Session 15: Awareness of Awareness, Taking the Fruit as the Path

B. Alan Wallace, 18 Nov 2010

Alan’s introduction to today’s practice aimed to differentiate Awareness of Awareness from Settling the Mind in its Natural State. The culmination of any Shamatha method is the dissolution of the mind in substrate consciousness. In Settling the Mind, the object of meditation is the space of the mind and whatever mental events arise within it, and the practice consists in letting these events be. In Awareness of Awareness, the interest is the nature of awareness itself. The practice consists in letting go any mental event, in releasing the thoughts. Alan explains that this is like “taking the fruit as the path” because you are releasing your mind as if you were ready to transcend the mind immediately. By being aware of being aware, you can indeed have a taste of the three characteristics of the substrate consciousness: bliss, luminosity (not to be equated to brightness, but rather to a sense of being awake) and non-conceptuality.

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