The Myth of the Awareness Meditation Technique and the Reality of What You Already Are

We spend so much of our lives looking for something that isn't lost. It is a bit like the old story of the person frantically searching for their donkey while they are already sitting on its back. We look for peace, for clarity, or for some grand awakening as if these were objects hidden in a distant forest, yet who is it that is doing the looking? We have been told that we need a specific awareness meditation technique to bridge the gap between our current state and some imagined spiritual heights. But what if there is no gap? What if the very idea of a "path" is the only thing keeping us from noticing the obvious? In our daily lives, we are often distracted. We feel like a separate self, a lonely unit of mind and body trying to navigate a world that feels outside of us. Because of this feeling of separation, we become interested in attention, in consciousness, and in finding a way out of our suffering. We think that if we practice enough, if we sit in silence long enough, we will eventually reach a state of liberation. But liberation is never "of" the separate self; it is liberation *from* the separate self. It is the realization that the one who wants to be enlightened is itself a temporary appearance within the absolute. When we talk about an awareness meditation technique, we usually mean a way to sharpen our attention. Attention is a wonderful tool for survival. It is like a narrow beam of light that focuses on one thing while excluding everything else. If you listen to a specific sound, you ignore the background noise. This is useful for crossing the street or doing your job, but it is not what we are. The conscious presence we are is not a narrow beam; it is the entire room. It is the sentient space in which every thought, every emotion, and every sensation appears. You don't have to do anything to be aware. Can you actually stop being aware? Even if you tried to turn it off, you would have to be there to notice that it was gone. This aware presence is the condition for everything to appear. It is like a screen upon which a film is projected. The screen doesn't have to "practice" being a screen. It doesn't matter if the movie is a tragedy or a comedy, or if the characters are suffering or celebrating. The screen remains untouched, yet it is the very substance of every image. We are so mesmerized by the "this"—the specific content of our lives, our health, our status, our feelings—that we forget the "I am" that precedes every description. We say "I am sad" or "I am happy," but we rarely stop at the "I am." We ignore the presence that is there before the label is attached. Many people treat meditation as a ladder to reach the absolute. They think that by refining their mind, they will eventually see the truth. But this is an illusion of the body-mind. Think of those ambiguous optical illusions, like the drawing that can be seen as two faces or a vase. How much practice does it take to switch from seeing the faces to seeing the vase?