We had our first “Be a lamp unto yourself” class last night, and I had a great time, as usual. We spent a fair amount of time discussing what mindfulness is. Mary emailed me afterward with a good question that related to the conversation:

As a hypnotherapist, when I talk about “consciousness”, I am using it as to term to describe a beta brain wave quicker wave form, as opposed to the sub-conscious, which is more apt to be an alpha wave, a little slower and more relaxed and “in tune”.

I don’t think that the term “consciousness” means the same in terms of meditation and awakening.  Sometime can you clarifiy this for me?

What do we mean when we talk about consciousness? Consciousness the way we talk about it – Actually, “we” is lazy. I am speaking here. While this is my understanding of what Barbara and Aaron mean by “consciousness,” I cannot speak for them. So let me switch to “I,” but let me be clear that these ideas are by no means original to me. I am sorry, Mary, but “consciousness” has very little to do with the usual western conception of the word. Consciousness the way I talk about it is something very specific, and is simply the most common translation of a Pali term used in a somewhat technical way. The concept is rooted in a process the Buddha articulated, called the 12 steps of dependent origination. Although the subject is interesting, it is complex, snore-inducing, and isn’t strictly necessary for our purposes. I am, after all, trying to keep this brief and readable. However, the knowledge is valuable, practical, and transformative, like most everything the Buddha propounded. If you’re interested, please google it.

Let’s get very basic. You, as you conventionally understand yourself, are a subject. When you perceive something, that something is an object. This could be a sense object, a sight, a sound, a temperature, a smell, and so on; an emotion, like love, joy, fear, jealousy, and so on; a thought of any sort, or literally anything else. This is the sense that I mean when I talk about the primary object and the predominant object in meditation. I as the subject apprehend an object.

Each object, no matter what it might be, invades your perception, stays for a while, and then goes away, to be replaced by another object. For example, when a bird chirps, the sound “contacts” you through the ears. Immediately, a “consciousness” of the sound arises, specifically a “hearing consciousness.” You also can have “taste consciousness,” “sight consciousness,” consciousness associated with thoughts, emotions, and other mental formations, and so on. That’s what I mean when I talk about “consciousness.”

The implications of this process are profound. Each object has a consciousness associated with it. As an object arises, changes, and passes away, so too does the associated consciousness arise, change, and pass away. “Consciousness” is not a static thing – it is more of a process. Think of a river. Each moment, the river is different, because the water molecules flowing by any one point are different from moment to moment. However, we can still conceive of a “river,” because the new water will probably behave similarly to the old water. If you dump poison, or stain, or a log upstream however, the river will change, making the “process” aspect of a river more apparent than the normally “static” aspect. A candle flame has the same nature as the river – it seems to be the same from moment to moment, but close observation reveals how the flame is in constant flux. So your consciousness – part of the “you” that you thought you were – is actually a process that is highly dependent on the objects that contact you in any given moment.

You didn’t ask about this, but let me introduce another concept, awareness. This is the consciousness of ultimate reality. Ultimate reality in the purest form cannot be perceived by normal consciousness. Any object requires a consciousness specifically associated with that object, so ultimate reality requires an “ultimate consciousness.” That sounds silly, though, so I call it “awareness” instead. Refined inward objects like light, space, the open heart, metta, compassion, or energy (an incomplete list) all approximate ultimate reality. They are (in this sense) also fundamentally different from our ordinary, mundane reality, and therefore also require a different consciousness in order to perceive these objects when they contact us. Let’s call these refined inward objects “supramundane” objects and the consciousnesses that are associated with them “supramundane” consciousnesses. These supramundane consciousnesses also usually fall under the umbrella of “awareness.”

One characteristic of ultimate reality is that it doesn’t change. It has been, is, and always will be the same. To illustrate, imagine the quality of space. No matter what is or isn’t occupying a particular space, the quality of the space, its “spaceness,” never changes. So the purest form of awareness, the consciousness of that ultimate reality, never changes either. Objects that are close to ultimate reality – the list in the paragraph above – change much less, and so our awareness of these objects tends to be less changeable, calmer, and still. This is in often stark contrast to changeable mundane consciousness apprehending changeable mundane objects. In meditation, both situations simply require your loving, non-reactive attention.

Ok, that was fun! Did that make sense? Questions? Points of order? Clarifications or changes in emphasis? Expansions? Go ahead, ask me another! Leave comments below – let’s start a conversation.