be done.

Those edges aren't obstacles. They are opportunities to be present, to dance with things as they are, not as you'd like them to be. We are being called to presence.

The edges show us exactly where our orientation has not yet fully taken root. So the path becomes very simple: find the edges. Notice the tension. Be the light that goes into the darkness. Include what you were leaving out.

Again, and again, and again.

Don't wait for the water to boil. Become the kind of person who lives at the boiling point.

A life organized around the self will always feel divided. A life organized around bodhicitta naturally becomes whole.