Consciousness Revisited

A postscript to my previous article

I’ve made some revisions to the online version of my last article in order to hopefully clarify some of what I was saying. Chris Niebauer’s FB comment ("The question itself is flawed, no thing is conscious. Consciousness gives the impression of things”), which triggered a visceral shift here, was not a new idea or a new felt-actuality here. I'd heard and read words to that effect many times before. I'd probably written them as well. But for whatever reason, hearing them in that moment, something shifted. I’m sure everyone has had this kind of experience, where you read or hear something you’ve read or heard many times before, and suddenly it lands in a whole new or much deeper way and something opens up or clarifies.

The question of whether consciousness is fundamental interests me only in terms of how it changes the way we see and experience life. The materialist conceptual framework, which pervades Western culture, seems to promote dualism, while the Consciousness only perspective seems to (experientially) dissolve it.

But discussing and debating the primacy of consciousness or which comes first, mind or matter, can slide easily into mere metaphysical/philosophical speculation, which—like the Buddha—I view as a waste of time.

In that regard I’d like to share this passage from p 190 of my second book Awake in the Heartland:

Studying Feldenkrais, along with reading more about the brain and neuroscience, makes me wonder if thought is as much the operative factor as I have been assuming it is. Feldenkrais assumes it is not. Obviously, thought has great compelling power when believed. But I’m increasingly discovering how much of life happens outside conscious awareness, and how thought may be more like after-thought than anything causative. I wonder now if insight into thought is as essential or as central to waking up as I have believed it to be. I’m also increasingly “aware” of how many different ways the words “consciousness” and “awareness” get used, perhaps because no one is really at all sure what they mean or what they are! They may turn out to be something like “ether” in the old science!

Toni [Packer] responds: “Yes, yes, ‘consciousness’ and ‘awareness’ are like the ether of old science—wonderful metaphor. In that case, all concepts are, aren’t they?”

—Awake in the Heartland (bold type added to text above for emphasis)

Back in 2017, I wrote an article on my website called Consciousness, Awareness, Presence, Here-Now, Attention. These are a few excerpts from it:

First, it’s important to note that these are all words. There is really no such “thing” as consciousness or awareness or presence or Here-Now or attention. The referents are unfindable as any kind of graspable object(s), and yet, these words point to undoubtable actualities…

These words get used in different ways by different teachers, and even by the same person in different moments, and this can lead to much confusion. We may be talking about the same thing using different words, or we may be seeing things differently…

And remember—and this is critical, there is no such “thing” as awareness or consciousness or presence or attention or Here-Now. These are words, labels, conceptual abstractions that we use to point out certain aspects of the (actually undivided, seamless) living reality. What such words point to is not a concept, but once we start talking about this living reality and using words, it’s important not to mistake the pointers (the words or the maps) for the territory and the different aspects of the territory that they help us to notice. There is no actual boundary between consciousness and awareness, or between self and not-self, or between inside and outside. No such “things” actually exist…

Scientific and metaphysical ideas are both super-imposed on life itself by thought. Maybe we don't need to land on either side of these conceptual divides. Maybe we can live in the groundlessness of not knowing…

Liberation is the seeing through and falling away of imaginary problems (flat-earth problems, based on a false understanding of how reality is). Liberation is a relaxing of the grasping mind, letting go of beliefs, opening into groundlessness, and above all, simply being what you cannot not be: Here-Now, aware presence, present experiencing. If you’re looking for this, you are believing the thought that "this isn't it," and that "you" exist apart from this undivided unicity and somehow need to "get it," and that "it" is some thing or some particular experience other than the present experience, which has already vanished as quickly as it arrived. Reality is no thing and no way in particular. It is all-inclusive. It's right here showing up as the taste of tea, the sound of traffic, the knowingness of being present and aware—just this!

Don’t be confused or mystified by words and ideas. Simply be what you cannot not be, what is here before all the explanations and formulations, and what remains even in deep sleep and when the whole universe is destroyed. And if you're looking for that, relax! You are that! We overlook the utter simplicity of this by trying to get into some special state of presence, or trying to have some flashy enlightenment experience, or trying to get rid of the self, or trying to identify as boundless awareness and not as a body or person. But all of that arises from the sense of being a separate, deficient self who needs something better or different to happen. Just be Here-Now—hearing the traffic, smelling the coffee, breathing, thinking, sensing, awaring—simple, simple, simple. And we don't need to call it anything. All the words can fall away. They serve their purpose, and then, let them go.

—from Consciousness, Awareness, Presence, Here-Now, Attention

There are any number of teachers who either don’t talk about consciousness or awareness at all, or at least not as the ground of being, and/or who point to not trying to grasp reality with any concept or belief. Consider:

Kevin Schanilec (Simply the Seen)

Darryl Bailey

Toni Packer, Barry Magid, Tony Parsons, Jim Newman, Robert Saltzman, Steve Hagen…and there are many more.

What I feel is transformative is realizing the indivisible wholeness and the no-thing-ness or nonsubstantiality of everything, and the illusory nature of the self that seems to be authoring our thoughts and living our lives, however this realization gets conceptualized or formulated.

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Love to all…