Very nice article about awareness vs consciousness
key sentence :
when the awareness touches the object it becomes consciousness.
is all the more important when you realise that in french they often switch one with the other while translating original articles, or talks.
even the word awareness happens to be translated as consciousness..
What is Consciousness vs. Awareness?
What is consciousness? Science seems perplexed when it has to
address this question because it really doesn’t have an answer. But
according to Buddhism, the appearance of objects in the mind is known
as consciousness. You can also say that the conceptualization of
objects within/as consciousness is known as “mind.” Without that content
we colloquially say there is no mind.
Before the appearance of objects we still have awareness, but it
is empty. Awareness when it touches objects becomes consciousness. So
awareness without objects is the aprior state before consciousness and
is the ground state that “supports” consciousness. Awareness is always
empty in a not-knowing state. It just shines or illuminates. That’s
called effulgence, which means radiance, brightness, illumination or
shining. Without touching objects, awareness just remains in its own
body and shines, it be-s itself, it just is. That’s “presence” or
being. That’s also self-effulgence so effulgence is the nature of
awareness. It’s like a great bodyless body of not-knowing knowing. You
cannot identify it as either existence or non-existence, as either real
or not real because it transcends all these descriptions. It is
without these two attributes because that is its purity. Awareness is
an ever shining function of our real ultimate essence of being. It
allows us to know and understand because it allows us to be aware of
consciousness - all the moving stuff.
On the other hand, “our mind” is something more objective because
“mind” means clear differentiation and understanding. “Mind” involves
clear discrimination—that which discriminates the characteristics of
objects. So we use the mind to understand things because mind
understands the manipulation of consciousness. Mind is a pattern of
consciousness which is born from awareness which is in turn a function
of our original nature. At least that’s the explanation of Buddhism and
Advaita Vedanta, which have had thousands of years to work out robust
definitions and explanations.
In terms of the teachings of spiritual schools, consciousness
isn’t yet our ultimate ground state of being because consciousness
knowing isn’t our ultimate original nature; it is a looking outward to
objects rather than a state resting in itself as its real essence
without elaboration. We mistakenly think that knowingness or
consciousness, which we colloquially term the “mind,” is our real self
but it is not. It cannot be because it is inconstant and does not
always stay. It's just flitting all the time. There is still something
ultimate behind consciousness, there is something that transcends the
oridnary mind, there is still something behind knowing and what is
behind it that spiritually transcends it is ever present, never moving,
always empty, shining awareness. In fact, the highest secret of the Zen
school of Buddhism is that our consciousness and then even awareness
are not the ultimate, fundamental “host” or “Self.” Consciousness and
awareness are still a “guest,” they are still a function of the Absolute
nature.
The realm of consciousness is only a projection of the original
nature. It’s still a dependently existing construction, which means it
depends upon other elements for its existence. It is just a function of
the original nature, or God, or Self, or however you wish to word it.
And because consciousness depends upon other things for its existence,
it cannot be the ultimate state of reality. As to the actual realm of
the enlightened, the Buddha Manjushri said, “It is not something that
can be known by consciousness, nor is it an object of the mind.” It
transcends consciousness, it is aprior. You cannot find This Ultimate
One with the mind of thoughts, so how do you find It? By no-mind,
no-thought, by not attaching to thoughts but letting them just be there
when they are, but never attaching to them while maintaining presence.
These are deep words that science has not yet fathomed. At best
psychiatry and psychology deal with the mental events of the mind,
trying to put them into groups having this or that shape or meaning.
Cognitive science is still puzzling how objects “out there” turn into
mental events inside the brain and then consciousness, so it has not
proceeded far in this direction either. In this new century, the best
advice we can give neuroscience and cognitive science is to examine the
ancient schools of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta to discover what they
have to say about consciousness and the many various modalities of the
mind.
