Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
A muse of sorts "Awareness"
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora,
If one is aware of being aware (mindfulness) who or what is it that is aware of being aware of this awareness?
Alan Watts has a slightly different take on this question
"There was a young man who said though it seems I know that I know what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know !"
There's more to life than what meets the eye I (or is there?)
Pleasant thoughts
Metta Shoshin 
0
Comments
Awareness simply is.
Awareness of awareness is awareness of what isn't awareness,
inferred like the absence of things we call empty space.
Kia Ora,
And what is it that isn't awareness ?
Metta Shoshin
@Shoshin Not sure I follow you. Are you doing a trick question thing or something? Awareness is what we call the perception of physical sensations, thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds, tastes, smells... in short, anything that we're aware "of" isn't the awareness itself.
Kia Ora,
You got me...It was meant to be one of those questions that gets the reader's mind to explore the conundrum..."Am I aware right now ?"
Metta Shoshin
@Shoshin Good to know. I wasn't sure if I was strolling through a Zen garden or crossing a troll bridge... if the latter, I'd have hopped into the river instead!
Kia Ora,
You're safe, you don't have to get wet, just enjoy the stroll through the Zen garden ...
"To do Zazen ask neither why nor when, for Zen is like the Tao
Just go with the flow of the mind’s contents that is happening right Now !
To cling to no thing, one becomes ‘awareness’ in its purest form
For those who ‘know’ Zen don’t ask why or when, for them, Zen just the norm !"
Metta Shoshin
“He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him.
He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.”
Kia Ora,
I can only know what I know...I don't know what I don't know...And if I knew what I didn't know...Then I would know what I know ! (which isn't much)-- :rolleyes:
Metta Shoshin
I want to say our original face before our parents were born...
The entirety of the cosmos...
And there is no being that is aware, only being aware.
I don't know if I know but I know I don't know a great many things so my chances may be slim.
We can all claim to Know a great deal, and it would not be a lie.
What we must guard against, is proclaiming it as Truth.
The most we could insist, is that it is OUR Truth, but that we are open to convincing and persuasion that, not only are there other truths, but that we are also prepared to change our perspective.
That is knowledge AND Wisdom.
Relatively speaking I would say I know a fair amount and ,yes, "open mindedness" , teachablility is important to me. On the other hand though in an absolute sense, I feel nothing is knowable. Bob
Today I was precisely meditating on the lojong slogan: "Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence."
Chögyam Trungpa explains the sevenfold nature of our consciousness: the first six layers are related to our senses (visual consciousness, etc including the mind, as is customary in Abhidhamma) and the seventh layer would be something like our neurotic mind.
There is an eighth layer which would be alaya, the "fundamental state of existence or consciousness, before it is divided into 'I' and 'other' or into the various emotions, [...] the non-discriminating mind"
It is from here that awareness and mindfulness originate. From what Joseph Goldstein likes to call "the zero selfless center of gravity"
As to what we know, I know a couple of things that have helped improve the quality of my choices in everyday life, and to maintain that basic philosophical capacity for awe that makes me realize how much more I have to learn.
Awareness of 'awareness' is conceptual. How do you know that what you are regarding as awareness is truly awareness? It could be a memory instantly with the present moment turning to past.
And what is it that isn't awareness ?
The world is in your senses. Anything beyond is unknowable.
Nobody
Alan Watts - "it's like a candle trying to burn itself or your finger tip trying to touch your finger tip"
I would say awareness is your primary consciousness acting out its biological role. Protecting the organism from changing environments.
Why is the rock not aware?