Where exactly is our Awareness situated?

Mindfulness or sati in sanskrit (awareness) is only one sutra (thread) in the ancient writings, or one thread of many that runs through the tapestry of establishing any meditation practice.

There are many establishments, factors, faculties that play an important part in any meditation practice, and to practice only one element of the whole will result in a lop-sided or distorted practice.

It is important to remember that mindfulness-only practice, i.e. being aware of ourselves, our breath, thoughts, body, etc., alone is not balanced. Recent studies of western yoga and meditation students are indicating that concentrating on ourselves in this way may result in the strengthening of ego, which is completely contrary to the practice, perhaps creating more problems than solving.

A balanced mindfulness / meditation practice should include not only observation, samadhi (noticing, stillness of mind/concentration) but also samatha (tranquility), panna (wisdom), and metta (loving kindness), together with a good understanding of the concept of compassion and anatta (not-self), as well as many other factors. The ultimate goal is vipassana (insight), into ourselves, so that we don't live an unconscious, autopilot life, a life without contemplation, creating suffering for ourselves and others.

One of the biggest obstacles to insight is our own ego. The thing which compares, judges, keeps wanting, grabbing, keeping us locked in and endless cycle of ups and downs, fears, anxieties, striving, hurting, reacting.

Through the process of mindfulness, we slowly become aware of what we really are underneath this ego. We wake up to what life really is, that it has a much richer texture if we notice life the right way.

As we become more and more accustomed to noticing, something starts to change: at first, our mind is very busy, thinking, remembering, planning, worrying, getting annoyed at not being able to sit still, etc. At this stage our attention or focus on the breath is maybe about 10%. In other words, we have shifted 10% of our energy from our mind to observing our Self.

This technique, which is also known as mindfulness in the west, is the skill of observing Self, our sensory experiences (breath, body, thoughts, physical sensations etc) in a neutral way, without reacting. It's the skill of watching your own mind’s activity from a slight distance, as if from the perspective of another person. The result is a calmer mind, equanimity - and potentially incredible personal growth.

As we progress along this path of developing the skill of mindfulness through meditation, we notice our concentration becomes sharper, stronger and easier to maintain, and we soon experience 50% of our energy directed towards observing, so 50% is now mind. At some moment in time, we will arrive at our concentration being so strong that our concentration is 90% and our mind is now only 10%. And, inevitably, eventually, a time will come when our entire mind is observing and becomes 100% observer.

What then?

When there is no more activity of mind left to observe, and only the observer is concentrating, only the observer is left, there is nothing else to do but observe the observer.

“What else to do?” as Krishnamurti says.

And it’s at this point that many people get stuck in their meditation, never moving past the point of sitting in meditation and placing their concentration on the awareness, noticing their mental, emotional and physical sensations, noticing their meditation is good, not so good, progressing, neutral, boring.... whatever the case may be. But still there is ego involved in this action. Because we still believe we are the person doing the meditation. It's still the Self.

Taking one further step, we need to place ourselves outside of or transcend the concept that we are “a person who is doing a meditation” and become the activity of meditating rather than being the meditator. We become the Observer observing the Self.

What do I mean by that?

Well, when we look at the 90% mind, 10% concentration, it means we sit in meditation, concentrating on awareness of our mind, breath, etc., but our concentration is sometimes yanked away by our monkey mind. Mind interrupts our meditation: we suddenly remember something we have forgotten to do, or we have something important on our to-do list for later and we start planning, worrying, etc. This is our “ego” at play.

Then we move towards a smoother meditation, with more concentration and less mind. We observe our Self and are aware of watching our Self, our ego, watching our mind moving, noticing sounds but not being distracted, and we usually have a sense of how our meditation is going - quite well, not too much distraction, not too well, feeling frustrated, whatever the situation is.

When we reach the point of 100% observer, and we begin to observe the observer, untangling ourselves from the idea that we are the meditator, or the observer is insides us, that things really begin to shift. It is then that we can begin to notice things in a very different way. To do this untangling, we have to move beyond placing our awareness inside ourselves and become the activity.

Usually, when we meditate on awareness, becoming aware of our observing, we place this awareness somewhere inside our body. Usually somewhere inside our head. Which is natural, because sounds, smells, taste, visual sensations all arrive in our mind through our head (ears, nose, eyes, tongue, etc.)

To move beyond this , to untangle our awareness from our Self, we need to move away from the illusion that awareness, the Knower, the Seer is inside us. We become the Knower that Knows himself, the Seer who sees himself.

I use Krishnamurti’s words but it describes a universal experience. It makes no difference whether someone calls it Awakening or Samadhi, Satori or Nirvana, enlightenment or something else. It’s an expression of something eternal.

(Soon to come: Notes on the meditation itself)