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Have you ever wondered... where does 'one' go when not being mindful ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora
And now for some weird & wonderful moments of utterly unadulterated awareness - 
Thus I have heard (and to a certain extent 'experienced') that Mindfulness helps to alleviate unwholesome karma...
So where do you think one goes (ie where does one abide moment to moment) when not being mindful ?
Or to put it another way....where is this place called unawareness ? And if you have been there, how do you 'know' you have been there ?
Metta Shoshin 
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Comments
Awareness goes to non-mindfulness. Label mindfulness and non-mindfulness and there is a dichotomy.
When mindful we are aware we are mindful. When non-mindful we are non-mindful.
The door that is marked "entrance" can lead to wonderful places. But the door that is marked "entrance" on one side is marked "exit" on the other.
It's a single door, so to call "entrance" different from "exit" is not quite right and calling "entrance" and "exit" the same is also not quite accurate.
To my mind, which is "entrance" and which is "exit" becomes clearer with practice.
@Shoshin
I think you've built some mind traps into your question!
There is being awake and there is snoozing. Being awake is being aware of all your sense organ data. Snoozing is not.
Why do you think that one state represents one place while the other state represents a different place.
Another way of viewing it is that one state is like a flame ( being fueled by all your sense data) and the other state is simply the stifling of that fuel which then results in the extinguishment of the flame.
Does anyone ask where that flame went?
Actually, you're always aware.
Seeing, then, that you're never truly un-ware, it's really a question of what you're aware of in any given moment.
Where does one go when asleep?
..or awake.
Sometimes tomorrow, sometimes yesterday... Anywhere but now.
Kia Ora @Jeffery,
To the land of nod..._
_
Metta Shoshin:)
Good thing I moved this to General Banter....
Kia Ora,
Thanks for the interesting responses...
About the place called 'unawareness'
It's like when you get into your car and drive from A to B, you can remember getting into the car and starting to drive, but during the drive, 'manual' awareness seems to switch off and awareness goes onto auto pilot , then what seems like in 'no time' at all, manual awareness comes back on as you arrive at your destination (be it half hour later)...You 'know' that you have driven from A to B, but can't remember much about the actual drive... It's possible all of us who drive have had this kind of experience and more than once no doubt...
Metta Shoshin:)
Kia Ora @Jefery,
On a more serious note, if one can contain a mindfulness state, nowhere special...
Metta Shoshin
Actually, I make a determined decision, when driving, to be more alert and aware than ever.
I find it helps other drivers not panic at my antics....
It's an excellent opportunity to be truly "here"....
I have noticed there is a slight difference between being simply aware and actually mindful.
Let's say during the first minutes of meditation, when I am beginning to warm up and fall easily prey to every single thought that crops up.
If I am just aware, I drift off from the present and get ensnared in the fiction of every single thought. I chase after the shopping list, get worked up remembering my silly neighbour's antics, worry over my son having a test that day, wonder if I should buy that hundredth book on Amazon...
There's another feel to being mindful. I am actually there, present in the present moment. Even if I go over the same thoughts as above, I am more detached, more able to stay grounded and watch them as drifting bubbles, mere consciousness residue.
I am able to actually go through all the motions of acknowledgement and letting them go, reminding myself that it's my breathing that matters right now. I am choosing.
So I'd say, when we are not being mindful, knee-deep into the present moment, we're buying into the fictional maya created by our senses landing on reality. We're merely puppets to our stream of consciousness.
The majority of what the brain does, happens without involving conscious processes.
That’s a good thing! It would drive me crazy if I would have to take consciously notice of every detail that enters through my senses and if I would have to think about every step and every movement I make. Also that would make me far too slow to drive my car for instance. Now that I think about it; where are the breaks of my car? Fortunately my brain can find the breaks without asking me.
When I’m not being mindful (in a sense), I trust my brain functioning without conscious processes interfering.
The “I” that I could identify with (the babbling idiot who pops up in my brain) comes and goes; all the time. And what comes and goes is not real.
The function of mindfulness and of concentration as mentioned in the eightfold path - I think – is to weaken or to simplify the mentioned babbling idiot.
Instead of allowing it to take off into the universe of its story, its judgments and its preferences; the conscious processes are taken back to the actual input of the senses or to the breath.
So the way I see it, it’s usually okay to be mindless in the meaning of trusting the brain working on auto-pilot.
It’s not so good, not so meditative; to be mindless by being absorbed by the story we’re in; or by some intellectual hairsplitting; or by an emotional drama of our own creation.
Stuff still happens but one doesn't really notice. Lots of habitual responses.
Exactly. Most of the time our responses are on autopilot. The process of creating a 'self' continues
anyway.
Its a self reinforcing loop.
Its not the creation of a 'self' that requires conscious processes.
Its the seeing that we are doing it, and then not doing it, that has to be conscious.
If I have followed no thought there is nothing to remember. Bob
We might say there is a dullness, many dirty or coloured windows to be mindful through. Too many distracting windows and we are asleep. In mindfulness we can examine the windows or be aware of their distorting nature . . .
:wave: .
One probably is still there. It is only the illusion that we are going somewhere. Just like the sun appears to move round the earth.
@SpinyNorman said:
Kia Ora @SpinyNorman,
The habitual response (sankhara) makes sense, much of what ones does is habitual response...
Metta Shoshin