Wakefulness has been real and accessible for all human beings at all times and in all cultures. People from all cultures have been able to touch into it and explore its rich and radiant experiential landscape. They have simply interpreted and conceptualized it in slightly different ways, due to the different beliefs and conventions of their cultures. In Buddhism, perhaps because of Indian culture’s belief in rebirth, wakefulness is partly conceived as a state in which a person no longer generates karma and no longer needs to be reborn. But when expressed through the more dynamic and world-embracing attitudes of early Chinese culture, wakefulness is partly conceived as a process of becoming attuned to the Dao and living in harmony with it. On the other hand, people who live in monotheistic cultures — Jewish, Sufi, and Christian cultures — see wakefulness in more transcendent terms. To them, it’s natural to interpret the all-pervading spirit-force (which the Chinese conceive as the Dao…
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