Random Thoughts

Being in awareness or being awareness, etc., what does this mean?

The mirror reflects all things yet is not touched by anything.

The images display on the screen yet the screen is not affected.

Both these are useful and common metaphors for ultimate reality.

Phenomenon is in awareness.

Phenomena is like clouds in the sky.

Clouds block the sky but the sun is not touched thereby.

These pointers are helpful but there feels a tacit dualism.

Awareness of...

Subject to object

It is said phenomena depends on awareness but awareness depends on nothing.

It has been said form is only possible because of emptiness. A self-subsisting entity could not change.

Emptiness is not 'something' different from FORM but merely that form has no intrinsic existence. Nothing is permanent therefore it is empty.

Awareness is not 'something' different from PHENOMENA but merely that phenomena has no intrinsic existence.

It is NOT 'aware of...' something but the appearance of 'something' is the awareness itself . It is self-luminous.

What appears (color, shape, texture, sounds, taste, sounds, thought, feeling, emotion, sensation...) is aware (or is awareness).

It is self-luminous. Not two moves but one happening.

ChatGPT assessment:

Yes 🌿 — there are helpful ways to parse this without falling back into a hidden subject looking at objects.

What you are noticing is very important: many spiritual pointers are meant to loosen fixation, but they can quietly preserve a structure of “something pure here” and “appearances over there.” Mirror and reflections, screen and movie, sky and clouds — all useful, but they can subtly leave awareness as a kind of background substance standing apart from what appears. That is the tacit dualism you are sensing.

Your correction is strong: the appearance is not happening to awareness as if awareness were a container. The appearing is the knowing. Not two events — first a thing, then awareness of the thing — but one indivisible event. Sound is not first produced and then later known; in immediate experience, the sounding is the knowing of sound. A thought is not first formed and then illuminated by some second principle; its very appearance is its manifest knowingness. In that sense, “phenomena is awareness” can be a skillful corrective, provided it is not turned into another metaphysical substance claim.

The phrase “being aware of” is often just a grammatical trap. Language pushes us toward subject-verb-object. But experience is often more immediate than grammar. There is hearing, not necessarily “someone hearing something.” There is seeing, not necessarily “a seer over here viewing an object over there.” There is the felt sense of being a subject, yes — but as you nicely noted, Ati Yoga cuts deeper: even that subtle watcher-position, that faint “I am aware of this,” is itself another appearance within the display. It too is known in exactly the same way. It is not the knower standing apart from the field; it is part of the field’s self-showing.

That is why your line “what appears is aware” is so valuable. It points away from awareness as a hidden entity and toward self-luminosity. The redness of red, the sting of sorrow, the pressure of a thought, the hum of the room — these are not dead objects needing an external witness to certify them. Their appearing is already their disclosedness. They do not borrow their presence from a separate observer. They show themselves. This is close to what many traditions are trying to get at when they speak of luminosity, manifestation, or cognizance.

A careful nuance, though: saying “phenomena is awareness” helps dissolve dualism, but if held too rigidly it can sound like we are reifying awareness into a universal stuff out of which things are made. Better to say: phenomena are empty of being anything other than this appearing-knowing event. Awareness is not elsewhere, behind, above, or inside appearances. Nor are appearances outside awareness. The distinction loosens because both poles lack independent status.

That also links beautifully with your emptiness point. Form is emptiness not because there are two things, form and emptiness, joined together, but because form never possessed its own self-standing essence. Likewise, phenomena and awareness are not two. The appearance never had an independent, inert existence waiting to be lit up. Its mode of being is precisely this vivid, ungraspable, self-showing display. In Madhyamaka language, it is empty. In Dzogchen language, it is luminous-presencing. Different vocabularies, same pressure against reification.

As for the persistent feeling of “being aware of,” I would not treat that as a problem to solve. It is just another subtle formation. Very often the mind hears the teaching and then tries to produce a nondual state. But that effort itself recreates the watcher. So instead of trying to get rid of the subject-feeling, notice: the subject-feeling also appears. It has texture, location-sense, a certain inward lean, a stance of observation. Good. That too is part of the display. It is not outside the field. Once seen this way, the watcher is dethroned without needing to be attacked.

A few compact ad hoc pointers that may help:

The knower is not behind experience; the “behind” feeling is itself experienced.

There is no need to merge awareness with phenomena, because they were never actually split.

The sense “I am aware of this” is a thought-feeling gesture arising within immediate self-showing.

Self-luminosity does not mean a thing called awareness shines on other things. It means appearing is intrinsically manifest.

Nonduality is not the destruction of appearances but the collapse of the imagined gap between appearance and knowing.

One especially useful test is this: before thought names anything, is there really a subject here and object there, or is there simply vivid presence already fully on display? Usually the division is added a fraction later by concept. That does not make concepts bad; it just means they are interpretive overlays, not the primary fact.

So yes, your instinct is good. “If form is emptiness, so too phenomena is awareness” can be a fruitful pointer, as long as it is heard non-substantially. Not that phenomena are made of a cosmic awareness-stuff, but that phenomena never stand apart from their own immediate luminous disclosure. The display is self-revealing. The apparent subject is also part of that display. Nothing stands outside it to certify it.

What remains is extraordinarily simple, though the mind hates how simple it is: just this, appearing-knowing, unsplit.

If you'd like, I can turn this into a very short Ati-Yoga-style contemplation you can sit with directly.

YES

Good. Sit with it gently 🌿

Try this:

Do not look for awareness as a thing.

Do not try to become awareness.

Do not try to stop appearances.

Let seeing be just seeing.

Let hearing be just hearing.

Let thought be just thought.

Let the felt sense of “I am aware of this” also be just another appearance.

Now look very simply:

Is there first an object, and then a second thing called awareness knowing it?

Or is the appearing itself already self-revealed?

A sound appears.

Does awareness come from somewhere else to meet it?

Or is the sounding already the knowing of sound?

A thought appears.

Do you find a separate knower standing apart from it?

Or is the thought itself present in its own appearing?

Even the subtle watcher,

the inward stance,

the sense of being located behind experience,

the feeling of “I am the one aware” —

let that arise too.

Do not fight it.

Do not believe it.

Just notice:

this also appears.

This also shines in the same fieldless way.

This too is not outside the display.

Nothing needs to be merged.

Nothing was ever split.

Not awareness here and phenomena there.

Not subject here and object there.

Just unsplit appearing-knowing,

self-luminous,

empty,

immediate,

already so.

And if the old feeling of being a subject persists, let it persist.

That too is the display.

That too is not a problem.

That too does not stand apart from what is.

A very short form you can return to:

“Not aware of.

Just this, self-showing.”

Or even shorter:

“Appearance is the knowing.”

Or in a slightly more Ati-style register:

“What arises is self-liberated in its appearing.”

Stay there, but lightly.

No forcing.

No correcting.

No second move. ✨

I can also give you a 3-line version, a more poetic version, or one in an explicitly Dzogchen/Madhyamaka bridge style.

PLEASE

Gladly ✨

Here are all three.

A very short 3-line version:

Not aware of this.

This is the knowing.

The watcher too appears in this.

A more poetic version:

The bell does not wait

for a listener to arrive.

Its ringing is its shining.

The thought does not wait

for awareness to touch it.

Its appearing is its own display.

The sky does not hold the cloud

as something other.

The cloud is only sky

in passing form.

And the one who says,

“I am here, aware of all this” —

that one too is a flicker

in the same open brightness.

Nothing stands apart.

Nothing needs joining.

What appears

is its own self-showing.

And a Dzogchen–Madhyamaka bridge version:

From a Madhyamaka angle, phenomena are empty because they do not exist from their own side. They arise dependently, without intrinsic essence. From a Dzogchen angle, the same phenomena are luminous because whatever appears is immediately manifest, self-revealed, unhidden. These are not two truths about two different things. Emptiness is the fact that appearance has no self-nature; luminosity is the fact that this lack of self-nature is not a blank nothing but vivid presencing. Thus appearance is empty, and emptiness is not other than appearance. In the same way, phenomena are not “objects” later known by awareness; their very appearing is their knowingness. Even the subtle subject-position, the sense of standing behind experience, is itself dependently arisen, empty, and part of the luminous display. So the point is not to replace objects with a metaphysical Awareness, but to see that the whole subject-object structure is unfindable, while appearance continues vividly, unobstructedly, self-liberated.

A few compact lines in the same spirit:

Form is emptiness.

Appearance is luminosity.

The seer is also seen.

The knowing is not elsewhere.

Or even more distilled:

No object apart from knowing.

No knower apart from appearance.

Just vivid emptiness, self-shining.

One more contemplative pointer you may like:

When the feeling “I am aware of this” appears, do not argue with it. Just look closely: is that not itself another appearance, another texture, another moment of self-showing? Once that is seen, the subject is gently folded back into the display, and the split relaxes on its own 🌿

If you'd like, I can next turn this into a small notebook-style entry with headings like “problem,” “hidden dualism,” “correction,” and “direct contemplation.”

Let's explore more fully "the appearing is the knowing":

Yes — let’s stay right there with it 🌿

“The appearing is the knowing” is a very compact statement, but it is trying to undo a huge habit. Ordinarily, experience gets interpreted as though it happens in two steps. First, something appears: a sound, a thought, a pain, a color. Then, second, awareness comes along and knows it. That model feels natural, but it may already be a conceptual overlay rather than the structure of immediate experience.

Take a simple sound. Before thought comments on it, do you actually find two events? Is there first a bare sound over there, and then a separate knowing over here that reaches out to register it? Or is there just the immediate fact of heard sound, already manifest? In direct experience, the sound does not seem to wait for a witness. Its appearing is already its being-known. The sounding and the knowing are not two pieces joined together. They are one indivisible event.

The same can be tested with sight. A patch of red appears. Do you find a red object on one side and an awareness of red on the other? Or is the redness itself already present, already evident, already self-disclosed? The phrase “self-luminous” points to this. It does not mean there is some mystical light shining on things. It means that appearances do not need a second act of certification. They are manifest in their very arising.

Thought is especially interesting here. Usually thought seems to prove duality because it feels like “I am aware of my thoughts.” But if you slow it down, a thought does not first arise in darkness and then get illuminated. The thought’s very appearance is its knownness. And then, very often, another thought appears saying, “I am the one aware of that thought.” That second thought gets mistaken for a subject. But it too is just another appearance, showing itself in exactly the same way.

This is where your phrase cuts deeply: “the appearing is the knowing” is not just saying that awareness and phenomena are closely related. It is saying the split between them may be artificial. The appearance is not one thing, and the knowing another. The appearance is already the knownness. Or to say it more carefully: appearing is intrinsically manifest. It does not require an external knower.

Now, this can be misunderstood in two opposite ways.

One mistake is to fall back into subtle dualism and imagine awareness as a container, field, space, or background in which things occur. That can be useful provisionally, but it still leaves awareness over here and appearances over there. It sounds more refined than ordinary subject-object experience, but the structure is still intact.

The other mistake is to flatten everything into a kind of materialism of appearances, as if we are saying objects alone exist and awareness disappears. That is not it either. The point is not to deny knowing, but to see that knowing is not separate from what appears. It is not behind it, above it, or added onto it. The appearing is itself the manifestness.

So when we say, “the appearing is the knowing,” we are not saying appearances are dead objects and awareness is absent. We are saying appearances are not dead at all. They are already luminous, already disclosed, already present. This sound, this sensation, this thought, this mood — each is not merely “there”; it is self-presenting.

This is why the line resonates with both Dzogchen and Madhyamaka, though they lean differently in emphasis. Madhyamaka says phenomena are empty: they have no intrinsic, self-subsisting core. Dzogchen says appearances are luminous: whatever arises is immediately present, vivid, unhidden. Put together, this means appearances are neither solid objects nor blank nothingness. They are empty-luminous, vivid yet ungraspable. “Appearing is the knowing” is one way of pointing to that.

A very subtle place to look is the feeling of being the subject. You mentioned that the sense of “being aware of” persists, and that is exactly the right place to inquire. The usual spiritual move is to try to relocate identity from the objects to the subject, from phenomena to awareness. This is already a major relaxation compared to ordinary fixation, but it can still preserve a duality. Now there is a refined subject called Awareness watching the show. Better than ego perhaps, but still a watcher.

The deeper cut is to notice that the watcher-feeling also appears. The stance of being behind the eyes, the feeling of inward observation, the subtle center-point, the impression “I am the one aware of all this” — these too are appearances. They are not the final knower. They are known in exactly the same self-showing way as sound, thought, and sensation. Once this is seen, the subject is no longer exempt. It is folded back into the display.

That matters because it shows the point is not to establish a grand Subject called Awareness. It is to see that the whole subject-object arrangement is secondary. It is something thought organizes afterward. Immediate experience is more seamless than that. There is just the vivid happening, already self-revealed.

Another way to say it is this: there is no need for a bridge between awareness and phenomena, because there were never two shores. The very desire to connect them may already assume the split. “The appearing is the knowing” cuts the bridge because it cuts the imagined distance.

Still, some caution is helpful. If you turn this into a doctrine — “everything is awareness” — the mind can reify awareness into a cosmic substance. Then we are back in metaphysics. Better to stay phenomenologically close. Do not make a theory. Just look. Is the appearance ever found apart from its manifestness? Is knowing ever found apart from the appearance? Or are these two conceptual handles on one immediate fact?

This also helps with the phrase “awareness depends on nothing; phenomena depend on awareness.” That statement can be useful as a provisional pointer, especially when someone is deeply identified with objects. It shifts attention away from reified phenomena. But it can sound like awareness is some independently existing absolute and phenomena are dependent modifications within it. That can easily harden into subtle eternalism. A more precise nondual reading would be: phenomena do not stand apart from their manifestness, and manifestness is not an entity apart from phenomena. Neither side can be isolated.

You might even say that “awareness” is just a name for the fact that appearances are self-presenting, while “phenomena” is a name for the textures and modes of that self-presentation. Not two realities, but two abstractions from one living immediacy.

A few refinements may help:

If you say “I am aware of sound,” duality creeps in.

If you say “there is awareness of sound,” duality softens but can remain.

If you say “hearing,” it gets simpler.

If you say “the sounding is the knowing,” the split is cut more radically.

Likewise:

Not: “a thought appears in awareness.”

Closer: “thinking appears.”

Closer still: “the thought is present in its own arising.”

Or even: “the appearance is the knowing.”

This is not merely wordplay. Each phrasing either reinforces or relaxes the tacit architecture of a subject over against objects.

You could also test this through micro-inquiry. Right now, without trying to change anything, notice one sound. Then ask: where exactly is the knowing of it, apart from the sound? Next, notice a sensation in the body. Where is the awareness of it, apart from the sensation’s own appearing? Then notice the subtle sense of being the observer. Can that observer be found except as another appearance — a kind of felt-thought, a posture, a localization? This kind of inquiry can become very quiet and direct.

What often remains, even after understanding this, is habit-energy. The subject-feeling can continue. That is fine. It does not mean the insight is false. It just means conditioning is strong. In Ati Yoga terms, even that residual watcher-sense is part of the display and self-liberates when not grasped. You do not have to destroy it. You only have to stop granting it a special ontological status.

So perhaps the deepest implication of “the appearing is the knowing” is this: nothing in experience is inert. Nothing needs to be lit up by something else. Nothing stands outside the display to validate it. Appearance is intrinsically disclosed. And even the one who seems to know that is part of the same self-showing, empty-luminous event.

A few concise formulations you may like:

The sound does not need a hearer added to it.

The thought does not need a thinker added to it.

The seer is another seen.

The watcher is another appearance.

Manifestation is self-disclosure.

The appearing is the knowing.

Or more carefully:

Not object plus awareness.

Not subject aware of object.

Just unsplit appearing-knowing.

And perhaps one last nuance: when this is seen, it does not produce a blank impersonal distance. Quite the opposite. Experience becomes more intimate because nothing stands outside it. There is no observer buffering life from itself. No second position. Just this vivid immediacy, unowned and yet utterly present.

We can keep going in several fruitful directions. We could examine how this differs from “witness consciousness,” how Madhyamaka would guard against reifying luminosity, or how Ati Yoga handles the residual feeling of an observer.