Within this thread I'd like to explore the nature of consciousness. As you may guess I'll use the Buddhist pali canon and abhidhamma as a loose guide.
Not because they are truth. But because they are to date the most thorough guide I have found describing the factors of consciousness. The building blocks that pile on top of each other to create what we can loosely term awareness.

As the Mind is used in many a thread here is the forerunner of all.(hermetic teachings) or as an artificial intelligence overlay of our true source if I understand correctly I'd like to take apart the stuff we are calling mind. Well my understanding of it anyway.

At the moment I am distinguishing consciousness from all idea's of self and will use the definition given in the abhidhamma as a starting point to explore.
Reason for doing this is that many times consciousness as a concept becomes "loaded" with hopes, beliefs and assorted umbrella concepts that in my mind should stay in the realm of conjecture.

The Abhidammha I am using is freely downloadable here.
http://store.pariyatti.org/Comprehen...ok_p_4362.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So the Abhidhamma states it talks about the ultimate reality of things. That is the reality of things in themselves. So conceptual realities don't count. In my mind a concept of human, tree, animal etc is not ultimate reality as they are only exist as concepts. Built up from several co-dependend states that together we call human, tree or animal.

Also note that the Abhidhamma are not teachings the buddha thought. They are the findings of Buddhist monks when they contemplated reality from meditation with the sutta's as a guide.

The Abhidamma describes 4 such ultimate realities.
There are:
- Citta(Citta's) which translates to mind or consciousness and points at that which knows.(these get subdivided later into 89 or 121 types of consciousness)
- Cetasikas which translates to mental factors. These mental factors arise together with consciousness. There are 52 of these. Feeling(pleasant, unpleasant and neutral), Perception, and 50 mental formations.
- Rupa or matter. of which there are 28 types of material phenomena.
These 3 are the so called conditioned realities, which means they exist only when certain conditions are met.
- Nibanna the final reality which is unconditioned and therefore signify ultimate freedom (from suffering)

Of those 4 Citta/Consciousness is also 4-fold.
- Sense sphere consciousness
- Fine material sphere consciousness
- Immaterial sphere consciousness
- Supramundane consciousness

Citta is also defined 3 different ways.
- Citta as an agent, here citta is that which knows or cognizes an object.
- Citta as an instrument, Here citta is that by means of which the 52 mental factors cognize an object.
- Citta as an activity, where the process or act of cognizing an object is called citta.

This last definition seems to be the most adequate. As it does away with the notion there could be a permanent self that is cognizing or conscious. It is in the process of cognizing that Citta arises and passes as agent, as instrument and as activity by itself.

My personal definition of consciousness is "that we can become aware of now" which includes being aware of thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future.
Apart from the 5 senses mind is the 6th sense according to the buddhist teachings. and like the eyes will see whatever is in front of them, without the ability to not see what's in front. the mind thinks thoughts without the ability to not think thoughts.

With Love
Eelco

Consciousness is what reality is...if we're not just some solipsists' dream

I tend to think of us as individual sensors, each a part of "All That Is" with the purpose of discovering "our/It"-self the only way we can...through experience

I mean: what else is there?

Phil wrote:Consciousness is what reality is...

I mean: what else is there?

What else there is?
The power to shape that reality, using our consciousness to change our perspectives and act in such a causal manner so that the result will be a desired experience.

With Love
Eelco

I may bite off more than I can chew by tackling a subject as vast as consciousness.
Especially by using bits and pieces i've already researched before.

One thing I constantly notice though is the way in which people, myself included take half of reality.(the observable, experiential universe) and make conclusions about it. Some will sometimes look within and see what is going on there. Which is a huge step up from taking half.

Still there are way more "forces" at play here. I am just beginning to realize that even at the point of where I first become aware of something. I have already paved the way so to speak as to how I will perceive that awareness. This to me points that my awareness is already colored by a part of my awareness. Hence i'm seeing a fabricated reality.

So the exploration is over several playing fields.

Reality.
Perception.
Mind.
Co-creation
co-dependence?

Who knows where it ends. Maybe its a useless exercise, but i hope that it will provide a better understanding of what is needed to be a free human being.
In my mind(and I could be very wrong)the answer to freedom lies within..

With Love
Eelco

My definition of consciousness is:

Definition: Consciousness is a state of being aware.

That's really simple. The tricky part is how consciousness relates to our experiences. We experience sense perceptions, emotions and thoughts in consciousness. So consciousness is that which is aware of thoughts.

Another related definition is:

Definition: Source gives rise to everything we experience, including consciousness.

These are different definitions than for example in Advaita Vedanta where consciousness is all that is.

The reason for why I define consciousness only as a state of being aware is that in my own experience, when I'm in dreamless sleep my consciousness is switched off, and when I wake up my consciousness is switched on. Source goes on all the time both when I'm asleep and when I'm awake.

Consciousness seems to be directly connected to Source before it becomes divided into numerous things, because consciousness is a wholeness that contains all of our experiences. And even though I think of consciousness as either on or off, there can be several levels of mind.

Definition: The mind is consciousness plus that which is experienced in consciousness.

When I'm asleep and dreaming then my consciousness is on but my mind is in a different state than in the waking state. There can even be several levels of mind when dreaming, such as ordinary dreams and lucid dreaming (when one is aware of dreaming). And a radically different state of mind is out-of-body experiences (OBEs) where consciousness is on and the experiences within consciousness are outside of the body yet can be in the real world.

If I understand you correctly Anders.
In your definitions..

Consciousness is what you are aware of?
Source is your subconscious, taking care of all that is needed to create your experience and creating your consciousness?
Mind is what you are aware of and the "observer" of that awareness?

I am curious to know if Source in this case is a consciousness or even mind in and of itself.
Can we in your view expand our minds to the level of source, or at least expand it to incorporate more and more?
Or are they set givens.

With Love
Eelco

Eelco wrote:If I understand you correctly Anders.
In your definitions..

Consciousness is what you are aware of?
Source is your subconscious, taking care of all that is needed to create your experience and creating your consciousness?
Mind is what you are aware of and the "observer" of that awareness?

I am curious to know if Source in this case is a consciousness or even mind in and of itself.
Can we in your view expand our minds to the level of source, or at least expand it to incorporate more and more?
Or are they set givens.

With Love
Eelco

You wrote: "Consciousness is what you are aware of?" No, consciousness is aware of its content so to speak, such as thoughts and emotions. So consciousness is aware of the thoughts. Thoughts are objects. Consciousness is the subject. The subject is aware of objects.

The [conscious] mind is consciousness plus that which consciousness is aware of. So thoughts and emotions are parts of the mind. The subconscious mind is something different. The subconscious mind is processes that go on without us being consciously aware of them.

Source gives rise to (and is) everything we experience. We are the Source. It's the ego that makes us believe we are separate from Source. So the ego has a false belief of being separate from Source. So funnily enough the ego is also the Source.

Anders wrote: You wrote: "Consciousness is what you are aware of?" No, consciousness is aware of its content so to speak, such as thoughts and emotions. So consciousness is aware of the thoughts. Thoughts are objects. Consciousness is the subject. The subject is aware of objects.

Ah ok.
So we can train to be aware of more in the process of cognizing reality?
When we are silent enough and see the birth of a thought. Our consciousness has expanded to incorporate more of its reality content?

Anders wrote: The [conscious] mind is consciousness plus that which consciousness is aware of. So thoughts and emotions are parts of the mind. The subconscious mind is something different. The subconscious mind is processes that go on without us being consciously aware of them.

Do you think it possible to bring the subconscious to the conscious mind? Because if so then in my view they are the same and the divide between them is just a matter of p.o.v. or perception.

With Love
Eelco

Apart from just defining consciousness I'd like to explore it's creational powers.

Most of the awake and aware know, feel, intuit or parrot the meme that we are co-creators.
I feel that the Mind or consciousness plays a huge part in this (co)-creation. The last 20 or so years we've devised many a new-age healing modality where we created healing. Ways of releasing non-helpful states of mind? However from that same intention we should be able to adopt helpful states of mind.

I feel (and as always could be very wrong here) that instead of peeling away layers of unhelpful bodies. (the release of a collective pain body comes to mind) The conscious creating of a (collective) peace body or a collective bliss body comes to mind.

According to Thanissaro Bhikku the buddhist path to liberations is a helpful fabrication which has to be released at the end. As soon as it has done it's job.

But if and when we are "misled" into creating pain bodies and insufficient strength bodies. We can work on creating sufficient strength bodies and bodies of blissful peace or silence to nourish from. That way our "sick" minds don't need to feed off of attention or others as we created harmless sustenance within..

On a thought train here.. never mind me..
It's no where near a concrete conception. Just musings..

With Love
Eelco

Eelco wrote:

Anders wrote: You wrote: "Consciousness is what you are aware of?" No, consciousness is aware of its content so to speak, such as thoughts and emotions. So consciousness is aware of the thoughts. Thoughts are objects. Consciousness is the subject. The subject is aware of objects.

Ah ok.
So we can train to be aware of more in the process of cognizing reality?
When we are silent enough and see the birth of a thought. Our consciousness has expanded to incorporate more of its reality content?

Anders wrote: The [conscious] mind is consciousness plus that which consciousness is aware of. So thoughts and emotions are parts of the mind. The subconscious mind is something different. The subconscious mind is processes that go on without us being consciously aware of them.

Do you think it possible to bring the subconscious to the conscious mind? Because if so then in my view they are the same and the divide between them is just a matter of p.o.v. or perception.

With Love
Eelco

I believe subconscious stuff can be brought into conscious awareness through feelings. And that will make the mind reach a higher level of awareness when the inner conflicts between the subconscious and the conscious mind are healed. Because if we only use the intellect to mindfully observe our thoughts, then that's only the surface level of mind. Feeling the inner body is a deeper connection and surely something that reaches into the subconscious.