I recently questioned a friend who had been inquiring about meditation. I said, "What are some of the necessary conditions for thought to occur?" He didn't quite understand the meaning of my question and its relation to meditation. So, I followed up with some further remarks. I mentioned that what I am looking for is an answer from the empirical or observational side of things, i.e., I wanted to know what was necessary for us to experience thought directly, not theoretically. This I will call meditation. On the theoretical side, one might say things like a brain, knowledge, words, education, language, images, and more words whose meanings are not empirically relevant to the occurrence of thinking as it is actually taking place. Even though they are in a sense essential at times, they are not directly present as such in meditation as we are discussing it here. In short, when we observe thought happening, what conditions must abide for thought to take place in the present? Well, he said, "awareness." That was a good answer. However, and this is not at all unrelated to awareness, there is one other condition that must abide when we observe thought taking place, silence. The two, awareness--or, we might say "consciousness"--and silence may actually, at least in this context, function together and simultaneously. We might even say that silence is a sentient-silence or silent-sentience. Awareness and silence function as one in our thinking. Just observe for yourself. Watch thought unfold. Where does it come from? Where is not necessarily a space, unless you consider it a mental space. (I might add, yes, thought is felt in feelings that are felt spatially, perhaps in the head, neck, shoulders, back and more. But I'm not dealing with feeling here.) We shall return to this question of the source of thought after a brief detour.
You may have already gathered that we are not using the words awareness, consciousness, and sentience as they are often meant in Western philosophical thought. These words also may mean the same as "the capacity to think" or thinking itself. Hence, the traditional Western debate about whether animals have sentience, in other words, do they think like human beings. No, here we mean something different by sentience, consciousness, and awareness. Consciousness here means that which makes thought possible by granting sentience. The two, thoughts and awareness, are not the same thing even though they are often taken to mean the same things. In thinking, or should we say, as thinking is taking place, awareness must be present for thoughts to be conscious thoughts. This may amount to saying that the contents of thought, in our present sense, the words, are not themselves conscious, they are given sentience or consciousness by another, i.e., consciousness itself.
So, what then is meditation? Well, here is another instance of a word with various meanings. In our present sense of the word, we mean something like observing the movement of experience as it unfolds. Now, as meditation pertains to thought, we must observe, passively I might add, the actual unfolding of thought from and to its source. We are watching the movement of and not its meanings. Watching and becoming ensnared in the meanings of thoughts we might call thinking not meditating. In this type of meditation we don't care about meanings we watch only the movement of thought as it takes place. We watch from a standpoint of observing only. We may be said to watch thought as a phenomenon or as an appearing in experience. What thought says does not matter here. Only what it does matters.
Let us take it from the beginning of the movement. Thought arises. From where? We have already noted that we are not dealing with a spatial where but a temporal where. Where is present, now. Where is always a question. We do not know where where is. Where is that out of which all thought arises. It is not something. It cannot be identifiable as anything because it is a question of observation and not a question to which we seek an answer. Where is the source of thought. Where is nowhere. It is unmanifest, unknown. We ask "Where?" so that we begin our meditation. Where? is the beginning, the source of our meditation and observation. So, once where? is asked, we watch. We look. We wait silently. Where then becomes the silence out of which thought arises. Does that do away with the where? No. It remains the source as long as thinking takes place. Where then becomes, through the watching, not only the source but the destiny of thought. Where do thoughts go? Yes, another where shows itself, this time as the goal of thought. All thoughts end where? In another unidentifiable where.
Just what is the point of all of this? Meditation. Meditation is it own justification. What happens during the watching cannot be predicted. However, we are not finished with our meditation yet.
We have established, to some degree, both the temporal and spatial meanings of the wheres of a meditation on mind or thinking. Temporally, where means the time at which we observe both the expression and dissolution of thoughts. That time is always now, just like all of life is contained in the present, our meditation does not take that for granted but uses that knowledge to assist our focus on mind. Spatially, as far as mind meditation is concerned, the where is the observation of the source and the telos or "goal" of the movement of thought, the unmanifest silent sentience. Thought arises and dissolves into the same spatial, silent sentience. We can now appreciate that we might equate, for our purposes here, that source and destination of thought with consciousness with one reservation. Consciousness does not hold a reservoir of past actions that becomes the meaning source of thought but it is the light or animating presence that renders thought conscious. Like light animates or brings forms into view, consciousness animates the contents of all experience. Thoughts by themselves are unconscious and could never enter or become experience without consciousness. Consciousness is empty of all content and borderless. Yet, consciousness, as the animating aspect of experience makes possible, not only thought, but also form, feelings, perceptions, as well as the samskaras or hidden prior acts that provide all structure and content of experience. Awareness provides that which renders the meaning-content sentient. Experience is composed of both content and consciousness.
So, how does one practice this mind meditation? The key is to begin distinguishing between consciousness or awareness and the meaning-content of thought. How do we distinguish? We observe, we observe, we observe silently, carefully, and watchfully without getting ensnared in the meaning-content of thought. This will take some time to master to the point wherein you, i.e., the body/mind/feelings and breath come together--often disappearing altogether--leaving only consciousness. Or, as opposed to disappearing and entering their unmanifest source, they slow to the point of consciousness becoming the dominant feature of our experience not in the foreground but in an increased presencing of the background that makes apparent, in a sort of deeply felt and yet highly familiar feeling, consciousness. It is a most subtle yet very powerful feeling whereby all contact with phenomena or appearances brings about experience and a knowledge of that which truly makes experience possible and is the authentic knower or animator of all.
Epigrams can serve very important purposes for helping to gain insight into the nature of all phenomena. As the Buddha declared, "Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation (nirodha)." All phenomena originate and all phenomena are impermanent or inconstant. They are, in a sense, extremely unreliable despite our inclinations to rely on them. So, I am offering an epigram that may help us come to a very important realization, i.e., "Pure attention to phenomena fosters renunciation." Pure attention is unmixed with any phenomenal characteristics such as thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and any onslaught by samskaras or inclinations, intentions, or desires deposited by past actions (karma). Pure consciousness or attention is empty and borderless and it provides all phenomena with the sentience required to render phenomena experiential. These samskaras--carrying history-laden artifacts composed of meaning and structuring content--will flesh out our experience of phenomena. More often than not, these samskaras will attract our attention with their karmically generated aims or intentions thus giving us a mistaken impression that we have free will. In Buddhist thought, some folks translate the word intention (cetana) as will and because we make the mistake of taking attention or consciousness to be the thinker of thoughts as well as the reader of their meanings, we stand back and think our way through phenomena always seeking some form of pleasurable homeostasis. This requires and holds a self-sense animated by consciousness whose nature requires the apparent and manageable limits of space, time, and circumstance thus providing a sense of security for the self-sense which is itself ephemeral, i.e., impermanent (anitya), marred with inevitable suffering (duhkha), and false sense of being the self (anatma, "not-self"). This is not pure attention but mind-made acts of creating based on the past and aimed toward the future. The word cetana is more appropriately translated as intention as opposed to will. Intention is an aim or desire for an outcome in samsara, the worlds of phenomena.
