Awareness is a process, not a thing

I'm aware of typing on my laptop right now.

And after writing those words, I'm also aware that I'm aware of typing on my laptop. This second type of awareness is called meta-awareness, a term I came across in a book I'm reading, "Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body."

The authors, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, write:

When we did our first vipassana courses in India, we found ourselves immersed hour after hour in noting the comings and goings of our mind, cultivating stability by simply noticing rather than following where those thoughts, impulses, desires, or feelings would have us go. 

This intensive attention to the movements of our mind boils down to pure meta-awareness.

In meta-awareness it does not matter what we focus our attention on, but rather that we recognize awareness itself. Usually, what we perceive is a figure, with awareness in the background. Meta-awareness switches figure and ground in our perception, so awareness itself becomes foremost.

I consider this a deeply false way of looking upon awareness.

Goleman and Davidson appear to view awareness as a thing, rather than as a process. How else would it be possible for them to say, "we recognize awareness itself"? 

But awareness isn't a thing. It is part of what the mind does, and the mind is the brain in action. So how could awareness either be in the background or the foreground of consciousness, if awareness isn't a thing?

Further, the authors seemingly believe in what neuroscience rejects, that there is a "self" somewhere inside our head that looks out upon the world via the senses like a submarine commander looking through a periscope. 

I say this because of the phrase they use, "...we recognize awareness itself." Who the heck is "we"? It must be someone or something that is separate from awareness, because if it wasn't separate, recognizing awareness wouldn't be possible.

We can recognize objects in the world, or other people, because they aren't us.

But since awareness is closely akin to experience, if not identical with it, I find it difficult to conceive how anyone could be aware of awareness, or have an experience of experience. 

I suspect that Goleman and Davidson are fans of "pure awareness," though so far I haven't come across this term in their book. They do quote Sam Harris in their chapter on Attention, and Harris is a believer in pure awareness. I wrote about this in "Questions I had in Sam Harris' 'Waking Up' meditation chapter."

Talking about himself in meditation, he [Harris] writes:

There were periods during which all thought subsided, and any sense of having a body disappeared. What remained was a blissful expanse of conscious peace that had no reference point in any of the usual sensory channels. 

Many scientists and philosophers believe that consciousness is always tied to one of the five senses -- and that the idea of a "pure consciousness" apart from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching is a category error and a spiritual fantasy. I am confident that they are mistaken.

It's hard to believe this passage made it into Harris' book. I guess he didn't have a good editor. Or maybe any editor. It simply is non-sensical.

Sam, you have a Ph.D. in neuroscience. You also go to sleep every night. So you know about dreaming. We are conscious when we dream, but we don't have a "reference point in any of the usual sensory channels." 

So who are these scientists and philosophers who supposedly believe consciousness always is tied to one of the five senses? Methinks you made them up. Dreaming proves it isn't.

However, this talk of a "blissful expanse of conscious peace" is very different from "pure consciousness" -- unless that term simply means consciousness that isn't aware of, or paying attention to, external sensory inputs.

Obviously Harris' consciousness was impure in this sense: it contained various internal mental objects. Bliss, an expanse, and peace. Harris also had to feel separate enough from this internal feeling to be able to remember it. So some sense of "I" apart from the blissful expanse of conscious peace must have been present also.

Dualism is hard for us humans to give up when it comes to our own minds.

It feels like consciousness, or awareness, is something ethereal, clear, separate and distinct from matter, even "pure." But almost certainly that feeling is an illusion, since there is no evidence that awareness can exist apart from being aware of something.

Again, awareness is a mental process, not a thing. Alan Watts got this right way back in 1951, in one of my favorite books, "The Wisdom of Insecurity." Here Watts gets it exactly correct, in my opinion:

While you are watching this present experience, are you aware of someone watching it? Can you find, in addition to the experience itself, an experiencer? Can you, at the same time, read this sentence and think about yourself reading it? You will find that, to think about yourself reading it, you must for a brief time stop reading. 

The first experience is reading. The second experience is the thought, "I am reading." Can you find any thinker, who is thinking the thought, "I am reading?"

...When you were thinking, "I am reading this sentence" you were not reading it. In other words, in each present experience you were only aware of that experience. You were never aware of being aware. You were never able to separate the thinker from the thought, the knower from the known. All you ever found was a new thought, a new experience.

To be aware, then, is to be aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, and all other forms of experience. Never at any time are you aware of anything which is not experience, not a thought or feeling, but instead an experiencer, thinker, or feeler. If this is so, what makes us think that any such thing exists?

Great question.

Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson should have asked it of themselves before claiming that it is possible to "recognize awareness itself." Actually, this isn't possible, as Watts cogently points out.

Awareness always is aware of something, because awareness is a mental/brain process, not a thing. Awareness really is us, not something separate from us, since without awareness we don't exist as conscious beings. 

Comments

[Dungeness]

Awareness always is aware of something, because awareness is a mental/brain process, not a thing. Awareness really is us, not something separate from us, since without awareness we don't exist as conscious beings.

I'd agree except for the implicit given that we ("us") are
nothing more than our body's mental/brain activity. And that
any awareness exists only when we have a functioning brain.

It's the same cul de sac we smash our noses on considering
the origin of the universe. What came before the Big Bang?
How did a chance assemblage of atoms give rise to a living
breathing being that is aware in the first place? Someone
declared the probability as that of a gale blowing through
a junk yard to create a fully assembled 747.

Much of this I already posted but my immediate dissonace
with a brain-y explanation are the endless, uncanny cases
of those who are aware of a past life. I think there's
arguable evidence there's more to this than simply info
stored in the brain. One interesting study by researcher
Dr. Banerjee cites the case of a young girl in Russia who
suddenly begins to relate precise details, in Japanese no
less, of places and events occurring in Japan although she
had never been there. She was accompanied by Russian
researchers to the actual site and details of her story
were confirmed.

Even dismissing supernatural explanations, it's typical of
the many cases suggestive of a 'self' possessing awareness
outside the reach of a brain. There are literally hundreds
of similar cases. Were they all fake news? Machinations of
publicity seekers? Children coached by parents? Pure
coincidence on the order of the Big Bang?

Or looking scientifically, was a damaged/diseased brain to
blame? Did some unknown force permute the molecular reside
to create a new memory like the gale wind fabricating a 747.
Or did a long-deceased Japanese's brain particles traveling
via upper atmosphere winds make their way to Russia and waft
down targeting this particular child's brain. The Russian
Academy of Science actually did examine the girl's case and
theorized something remarkably similar.

Of course, the little girl had to be alive and well with a
brain to tell the tale. But maybe the supernaturalist has it
right: 'self' just has to use the crude instrument of brain
to communicate its awareness to the challenged.

[Jen]

I love Zen thinking...

"When our awareness is aware of itself, when it is undisturbed by mind, our true self emerges. This is our bliss.

Beyond all of your senses, including your mind, is the clarity of your true nature — your awareness itself. It is an infinite space of emptiness — where anything is possible. We all have it, and it is where our true self is found.

It is a place of non-judgement and discrimination. It is effortless. It is an essence of absolute and unparalleled contentment. It is not a state of being, it IS our being, and it defines love, peace and happiness in such a way that nothing else could possibly compare."

[Jim Sutherland]

In order to untangle the confusion, we must not mingle different Terms to mean the same.

Awareness IS Consciousness. But what, or who, is aware?

Spirit is unconscious, i.e. dormant until IT descends from Anami to become aware of Consciousness in Sach Khand.

If what Charan said is correct,...”souls recognise other souls in Sach Khand”,.....then Duality must take place in Sach Khand, splitting from Non-Duality. But only Awareness occurrs there, not Consciousness.

To obtain individual Consciousness, in Duality, than spirit must descend further in to Brahmand where Universal Mind creates from.

Then, further individuiation occurs further, and deeper in to Non-Duality as individual Units of Mind, become knotted spirit/soul/mind, to become Agents of Universal Mind, and occupants of Charausi, i.e. The Wheel of 84..

Now,.....the question is,...How do we find our Way out of here?

What is here? What is there?

What has been our Mission here? Have we been successful?

If we find our Way back there, what will be our Mission there? Tp escape there, to return here?

Its a Spiritual/ Material Conundrum.

Who has the Answer to the Riddle?

[vinny]

Awareness is the entity that remains after stilling the mind. A simple experiment to prove stilling of mind. Hold the breath for 15 seconds, mind becomes still and awareness is experienced.
Awareness of what? Of breath held and stilling of the mind. This awareness is Shabd/Atomic energy.
Question is Why atheists hate awareness because it busts their bluff of atheism and it directly empowers common man. Busts What - "Bluff".

[Spencer Tepper]

Jenn quoted

"When our awareness is aware of itself, when it is undisturbed by mind, our true self emerges. This is our bliss.

Beyond all of your senses, including your mind, is the clarity of your true nature — your awareness itself. It is an infinite space of emptiness — where anything is possible. We all have it, and it is where our true self is found.

It is a place of non-judgement and discrimination. It is effortless. It is an essence of absolute and unparalleled contentment. It is not a state of being, it IS our being, and it defines love, peace and happiness in such a way that nothing else could possibly compare."

So true!

It is absolutely not mundane, but ascending above mundane, there it is.

Brian, I think your references to neural sciences needs some clarification. There is no identifiable center in the brain that is the seat of consciousness.

The brain is a web of interacting stimuli that supplies its sum product as a network, as though supplied to a missing center. One that can't be located in the physical brain. The brain is like a net, but what it holds can't be found in the physical world.

[Spencer Tepper]

When the mind is very still,it experiences different things.
The mind at rest generates more creative solutions than the mind hyper stimulated.

Less stimulation = greater awareness, greater thinking.

When next those thoughts are gently released, then there is another level of awareness, bliss.

Less sensory stimulation, less thinking, more awareness of something else, expansive, wonderful.

[tucson]

"But awareness isn't a thing. It is part of what the mind does,"

-- To me, it is the opposite. Brain/mind is what awareness does.

[vinny]

When we visit interesting place, we feel peace and joy because the thinking mind becomes still due to ambiance of a place. That is awareness.

[777]

Fuzzy Logic

The better understand
read
Patanjali : Yoga Sutras

4 aspects of the mind

Sat
Chit(ta)
Buddhi
Ahankar ( proud ) <<< is the worst

The translation of Christoffer Isherwood is excellent perhaps in ebook

777

[Arjuna]

No one has a clue what they are on about on this post lol

[777]

I am a collective of souls. I am all their hopes, all their dreams. I am both their greatest disappointment and most cherished possession. I am everyone and everything. Or at least it used to feel as if I had to be.

I am. Whatever that means. Whatever that is. I don’t know.

Once I was a daughter. Once I was a friend. Maybe even an enemy. Once I was a lover. Once I was comfort. Once I was anger. Once I was an inspiration. Once I was nothing. Once I was all. And now I am. I am less and I am more.

And who am I?

Oh, I am so many. I am everyone’s projections of feelings and dreams. I am an illusion, a mirage. I am no more than a good looking magic trick. I am smoke and mirrors. I am whatever it is they need me to be. And to me I just am. To me, I am enough, whatever it is that I am... a fool, a poetess, a simple human being.

From Beatrice Eszmer

77

[Sita]

777
That is a nice poem.

[Frankie]

What is attention? Is it related to awareness?

[Spencer Tepper]

Attention is your only wealth.
You give it away moment by moment.
You can choose what to invest it in, but you spend it nevertheless.
And there is a pull date, a deadline.
It Is a limited resource.

[Frankie]

Thanks :-)