awareness

Reflections on awareness. What is awareness ? Is it mindfulness ? Is it knowledge ? A kind of light ?

Awareness is not consciousness . Rather it is attentiveness, a deliberate attentivness in which we become aware of things. We notice them before they will take name and place in our consciousness. There they will be finally forgotten and drift into the subconscious. Awareness is a light that shines on phenomena, on things, before we label them. Consciousness is just a reflection in the light of awareness. This light is the medium in which everything exists, even darkness. If not sleeping we are aware in the same way as we are undoubtedly wet while being in water. Being aware of awareness we can direct and channel it. The very nature of everything material, mental, as well as feelings, hopes and desires, become apparent, visible in this light. Awareness exists as a kind of Knowing, it is always there. We are part of it, it is in us.

We ignore this by constantly fixing everything, the mental, the spiriual, the fleeting to something graspable, under- standable. Recognizing that we exist in this light-like non-classifying awareness is enlightenment. Originally, we are not fixated on any object, which is after all merely a reflection of awareness. This is the meaning of living without attachment.

If you take this empty awareness, open and carefree,

as the path, all the time,

during formal practice and afterwards,

you will quickly and surely acquire a confident realization

that confusion is freed by itself. ( Dilgo Kyentse Rimpoche )