The Mystery of Consciousness: Three Discoveries That Can Transform Your Meditation [Episode 54]

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

I'd like to invite us to formally take a moment to set aside all the cares and concerns of our lives. Forget about the week behind you and allow yourself to bring all of your energy and attention into this moment.

There's no other place you need to be. Nothing else needs your attention.

Now just allow yourself to fully let go into this moment and settle into your meditation posture.

For those of you new to this work, my basic encouragement is to find a comfortable posture, ideally sitting upright with your knees a bit lower than your hips so that you have a natural curve in your spine.

This allows you to exert a little bit of effort to sit upright, which helps keep us alert and awake in meditation. But it also allows us, hopefully, to sit without pain because we have good posture.

If you need to support your back by leaning against a pillow or something, that's fine. The main thing is to be comfortable and alert for the practice. Everything else is secondary.

You can do this meditation with your eyes open or closed. If you keep your eyes open, just allow your gaze to rest softly on some point, not intently.

Becoming Aware of Consciousness in Meditation

I want to invite you to begin this practice by simply being aware of your own conscious presence. Just being awake, present, here, available for this moment and aware of your own consciousness.

I invite you to notice a few things about consciousness.

Notice how consciousness is not an object. It's not another thing.

Consciousness is also not in a spot. It's not in a place.

Notice this.

Consciousness Is Not Locatable

If I ask you, "Where is consciousness?" you might say, "Oh, it's in my head," or "It's in my body."

Then I might say, "Well, where is the consciousness that's aware of this place in your head where you think consciousness is?"

And then you might notice, "Oh, that's true."

When I say consciousness is in my head, that's just a place I've identified where I think it is. It's just another spot, another object, a location.

But if I can be aware of that location, then where is the awareness that's aware of the location?

It's anywhere we can bring our awareness. It's there.

So consciousness is not locatable. It's not somewhere.

Consciousness is Boundless

When we realize it's not locatable, it's not somewhere, and we begin to peer into consciousness, to really give our attention to this mysterious consciousness that we are, we might discover that it seems infinite.

Because it doesn't have a boundary. There's no edge to it.

You are not finite and not held in by boundaries.

Your true nature is vast, maybe infinite.

Allow yourself to be aware of this vastness whose limits cannot be found.

Consciousness Is Unchanging

Something else I want to point out about consciousness is that it is not impacted by its content.

Meaning it is not impacted by the things that arise within it.

Notice this. As you are aware of consciousness, this vast spaciousness doesn't change depending on what's going on within it.

Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and other objects arise within consciousness. They change all the time.

All of the content, all of the objects in consciousness keep changing.

Consciousness itself does not change.

It is the changeless.

Allow yourself to be aware of the changeless dimension of who and what you are.

Timeless, changeless, infinite.

This is your true nature.

The whole world, with all of its complexities, arises within you and changes and evolves. It comes and goes.

As you remain unchanging, deep and vast.

Consciousness Is Always Already Free

The last thing I want to point out about consciousness is that it is free.

It is free of constraint. Nothing constrains consciousness, which really means nothing limits it.

This means it is not dependent on anything else.

It's always already here.

It's always already free.

Feeling Free and Being Free Are Not the Same Thing

So what does that mean practically? What does it mean for you?

It means we often think that to be conscious, to be aware of something as sacred and profound as consciousness, we need to be without burdens in our lives.

We imagine that any burdens we're carrying constrain us. They make it hard for us to be free, and I don't feel free. I feel burdened.

We might think, "If only I could get a good night's sleep, resolve the conflicts in my relationships, not be overwhelmed by my workload, and not be dealing with difficult feelings or life discomforts."

If all those things lined up, then we would experience freedom. Then we would feel free, untethered.

But right now we might feel unfree. Burdened, tired, overwhelmed, whatever it may be.

But that's not how it is. That's not how consciousness is.

Consciousness Is Free No Matter What

Consciousness is free, no matter what.

It doesn't need any of those things to be in place.

It doesn't need burdens to disappear.

It doesn't need all the good feelings and positive life conditions to be present.

It is free of all that.

Unconstrained.

Unlimited by any of it.

It is already free, prior to anything that could happen.

When you discover the liberation of consciousness itself, you realize something extraordinary.

You realize that you are free right now. And no matter what's happening right now, you're free.

You realize you're free always.

Nothing that could ever happen could constrain, limit, or obstruct this freedom of your true nature.

That's real freedom. Unconditional freedom. Absolute freedom.

And that's your true nature.

It's who and what you already are, always.

So when I invite you in this practice to become aware of awareness, or consciousness, I'm inviting you to become aware of all of that. All that consciousness is.

[MEDITATION BELL]

I now want to invite you to gently let go of the meditation.

Move your body, look around, and notice the quality of your consciousness after doing this practice together.

Thank you.