The practice of consciousness can be performed by making efforts to be aware of ourselves in any and all situations. If we set out conscientiously to be aware of ourselves continually throughout the day, we first discover that we cannot do it. We get distracted constantly and, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we spend our day more distracted than aware. This general distraction may be seen as a sort of pinpoint awareness; we are aware of one thing and then a different thing and so on, but rarely do we experience ourselves as existing simultaneously with the object of our attention. This realization of the difficulty in attaining any degree of increased awareness is a first fruit of efforts to increase consciousness.
So, in fact, the practice of awareness at once produces results. The chief difficulty, perhaps, is accepting what we observe and starting with that, not trying to force observations to fit pre-conceived ideas of what we might or should experience. It seems paradoxical, or even disheartening, to attain some result such as the observation 'my mind wanders' rather than something like 'I feel a peace pervading my being', but it is essential to build with clear, simple observations that suggest practical next steps rather than hope-filled dead-ends.
If we observe that our mind wanders and that this causes us to forget about trying to be aware of ourselves in our surroundings, we can make experiments specifically on this condition and see what diminishes it, and what aggravates it. Here too it is important to keep things simple and practical. We may find, for example, that we don't do well with the music blaring or the TV on, while we have better luck when walking down Main Street or weeding the garden. We may not do so well when lying in bed or drinking beer in the easy chair but better sitting in a hard chair or in an unaccustomed position. Or vice-versa. There is no end to the small experiments we can make and, in time, these experiments may produce a nucleus of tools we can use to keep our mind from wandering the way it did when we first set out to control awareness.
But perhaps it is not a wandering mind we face when trying to increase our awareness but something else, say strong dissatisfaction with our life, our job, our mate. These too are practical, useful observations. As in the example of a wandering mind, creative experimentation can lead to a collection of practical techniques to help in profiting by this. But first, the feeling itself must be addressed. It hardly serves our goal to become more aware if we simply find ways to suppress feelings which appear to be obstacles. It is necessary to evaluate the feeling, to pursue it with the awareness of ourselves pursuing it. That awareness of ourselves keeps this pursuit from becoming just another distraction and even makes it a part of our general effort to increase awareness. That is, there is no restriction as to what we may try to include in the range of our awareness: feelings, thoughts, muscular tensions, sunlight, wind, a ticking clock, are all fair game.
If, for example, our attempts to increase awareness seem to suffer due to an unpleasant situation existing with our spouse, we can examine our feelings about this, ask ourselves what is the difficulty, why is this difficult, always trying to recognize clear, simple answers that imply obvious next questions and ultimately suggest concrete actions. But we must observe ourselves while we do this, we ourselves must be another object of our awareness, so we watch our thoughts and feelings interacting, perhaps feeding each other to become more and more angry or more and more sad. The simple act of continued awareness can do much toward clarifying turbulent waters and lead to practical decisions on how to deal with the conditions that seem to prohibit awareness. And, most important, we begin to see ourselves as something quite different from what we had imagined ourselves to be.
Consider what an exact knowledge of psychology might lend to such self-examinations.
It is as a result of such efforts that we may begin to recognize some of the obstacles to consciousness pointed out in the psychological ideas of the fourth way. At some point, we begin to connect the strange-sounding set of ideas to our personal experience, and it helps us immeasurably to be able to organize our perceptions by these ideas. We begin to realize that people have been here before, have known where we are and how to grow from this point. In addition, we begin to acquire a common language in which we can discuss this inner world with others in a similar situation.
While the practice of consciousness is a personal pursuit it should not be an isolating one. On the contrary, the increase of personal awareness of ourselves in our surroundings increasingly comes to include others—the friends, relatives, acquaintances, and strangers we are with in moments of greater awareness. And, if we are lucky enough to have friends engaged in the same pursuit of greater awareness, the sharing of observations can become an invaluable source of new ideas for experiments, and such gatherings in themselves are supportive environments to practice awareness.
Finally, the pursuit of personal consciousness leads us out of ourselves and through the back door, so to speak, through ourselves and out into life. Now we can give our friends and our world the attention they deserve—but only after having mastered our own attention to some extent. If the mind does not wander, how much better we attend to another's words and their meaning. If the turbulent emotions of intimate contact clarify to a purity of thinking and feeling, so much finer is a moment with a loved one. If the noise of preconceptions stills, so much richer is the acquaintance with a stranger. In this way, awareness itself becomes an encouragement to us to find ways to increase it.
So, in fact, the practice of awareness at once produces results. The chief difficulty, perhaps, is accepting what we observe and starting with that, not trying to force observations to fit pre-conceived ideas of what we might or should experience. It seems paradoxical, or even disheartening, to attain some result such as the observation 'my mind wanders' rather than something like 'I feel a peace pervading my being', but it is essential to build with clear, simple observations that suggest practical next steps rather than hope-filled dead-ends.
If we observe that our mind wanders and that this causes us to forget about trying to be aware of ourselves in our surroundings, we can make experiments specifically on this condition and see what diminishes it, and what aggravates it. Here too it is important to keep things simple and practical. We may find, for example, that we don't do well with the music blaring or the TV on, while we have better luck when walking down Main Street or weeding the garden. We may not do so well when lying in bed or drinking beer in the easy chair but better sitting in a hard chair or in an unaccustomed position. Or vice-versa. There is no end to the small experiments we can make and, in time, these experiments may produce a nucleus of tools we can use to keep our mind from wandering the way it did when we first set out to control awareness.
But perhaps it is not a wandering mind we face when trying to increase our awareness but something else, say strong dissatisfaction with our life, our job, our mate. These too are practical, useful observations. As in the example of a wandering mind, creative experimentation can lead to a collection of practical techniques to help in profiting by this. But first, the feeling itself must be addressed. It hardly serves our goal to become more aware if we simply find ways to suppress feelings which appear to be obstacles. It is necessary to evaluate the feeling, to pursue it with the awareness of ourselves pursuing it. That awareness of ourselves keeps this pursuit from becoming just another distraction and even makes it a part of our general effort to increase awareness. That is, there is no restriction as to what we may try to include in the range of our awareness: feelings, thoughts, muscular tensions, sunlight, wind, a ticking clock, are all fair game.
If, for example, our attempts to increase awareness seem to suffer due to an unpleasant situation existing with our spouse, we can examine our feelings about this, ask ourselves what is the difficulty, why is this difficult, always trying to recognize clear, simple answers that imply obvious next questions and ultimately suggest concrete actions. But we must observe ourselves while we do this, we ourselves must be another object of our awareness, so we watch our thoughts and feelings interacting, perhaps feeding each other to become more and more angry or more and more sad. The simple act of continued awareness can do much toward clarifying turbulent waters and lead to practical decisions on how to deal with the conditions that seem to prohibit awareness. And, most important, we begin to see ourselves as something quite different from what we had imagined ourselves to be.
Consider what an exact knowledge of psychology might lend to such self-examinations.
It is as a result of such efforts that we may begin to recognize some of the obstacles to consciousness pointed out in the psychological ideas of the fourth way. At some point, we begin to connect the strange-sounding set of ideas to our personal experience, and it helps us immeasurably to be able to organize our perceptions by these ideas. We begin to realize that people have been here before, have known where we are and how to grow from this point. In addition, we begin to acquire a common language in which we can discuss this inner world with others in a similar situation.
While the practice of consciousness is a personal pursuit it should not be an isolating one. On the contrary, the increase of personal awareness of ourselves in our surroundings increasingly comes to include others—the friends, relatives, acquaintances, and strangers we are with in moments of greater awareness. And, if we are lucky enough to have friends engaged in the same pursuit of greater awareness, the sharing of observations can become an invaluable source of new ideas for experiments, and such gatherings in themselves are supportive environments to practice awareness.
Finally, the pursuit of personal consciousness leads us out of ourselves and through the back door, so to speak, through ourselves and out into life. Now we can give our friends and our world the attention they deserve—but only after having mastered our own attention to some extent. If the mind does not wander, how much better we attend to another's words and their meaning. If the turbulent emotions of intimate contact clarify to a purity of thinking and feeling, so much finer is a moment with a loved one. If the noise of preconceptions stills, so much richer is the acquaintance with a stranger. In this way, awareness itself becomes an encouragement to us to find ways to increase it.
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