Awareness

What Is This?

What is ‘Awareness?’ It can be so many things, yet also one thing. Therein lies its enigma. There are two ways that we can describe it more accurately. But those two things have to do with personal experience. These two things are:
1) The way we access Awareness.
2) How Awareness feels in your body, in your soul.

Everyone can experience these differently. But the result is the same. We do not have the words to express Awareness, but a lot of us can agree it has these qualities: Spacious, clear, luminous.

When I experience awareness, I have deep wells of gratitude, flooding my entire being. I notice the gift of being exactly here, and nowhere else. It feels like all external and internal phenomena are one – the same space expressing itself. I also sense an ‘everydayness’ to it. I’ve heard it referred to by spiritual teachers as ‘the mundane.’ There’s nothing special about it, but in that, it is profoundly special.

To practice Awareness is to be in a position of curiosity. We see children doing this all the time. They are always learning, exploring. Discovering. The moment before thought arrives. We can be more like children, if we notice how everything in the world is new. Always new. Every moment. Asking ‘What is this?’ is a practice in Zen Buddhism. It acts like a ‘koan’ – a tool used in this tradition to open the mind. When everything is seen with wonder, and with freshness, we may find a space opening inside us, full of light. In this moment, we are exercising our awareness.

Unbelievable!

In the Beyond Emotional Intelligence (BEI) Coaching Course, there are ‘Twelve Self Discoveries.’ All of these in some way are rooted in, or route back to, Awareness. Self Discovery Number 5 is: ‘You Don’t Have to Believe Everything You Think.’

Like the Zen koan asking ‘What is this?,’ we can question everything, especially the stories that we tell ourselves. What gives this BEI ‘Self Discovery’ power is investigation, making choices, and strengthening new narratives. It starts with seeing how our awareness brings everything to light. With this quality of luminosity, we see that we have been helplessly ‘operating in the dark,’ on repeated patterns. We find we’ve been believing thoughts and stories that we don’t have to.

Awareness changes this behaviour, offering abundance and reassurance, in a way that is gentle and non-judgemental. It is not trying to win a contest against the mind and the thoughts. It is instead saying ‘I’m here, and now that you can see clearly in the light, you can see that you are here also. So why not choose how you want to be here?’

The body however, needs a lot of convincing that we ‘don’t have to believe our thoughts.’ It holds beliefs from the past, and this is hard to uproot. If we decide not to believe what we think, we change how emotions and body sensations relate to each other, and affect each other. We can eventually feel the suffering of physical discomforts ease, and the nervous system settle. From shakiness to safety. Enabling us to use energy for focus and enthusiasm; or to enjoy deep rest – depending on what we need.

Harmony and Understanding

The initial experience of Awareness can be a little scary. It can feel similar to an abyss, like an end of existence. This mere glimpse into such an expanse points us lovingly back. Reminding us that this precious life will one day be taken away, something that we generally don’t like to face. Yet everything is being born and passing all the time. It is this clear seeing of reality that shows us the passing of moments are relative to that great open space in our minds, a space that stretches out into infinity. In this, Awareness is like a mother that holds her baby. As we become more familiar with it, it can be our source of comfort.

Supported by this, we have greater discernment for what appears in life, and how we want to deal with it. Breaking old beliefs and storylines, by changing our interpretation. This changes our reality. It can go from a dynamic of attacking ourselves and feeling threatened, to having love and understanding. A natural tendency arises to be self-respecting, and to take care of our hearts, our bodies, our world around us. Engendering within ourselves deeper levels of trust and resilience. With the deepest level, Awareness, being always present.

So take up a broom and sweep the floor, run a warm cloth over some dirty dishes, or stand with your face in the wind. As you sweep the floor, ask ‘What is this?’ What is this thing we call a broom? How can this self choose to pick up a broom, and change a surface from something untidy to something pristine? Awaiting more specks of dust to settle upon it, and change our view again. Where, really, is the joy in this ongoing cycle? And from where do all these questions arise? Whatever your answer is, wherever you find yourself, that is your great realm of harmony. A place of light that shines with joy. Uniquely you, uniquely complete.

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