Further Conversations about the Simple Animal
Friend One – “This will be a great exercise for you to bang your head against the wall until you figure out exactly why you posted this.”
Brant – Actually while I was writing, I felt that there was no reason to make this post. I feel like that every day, that there are no reasons for the things that I do. A couple of years ago I conducted an experiment to see what would happen if I no longer tried to push my agenda forward. Would my life fall apart? How far could I go in stopping the pushing? What I found felt really strange at the time. I appeared to be stopping but the stopping didn’t translate to the action. There appeared to be a Brant running on autopilot. So I speculated, if I wasn’t stopping when I intended to what was going on? That was one of the most amazing recognitions at that time.
Friend One – “Keep in mind that the ones you that you speak of are in fact you.”
Brant – That is the popular opinion among the guru’s of the day. Well, yes they are likely right since there is apparently nothing but awareness. It follows that everything is awareness.
Friend Two – That’s actually a really good experiment, and one that I also did. The doing actually happens by itself, which can’t be noticed when the doer is overlaid on top of that spontaneous activity, either in the form of trying to do something or trying to not do something. As you imply, it has to be an absence of trying. It’s worth pursuing what the implications of that are, which is not to be seen as pointless thinking, but maybe the clarity that ‘informs’ mind of it’s imagined doer-ship.
Friend One – When you say that everything is awareness, do you know that or is this a new belief that you have adopted? Curious how you think that could be true.
Brant – I take the question to be, how do I reconcile what I sense about awareness with actual experience? Let’s see if I can spit this out and make sense at the same time. OK, we appear to sense a world; energy and particle, but also a body and mind included in that world. We sense events happening which are part of the world, but also appears to include the body – mind. But… not to include the awareness. That so-called awareness seems to be what “I am”.
So can the awareness be objective? As in “an object”. If this “I” were objective, there would be something else that is awareness observing the “I”. Sensations in the body – mind, cannot be the “I”, because the “I”, is observing both. So, it seems that the “I” must be presence, or that which we call awareness. Now it seems that awareness cannot be limited. Objects have limits. But there seems to be very little limit to awareness, it appears to be continuous. Limited only by environmental factors. I seem not to know what is happening in China for example.
The concept of a limited “I” seems to be only a belief, idea or concept. That, at least is our experience. But, it still feels personal. This appears to happen because “I”, intimately attaches to the idea of personal. My body, my home & family, my toys. A nice experiment is to sit and listen to sounds. If we listen to a sound that appears in the distance, and also a sound that appears to be very close to our body, we can eventually see that those two sounds are indeed the same exact distance from awareness. Our perception that they are at different distances seems to be only an idea based upon our training, limited sensory – brain functionality and environmental reinforcement.
So, when I say that awareness appears to be the one constant, it is due to the fact that all other possibilities fail to hold up as that constant. The rest all evaporates eventually.
Friend Two – I’d say that’s pretty good stuff. The only part I have trouble with is this: Aside from saying it can’t be limited, then going on to describe it’s limits, it seems you’re confusing awareness with the content of awareness. Awareness itself has no boundaries, just the content, which is typically referred to as consciousness. The content of consciousness changes and consciousness itself comes and goes from that individuated perspective, but awareness never comes or goes or changes, and so has no boundaries of any kind. Awareness is the ‘screen’ on which all of that appears, or not. Even in deep sleep awareness is present , there just isn’t any content to be ‘aware of’. Likewise, before birth and after death, awareness is present. I know this because I don’t know that awareness can be absent. Where would that without boundaries go?
Brant – There seems to be a disconnect in communications here that we experienced in past discussions. Either I am not making this clear or maybe you are misunderstanding. As I have said in several posts, I know nothing. If you look at the phrasing of my comments, I use words like “seems to be” and “appears to be”. What I am doing is saying that this seems to be happening, but I cannot say for certain because I also see the limitations in this body-mind’s senses and brain functions.
I see the inherent limitations involved and can only say that although something seems to be happening (constant awareness), I cannot prove it beyond doubt. I too have heard others talk of this difference between consciousness and awareness. I understand thoroughly the distinctions involved between awareness and duality on an intellectual level. But that is not “seeing”. I cannot say what you are saying as it is not something that I have intimate seeing of which passes the falseness test.
Except, that there appears to be a constant awareness. Now what the limits of that awareness might be I cannot say since I don’t have a method of determining that. But there does seem to be a limitation and that may be the body-mind itself. Again I do not know this for a fact, It is only speculation. To me there is little point in such speculation other that for the fun of a good dialogue.
You seem to be saying that you are certain that awareness itself has no boundaries, just the content, consciousness does. I think we can agree that it appears that way, but how you can say that this is certain I don’t know. If you do indeed see this beyond doubt then I am very thankful. However again, I cannot say this myself so I must qualify what appears to be happening by saying it could be something else.
I can only say, yes it appears to be so just as you say, but I cannot say that with any measure of certainty.
