thoughts on awareness...

Mateeah

I went to an awesome Dharma teaching yesterday and when I came home and told my dad about it (he asked! lol). I was saying how we are not our minds, we are beyond our mind, we are this great infinite expanse of awareness, The One. My dad is an open minded guy but he posed this idea: what if this "infinite awareness", the One impersonal presence, is just a byproduct of something our extremely intelligent mind creates? I went on to say, don't you feel this aliveness that's beyond the mind? This vast expanse? And he's open to it but again just calls it the mind, science. I believe science and mind are just a way our ego tries to explain reality but I can't convey this to him... And dare I say he planted a seed in my mind about this. Any thoughts?

sukhita

Awareness preceeds thoughts, it is experience beyond thoughts and words. It is the simply a "knowing" of the contact with sense objects, with no stories added by the thought processes. This is how I understand awareness in terms of practice...

taiyaki

Thats why there is a distinction between ideas and experience.

And even then ideas or views play a role. For instance if one still holds onto the belief of inherent existence then the non dual awareness becomes a thing or a source.

From the beginning it must always be recognized that this awareness is completely unestablished yet is the display of the myriads appearances we call reality.

But this recognition is completely beyond the conceptual mind, yet it is in fact the display of the conceptual mind hahaha.

Recognition of the unborn buddha mind brings certainty. Its fresh water and one finally knows what human spirituality is all about.

But keep in mind reification of anything includinh such awareness is the cause of ignorance and suffering .

Letting be and all things present themselves endlessly without arising in the first place.

Jeffrey

It is just mind. It's all mind.

taiyaki

"All experience is the manifestation of mind.
As for mind, there is no mind; mind's nature is empty.
Empty and unceasing, mind arises as experience.
By looking into mind deeply, may I be clear about how it is.

Perceptions, which never existed in themselves, are mistaken for objects.
Awareness itself, because of ignorance, is mistaken for a self.
Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in the realm of existence.
May ignorance and confusion be completely resolved.

It doesn't exist: even buddhas do not see it.
It doesn't not exist: it is the basis of samsara and nirvana.
No contradiction: the middle way is union.
May I know the pure being of mind, free of extremes."

http://www.naturalawareness.net/mahamudra.html

lobster

Mateeah said:

I went on to say, don't you feel this aliveness that's beyond the mind? This vast expanse?

The vast expanse, that is all mind and has no mind outside of being, is beyond existence and non existence. In effect you and your father are right. However only the experiential will confirm the reality of a paradox.
:wave:

JosephW

Mateeah said:

I went to an awesome Dharma teaching yesterday and when I came home and told my dad about it (he asked! lol). I was saying how we are not our minds, we are beyond our mind, we are this great infinite expanse of awareness, The One. My dad is an open minded guy but he posed this idea: what if this "infinite awareness", the One impersonal presence, is just a byproduct of something our extremely intelligent mind creates? I went on to say, don't you feel this aliveness that's beyond the mind? This vast expanse? And he's open to it but again just calls it the mind, science. I believe science and mind are just a way our ego tries to explain reality but I can't convey this to him... And dare I say he planted a seed in my mind about this. Any thoughts?

I would personally agree with your dad, I don't venture to say we our beyond our mind or anything of the such, I will sit and listen to it, our mind is one extremely powerful thing, even to the degree that I would say what people describe as an out of body experience, (which I have personally experienced myself) is a product of the mind... I am not a scholar, this is just my view... However, what I do know, is that nobody knows for sure...

By the way, I am glad to see that you are still following and diving in to Buddhism, and that's why I initially messaged you was because you reminded me so much of myself getting into Buddhism, there are a lot of misconceptions, and you will think Buddhism is a lot of different things that it is not, but if you are a true seeker, all of this will pan out, I promise. Good luck.

pegembara

I was saying how we are not our minds, we are beyond our mind, we are this great infinite expanse of awareness, The One.

Is it possible that we are not the One for how could we be the One and yet talk about it? We are not whatever we claim ourselves to be.

Sabbe dhamma anatta - All things are not self.

misecmisc1

whatever is experienced is experienced in the mind, yet there is nothing which experiences, rather moments of consciousness(fifth aggregate vinnana in five aggregates) arising and ceasing due to their conditions arising and ceasing.