Fixated Consciousness and Spacious Awareness
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Our true nature is like clear space, a presence pervading everything but not limited or confined by anything. It is sky like awareness.
However we are often fixated on the particular thoughts, feelings, and because of this we lose sight of spacious awareness.
Just like most of us look at particular shapes and forms but never notices the space surrounding them.
When one aligns with spacious awareness, there is no fixation on anything, like the sky doesn't bother or get bothered by the clouds passing by. They just pass by without hindrance. But at the same time they are felt intimately in that field of spacious presence.
Any thoughts?
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Found something related by Jack Kornfield:
May, 2003
A Mind Like SkyMeditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness. In meditation we do this simply by acknowledging the moment-to-moment changing conditions—the pleasure and pain, the praise and blame, the litany of ideas and expectations that arise. Without identifying with them, we can rest in the awareness itself, beyond conditions, and experience what my teacher Ajahn Chah called jai pongsai, our natural lightness of heart. Developing this capacity to rest in awareness nourishes samadhi (concentration), which stabilizes and clarifies the mind, and prajna (wisdom), that sees things as they are.
We can employ this awareness or wise attention from the very start. When we first sit down to meditate, the best strategy is to simply notice whatever state of our body and mind is present. To establish the foundation of mindfulness, the Buddha instructs his followers "to observe whether the body and mind are distracted or steady, angry or peaceful, excited or worried, contracted or released, bound or free." Observing what is so, we can take a few deep breaths and relax, making space for whatever situation we find.
From this ground of acceptance we can learn to use the transformative power of attention in a flexible and malleable way. Wise attention—mindfulness—can function like a zoom lens. Often it is most helpful to steady our practice with close-up attention. In this, we bring a careful attention and a very close focus to our breath or a sensation, or to the precise movement of feeling or thought. Over time we can eventually become so absorbed that subject and object disappear. We become the breath, we become the tingling in our foot, we become the sadness or joy. In this we sense ourself being born and dying with each breath, each experience. Entanglement in our ordinary sense of self dissolves; our troubles and fears drop away. Our entire experience of the world shows itself to be impermanent, ungraspable and selfless. Wisdom is born.
But sometimes in meditation such close focus of attention can create an unnecessary sense of tightness and struggle. So we must find a more open way to pay attention. Or perhaps when we are mindfully walking down the street we realize it is not helpful to focus only on our breath or our feet. We will miss the traffic signals, the morning light and the faces of the passersby. So we open the lens of awareness to a middle range. When we do this as we sit, instead of focusing on the breath alone, we can feel the energy of our whole body. As we walk we can feel the rhythm of our whole movement and the circumstances through which we move. From this perspective it is almost as if awareness "sits on our shoulder" and respectfully acknowledges a breath, a pain in our legs, a thought about dinner, a feeling of sadness, a shop window we pass. Here wise attention has a gracious witnessing quality, acknowledging each event—whether boredom or jealousy, plans or excitement, gain or loss, pleasure or pain—with a slight bow. Moment by moment we release the illusion of getting "somewhere" and rest in the timeless present, witnessing with easy awareness all that passes by. As we let go, our innate freedom and wisdom manifest. Nothing to have, nothing to be. Ajahn Chah called this "resting in the One Who Knows."
Yet at times this middle level of attention does not serve our practice best. We may find ourself caught in the grip of some repetitive thought pattern or painful situation, or lost in great physical or emotional suffering. Perhaps there is chaos and noise around us. We sit and our heart is tight, our body and mind are neither relaxed nor gracious, and even the witnessing can seem tedious, forced, effortful.
In this circumstance we can open the lens of attention to its widest angle and let our awareness become like space or the sky. As the Buddha instructs in the Majjhima Nikaya, "Develop a mind that is vast like space, where experiences both pleasant and unpleasant can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle or harm. Rest in a mind like vast sky."
From this broad perspective, when we sit or walk in meditation, we open our attention like space, letting experiences arise without any boundaries, without inside or outside. Instead of the ordinary orientation where our mind is felt to be inside our head, we can let go and experience the mind's awareness as open, boundless and vast. We allow awareness to experience consciousness that is not entangled in the particular conditions of sight, sound and feelings, but consciousness that is independent of changing conditions—the unconditioned. Ajahn Jumnien, a Thai forest elder, speaks of this form of practice as Maha Vipassana, resting in pure awareness itself, timeless and unborn. For the meditator, this is not an ideal or a distant experience. It is always immediate, ever present, liberating; it becomes the resting place of the wise heart.
Fully absorbed, graciously witnessing, or open and spacious—which of these lenses is the best way to practice awareness? Is there an optimal way to pay attention? The answer is "all of the above." Awareness is infinitely malleable, and it is important not to fixate on any one form as best. Mistakenly, some traditions teach that losing the self and dissolving into a breath or absorbing into an experience is the optimal form of attention. Other traditions erroneously believe that resting in the widest angle, the open consciousness of space, is the highest teaching. Still others say that the middle ground—an ordinary, free and relaxed awareness of whatever arises here and now, "nothing special"—is the highest attainment. Yet in its true nature awareness cannot be limited. Consciousness itself is both large and small, particular and universal. At different times our practice will require that we embrace all these perspectives.
Every form of genuine awareness is liberating. Each moment we release entanglement and identification is selfless and free. But remember too that every practice of awareness can create a shadow when we mistakenly cling to it. A misuse of space can easily lead us to become spaced-out and unfocused. A misuse of absorption can lead to denial, the ignoring of other experiences, and a misuse of ordinary awareness can create a false sense of "self" as a witness. These shadows are subtle veils of meditative clinging. See them for what they are and let them go. And learn to work with all the lenses of awareness to serve your wise attention.
The more you experience the power of wise attention, the more your trust in the ground of awareness itself will grow. You will learn to relax and let go. In any moment of being caught, awareness will step in, a presence without judging or resisting. Close-in or vast, near or far, awareness illuminates the ungraspable nature of the universe. It returns the heart and mind to its birthright, naturally luminous and free.
To amplify and deepen an understanding of how to practice with awareness as space, the following instructions can be helpful. One of the most accessible ways to open to spacious awareness is through the ear door, listening to the sounds of the universe around us. Because the river of sound comes and goes so naturally, and is so obviously out of our control, listening brings the mind to a naturally balanced state of openness and attention. I learned this particular practice of sound as a gateway to space from my colleague Joseph Goldstein more than 25 years ago and have used it ever since. Awareness of sound in space can be an excellent way to begin practice because it initiates the sitting period with the flavor of wakeful ease and spacious letting go. Or it can be used after a period of focused attention.
Whenever you begin, sit comfortably and at ease. Let your body be at rest and your breathing be natural. Close your eyes. Take several full breaths and let each release gently. Allow yourself to be still.
Now shift awareness away from the breath. Begin to listen to the play of sounds around you. Notice those that are loud and soft, far and near. Just listen. Notice how all sounds arise and vanish, leaving no trace. Listen for a time in a relaxed, open way.
As you listen, let yourself sense or imagine that your mind is not limited to your head. Sense that your mind is expanding to be like the sky-open, clear, vast like space. There is no inside or outside. Let the awareness of your mind extend in every direction like the sky.
Now the sounds you hear will arise and pass away in the open space of your own mind. Relax in this openness and just listen. Let the sounds that come and go, whether far or near, be like clouds in the vast sky of your own awareness. The play of sounds moves through the sky, appearing and disappearing without resistance.
As you rest in this open awareness, notice how thoughts and images also arise and vanish like sounds. Let the thoughts and images come and go without struggle or resistance. Pleasant and unpleasant thoughts, pictures, words and feelings move unrestricted in the space of mind. Problems, possibilities, joys and sorrows come and go like clouds in the clear sky of mind.
After a time, let this spacious awareness notice the body. Become aware of how the sensations of breath and body float and change in the same open sky of awareness. The breath breathes itself, it moves like a breeze. The body is not solid. It is felt as areas of hardness and softness, pressure and tingling, warm and cool sensation, all floating in the space of the mind's awareness.
Let the breath move like a breeze. Rest in this openness. Let sensations float and change. Allow all thoughts and images, feelings and sounds to come and go like clouds in the clear open space of awareness.
Finally, pay attention to the awareness itself. Notice how the open space of awareness is naturally clear, transparent, timeless and without conflict—allowing all things, but not limited by them.
The Buddha said, "O Nobly Born, remember the pure open sky of your own true nature. Return to it. Trust it. It is home."
May the blessings of these practices awaken your own inner wisdom and inspire your compassion. And through the blessing of your heart may the world find peace.
This meditation is one of a variety of practices offered in Jack Kornfield's The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace (Bantam Books).
Jack Kornfield, who spent many years studying Buddhism in Burma, Thailand and India, is co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
A Mind Like Sky:Wise Attention Open Awareness, Jack Kornfield, Shambhala Sun, May 2003.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Our true nature is like clear space, a presence pervading everything but not limited or confined by anything. It is sky like awareness.
However we are often fixated on the particular thoughts, feelings, and because of this we lose sight of spacious awareness.
Just like most of us look at particular shapes and forms but never notices the space surrounding them.
When one aligns with spacious awareness, there is no fixation on anything, like the sky doesn't bother or get bothered by the clouds passing by. They just pass by without hindrance. But at the same time they are felt intimately in that field of spacious presence.
Any thoughts?
Some notes by Thusness on my post and what I told him...
Thusness says:
Anyway, u should not experience this way now.
Thusness says:
For this is what that u r intermitently experiencing
Thusness says:
It is common to get into this pristineness first. U will first only knows about the luminosity, the clear, sharp, vivid experience.
Thusness says:
Then when u progress further, it is the empty space, void yet with a crystal clear sensation that becomes the object of ur grasp
Thusness says:
u will become intrigue by the 'transparency'
Thusness says:
like a crystal clear void. :)
Thusness says:
This is experiencing the 'pure', 'pristine' quality of awarenessnote: at this stage, the other qualities/nature of awareness: non-dual, empty (dependent origination), oneness, spontaneity... are not yet realised.
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Great excerpt from http://www.greatfreedom.org/faq.html (a very good read!)
....What has no cause and what requires no effort cannot be brought about by trying to cause it or effort for it. It’s already accomplished, already naturally present effortlessly in the here and now, the pure presence of the here and now, the complete perceptual openness of the here and now. This is the basis of everything.
To have complete perceptual openness means to relax our perception into wide-open spaciousness with no need to close in on any thought, emotion, object, or experience to make sense of what’s happening. When we completely relax our attention from its habitual pinpointed focus, we see everything as it is: a limitless, seamless expanse of changeless pure awareness, in which myriad ephemeral forms of awareness appear and disappear. Most of us have learned to fix our attention on whatever is appearing and to describe it as if it had a separate existence. However, when we do so, we immediately disconnect from our natural openness and collapse into the idea of a separate self that relies on thought to describe what’s going on. When we have this individualized thinking and the fear-based emotional field that thinking creates, then we’re very restricted and limited to that emotional field. We live on the head of a pin when we do that, and that’s a very cramped and uncomfortable space!
We keep it simple: we keep it totally simple. Everything that appears is a point of view appearing within the pure view of awareness. That’s it...Story of the writer:
http://www.saieditor.com/stars/odenver.html
....Candice began formulating the Great Freedom teachings 25 years ago, after a profound and permanent awakening unexpectedly occurred in her life. She had been raised Catholic, but as a child she intuitively rejected substantial portions of what she was taught through that religion, yet she had a strong, natural faith in God, and prayed every day for many years to be “able to see the face of God”. Her deep connection with nature in her childhood brought about a profound experience of “the oneness of all things”, but she never practiced any kind of formal meditation, and had never met a guru or had any esoteric spiritual training prior to her awakening. As a young adult she was highly successful in many ways, “efforting and achieving” as a way of life, and receiving many accolades; in fact, at age 28 she was named one of 100 outstanding women in America. But her successes gave her no real satisfaction, and by the time she was 34 she realized that no matter how hard she tried, or how many successes she had, they never would satisfy her.
She then went through an profound personal crisis which led her into states of intense fear, alienation and despair. During that period she found that everything she had learned through psychology, philosophy, religion, and all other belief systems she had studied were of no help to her whatsoever.
Furthermore, every remedy she had previously relied on to give her relief, including alcohol and marijuana, now gave her no relief at all. During that extended period of being overwhelmed by negative emotional states, she somehow discovered that beneath all those states, there was a “basic space of pure awareness” which was free from suffering, a space of complete relief. She gradually familiarized herself with that basic space by resting as awareness for short moments, repeated many times, and soon she was able to rest in that awareness for 10 continuous days. At that point “awareness rose like the sun”, and from then on that unchanging space of pure awareness became her primary reality, and the painful thoughts and emotional states which had tormented her faded away like stars in the light of day. Her discovery of all-encompassing pure awareness, and the complete relief that comes with it, proved to be permanent. From this profound awakening the Great Freedom teachings have come, offering a simple and direct path for others to gain the same realization, and the same permanent relief from suffering.
The Great Freedom teachings are designed to be acceptable to the largest audience possible, and therefore do not rely on the word ‘God’ (which would surely alienate some people), nor are they aligned with any religion or based on traditional concepts such as original sin, karma, reincarnation, or ego. Candice doesn't even use the word ‘Enlightenment’, saying it has been so tarnished through years of misuse and misinterpretation that it often just creates confusion. Although after her teachings were formulated she discovered that they are similar to the Tzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, and share the same essence as ‘The King of Samadhi Sutra’ given by Lord Buddha, the Great Freedom teachings are not presented as Buddhist, and are not called religious, spiritual, philosophy or psychology; they are simply presented as being “about the ultimate truth of what it means to be human”. Unlike most paths, which might require the acceptance of some culturally-specific set of religious beliefs, or faith in some kind of cosmological system, the Great Freedom teachings are based solely on the direct experience of awareness, which is always present within everyone....
(continued in the URL)
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Where exactly is our buddha nature? It is in the skylike nature of our mind. Utterly open, free and limitless, it is fundamentally so simple and so natural that it can never be complicated, corrupted, or stained, so pure that it is beyond even the concept of purity and impurity.
To talk of this nature of mind as skylike is, of course, only a metaphor that helps us to begin to imagine its all-embracing boundlessness; for the buddha nature has a quality the sky cannot have, that of the radiant clarity of awareness.
It is said: "It is simply your flawless present awareness, cognizant and empty, naked and awake."~ Sogyal Rinpoche
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"Mind is like space, because it has no limitation. When there are no clouds, when it is completely clear, space is like our 'ordinary' state of mind. Then, all of a sudden, clouds come from nowhere. Our emotional problems and mental chaos are like the clouds. When they take over, we can't see space any more, we only see the clouds! However space never goes anywhere, it's always there. It's just our mind getting into darkness so that, for us, the clouds become our only reality. It means we give more solidity to our emotional upheavals, to all the things going on in our mind, so that they become more real for us than the true essence of our mind."
"In the same way as clouds come from nowhere, our emotions and all the chaos we go through also somehow appear from nowhere and disappear into nowhere. Understanding this process, we should give it less value. Even if we've been under the clouds for seven days, we should always remember that space is there!"
"We can never find a solution to our investigation by just listening to teachings or reading books. The only way we can get closer to the nature of mind is through direct experience, and that is through meditation."
(Extracts from Living Dharma - Ven. Lama Yeshe Losal) -
I like how A.H.Almaas describes it:
Only stillness is left—fresh, clear, crisp and empty. Thoughts pass through it. Emotions pass through it. Experiences pass through it. But the stillness stays immaculate, just as the clear sky stays untouched as the clouds pass through it.
The winds blow
The rivers flow
The fires gnaw
But stillness is still still.There is a feeling of lightness, of joy, of freedom. There is a sense of naturalness with a crystal kind of clarity, just as snow-covered mountains feel natural and clear. Awareness is no longer tense. It loses its attachment and active bent. It becomes more passive, like a receptacle. Everything comes to it. This is an important transition, for usually we exert a lot of effort to pay attention, and letting go and just being feels scary. I always thought before that I would miss seeing something if I did not actively look. But I saw that I only created strain this way, and also this active awareness is really more paranoia than anything else. When I let go, and trust that awareness is naturally there and I don’t have to make an effort, awareness becomes bigger, brighter, and easier. It’s like seeing everything, being aware of everything at the same time, effortlessly. It’s like a panoramic view, but not from above, nor from any direction. It’s like awareness is everywhere, and nothing is missed or overlooked. There is no concern or fear of missing something.
All kinds of experiences happen. Many new regions and spaces of the mind. Deep spaces, empty spaces, spacious spaces, soft spaces, dark spaces, light spaces, joyous spaces. The space itself, like stillness, becomes the object of awareness, and awareness goes deeper and deeper into it. Sometimes there is an uninterrupted space of stillness, or openness, without thoughts or feelings or any kind of content. It’s like a totally empty sky.
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Gil Fronsdal (1954) is a Buddhist who has practiced Zen and Vipassana since the 1970s, and is currently a Buddhist teacher who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) of Redwood City, California. He is one of the best-known American Buddhists. He has a PhD in Buddhist Studies from Stanford University. His many dharma talks available online contain basic information on meditation and Buddhism, as well as subtle concepts of Buddhism explained at the level of the lay person.
Receptive Awareness
adapted from a talk by Gil Fronsdal, January 1st, 2002Our awareness is like the air around us: we rarely notice it. It functions in all our waking moments, and a form of awareness may even continue in sleep. Some people don’t recognize the functioning of awareness because it has never been pointed out to them. Even when we know about it, we easily take it for granted and don’t appreciate it fully.
Perhaps the prime reason we don’t notice awareness is that we are caught up in the content of our awareness, that is, we are preoccupied with what we think, feel, and experience. Usually daily life entails negotiating our way through what awareness knows, the content of our thinking and perception. An important part of Buddhist practice involves being aware of the other half of perception, receptive awareness itself. Becoming aware of awareness itself is a capacity we all have. Meditation offers a powerful opportunity to discover and rest in a receptive mode of knowing.
Receptive awareness is very close to the idea of a witnessing consciousness. Beginners in meditation often assume that our ability to witness means that there is someone who is witnessing; a particular, unique, and lasting subject or agent within us that is the witness. We have a strong tendency to dichotomize our world, especially between the perceived and the perceiver. Similarly, we often make a distinction between the doer and the action:
I’m the doer and I am doing something, I am the speaker who is speaking. Most of us consider the idea that there is a perceiver or a doer to be simple common sense.
Buddhism challenges this assumption.
These dichotomies are the cornerstone of the huge edifice of self. As soon as we have a perceiver, we have a concept of self, which becomes a magnet for all sorts of culturally conditioned ideas about what a self should be like. Our sense of self can be closely and painfully related to ideas of what is worthy, what is good, and what is required from the world around us.
Emotions can arise directly from the way we conceive our “self.” If our self-image is threatened, we can easily get angry or fearful. Guilt can come from relating a self-image
to ideas of good and bad, right and wrong. Both praise and blame can energize us when they affect the way we define and represent ourselves. And when our sense of self is neither supported nor threatened, some people get bored— bored with the people they are with or bored with the situation.
Resting in receptive awareness is an antidote to our efforts of building and defending a self. As this capacity develops and we begin to trust it, the assumption that there is “someone who is aware” falls away. Self-consciousness falls away. Sometimes this is called an experience of non-dualistic awareness: the distinctions between self and other, inside and outside, perceiver and perceived disappear. There is no one who is aware; there is only awareness and experience happening within awareness. Part of what we learn to do in practice is to steady our attention, to develop a simple, receptive awareness. We
aren’t necessarily abandoning the world of ideas or even the idea of self. Instead, we learn to hold our lives, our ideas, and ourselves lightly. We rest in a spacious and compassionate sphere of awareness that knows but is not attached. In this way our response to life can arise from our direct experience rather than our abstract ideas and attachments.
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"Nondual consciousness is not a state of attention. It is experienced without effort of any kind. It is the mind completely at rest. In fact, there is not even a sense that the mind is resting, for that is still an activity of sorts. Rather, one experiences a simple lucid openness in which the phenomena of the world appear, and through which experiences such as thoughts, emotions, and sensations move without obstruction.
There is also a sense that one's consciousness is pervading all of the content of one's experience. Rather than an encounter between one's own head and the objects outside of one's head, as experienced in intentional, dualistic consciousness states, nondual consciousness is experienced globally. It pervades and subsumes one's whole body and everything in one's environment at the same time. "Consciousness is encountered as something more like a field than a localized point, a field that transcends the body and yet somehow interacts with it" (Forman, in Gallagher & Shear, 1999, p. 373).
One of the main characteristics of nondual realization is that it is discovered, rather than created, as rigid subjective organizations are released. Constructivists may insist that nondual consicousness is itself a conceptual construct. Speaking both from my own experience as well as from traditional accounts, I can attest that nondual realization is a process of gradually letting go of one's grip on oneself and one's environment -- as if opening a clenched fist. It does require concentrated effort and time to achieve a certain degree of letting go. But the expanse of nondual consciousness, pervading oneself and one's environment as a unified whole, appears of its own accord as a result of this letting go, and continues to appear, without any effort on one's own part."
~ "The Empathic Ground" by Judith Blackstone
(a book which Thusness thinks is very good and recommended me)
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It is not so much that our presence pervade everything but rather everything gets to enter our awareness. This is the state of choicelessness. We don't engage with anything that flows into our awareness.
It is like standing on the street of orchard road watching people and vehicles going by but not having opinions or get attracted to or rejecting anything. What was generally thought of as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant etc. do not arise. There is basic peace and equanimity.
A state of no memory is the state where clarity arise.
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There's a difference between 'presence prevading everything' that Judith Blackstone, with 'everything entering our awareness'.
First of all when we say awareness, what is awareness? The question of what Awareness really is has always been the fundamental of spiritual practice. Therefore insight into our pristine nature is most important.
When we have certain glimpses of the "I AM" or the "Eternal Witness" (see http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html), awareness seems to be the eternal witness/watcher or constant opening where things comes and go within that awareness but that constant background or witnessing awareness remains... unchanged, unmoved, without coming and going.
I have asked Thusness a few times... because I myself am confused at times due to the seeming unmovability of this awareness, this sense of presence and being.... I asked him does this sense of presence, awareness ever fade in and out? It seems that everything else, every thought, every experience appears to fade in and out, or enter and go within my awareness and yet this awareness, this being is the Only constant and unmoving 'thing' or 'non-thing'.
To which his reply was that there is indeed that 'unmoving' sensation but it should not be dualistically understood like what I described. Instead it should be seen as momentary mind-moments. (because each moment is distinct, disjoint, and yet complete in itself, there is no sensation of movement) In any case there should be no separation between awarenes and content of awareness, if there is anything 'coming and going' against a background of unchanging awareness that becomes the Advaita/Hindu teachings. I do not have the chat log with me but will paste that part when I find it.
In non-dual reality there is no watcher watching anything -- when seeing people and cars, there is just people and cars, there is no seer. When hearing sound there is just sound, there is no hearer. When thoughts arise there is no thinker of thoughts nor a knower/watcher of thoughts -- each thought is itself a self-luminous, 'knowing' phenomenon. And this is not an 'experience' -- this is the nature of reality, this is the Dharma Seal of Anatta which means this is an ever-present characteristic or seal at all moments.
The reason why Judith Blackstone spoke of 'presence pervading everything' is because she has deep non-dual insight. She does not see any separation at all between awareness and the content of awareness. She does not does not see awareness as an unchanging background to which everything else comes and goes from it or within it. To her there is no 'entering and exiting', 'coming and going', which is why her expression is 'presence pervading everything'.
As Zen Master Dogen would say,
Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.
This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakeable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.
Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. (Dogen 70-1) -
Originally posted by djhampa:
It is not so much that our presence pervade everything but rather everything gets to enter our awareness. This is the state of choicelessness. We don't engage with anything that flows into our awareness.
It is like standing on the street of orchard road watching people and vehicles going by but not having opinions or get attracted to or rejecting anything. What was generally thought of as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant etc. do not arise. There is basic peace and equanimity.
A state of no memory is the state where clarity arise.
Next thing I want to talk about... is the state of 'no memory' the condition where clarity arise? I would say, not necessarily. Even without memory and thoughts there may not be clarity, one could be blanked out, be in a trance, etc.
From my understanding, 'no memory' isn't really the important condition... whatever arise is fine. If you are remembering things, that is fine too. If you are thinking about the past, 'when' does that thought occur? In this present moment awareness. "Past" thoughts really too, occur in the present. So remembering is fine.
I think the real issue is not whether we are remembering things... but whether we are so fixated on our thoughts that we feel contracted as an individual, our attention is so fixated on the thoughts we are chasing after that we lose 'sight' of 'spacious awareness' that is always here, like air, but not noticed... even though it is still here. If we let go of our fixation into the larger ground of open awareness, memories, thoughts, emotions that arise are not a problem just like seeing a flower and touching the keyboard is not a problem -- all just manifestation of intrinsic awareness.
Without fixation, naturally there is no compulsive thinking and labeling, and so there is a basic equanimity there, but still thoughts are allowed to arise as well just as hearing and seeing and tasting are embraced and allowed by awareness (but actually the act of seeing and tasting is itself awareness choicelessly manifesting, there is ultimately not even an 'allowing').
But one thing I should also point out is that... luminosity is always there. Always. Even when you are not paying attention. Pure awareness has never been lost at all in samsara and nothing is gained in nirvana. And contrary to what we might think... we cannot 'increase' awareness (nor decrease it). Awareness is always happening like it or not.... just that due to our pinpointed fixation we miss it all. As John Welwood says: "This larger awareness is self-existing: it cannot be fabricated or manufactured because it is always present, whether we notice it or not."
As written in the article http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2008/10/right-views-and-spiritual-practices.html,
Awareness or Buddha-Nature is not the same as focused attention or concentration. Awareness is effortlessly happening right now, whether you like it or not, and whether you are paying attention or not. When causes and conditions is, manifestation is, when manifestation is, Awareness is. Naturally, sounds are effortlessly being heard, smells are effortlessly being smelled, even if the smell or sound is unpleasant and you try to avoid it, it's being awared. While paying attention to the breath, something still hears sounds. That is Buddha-Nature. It is the sum of all our parts, that which sees, hears, feels and tastes all at once as One Reality. Before you think that this awareness is a 'thing' -- a Mirror or a Witness, it's not separate -- it's just sound hearing, scenery seeing, it's not a something tangible (a Mirror or a Witness) yet is vividly manifesting.
So as Toni Packer said, "There is no need for awareness to turn anywhere. It's here! Everything is here in awareness! When there is a waking up from fantasy, there is no one who does it. Awareness and the sound of a plane are here with no one in the middle trying to "do" them or bring them together. They are here together! The only thing that keeps things (and people) apart is the "me"-circuit with its separative thinking. When that is quiet, divisions do not exist."
Joan Tollifson ("student" of Toni), "This open being is not something to be practiced methodically. Toni points out that it takes no effort to hear the sounds in the room; it's all here. There's no "me" (and no problem) until thought comes in and says: "Am I doing it right? Is this 'Awareness'? Am I enlightened?" Suddenly the spaciousness is gone—the mind is occupied with a story and the emotions it generates."Hence, the ultimate practice is simply dropping into spontaneous arising... but to truly experience spontaneous arising requires some level of deep insight. But an essential factor is 'dropping' into vivid luminosity... and there are Six Stages of Dropping as delineated by Thusness.
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Originally posted by djhampa:
It is not so much that our presence pervade everything but rather everything gets to enter our awareness. This is the state of choicelessness. We don't engage with anything that flows into our awareness.
It is like standing on the street of orchard road watching people and vehicles going by but not having opinions or get attracted to or rejecting anything. What was generally thought of as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant etc. do not arise. There is basic peace and equanimity.
A state of no memory is the state where clarity arise.
Hi Djhampa,
Thanks for the contribution. There is no lack of clarity in whatever that is manifesting, simply forgo the self and be fully participating. :)
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
I like how A.H.Almaas describes it:
Only stillness is left—fresh, clear, crisp and empty. Thoughts pass through it. Emotions pass through it. Experiences pass through it. But the stillness stays immaculate, just as the clear sky stays untouched as the clouds pass through it.
The winds blow
The rivers flow
The fires gnaw
But stillness is still still.There is a feeling of lightness, of joy, of freedom. There is a sense of naturalness with a crystal kind of clarity, just as snow-covered mountains feel natural and clear. Awareness is no longer tense. It loses its attachment and active bent. It becomes more passive, like a receptacle. Everything comes to it. This is an important transition, for usually we exert a lot of effort to pay attention, and letting go and just being feels scary. I always thought before that I would miss seeing something if I did not actively look. But I saw that I only created strain this way, and also this active awareness is really more paranoia than anything else. When I let go, and trust that awareness is naturally there and I don’t have to make an effort, awareness becomes bigger, brighter, and easier. It’s like seeing everything, being aware of everything at the same time, effortlessly. It’s like a panoramic view, but not from above, nor from any direction. It’s like awareness is everywhere, and nothing is missed or overlooked. There is no concern or fear of missing something.
All kinds of experiences happen. Many new regions and spaces of the mind. Deep spaces, empty spaces, spacious spaces, soft spaces, dark spaces, light spaces, joyous spaces. The space itself, like stillness, becomes the object of awareness, and awareness goes deeper and deeper into it. Sometimes there is an uninterrupted space of stillness, or openness, without thoughts or feelings or any kind of content. It’s like a totally empty sky.
Hi AEN,Yes not to be fixated but also not to objectify the “spaciousness” otherwise “spaciousness” is no less fixated. The ‘space’ appears appealing only to a mind that abstracts but to a fully participating and involving mind, such “spaciousness” has immediately sets itself apart, distancing itself from inseparable. Emptiness is never a behind background but a fully partaking foreground manifesting as the arising and passing phenomena absence of a center. Therefore understand ‘spaciousness’ not like sky but like passing clouds and flowing water, manifesting whenever condition is. If ‘Emptiness’ has made us more fixated and immobilized this innate freedom of our non-dual luminosity, then it is ‘stubborn emptiness’.
Nevertheless, no matter what said, it is always inadequate. If we want to fully realize the inexpressible, be willing to give up all centers and point of references that manifests in the form of ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’. Just give up the entire sense of self then instantly all things are spontaneously perfected.
Just a sharing, nothing intense.
Happy New Year! :)
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Originally posted by Thusness:
Hi AEN,Yes not to be fixated but also not to objectify the “spaciousness” otherwise “spaciousness” is no less fixated. The ‘space’ appears appealing only to a mind that abstracts but to a fully participating and involving mind, such “spaciousness” has immediately sets itself apart, distancing itself from inseparable. Emptiness is never a behind background but a fully partaking foreground manifesting as the arising and passing phenomena absence of a center. Therefore understand ‘spaciousness’ not like sky but like passing clouds and flowing water, manifesting whenever condition is. If ‘Emptiness’ has made us more fixated and immobilized this innate freedom of our non-dual luminosity, then it is ‘stubborn emptiness’.
Nevertheless, no matter what said, it is always inadequate. If we want to fully realize the inexpressible, be willing to give up all centers and point of references that manifests in the form of ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’. Just give up the entire sense of self then instantly all things are spontaneously perfected.
Just a sharing, nothing intense.
Happy New Year! :)
I see.... thanks :)
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Originally posted by Thusness:
Hi AEN,Yes not to be fixated but also not to objectify the “spaciousness” otherwise “spaciousness” is no less fixated. The ‘space’ appears appealing only to a mind that abstracts but to a fully participating and involving mind, such “spaciousness” has immediately sets itself apart, distancing itself from inseparable. Emptiness is never a behind background but a fully partaking foreground manifesting as the arising and passing phenomena absence of a center. Therefore understand ‘spaciousness’ not like sky but like passing clouds and flowing water, manifesting whenever condition is. If ‘Emptiness’ has made us more fixated and immobilized this innate freedom of our non-dual luminosity, then it is ‘stubborn emptiness’.
Nevertheless, no matter what said, it is always inadequate. If we want to fully realize the inexpressible, be willing to give up all centers and point of references that manifests in the form of ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’. Just give up the entire sense of self then instantly all things are spontaneously perfected.
Just a sharing, nothing intense.
Happy New Year! :)
Hi Thusness,
"Just give up the entire sense of self then instantly all things are spontaneously perfected."
One may read this and think that there is something that can be given up, that there is a someone that can do the giving up.
It may not be realized that there is no one that can give up anything and that any trying to give up anything is just more fuel for the ego to continue it's non-existent charade.
So, it may be better to read this sentence as a description of what already is rather that an prescription of what might be (done).
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Originally posted by JonLS:
Hi Thusness,
"Just give up the entire sense of self then instantly all things are spontaneously perfected."
One may read this and think that there is something that can be given up, that there is a someone that can do the giving up.
It may not be realized that there is no one that can give up anything and that any trying to give up anything is just more fuel for the ego to continue it's non-existent charade.
So, it may be better to read this sentence as a description of what already is rather that an prescription of what might be (done).
Well said! -
Here's a video by Richard Lang (a student of Douglas Harding) on the pointing experiment, posted on their new group 'No-Facebook', http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=47263562769&oid=50199992422
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There's a difference between 'presence prevading everything' that Judith Blackstone, with 'everything entering our awareness'.
Yes definitely. You were suggesting that the our true nature is like "presence pervading everything". What I was saying was that our true nature is like a valley where all things flow to. It doesn't flow out or pervade anything. It is an undivided state of being. Upon focus our mind could arise from this pristine awareness.
First of all when we say awareness, what is awareness? The question of what Awareness really is has always been the fundamental of spiritual practice. Therefore insight into our pristine nature is most important.
When we have certain glimpses of the "I AM" or the "Eternal Witness" (see http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html), awareness seems to be the eternal witness/watcher or constant opening where things comes and go within that awareness but that constant background or witnessing awareness remains... unchanged, unmoved, without coming and going.
There are a lot of graphic description of awareness and its many attributes but I think the best description of what this is came from Buddha himself.
Once Buddha was asked what's the difference between concentration and awareness. He suggested a simple experiential exercise and i.e. to fill up a cup with water to the brim. Look at it intensely and then walk along the road and try not to spill the water. The mind applied at looking at the level of the water is concentration and as we walk along the road we also "notice" objects and things along the road. The objects noticed were not interpreted i.e. we know "something" is there but we don't know what it is. That is awareness.
The moment you know what it is you have already engaged with the sense objects. All manner of perceptual interpretation and emotive responses would then follow. Neuroscientists found that in order for memory to be created it needs to be able to pigeon-hole the sense impressions. This means prior to memory there must be a process of interpreting and storing. If we look out to the world with our awareness where can these memory hooks be created without any interpretation ?
Clarity is about seeing things clearly and not through the mind's eye of prejudices, pre-knowledge, historical conditioning, learning etc. True and direct clarity arise when it is unimpeded by all our perceptual, conceptual and emotive garbages.
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Just my own understanding... you or others might have a better understanding.
Letting go of our interpretation and go pre-symbolic, pre-conceptual into the direct experience of sensations, sights, smells, etc... is very important. At the same time 'remembering' and 'thinking' can be directly experienced -- not its labels but the direct experience. This happens when we let go of our fixation to our own concepts, interpretations, and submerge into the direct experience of this moment, pure, open, vivid. Submerge into that pure experience/pure awareness, whatever it is including remembering -- as Lama Surya Das wrote:
This is the heart teaching of Mahamudra, of Dzogchen, of Zen, of all the nondual teachings: Sustaining present awareness. Recognizing the Buddha-nature through the present moment, this very moment of awareness. If it's awareness taking the form of thinking, recognize the present awareness component of the thought. If you are remembering the past, recognize the present awareness component of the memory. You're not in the past. How could you be in the past? It is present awareness remembering. If you feel distracted when remembering, bring the mind back to the present awareness. You don't have to stop remembering. Recognize present awareness, which is remembering. If you are dreaming, fantasizing about the future, about what you are going to do when you leave here, how you are going to tell everybody how wonderful it was and how great Dzogchen view and meditation is, that's fine-recognize present awareness fantasizing, planning, dreaming. Recognize who or what is doing that present awareness. Know the knower; see through the seer; go beyond me and mine, and be free.
When we find ourselves distracted and lost in our thinking, remembering, fantacizing, worrying, and so on... there is no need to suppress them, which will not work because any attempts to stop or suppress them is still continuing the mechanism of reacting to experience and fixation to our experience... due to the illusion of an agent, a thinker, a doer, a controller. In truth thoughts arise without a thinker, it arises and subsides in its own accord. So we can just 'let go' into direct experience and 'let it be'. Whatever arises due to conditions eventually pass away.
So whatever arises is perfectly ok, and is just a manifestation of our true nature - what needs to happen is just an immediate 'shift' into the open, spacious Presence that embraces, permeates, and allows all thoughts and experience to arise by itself in its own accord but remains 'unaffected' -- it feels like there is an undercurrent of equanimity that does not grasp and chase after experiences. Like the sky that allows all clouds to float by, open awareness allows all thoughts and experiences to arise and subside by itself without grasping and reacting to them. It remains naked and pure amidst concepts and even in the concept which is itself a luminous-empty display. Yet not only is pure awareness space-like with no fixation, there is vivid clarity/awareness everywhere. The 'knowingness' that knows everything and is 'in' everything. This becomes 'noticed' when we gently relinquish our pinpointed fixation of thoughts and feelings into the larger ground of awareness.
You said: "Yes definitely. You were suggesting that the our true nature is like "presence pervading everything". What I was saying was that our true nature is like a valley where all things flow to. It doesn't flow out or pervade anything. It is an undivided state of being. Upon focus our mind could arise from this pristine awareness."
Presence does not "flow out", but it pervades everything because the everything is presence. All there is is presence.
When you look at a flower, without any thoughts and labels, what is it? What is that pure experience? Just a sheer presence itself.
As Thusness mentioned, even when we have this experience we might still mistake Awareness as an unchanging unmoving essence where impermanent things flow in and out. Therefore Non-Dual experience is not the same as the insight into Anatta. Therefore as Thusness said there are many degrees of nondual experience/insight.
When Anatta (No-Self) is realised, Awareness is realised to be Essenceless, Agentless, Dynamic/Verb-Like and Non-Dual.
No watcher needed, the process itself knows and rolls as Venerable Buddhaghosa writes in the Visuddhi Magga.
If we see awareness as the flow of phenomenality itself, we see the 'essenceless' and the 'dynamic' nature of awareness. There is no unchanging essence which things flows in and out of because the flow itself is it.
Hence, by 'verb-like', this is what is meant - Thich Nhat Hanh wrote:
"When we say I know the wind is blowing, we don't think that there is something blowing something else. "Wind' goes with 'blowing'. If there is no blowing, there is no wind. It is the same with knowing. Mind is the knower; the knower is mind. We are talking about knowing in relation to the wind. 'To know' is to know something. Knowing is inseparable from the wind. Wind and knowing are one. We can say, 'Wind,' and that is enough. The presence of wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the action of blowing'."
"..The most universal verb is the verb 'to be'': I am, you are, the mountain is, a river is. The verb 'to be' does not express the dynamic living state of the universe. To express that we must say 'become.' These two verbs can also be used as nouns: 'being", "becoming". But being what? Becoming what? 'Becoming' means 'evolving ceaselessly', and is as universal as the verb "to be." It is not possible to express the "being" of a phenomenon and its "becoming" as if the two were independent. In the case of wind, blowing is the being and the becoming...."
Maybe Thusness and Longchen can comment?
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It is indeed important to directly experience without the super-imposition of concepts on phenomena. Just not to mistake the path as the cause of clarity. It is like "counting breath" into focus attention, but 'counting' is not the cause of focus attention.
Therefore it is crucial to understand why anatta, impermanence and dependent orgination and how do all these teachings relate to the pristine and non-dual nature of awareness. Firmly established the views and the path of being 'bare' in attention or 'naked' in awareness or direct in perception will become clear.
Just a sharing.
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and fixation to our experience... due to the illusion of an agent, a thinker, a doer, a controller. In truth thoughts arise without a thinker, it arises and subsides in its own accord. So we can just 'let go' into direct experience and 'let it be'. Whatever arises due to conditions eventually pass away.
The false self is the sum total of all our conditioning, our experiences, our past life karma, learning, knowledge, emotions, values etc. We are indistinguishable from our thoughts, our feelings, our understanding, our memory etc. How to let go ?
The false self is so real that we can't imagine any other way or any other reality.
Thusness wrote :
It is indeed important to directly experience without the super-imposition of concepts on phenomena.
It is well to talk about dropping of concepts and "direct experience" will arise. But pristine awareness is not about having "direct experience" of the sense objects and phenomenon but rather a detachment from sense objects, feelings, perception and volition (the 4 skandha).
A totally aware person can have a lot of thoughts flowing by but the person will not be caught up by it.
How does one detach one's consciousness from all these skandhic objects ?
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An Eternal Now wrote :
This happens when we let go of our fixation to our own concepts, interpretations, and submerge into the direct experience of this moment, pure, open, vivid. Submerge into that pure experience/pure awareness, whatever it is including remembering
The pure awareness state is an undivided state....it encompasses everything without rejection nor acceptance. It is a state of total relaxation.It is an aware state not a trance-like state.
What do you think would be remembered ?
It is also the state where insight will arise. Memory and recollection impedes the arising of insights.
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Originally posted by djhampa:
The false self is the sum total of all our conditioning, our experiences, our past life karma, learning, knowledge, emotions, values etc. We are indistinguishable from our thoughts, our feelings, our understanding, our memory etc. How to let go ?
The false self is so real that we can't imagine any other way or any other reality.
Thusness wrote :
It is well to talk about dropping of concepts and "direct experience" will arise. But pristine awareness is not about having "direct experience" of the sense objects and phenomenon but rather a detachment from sense objects, feelings, perception and volition (the 4 skandha).
A totally aware person can have a lot of thoughts flowing by but the person will not be caught up by it.
How does one detach one's consciousness from all these skandhic objects ?
Hi djhampa,
Diect experience does not imply consciousness being detached from whatever arises. Experiences are "direct" because the common misunderstanding of an agent that can be attached or detached from whatever arises is thoroughly seen through; thefore nothing to divide to begin with, thus, direct. That is why it is an "insight" and it is this arising of anatta insight that leads a practitioner to direct seeing. Even the complete cessation of thoughts or perceptions do not make experience direct without the arising of this anatta insight.
Regardless of the path we take, whether by way of renunication in Theravada and Mahayana or Tantra path of transformation or direct path of Dzogchen and Mahamudra, they only differ in path due to differing capacities and conditons of practitioners, the views do not diviate from the dharma seals and dependent origination.
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Originally posted by djhampa:
The false self is the sum total of all our conditioning, our experiences, our past life karma, learning, knowledge, emotions, values etc. We are indistinguishable from our thoughts, our feelings, our understanding, our memory etc. How to let go ?
The false self is so real that we can't imagine any other way or any other reality.
Originally I wrote a long post but I have shortened it to a few points based on what Thusness said, which makes it much clearer. (but there are further posts next page)
In short: there is no false self nor true self, there is only 5 aggregates.
Do not think that that there is a problem in the five aggregates. There is no problem with the aggregates, the 'problem' lies only in the illusion that there is a self. The 5 aggregates when experienced without the agent (watcher, thinker, doer, etc) is a completely new dimension. They are the Buddha Nature. (see next page for references)
However, when experienced with a sense/illusion of self, whatever arises (all the aggregates and 18 dhatus) appears to be problematic. In truth there are no problems whatsoever, only the wrong understanding that self exist.
It should be noted furthermore, that even while the sense of self is present, there is still in truth no-self/perceiver apart from perceived. No-self is a dharma seal, an ever-present nature of reality.
On the most direct path, there is no one to let go and no-thing to be let go of and hence no 'how to let go'. Reality is 'letting go' at all moments. There is only what arises and subsides (self-liberates) every moment according to conditions, luminous-empty phenomena roll on with no one at the center that can seek nor distant himself (since there is no 'self') from the self-knowing transience.
However if we are unable to arise this insight and with the tendencies still strong, then we have no choice but resort to the gradual path of practice. Resorting to watching the arising and ceasing of the 5 aggregates as if there is a separate watcher but with the right view that there is no self apart from the aggregates. By practicing this way, insight into Anatta can still arise eventually.
But if the path consists of practice without the right view, almost without fail it will result in Advaita sort of experience.
p.s. for a long and concise description of the different 'levels' of the path (from witnessing, to transmutation and self-liberation, and more), you can refer to http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search/label/John%20Welwood