
{"id":130,"date":"2011-03-06T21:33:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T21:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=130"},"modified":"2021-03-01T12:06:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T20:06:57","slug":"on-the-egyptian-akh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"On the Egyptian &#8216;akh&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The word &#8216;akh&#8217; as a verb means &#8216;to be effective&#8217; and the &#8216;akh&#8217; as an entity was seen as a shining being who could come and go as it pleased. This means that the akh was not impelled by the forces of the universe to follow a set path but had achieved a state of freedom and ability to act in any situation.&#8221;<br \/>\n(&#8220;Pyramid Texts of King Unas Part 1&#8221; copyright Apepch7, contributed article on The Tao Bums site)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m suggesting that the free movement of awareness that is experienced in waking up and falling asleep is the &#8220;akh&#8221;. I&#8217;m also suggesting that we don&#8217;t see this all the time because we are attached, averse, or ignorant of the sense of location associated with the movement of consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>I would also say that action that is precipitated by the sense of location without the exercise of volition is action which occurs from a state of freedom (and is appropriate, regardless of situation); as Kobun Chino Otogawa said, &#8220;you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When the sun is in the void, the sun is in its place (and moving?), even though it is unseen. I&#8217;ll have to reread the text, about whether there is a death and rebirth involved- is a connection to the entirety of creation implied, during the passage thru the void? You&#8217;d think I&#8217;d remember these things.<\/p>\n<p>Checking the text:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By tuning in to, or joining the sun&#8217;s journey through the Dwat the Egyptians<br \/>\nsought the same power of eternal rebirth that the sun had. They understood this to be the key to immortality albeit in the spiritualized form called the &#8216;akh&#8217;.&#8221; (Ibid)<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s exactly my experience, by tuning into the sense of location of awareness even as I am falling asleep, I realize that my awareness moves, and when I tune in to that movement waking up I discover that this is a source of action beyond volition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The word &#8216;akh&#8217; as a verb means &#8216;to be effective&#8217; and the &#8216;akh&#8217; as an entity was seen as a shining being who could come and go as it pleased. This means that the akh was not impelled by the forces of the universe to follow a set path but had achieved a state of &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/?p=130\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On the Egyptian &#8216;akh&#8217;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenmudra.com\/zazen-notes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}