Stages of Awakening
The first stage of being awakened is called Very Joyous.
What if we were a superhero, Very Joyous. VJ on our chest. Very Joyous is about being awake to life as it is and about being superhero generous.
The second stage of being awakened is called The Stainless. Another superhero, The Stainless. S on our chest (like another superhero we know of). Stainless means that everybody knows we do only good things. No bad thoughts, words or actions stain us. So, we try to not do bad things. But we are human. We make mistakes. But we try. We practice to not think bad thoughts, say bad words, or do bad things.
If we think about doing something that will cause trouble or problems for ourselves or someone else, we see what we are thinking. We recognize the thought. We make the choice to not do the bad thing. This is awakened.
We stop killing living beings and we stop taking things that are not given to us. We say only things that are helpful and kind. We stop always wanting everything, holding on to things so much, and avoiding things that we don’t like. What we do want is to do things that help us and everyone around us do better and feel better.
We can call ourselves the superhero The Stainless.
