[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by Tirisilex

The 5th Skandha is Consciousness. Which is the Word vijñāna. Ive seen this word translated as Knowing. I've read that it is a conglomeration of all the other Skandhas. It has been defined as awareness of things. I've settled on the idea that it is a knowing built from all the other skandhas. I've been reading like every webpage I can find on Skandhas and I understand the first four it's consciousness that I'm having a hard time with. How does consciousness divide from awareness? I've read that awareness is the only thing that is permanent so awareness and consciousness cannot be the same thing because a skandha is impermanent. So what are the differences between Awareness and Consciousness? Besides impermenance.. What is Consciousness and what is awareness?

Consciousness is awareness. If you were aware of nothing, not even an awareness of nothing as a "lack of something," then there would be no consciousness. Consciousness is a perception of something. Or said another way, Perception needs the perceived to exist.

We are that which perceives. What we are as experience is what we perceive. Perception has two parts, the perceiver and the perceived and both are required for existence of each other. Because if you took away all that could be perceived, there could be no perception so a perceiver could not exist as experience. All enlightenment is, is changing what we perceive and therefore, what we experience. If you had the perception of an enlightened person, you would have enlightenment.

But remember we are using imperfect and limited language to discuss these things. People use the words consciousness and awareness etc in many different ways referring to very different things or situations or realities. Words are used to point to a meaning one can realize about the nature of things or themselves. So going back to your questions:

How does consciousness divide from awareness?
What is Consciousness and what is awareness?

Consciousness is always aware of something. Otherwise, it would not be conscious. If you get put to sleep by a dentist, you are unconscious. You have no consciousness.

But maybe you are asking about a person who is wholly focusing on and projecting whatever thoughts are in their mind as themselves and as reality. They don't have the awareness necessary to transcend experiencing themselves as their thoughts. So now we have the concepts of higher and lower awareness.

There could be 5 people sitting at a bus stop and an accident happens in front of them on the road. A cop shows up and asks all five what they saw about the accident. One says, "oh sorry I was looking at my phone and didn't see anything." Another says, "Well the red car slammed on his breaks it was his fault." Another says, "Well no a kid ran into the street and that's why the red car slammed on his breaks." Then another says, "That was not a kid, that was a dog." Then another says, "No the kid was holding the dog in his arms on the curb the whole time and he is still there look."

One can be aware of a lot or a little. It's not that consciousness divides from awareness. It's that one can be aware of and focusing on the realty presented by their thoughts, or one can "zoom out" and become aware of the whole mechanism of thought and from this higher vantage point and awareness, transcend thought as one's reality and change it's role in the production of experience.

But yea using language we can say things like, "Oh he was unaware." But really such a person did have awareness of "something." But maybe it was just an awareness of some thought and nothing that was actually present outside this thought they were wholly focusing on.

I've read that awareness is the only thing that is permanent.

Like I said, these words, consciousness and awareness are used to represent many different things and have many different uses and meanings depending on the context and what the person is trying to convey as far as an idea. I myself like to use the words "conscious energy" to describe what we are. But yea I can use the word consciousness to describe different things. I could call myself awareness as well but I don't think it works very well as a word for the true self. But yea it's a quality that describes perception or a perceiver. Words are very limited things actually. That's why we have sentences and paragraphs. You need many words to try to describe a meaning.