VIGILANCE

    Vigilantly expecting the next thought to arise, waiting receptively, then no thoughts will come.   This is the gap between thoughts; there becomes apparent then a mental silence in which there are no words, no images, no arisings of waves on the ocean of consciousness.   In this state of the absence of mental disturbance there is a silent quiescence, but the gap does not usually last very long – perhaps only for an instant – but that instant is long enough to recognize what pure consciousness is. There have been many terms concocted to describe this state: nirvikalpa samadhi, turiya, oceanic reflection samadhi, quiescence, samatha, and so forth, but what they all indicate is the primordial innate consciousness that all of us, at our core of being, are.   This is not just a blank awareness, a screen upon which all images and thoughts seem to be projected, but a screen of awareness that is a knowing awareness.   There are two ways that thought arises in our awareness: as concepts described by words or as concepts portrayed by images. Images, or mental pictures, are more subtle than discursive word-laden concepts, but both types of mentation are conceptual functioning and can be dismissed or let go of as soon as they are noted as having arisen.  Then they subside back into their source.   This process is one of active attentiveness to detachment and requires utmost vigilance.

     We have to practice detachment from, and non-attachment to all automated and conditioned conceptual activity.  The right path to perfect non-attachment is the path to that perfect holistic, integral balance wherein the human potential for powerful attentiveness and clear awareness is maximized.   There should be no attempt to suppress thoughts; we can just let them be what they will be, but in non-attachment to them we don’t follow along in them or cling to them or get caught in them.   This kind of contemplation does not use directed attention to any object; this is objectless contemplation, no object on which to put the attention, no constructed visualization or mantra on which to focus, and no discriminative distinction made between subject and object.   All is function, all is process. This kind of contemplation is the active expression of gnostic awareness; it is not in the realm of cause and effect exclusively, yet is immanent therein while also transcending all causality, causality being within the enclosures of pure subject. Subjectivity and objectivity are nondual and this truth is revealed with certainty by vigilant active attentiveness.