What does it mean to “being awake”?

We hear it many times: wake up, become aware, be alert, be attentive, be present. Yet we wonder how we can actually do this. What does it mean to “be awake”?

Does it mean being happy?
Does it mean thinking about things more?
Does it mean being grateful and appreciative?
Does it mean being helpful and useful with that is right in front of you?
Does it mean not wasting time and being more productive?
Does it mean trying harder and doing better?
Does it mean reflecting regularly?

While these may be the good results of being awake, they are not the essential insight.  Richard Rohr offers the following thoughts on being aware or awake:

Drop to a level deeper than the passing show
Become the calm seer of your dramas from that level
Watch yourself compassionately from a little distance, almost as if the “myself” is somewhere else
Dis-identify with our own emotional noise and no longer let it pull you here and there, up and down.
Stop thinking about this or that and “collapse into” pure consciousness of nothing in particular
You don’t get there, you fall there.

From Richard Rohr: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See