Further Clarification

of the AWA practice instructions

The reason these further clarifications are being placed on a separate page is because the practice instructions for the Awareness Watching Awareness Method are simple and they should be kept that way.

It is not helpful to bring a lot of concepts with you into the practice. It is best just to focus on the simple practice instructions.

One of the things you might wonder is what to do after you start watching your awareness. There is nothing else to be done. You just continue with awareness watching awareness. There are no objects to see. Awareness is empty, so there is no thing to observe there. Just continue for the entire practice session watching your awareness, only awareness watching awareness and nothing else.

Don't expect any type of experience. If you are wondering if you will have some kind of spiritual experience, then that very wondering means you have added something to awareness watching awareness.

Never add anything to awareness watching awareness.

The key is to be content just watching your awareness and not to move from that and not to add anything to that.

You may or may not have some kind of spiritual experience, but you should never be expecting any kind of spiritual experience.

If you wonder if the state is going to deepen, that very wondering means you have added something to the Awareness Watching Awareness practice.

Never add anything to the Awareness Watching Awareness Method. Just be content with awareness watching awareness.

You should look at it like awareness watching awareness is all there is, there is nothing more.

In the awareness watching awareness meditation you are not seeking anything. You are observing, not seeking. If you were seeking something, then there would be seeking and awareness watching awareness. That would mean you would have added seeking to awareness watching awareness.

Never add anything to awareness watching awareness, just be content to continue with awareness watching awareness without adding anything to it.

When there are no thoughts, that is best.

If there are thoughts, turn your attention away from them and towards awareness watching awareness. Do not encourage thoughts, do not try and complete a thought, do not turn your attention towards thoughts. Do not think about thinking.

If thoughts are happening, do not make a problem out of it. Just turn your attention away from thoughts and towards awareness watching awareness.

Just remain with awareness watching awareness.

When awareness is watching awareness something extraordinary is happening.

You are for the first time turning inward.

Your true nature is awareness.

Who you really are at your core is awareness.

Therefore, in awareness watching awareness you are for the first time observing yourself and knowing yourself.

However you should not think about that or anything else written on this page while practicing awareness watching awareness, because then you would be adding those thoughts.

The reason I am writing about the fact that you are doing something extraordinary when awareness is watching awareness is because at first you might think, "what else?" or "so what?"

Just keep on practicing and forget about "what else?" or "so what?" Just by turning your attention away from thought and towards awareness watching awareness you are doing something that will change your life completely if you are sincere and continue to practice.

Most humans go their whole lives always looking outward at people, places, things. By turning your attention away from the world, body and thought and towards awareness watching awareness you are doing something extraordinary.

For some people it might take a few days, others a few weeks and others a few months to start to feel something. At first it is subtle and you won't know what it is, but you will know that you like it. It is pleasant. A new subtle feeling. That feeling comes because what you are feeling is eternal life-love-peace.

However, you should not have any expectations about that, because if you expect that, then you are adding that expectation to your awareness watching awareness practice. Never add anything to your awareness watching awareness practice. Just remain in awareness watching awareness while ignoring all else. Just stay there. Just remain in that. Don't look for a something else.

In other words while you are practicing awareness watching awareness, just stay there, relax with that, don't seek something other than awareness watching awareness, don't seek any other state, don't seek deeper awareness, don't seek anything.

Just remain in awareness watching awareness. Be happy that it is simple. Don't seek more than that. It is just a simple state. Don't seek peace, let peace come on its own if it is going to come, without your expecting it or seeking it.

Just remain with awareness watching awareness, and when there are thoughts, just keep turning your awareness back towards awareness watching awareness.

Just keep on practicing every day. Look at it as though all you were seeking was the awareness watching awareness itself and not something else and therefore be content with just staying in awareness watching awareness without moving from it.

Some days the mind may be noisy but if you keep on practicing a good day will appear when your meditation will go very deep without your trying to make it go deep. Never think about deep or not deep. If you think about deep or not deep then you would be adding something to the awareness watching awareness meditation. Just be content to remain with awareness watching awareness regardless of whether it seems like a good meditation session or not.

Some days the feeling may be turbulent. Just ignore the turbulent feelings and turn your attention towards awareness watching awareness.

If you remain observing awareness day after day, at some point you will start to enjoy awareness watching awareness. I don't know how long that will take for you. For some people it may take days, others weeks and others months. The point is, that if you find it difficult to remain with awareness watching awareness in the beginning, don't give up, practice every day on the good days and on the noisy mind or turbulent feeling days too. Just keep on turning your attention away from thoughts and towards awareness watching awareness.

You should not be expecting the day when you will start to enjoy awareness watching awareness, because then you would be adding something to the awareness watching awareness practice in the form of an expectation. The best kind of awareness watching awareness practice is one that is empty. Just awareness watching awareness and nothing else. Just stay there. Just be there. Just dwell there. Just remain there. Don't seek anything else, just be content with awareness watching awareness. Just relax and continue watching your awareness.

Here is a way to look at it:

It is a little like falling in love.

You spend time with someone.

You watch them, you observe them.

But you do not yet know them.

So you continue to observe them.

You don't have expectations,

because you don't know them well enough yet to have expectations.

You just keep on observing.

Some days you have pleasant days when you observe them

and some days you are having an unpleasant day while you observe them.

But you continue to observe them.

Each day you are coming to know them better

even though you may not be aware that you are coming to know them better.

Then one day suddenly and unexpectedly, you have fallen in Love.

Awareness watching awareness is a little like that. Just don't expect anything and continue with awareness watching awareness. The fact that nothing is happening is great! If it seems like day after day, it is just the same, only awareness watching awareness, that is great! Just remain content with that. Because if you think that it is going to change, then you are adding something to awareness watching awareness, in the form of an expectation that it is going to change.

Just look at awareness watching awareness as enough, just as it is. Continue your practice, every day.

I don't know when you will fall in love with awareness watching awareness. It may be after one month or after many months of practice. You will have plenty of confirmation along the way. Once you have started to experience even a little joy or peace from awareness watching awareness, it progresses very rapidly after that. That may happen after only a week or for others one month or for others many months. It does not take long to reach the point where just closing your eyes brings awareness-joy to you before you even have had a chance to practice.

You should not expect it, because then you have added something to the awareness watching awareness practice.

Some people might not like the practice for the first week or two. So just persevere and keep practicing.

You can look upon your awareness as something that wants you to just watch it without expecting anything from it, like a person who wants to be loved just for what they are, not for what they can give you. So just continue to watch awareness, and don't be expecting peace-love-joy. Let peace-joy-love come on its own without your expecting it.

What you truly are is Infinite-Eternal-Life-Awareness-Bliss-Love.

However, by having your attention turned towards the world, the body and thought all the time, you subject yourself to imagining that you are a body subject to disease and death and suffering.

By turning your attention towards awareness you are for the first time observing what you are.

Do not think about what you are, when you practice, just watch your awareness without expecting anything.

Don't watch your thoughts.

Turn your attention away from your thoughts

and just watch your empty awareness.

Observe the observing.

Observe the awareness.

If you remain content with just awareness watching awareness, your problems will start to disappear.

Your misery will start to disappear.

Peace will come unexpectedly.

Joy will come unexpectedly.

Infinite Love will come unexpectedly.

Awareness watching awareness is awareness being awareness.

However, because of the long ancient habit of looking outward towards people places and things, the word "watching" is used in the practice instructions.

That way we take that same habit of watching people, places and things and we shut our eyes and turn it inwards. That is why the word "watching" is used.

What is real is awareness watching awareness, looking inward. What is unreal is looking outward towards the world of people places and things.

Looking outward brings suffering, death, futility.

Looking inward is Liberation, eternal life, eternal awareness, eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal Love that is absolutely perfect, free of all forms of sorrow and misery. That joy, that perfection is your awareness. But because you always looked outward, you never got to know it, you never got to experience it.

To change this long habit of looking outward you need to practice. Spend as many hours per day practicing as you can. If you only practice awareness watching awareness for 30 minutes per day and spend the other 23 and a half hours looking outward, you will not progress very quickly.

If you want rapid results, then drop your unnecessary activities to free up time so you can practice for many hours per day, every day. Maybe once per week on one of your days off from work you can devote the whole day to just practicing awareness watching awareness.

To come to know and experience and live in Eternal-life-awareness-joy-peace-love is definitely worth it.

You will discover you are not a body living in a world. You are eternal awareness, perfect love-joy.

Remember be content with just awareness watching awareness, don't expect any of the things described on this page, because expectation will destroy the effectiveness of the practice.

If it seems boring the first few times you try the awareness watching awareness practice, that is OK, just continue to practice and remain content with awareness watching awareness.

 

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Michael Langford