Touching the Infinite by Rodney Smith

Author:Rodney Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2017-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

As mentioned in chapter 3, mindfulness without a watcher or a sense-of-self is awareness. Awareness is when “I” am not, but when I use awareness to focus on what I want to see, awareness becomes mindfulness. Mindfulness is awareness under my control. This makes sense when we understand that awareness is the formless, and as soon as the formless is tied to the sense-of-self, the formless becomes a form the self can use as it wishes. Mindfulness now becomes a tool “I” can use to dispel ignorance, but the one aspect of ignorance mindfulness cannot fully eliminate is the sense of the person using it.

Now let us return to the original question of whether breaking the causal chain of Dependent Origination at the link of feelings is the most skillful way to end our conditioning.

DISPELLING IGNORANCE

At this level of subtlety the watcher that I am describing arises within the causal chain of events but is not a full-blown egoic prominence. The watcher is a much finer wisp or film of self that is quieter but still separated from what it sees. There will always be a distance between the watcher and the bare awareness of what is seen, and the spiritual journey attempts to close that gap by eliminating the watcher. At some point the watcher needs to be addressed and seen for what it is, which is a quieter expression of identification with thoughts.

Notice how pervasive the watcher is. No matter what you do there is sense of a place from where it is being done. Notice the position where the hearing takes place, the location where the thinking occurs. The watcher is like the vertex of a pyramid with all sides converging on the angle. It all comes through “me.” Become interested in the watcher as an experience. Can you trace the watcher to a subtle pattern of thinking? If you think about the watcher, it reforms with the new thought. The only way the watcher can be seen in its entirety is to be absolutely still, and then awareness is no longer tied to thought. If all thoughts are heard in awareness, the watcher loses its footing.

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