Awareness of awareness

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche says: “Awareness is always present. We are just not always aware of it.” Or words to that effect.

Every time that I hear him say that (or words to that effect), something changes. I’m delighted. Everything is the same—but different. It’s like a low-rez image suddenly turning high-rez, or a narrow-bandwidth sound suddenly going surround-sound. The content is the same, but the quality is better.

Quality! There we are again. I’ve written about that before. I’ll probably write about it in the future. It’s an important idea.

What will raise the Quality of this moment, this time, as I am writing this?

Merely being aware of its present Quality seems to make a difference.

I can change of the lens through which I experience the process through which these words appear.

Each lens is a different kind of awareness.

In one kind of awareness, the process of writing is taken for granted: “Yeah, big deal, I’m writing something.”

In another, it’s a mystery and a miracle: “Look! Words are appearing. Before my very eyes!”

In yet another, the experience is even more transcendent. The field of awareness is even broader, deeper, more detailed. There are not just words appearing but fingers typing, there is inhaling and exhaling; there’s a heart pumping; sounds arise and pass away; all of this at once.

More.

As the words appear, leaves are turning color. These things are not unrelated.

Water shimmers on the Salt Pond.

Not just typing but the sounds of typing.

All this and more happens on a tiny speck of a planet in the middle of an ocean of darkness, an instant in the span of billions of years.

So much to be aware of.

So little awareness of that awareness.

But that’s fine.

It’s possible to be aware of “things.”

It’s possible to be aware of awareness—which includes and transcends awareness of things.

That’s this morning’s meditation.

I’ll take that as a win, and move on.

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