Dharma Wheel

Hi again,

I have come full circle through various meditation studies back to meditation on the breath and awareness in an effort to work toward Shamatha. One question I tend to have with this meditation is the actual location of awareness.

I think it is easy to equate awareness inside our head since our physical vision extends from our eyes. However, we are aware of everything around us, so I would think awareness extends beyond simply our visual context. Certainly our awareness senses the space and objects in our immediate context. Looking through my telescope at the Andromeda galaxy, to some extent I would think my awareness extends even out 2.5 million light years away as I observe it and the space between here and there. We can be "aware" of all these things.

That said, when one meditates on awareness, where then is this awareness located? To me it seems to be more like a subtle field underlying everything. When I started on awareness meditation, I used to have this sense of awareness being "inside me" but that has changed dramatically in the relative recent past. Has anyone had any similar experiences or teachings in this regard?

Thanks!!

LoveFromColorado wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:30 pm
That said, when one meditates on awareness, where then is this awareness located? To me it seems to be more like a subtle field underlying everything. When I started on awareness meditation, I used to have this sense of awareness being "inside me" but that has changed dramatically in the relative recent past. Has anyone had any similar experiences or teachings in this regard?

Thanks!!

After reading this, I would like to suggest that you should read First and Second chapters of Shurangama Sutra.

You may like this:
A Guided Meditation on the Body, Space, and Awareness with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Thanks haha! Do you have a recommendation for the Shurangama Sutra? I see a few online with various commentators as well as on Amazon but would like to pick one that someone has found beneficial to start with.

You can first read it from here.
http://www.fodian.net/world/shurangama.html
Later, you can try other translations.

Thank you!

Seems like you have some basic stability in shamatha- take up vipasyana by looking for the location of awareness. When you search for a while and become perplexed, rest in that for a bit, then either return to resting on a sense object, to shamatha w/o object, or look again for awareness. Regard any formulation as tentative.

Thanks passel. I am actually taking Alan Wallace's Shamatha course from Wisdom Academy and he has us meditating on "awareness". I have done meditations in the past when you look for the mind, etc., to discover more about emptiness; however, I believe this is more of a looser concept. I can meditate on what I sense as "awareness" in terms of a ever-changing perception but I am curious as to where this should "reside". Obviously when one thinks of awareness in a practical meditative sense during an awareness meditation, this can be a moving target. Thus, this prompted my question - what does one exactly meditate on when meditating on "awareness"?

Keep at it

LoveFromColorado wrote: ↑Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:30 pm That said, when one meditates on awareness, where then is this awareness located?

Nowhere. Location is in awareness, awareness is not in location. You’re trying to objectify it, locate it amongst the seen and the known. But it can’t be done, because it is prior to that. Hence, un-knowing, ‘don’t know mind’, way of negation.

When you meditate, the only thing that you actually do is turn up. Then the only thing you pay attention to, is you not paying attention. When you notice you’re not paying attention, then you’re paying attention. That is the only part of the whole process that you actually do.