|
That makes sense to me. Seems like consciousness can get itself into all kinds of trouble and suffering when it does not have enough focus and awareness. Really suffering is a choice that we make when we decide to live with what the human mind produces. When we don't have enough awareness to know we don't have to listen to it, to be it, to let it affect our experience, that we can be free of it in some ways.
One flaw in saying this is this though is it all takes place in the mind. It's like the difference between describing an apple in your hand verses one in your mind. The difference between describing something present and actual and something imagined. Things don't really have words attached to them or symbols. It's something humans rely on to try to communicate our reality to others. It works well with simple objects like an apple, but then subjective things like experience and in more complex subjective things, words tend to not communicate very well.
We all have pretty much the same experience eating an apple but then when trying to explain what silence is, or mindfulness, or consciousness or whatever, our experience and understanding of what the words mean or represent are different so it's difficult to communicate or agree on what is said or true or right. Then also, different people, different philosophies, different beliefs, different religions, all disagree as authorities on what these words and experiences are or should be or mean.
We all know we exist. But then all of us don't know or believe we can alter our experience and ourselves by relating to our thoughts in different ways. Then others hearing such things either have no interest in it or are hostile to such ideas. This is one reason spiritual teachers are important. Not to worship or follow but as examples of other ways we can be.
|