"When practicing mindfulness, for instance by watching the breath, one
must remember to maintain attention on the chosen object of awareness,
"faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind
wanders away from it. Thus, mindfulness means not only, "moment to
moment awareness of present events," but also, "remembering to be aware
of something or to do something at a designated time in the future".
In fact, /the primary connotation of this Sanskrit term [smrti] (and its
corresponding Pali term sati) is recollection."/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness
On 5/30/2014 2:00 PM, authfri...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote:
My dictionary, Share, gives the first meanings of "recollection" as
"tranquility of mind" and "religious contemplation." Those are older,
specifically spiritual uses of the term that don't refer to
remembering what is past. I would assume that's how emptybill is using
it with regard to mindfulness--as he suggests, a sort of intentional
attempt at witnessing, attention to whatever is going through the mind
at the moment.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote :
emptybill, re your first paragraph: imo continuous mental recollection
is NOT witnessing because recollection suggests that the object of
awareness has occurred in the past. Witnessing is ongoing.
I equate consciousness with awareness and agree with Maharishi that
attention is a beam of such.
As for objectified, as soon as we begin talking about consciousness or
awareness or Self, we turn them into objects. Such is the limitation
of speech. But I would agree that even pure consciousness is
intentional, engaged and objectified. I would add that it is at the
same time, without intention, only virtually engaged and not only the
object, but also the subject!
On Friday, May 30, 2014 11:31 AM, "emptybill@... [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Mindfulness is just a form of continuous mental recollection of the
field of subjective experience – whether sensations or mentations,
whether body, senses or mind. It can be quite exhausting as you
suggest and probably is exhausting for many beginners. As a method for
repeated refocusing of attention, mindfulness is an attempt to
replicate the actuality of the witnessing value of awareness.
The problem with that approach is that fundamentally, awareness is
already witnessing every fluctuation of the mind
(antah-karana/chitta), senses and bodily activity. That means
awareness is awake to each experience as it arises, presents itself
and perishes, although in itself awareness is uninvolved. Awareness is
the /who/ in “who we are” although we habitually and ignorantly
identify ourselves as a body-mind personality.
Something to note is the difference in meaning between the words
“awareness” and “consciousness”.
/Awareness = /vigilant or watchful; closely observant, alert or attentive
//
/Consciousness/= the state of knowing an external object or a
subjective perception
Etymology: /co/con/com/ (= with) + /scîre/ (= to know) + /ness/ (=
state, quality, condition)
By definition, the word /consciousness/ means an “object-defined”
attention - whether that object is material, sensory or mental. The
word therefore signifies attention that is not only object oriented
but inherently “objectified” by its own operations, functioning and
nature.
Thus the obvious question what is “pure consciousness” (i.e. without
an object). Is it the */opposite/* of impure Consciousness? If indeed
“impure consciousness” means attention to an object, then */any/*
attention to a mantra is “impure”. If the adjective “pure” is added to
the word “consciousness” to signify a type of simple or unmixed
consciousness, then by definition it still signifies a consciousness
that is intentional, engaged and objectified.
The rest is just bullshit, bullshit, swaha.
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