I'm pretty sure Sam Harris' "pure awareness" doesn't exist

As much as I like Sam Harris' approach to meditation, which basically is Buddhism (Vipassana variety) minus the Buddhist part, I'm still left with a key question.

Which if asked of a Zen master likely would earn me a smack on my head or kick of my butt -- or more mildly, a quizzical look and an admonition to return to my meditation mat and seek more diligently for the true nature of my self.

That self, of course, doesn't really exist in Buddhism, nor in Sam Harris' guided meditations on his Waking Up app.

So whoever it is who has this question about meditation isn't an enduring standalone Soul or Self with a capital "S." That who is something else. Which means my question might be unanswerable, since an answer seemingly would have to come from an entity that doesn't exist.

Confusing? Absolutely. So let's leave those thoughts behind and focus on the question.

Who or what is aware of the contents of my consciousness?

Harris, echoing the Buddhist notion of emptiness, that everything in existence is dependent on causes and conditions existing in a vast web of interdependency, likes to say that everything in a human mind is a modification of consciousness.

This includes the idea, everything in a human mind is a modification of consciousness.

Or, the feeling of being a self that has such an idea. No matter where you turn in the mind, no matter what elevated sensation of this'ness or that'ness that makes you think, ah, unvarnished truth, it's all just a modification of consciousness in Harris' view.

OK.

This assumes a dualism that sort of bothers me, since we have (1) consciousness and (2) contents of consciousness, even though I'm not aware of ever being purely consciousness, and can't imagine what this would be like or how one would know they were pure consciousness since Harris says that consciousness isn't something we possess but what we are.

Nonetheless, in his Waking Up book Harris claims to have attained a state of pure consciousness without any content during a lengthy meditation retreat.

But his consciousness must at least have contained the sensation, or memory, or perception, or something that allowed him to conclude that he experienced consciousness without any content. In other words, at minimum Harris' consciousness must have included the content of I'm not experiencing any content.

Which returns me to my question.

I doubt there is such a thing as pure awareness, or pure consciousness. Anyone who claims to have experienced such a state, including Sam Harris, almost certainly is mistaking a feeling or thought of pure awareness for the actual thing. 

So my attitude is that one part of my conscious brain is aware of other parts of my conscious brain, which could include a sensation of Wow, I'm experiencing pure awareness! My meditation rocks!

This leaves mindfulness as an activity, or ability, to be aware of the contents of consciousness, with mindfulness being part of those contents. Thus Harris is on the right track when he says that mindfulness practice leads us to see that the contents of consciousness are constantly shifting and changing within our mind.

Where I disagree with him is his assumption that somehow we are clear pure consciousness. This is at odds with modern neuroscience, as I wrote about in Brain's "dark energy" casts doubt on pure awareness. 

I wrote about my problem with Harris' claim of pure awareness in this post. What I said in 2016 still makes sense to me now.

But as I said in the previous post, I can't grasp what Harris is getting at when he writes about what he experienced while meditating:

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.

Hmmmm. I'm just as confident that they are not mistaken.  It seems obvious that everyday consciousness isn't limited to sense experiences. Dreaming is a conscious act. It doesn't involve seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching via the five senses. 

Likewise, I can believe that in a state of deep meditation, Sam Harris did indeed lose any sense of having a body, and wasn't thinking in any ordinary sense. But Harris was still conscious of something, right? He speaks of this as "a blissful expanse of conscious peace." 

That doesn't sound like "pure consciousness." It sounds like consciousness of a blissful expanse of conscious peace. No thought. No sensory impressions. But there were contents within Harris' consciousness: bliss, an expanse, peace.

Harris appears to view consciousness as something separate and distinct from what the brain does. Yet Harris makes clear that brains are us. For example:

We know, of course, that human minds are the product of human brains. There is simply no question that your ability to decode and understand this sentence depends upon neurophysiological events taking place inside your head at this moment. But most of this mental work occurs entirely in the dark, and it is a mystery why any part of the process should be attended by consciousness.

This passage makes good sense. Aside from the final part of the last sentence. 

Harris sees a mystery where there doesn't have to be one. He distinguishes between (1) brain processes and (2) consciousness. But if consciousness is a product of the human brain, not something separate and distinct from the brain, then consciousness is part of what the brain does.

Consciousness is a brain process.

Comments

[Ron E.]

One could (and does) get really bogged down in all this consciousness, non-thinking, no-self stuff. I often wonder if it's all a spin-of from the fact that we think (and overthink) our way into numerous mental dead ends and perhaps create problems that don't exist in reality. But of course, questions are bound to arise for us as we ponder and question what on Earth is going on and who/what am 'I'?

I guess I'm actually somewhat skeptical of the whole questioning/seeking process. Not in the sense of asking technical questions that could lead to improved living conditions or accepting one another's differences, but those never-ending questions that basically revolve around the egocentric search for a 'me' that is better and more 'me' than I actually am.

We're very wedded to the idea of 'there must be something else', something more to me (or life) that if only I could find it I would be free and happy. Hence the search for teachers, for various spiritual and meditation systems and so on.

Maybe all that is needed is a realisation that this is it, this, that is me and everything, is all there ever is. Perhaps just to naturally notice the perpetual patterns of thought is, without resort to some promising system, just plain old meditation.

[Todd Chambers]

It is a matter of direct intuition. One can directly know it in meditation.

[Todd Chambers]

Words fail.

[Brian Hines]

Ron E, I resonate with your comment, agreeing with most of what you said. I do try to keep my practice of meditation as simple as possible. It's the theoretical side that, as you said, can lead to a lot of confusion. I guess I sort of see the theoretical side as akin to a mystery that demands solving.

Logic and a review of evidence can help a lot in solving the mystery, but sometimes the evidence is of a lack (such as an enduring self) rather than a presence -- as in the Sherlock Holmes story of the dog that didn't bark being a highly pertinent clue.

[Appreciative Reader]

" ... You could not in fact have a conscious self, in the sense that you have one now, without having encountered other conscious selves.

Consciousness is something "caught." ... "

..........That is a very interesting observation! That if you brought up a child in the middle of nowhere, tended to by robots, or maybe by human beings who deliberately left off any positive or negative nudges as far as the child's self-hood, then the child wouldn't "grow" a sense of self at all. Very, very intriguing.

Is it true, though?

That Buddhism has got one thing right --- Anatta, non-self, I mean to say --- does not necessarily mean it would get all things right, or that people who are into Buddhism and generally ruminating away will necessarily get it all right. Getting it right just the once might simply be a matter of happenstance. After all even a broken clock gives you the right time twice a day (or maybe once, if it's digital). With the hundreds, maybe thousands, of things that different traditions speak of, often with uncanny authority and certitude, is it any wonder that one or two of those might hit home? It is simply a question of happenstance!

So, does science bear out this out, the quoted portion I mean to say? That our sense of self is chimerical has already been established, I believe. But that this chimerical self-hood hasn't been evolved directly as programming into our brains, but is wholly and entirely a learned trait, a socially learned trait, at the level of every single individual human being, is that also something that is borne to by bona fide science? *That* is what is the million dollar question.

Don't remember having seen this specific question discussed. Haven't nosed around looking, so far; but I'd love to know the answer to this question.

(I guess a related question might be: Do animals have a sense of self, and consciousness as well, in the sense that we humans have it? I'm not cent per cent sure on this, but if I were asked to take a stab at answering, then I'd guess Yes, they do, the higher animals at any rate. So that one might actually experiment and see for oneself, isn't it? Experimenting on humans is obviously out of the question; and experimenting on rats is something we do all the time; I imagine it would not raise insurmountable ethical concerns to carry out experiments of this kind with chimpanzees, or bonobos, or maybe dogs. So, has something like this ever been done, I wonder?)

[Appreciative Reader]

Oops, commented on the wrong thread, sorry! That was meant to have been a comment on your latert post.

After noticing my mistake, I copied this comment on to the correct thread, twice in fact, but while the comment took, both times, but when I refreshed the page it doesn't show up there. I don't know, maybe because it's a verbatim copy of this same message, and a fairly long comment too, so maybe the spam filters on the software stop it getting posted, or something like that? (Just guessing, because the comment got published here, but not in the other thread, even thoough it is the exact same comment.)

[Jalma Ngumbara]

The experience Harris claimed as "pure consciousness" is basically a state of no experience, or you can call it a blank state. It's basically lowering your brain wave and shutting all your perception doors (bodily sensors) to the point you experience nothing, it's all blank not even a single thought there.
You can call it pure consciousness or pure awareness if experiencing nothing or blankness is what you refer to. It's a state, you know you're in that state because you're still aware of it, it's like sleeping but awake at the same time.
It's really difficult to achieve but it can be done by practicing deep meditation, in some Eastern spiritual traditions a practitioner or seeker would undergo extreme practices like lengthy fasting and meditating in remote isolated places, plus all kind of "purification" practice just to reach that state which they mistakenly call "enlightenment".

[777]

Yes jaima

There are many states of pureness
related to which of the 7 Vertical Heavens we aspire.

As the lowest state of purest consciousness are directed by Cyborgs without a Soul
neither compassion but 100% (karma ) justice
they require Ascese during many lives to unify with them

Super Masters of the 7th Heaven give it all for free
if U stop hurting from stealing a smile up to killing
The highest pureness is much more than the energies
a zillian JWSIelecopes cansee
It is LOve

777

PS
For us here
and many friends
we did fall in Love on a Person to start with
and we know
We also got confirmation concerning the present SatGuru
and ther are more

We all must start falling in Love
it s the Alpha & Omega of everything