Training in Compassion 3: Examine the Nature of Awareness

The first training in compassion is: Remember the 4 Basics (this life is precious; we’re going to die; actions matter; and everyone suffers). The second was See Everything As a Dream. Today we ask: Who knows this?

Who is aware of this? Who is hearing these words right now? We think we know: "Me! I'm hearing these words. I'm aware of the fact that everything is like a dream – thought maybe I’m a little skeptical of that.” Nothing could be more obvious than this. But have you really examined it?

Let me suggest an experiment in awareness. Find that “me.” Find a definite, concrete, identifiable somebody there within your awareness. You can find plenty of thoughts and emotions, sensations, opinions, sense experiences, but I think it's very difficult to find an I.

Imagine that suddenly, for no reason, your mind were to become very, very quiet and there were only a sound, maybe the sound of silence or the sound of wind or water or machinery, and simply a feeling of presence, and there is nobody complaining and there are no stories going on in your mind. There is only awareness. In such a moment there isn't anybody there to congratulate you for it. As soon as there seems to be someone to notice or congratulate, the experience passes and the inner dialog resumes.

We have a word in our language -- consciousness -- but no one knows what this word means. It's a word that simply covers over our confusion. So examine the nature of awareness.The sense of "me" emerges somehow from thoughts and emotions, but it itself cannot be seen or measured. It both exists and does not exist at the same time.

In the previous slogan, “See everything as a dream,” we looked outward, at our perception of the world. With this slogan we look inward -- we look at the looking itself. What is awareness and how does it arise? What does it mean to perceive a world?

Examine awareness itself. What do you see? And where does that seeing come from? Over and over look at your own mind, and then look again.

These two practices – “see everything as a dream” and “examine the nature of awareness” -- undermine our attempts to establish inner and outer solidity, and liberate the energy we invest in that pursuit.

Keep questioning awareness. What is it exactly and where does it come from?

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More detail on this spiritual practice is in this longer version here.