You are awareness?

General Discussion
1

http://www.zenthinking.net/blog/beyond-mind-to-no-mind-living-in-pure-awareness-only https://www.consciousnessitself.org/awareness-itself-never-changes

Because it seems to me that we are the body or rather a body that produces such a state and it affected my a myraid of other things around it. All the arguments for that case sound more like poetry than anything else.

 

This is what my conversation amounted to with him:

"All there is, is awareness. There is nothing else. Everything that I see, sense, feel, perceive and think, happens in awareness, as awareness.

That tree over there, blowing in the wind? It too is nothing but “an image” arising within awareness. Even if I reach out and touch it, that “touching-ness” is nothing but a phenomenal appearance arising within the otherwise empty awareness that I truly am.

“You" appear to “me” within awareness as nothing but a “movement” within awareness. Once that appearance disappears out of this present-moment-knowingness that I am, “you” remain as nothing but a concept within memory, which is no longer “real". Memory is imagination. Imagination is mind. And mind is not reality.

This awareness that I am, that permeates every single moment of my beingness, is all there is. Awareness is all I have ever known and is all that I am. All else is a story appearing within awareness.

The body is an experience, as is the mind. I experience the body. The body does not experience me. I experience the mind. The mind does not experience me. So, who am I? I am only this aware-knowingness that gives sentience and recognition and knowingness to all that is felt, sensed, thought and perceived.

All “things" pass through me, not to me.

I’ll leave it at that. I have no desire to convince you of seeing beyond your firmly-rooted viewpoint.

All words are false, including my own.

Just be.

Peace."

"“Awareness… is made by the brain and it is altered based on what happens to the body.”

That, my friend, is nothing but a concept, just like everything you have expressed to me. That, however, doesn’t mean that it’s not “real” to you, it’s just not true. What you speak of is not a direct experience, it is assumed. In fact, there is no experience ever of "the body creating awareness”.

Shift your immediate attention from the mind’s thoughts to “presence" itself and you will at once realize the silence that is the core essence of your true nature.

Whatever you have read, learned or have been taught is nothing but a story. And, after all, how can any story help with being content within myself, as nothing other than myself? The only peace there is, is the peace of simply BEING. Not being “this”, or not being “that”, just pure simple beingness.

Let go of your attachment to acquired “knowledge". This isn’t to say it’s not useful in day to day life, but it has no relevance to who you truly are.

Release your hold upon whatever stories you have created for yourself, about yourself. No experience is “true", all are biased by the tainted duality and subjectivity of the “perceiver”. And, “the perceiver” of course is nothing but another concept, a story the mind has created about it being a “personal” self.

There is nothing personal happening anywhere whatsoever. All is as it is, a stream of phenomenal “appearances” arising in awareness, as awareness.

Let it all go. Rest effortlessly in the silence of your untainted Self, empty of the mind.

Your present view seems to be very nihilistic. I can assure you that if you release your hold upon the concepts that you have become preoccupied with, you will find relief in inner silence. Ultimately, any view is the wrong view. No belief is true. Let it all go.

Peace."

2

It’s been my observation that those who promote ideas like “you are awareness” tend to be rather dismissive of the role that their bodies play in who we are as persons. When they’re in a dreamless sleep and not aware of anything, do they cease to exist? Obviously not. Are their arms or legs no longer part of them? Of course they are.

Most of what identifies us as persons has to do with our bodies, from the color of our eyes and hair, all the way down to our DNA, and if it were to all suddenly disappear, what evidence would there be that a person exists? Nothing. On the other hand, one of the prime indicators of the death of a person is brain death, and without a brain, there is no awareness. We also don’t fully understand the mechanics of consciousness. So perhaps there’s more to consider here than meets the eye.

3

There is a Zen koan that goes something like this: Two students are watching a flag fluttering in the breeze and arguing about it. One says the it’s the flag moving, the other says that it’s the wind moving. A master strolls past and says neither. “Your mind is moving.”

From what I understand, Zen is all about mindfulness, that is not moving around “on automatic” the way most people do, but really be aware of yourself at all times. As with a lot of philosophy, it’s not so much a case of “what is really happening” as being a useful way to think of it.

4

I mean the mind doesn’t move though, and in the case of the students they are both correct.

And even from the sense of mindfullness you are technically on automatic. If you don’t think free will exists then it is true. There are also many bodily processes that happen without us knowing or doing anything, and a lot that happens below consciousness. In fact what we call awareness is really just memory, but it doesn’t appear that way to us.

These philosophies were written many years ago, so I think they might change if they knew what we knew today. I mean the guy I was talking to called the brain being the source of consciousness a “concept” or a story we tell, even though there is tons of evidence to back it up.