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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Awareness isn’t mental or physical. It’s that to which the body and the mind appear. In the direct path, you can come to see how the body and the mind appear to awareness, rather than being perceived by awareness.
Awareness, on the other hand, transcends the organism. It’s that to which these states appear. According to the direct path, sentience is an object—as are, for instance, color or sound.
Witnessing awareness is that to which the coming and going of sentience appears. This idea takes some getting used to, and there are many methods in the direct path to help you attune to it. You grow to be able to see witnessing awareness as the home of direct experience.
What is direct experience? It’s a kind of experience that’s not the result of inference or interpretation.
mind. When you experience a thought, what’s actually showing up in your direct experience? Perhaps a quietness,
followed by a thought, followed by quietness. Do you at any time directly experience an actual subconscious mind giving rise to the thought? If not, then you can’t conclude that you’re directly experiencing such a thing as the subconscious mind.
You begin to realize in a deep and non-conceptual way that there’s nothing else you can be but the clarity to which all this has appeared.
Higher reasoning happens at the level of awareness itself, which is beyond the mind. This is why it has the ability to inquire into the mind and other objects.
We never experience an object apart from its appearance to us. We never experience an appearance apart from the awareness to which appearance appears. Our only experience is experience itself, which is awareness, our very self.
When it no longer seems that any objects reside on their own—either inside of or outside of awareness—the witness is transparent. The witness then begins to dissolve. This happens on its own and may be preceded by increased peace, sweetness, love, and freedom.
Bodhi originally has no tree, The mirror also has no stand. Buddha nature is always clean and pure; Where is there room for dust?
“Whoever you talk to,” she said, “treat her like a lady.”
