Aware of Awareness

If you are alive you are somewhat awake. This is basically true for all beings, but where humans differ from other species is in the ability of being aware of awareness…

A Facebook friend shared a story about a dog he had as a pet once. It seemed the dog actually liked this person, he would hold the dog and it would fall asleep in his arms. It would lick his hand and take food from it. One day as the dog was eating out of a bowl, this person took the food away before the dog was finished, the dog bit and scratched his hand; so much for liking the individual. The dog was awake and realized his food was being taken away, but it ended there. There was no awareness of who was actually taking the food, his food was being taken away and the dog didn’t like it. This is how many humans react to situations, they like people as long as they don’t take away what they like.

For one to get beyond this mindset, there must be awareness of it. This is where we as humans differ. Other species don’t have this ability to be truly aware, but if you look around it seems most humans don’t have this ability either. What will have to happen at some point in your life for this to change is being aware of being aware; noticing what arises when what is liked is taken away or just naturally changes. This is key if you’re not going to be drawn into labeling what’s changing. Suffering comes from not having awareness aware of awareness of what’s changing and being controlled by what is labeled as liked. When there is awareness of what arises you can be conscious of it and not attach to it. What you like will still be taken away at times, but hopefully you won’t bite or scratch when this happens, hopefully, but most likely you probably will…