Awareness, what is it exactly?

You may – or may not – know about my fascination with words. I’m a word-nerd! ☺. I can easily read a dictionary for fun. And I often think of place names and their original meanings. (example: the suburb of 'Retreat', just outside Cape Town?)

I believe in the power of words, and also recognise the confusion words can bring. There are some things or experiences in life, especially in meditation, that are beyond single words, or simply beyond words altogether. However, I have experienced that there are many different ways to explain concepts, and sometimes it takes using just one little word with a different nuance for someone to have an “aha!’ moment.

An article I read the other day set me thinking about the word “awareness”. I had it rolling around on my tongue, and I felt it's one of those words that is used a lot, but can actually be quite vague.

We've practiced Awareness Meditation, but what is it exactly? Is awareness the same thing as consciousness?

The greatest minds in the world have tried to explain or solve the mystery of what consciousness and awareness is. Please don't think for a moment that I'm suggesting I'm going to solve the mystery here today ☺. But after some meditation, some thinking and some reading up on the concept of awareness, I'm simply sharing a few of my thoughts and experiences. See if or how this resonates with you:

Especially in metaphysical, meditation and yoga circles, the word comes up often. All the time, in fact. We hear about ‘raising’ our awareness, self-awareness, ‘moving into’ our awareness, conscious awareness, we ‘shift’ our awareness, there is ‘higher’ awareness (so there must be ‘lower’ awareness?) Are there levels of awareness? And if there is lower awareness, how do we actually ‘raise it’? What does it mean? Is it the same thing as Mindfulness? Is it the same thing as consciousness? Where does it sit? Where does it originate? How do we get it? Can we grow it? Can you show me how to become it?

Well, first of all, in Pali, Ancient Chinese and pre-Buddhist India, there wasn’t a word in their language that translates neatly into “awareness”. The word originally most used was “vijnana” which is sometimes translated as consciousness, sometimes as discernment. But equally it is translated as ‘sensing’ or ‘knowing’. The word “anupassi” was also sometimes used, which means ‘continuous seeing’.

Awareness is definitely not the same thing as Mindfulness, which is “sati” in Pali, “smrti” in Sanskirt and originally meant "to remember", "to recollect", "to bear in mind". It means knowing something, , being aware of knowing something and keeping your mind on it. That’s not awareness, although Mindfulness might be putting awareness into practice. Mindfulness is more than awareness. It’s “awareness plus”. So we need to go beyond mindfulness.

Awareness is not perception or being cognisant of something or sensitive to something. It is not consciousness. Consciousness is defined as "being in the state of awareness and responsive to one’s surroundings” so consciousness is also “awareness plus”. When we are conscious of a sensation, it means we notice the wind blowing on our arm, and we realise it is the wind, we are conscious of the sensation. We may even notice the direction of the wind, the temperature on the skin, and the fact that it's cold and we don't like it. If we hear a noise, we recognise the noise is a dog barking, we are conscious of this sound. We may notice where the sound is coming from, and we may dislike it.

Awareness is the space before consciousness. It is before we realise the sensation on our arm is the wind. It is before we recognise the sound is a dog. It is before sensation. Before emotion. Before responding. Before tagging or solidifying our experience into a positive, negative or neutral.

Awareness is consciousness without engagement. It is without thought. Without mind. Without me, without you, without separation.

If awareness engages, it is mental activity, then it becomes thought. Awareness is before thought. It’s the word we use to describe the vast, expansive space, the sensation we experience when we go beyond the “me”, when we disconnect from the ego, when we stop the self-concept getting in the way of our experience.

Awareness is not something you can learn. Or even need to learn, because we all have awareness ‘built in’. But sometimes it is necessary to be shown awareness.

It’s not something you can acquire through any kind of practice, although I believe we must practice meditation or use some kind of regular meditative practice to be able to tap into it habitually.

It is not something we can “get” by doing something or sitting in a certain way, although I believe we must sit quietly or quieten the mind and perform certain actions in order to tap into it.

I also think it's not possible to be completely "aware" (can we use the word "awake"?) in the meditation sense of the word without recognising that we - the whole world around us - is constructed through our sense of self. Our self-concept. And our sense of self is made up of aggregates, and of sense experiences through the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin (touch / body) and mind / mental objects.

Therefore everything we experience, become conscious of, is conditioned, dependently arises, is impermanent, subject to ending, and falls into 3 categories: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Which experiences are also impermanent, conditioned, subject to dependent arising and subject to ending.

Toni Packer (1927 – 2013) writes something very beautiful about awareness:

Awareness cannot be taught,

and when it is present it has no context.

All contexts are created by thought and are therefore corruptible by thought.

Awareness simply throws light on what is, without any separation whatsoever.

Awareness, insight, enlightenment, wholeness—whatever words one may pick to label what cannot be caught in words—is not the effect of a cause.

Activity does not destroy it and sitting does not create it.

It isn’t a product of anything—no technique, method, environment, tradition, posture, activity, or nonactivity can create it.

It is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed in all its grossness and subtleness and defused in the light of understanding.

Awareness is something we can easily spend a life-time thinking about and studying. For me, the recognition of (and immersing myself in practices that include) awareness, consciousness and mindfulness is like a medicine - for the mind as well as the body. And I'm so grateful that working with Meditation, yoga, mindfulness and Reiki allows me the luxury of time for this type of contemplation.

I would really enjoy receiving any thoughts or comments on this topic if you have time to contemplate it too!

Have a wonderful week!

_/\_