Quotes About Consciousness

In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.

neuroscientists now acknowledge that the human mind tends to wander, engaging in what has been called "stimulus-independent thought.

This is an empirical claim: Look closely enough at your own mind in the present moment, and you will discover that the self is an illusion.

One must be able to pay attention closely enough to glimpse what consciousness is like between thoughts—that is, prior to the arising of the next one. Consciousness does not feel like a self.

Ingesting a powerful dose of a psychedelic drug is like strapping oneself to a rocket without a guidance system. One might wind up somewhere worth going, and, depending on the compound and one's "set and setting," certain trajectories are more likely than others. But however methodically one prepares for the voyage, one can still be hurled into states of mind so painful and confusing as to be indistinguishable from psychosis.

Despite our attachment to the notion of free will, most of us know that disorders of the brain can trump the best intentions of the mind.

It isn't enough to know, in the abstract, that thoughts continually arise or that one is thinking at this moment, for such knowledge is itself mediated by thoughts that are arising unrecognized. It is the identification with these thoughts—that is, the failure to recognize them as they spontaneously appear in consciousness—that produces the feeling of "I." One

After all, there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one's thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present.

Not even in the right ballpark"? His experience sounds so much like a DMT trip that we are not only in the right ballpark, we are talking about the stitching on the same ball.

Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling "I," and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness—free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents.

Leaving aside the metaphysics, mythology, and sectarian dogma, what contemplatives throughout history have discovered is that there is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves; there is an alternative to simply identifying with the next thought that pops into consciousness. And glimpsing this alternative dispels the conventional illusion of the self.

The indeterminacy specific to quantum mechanics offers no foothold: If my brain is a quantum computer, the brain of a fly is likely to be a quantum computer, too. Do flies enjoy free will?

And there is something degraded and degrading about many of our habits of attention as we shop, gossip, argue, and ruminate our way to the grave. Perhaps I should speak only for myself here: It seems to me that I spend much of my waking life in a neurotic trance. My experiences in meditation suggest, however, that an alternative exists. It is possible to stand free of the juggernaut of self, if only for moments at a time. Most

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises

The ultimate wisdom of enlightenment, whatever it is, cannot be a matter of having fleeting experiences. The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of well-being that is inherent to the nature of our minds. It must, therefore, be available in the context of ordinary sights, sounds, sensations, and even thoughts. Peak experiences are fine, but real freedom must be coincident with normal waking life.

When you are able to rest naturally, merely witnessing the totality of experience, and thoughts themselves are left to arise and vanish as they will, you can recognize that consciousness is intrinsically undivided.

We are the source of the love that our priests and pastors attribute to God ( how else can we feel it?). Your own consciousness is the cause and substance of any experience you might want to deem spiritual or mystical. Realizing this, what possible need is there to pretend to be certain about ancient miracles?

You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.15 You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior—but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control.

My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible.

The human mind does, in fact, contain vast expanses that few of us ever discover.

Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?

Values are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures

A person could, for instance, distinguish his bodily movements from those of another person without feeling a sense of self at all, for to do so merely requires that he distinguish one body (as an object) from another.