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Can a person analyze their awareness as an object?
Jeffrey
Veteran
I tend to find it impossible because you would have to analyze awareness as an object within awareness. Do you see the oddity of that?
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Comments
this is the sense of observer behind the eyes, which is dualistic but still observable.
when awareness is itself seen you have the experience of "I AM". this is a common experience in the advaita vedanta traditions.
in buddhism the awareness is no different from phenomena. but such awareness is a non dual Awareness prior to concepts. there is no division between thought and Awareness. all phenomena are self luminous.
thus we cannot say there is an awareness that watches phenomena. both are interdependent, thus one cannot come before another. nor are they distinguishable.
Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, tactile sensations, feelings, emotions, perceptions and thoughts are objects. These are the 5 khandhas- the totality of what can be experienced. That's awareness being aware of it's objects or normal awareness.
Instead of the mind going out to get involved in sights, sounds, thoughts etc. when awareness is turned inwards, gaps appear esp when objects aren't there. These objects merely arise and pass away in awareness. That's awareness being aware of itself.
Where Advaita and Buddhism part company is that this awareness is reified in Advaita. So you have 2 "extreme" positions of all things are not self in Buddhism and all things are me (I am that) in Advaita.
I would say that gaps are appearances within the space of awareness...
and then there is a mental understanding and emotional channel regarding what gaps 'mean' in the practice mandala. So there is some kind of experience.
Quote:
When we turn attention to what is aware of all this experience ... what knows experience? What do we find? Nothing.
Though we have this sense that 'something' is aware of all these appearances which seem to arise and fall .... when we ask "what is aware?" .. and rest in the gap that follows this .... we do not see anything .. our knowing reveals .. nothing. Nothing - no-thing.
Just being aware, just resting in attention, with whatever is present, right now, just as it is. This resting in what is present, resting in knowing what is present, resting in knowing the nature of what is present right here and know. This takes care of the whole thing :-)
Do nothing, rest in awareness.
This is the nature of the Mahamudra of awareness.
Commentaries on Songs of Realization, by Thrangu Rinpoche
http://luminousemptiness.blogspot.com/2008/12/reflections-on-naropa-summary-of.html
Ajahn Sumedho says the same thing:
"Learn how to trust and rest in this state of pure knowing: It is like this. It can't be any other way. You need mindfulness (sati) to keep remembering this state and returning to it. This stillness of the mind is non-critical, non-judgemental. It's an intuitive, direct knowing, it's not analytical. This is called nanadassana, or insight knowledge."
Here is the zen teaching:
According to Master Shengyen, "While you are practicing just sitting, be clear about everything going on in your mind. Whatever you feel, be aware of it, but never abandon the awareness of your whole body sitting there. Shikantaza is not sitting with nothing to do; it is a very demanding practice, requiring diligence as well as alertness. If your practice goes well, you will experience the 'dropping off' of sensations and thoughts. You need to stay with it and begin to take the whole environment as your body. Whatever enters the door of your senses becomes one totality, extending from your body to the whole environment. This is silent illumination."
- effectively, in the steps above, the view of duality is progressively removed, but the view of inherency still remains, and this is where the Buddhist teachings of 'emptiness' comes in
- insubstantial non-duality is about the arising insight into anatta (aka emptiness of self, aka first-fold emptiness), it is seen that seeing, cognizing, awareness is precisely and only what is seen, heard, tasted, touched, manifesting
- the intimacy experienced via the lack of separation has no frame of reference due to the lack of something inherent - in the seeing is just the seen, in the hearing is just the heard, there is no True Self of any sorts - the world of multiplicity and diversity only references itself without an agent, without a source or oneness - no more referencing back to 'One Naked Awareness'
- Awareness is simply understood to be a label, like the word 'weather' - it has no substantial inherent existence, but is simply a convention for a conglomerate of diverse ever-changing phenomena like raining, clouds forming and parting, wind, lightning, etc... likewise Awareness is simply mind's clarity in the various modes of manifestation (it arises in six modes via dependent origination: Dependent Arising of Consciousness)
- there is no grandiose, universal consciousness, only individual bodies and mindstreams interacting with each other due to interdependent origination, without any conceived 'underlying oneness behind multiplicity' - absolutely no identity remains, even the notion that "I am you and you are me" is seen as absurd
- there is no such thing as 'seamlessness of awareness and contents' or 'inseparability of awareness and its contents' - for awareness IS the process and activities of cognizance only, there is no such thing as 'awareness + its contents'
- seeing, cognizing, awaring never exists as nouns pointing to a noumenon but as verbs collating various activities of cognizance - what is seen, heard, taste, touch, are activities manifesting on its own accord with the presence of requisite conditions and factors via interdependent origination, without an agent, perceiver, controller, doer
- further penetration into anatta reveals that all phenomena are disjoint, unsupported, unlinked, bubble-like, insubstantial, dream-like, and self-releasing - there is absolutely nothing, not even an Awareness that underlies two thoughts, two manifestations - in fact there is not even two thoughts as such, just this thought, which spontaneously self-releases upon inception leaving absolutely no traces
- there is absolutely no collapsing of subject-object dichotomy into a base or oneness existing somewhere, even as a Here/Now - there is no linking base, oneness or source at all, only the experience of dispersed-out and de-linked multiplicity
- all manifestations are intrinstically luminous and vivid yet insubstantial and vanishes without a trace upon inception like drawing pictures on water manifests vivid appearances that does not leave trace - no existence of any sorts can leave traces when reality is momentary, popping in and out like bubbles but leaving no traces."
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/08/substantial-and-insubstantial-non.html
To be free of 'death' we have to be free of, existence also. But to be free of 'existence' is not to stop existing. To be free of existence we have to realise that existence, is only an experience, not a reality. If existence, is not a reality, then death is also not a reality.By 'experiencing' the 'experience' of existence, we gain freedom of existence, 'birth' and 'death'. This is Nibbana the cessation of suffering.
Therefore, 'pre-existence' and 're-existence', from the Buddhist perspective, is an 'experience', an empirical fact, but it is not a reality. To cling to the concept of 'existence' 'pre-existence' or 'reexistence' is to suffer. To be free of death and suffering, we have to experience the experience of 'existence' and 'death' and see it as only an experience' without 'a subject' and 'object'.
Ven Punnaji
The Blessed One said: "And what is the origination of the world? Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. This is the origination of the world. SN 12.44]
everything arises and falls based on dependent origination. there is no place or location for where things are occuring. we cannot say sound is here or there. sound appears and disappears. neither here or there. this is the ungraspablity of all phenomena. this is direct emptiness.
such phenomena themselves are luminous, thus vivid and clear!
all phenomena self liberate upon inception. how wonderful!
again there is no awareness apart from phenomena. to see phenomena is to see awareness.
38. When eye and form assume their right relation,
Appearances appear without a blur.
Since these neither arise nor cease,
They are the dharmadhatu, though they are imagined to be otherwise.
39. When sound and ear assume their right relation,
A consciousness free of thought occurs.
These three are in essence the dharmadhatu, free of other characteristics,
But they become "hearing" when thought of conceptually.
40. Dependent upon the nose and an odor, one smells.
And as with the example of form there is neither arising nor cessation,
But in dependence upon the nose-consciousness’s experience,
The dharmadhatu is thought to be smell.
41. The tongue’s nature is emptiness.
The sphere of taste is voidness as well.
These are in essence the dharmadhatu
And are not the causes of the taste consciousness.
42. The pure body’s essence,
The characteristics of the object touched,
The tactile consciousness free of conditions—
These are called the dharmadhatu.
43. The phenomena that appear to the mental consciousness, the chief of them all,
Are conceptualized and then superimposed.
When this activity is abandoned, phenomena’s lack of self-essence is known.
Knowing this, meditate on the dharmadhatu.
44. And so is all that is seen or heard or smelled,
Tasted, touched, and imagined,
When yogis [and yoginis]* understand these in this manner,
All their wonderful qualities are brought to consummation.
45. Perception’s doors in eyes and ears and nose,
In tongue and body and the mental gate—
All these six are utterly pure.
These consciousnesses’ purity itself is suchness’ defining characteristic.
i am not sure this contributes fully to this discussion but i thought i'd share.
it is really important to note that there is no "awareness" that see's. this is to assume that there is some kind of inherent awareness that watches all phenomena. this cannot be true, because we cannot find such awareness.
all phenomena themselves are self luminous.
In any case I have never observed awareness as a being separate from awareness. And I don't believe anyone who says that they have
"There’s an appreciation of freedom. That which is moving is
not-self. That which is moving is the aspect of flow and change
And the heart naturally takes refuge in that quality of spacious-
ness, stillness, and openness that knows but is unentangled.
I find meditation with the eyes open is also very helpful in
this respect. With the eyes open, there’s more of a challenge to
exercise the same quality that is normally established only in
walking meditation. If we keep our eyes open and hold the space
of the room, we see the coming and going of people, the gentle
swaying of the bodies in the breeze, the changing light, the wax
ing and waning of the afternoon sun.
We can let all of this just come and go and be held in that
space of knowing, where there is a conscious experience of both
the conventional and ultimate truths. There’s the ultimate view
of no person, no time, and no space, of timeless knowing and
radiance. Then there are the conventions: you and me, here and
there, sitting and walking, coming and going. The two truths ar
totally interfused; one is not obstructing the other. This is a way
of directly appreciating that nonabiding is not just some kind of
abstruse philosophy but is something we can taste and value.
In the moment we really understand the principle, the heart
realizes, “The body is moving, the world is coming and going,
but it’s absolutely going nowhere.” Birth and death have ended
right there."
Small Boat Great Mountain