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Am I conscious now ?
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of
Ten Zen Questions |
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Am I conscious now? Of course I am. Yes, I am conscious now.
Am I conscious now? Of course I am. Yes, I am conscious now.
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But something odd happened. When I asked myself the question it was as though I became conscious at that moment. Was I not conscious before? It felt as though I was waking up – coming to consciousness when I asked the question – because I asked the question. What is going on? (Calm down. Take it slowly.) I can remember what was happening just before I asked the question, so it seems that someone must have been conscious. Was someone else conscious a moment before – as though the waking up is a change in who is conscious? It certainly didn’t feel as though it could have been me because I just woke up, but surely it wasn’t anyone else, for who else could there be in here? Another possibility is that I wasn’t really conscious before I asked the question. This is deeply troubling. For I’ve never asked this question before. Surely I cannot have been unconscious, or semi-conscious, all my life, can I? Perhaps there are lots of things that make me conscious apart from asking this particular question. Even so, this is rather scary. It certainly seems as though I must spend a lot of my time unconscious, otherwise I could not have this definite sensation of coming awake when I ask “Am I conscious now?”. Let me ask it again. Can I reproduce the awakening and look into it to see what it is really like? Am I conscious now? I practise it a lot, for weeks and months. I keep doing it. I keep asking “Am I conscious now?” To begin with the hardest part is remembering to ask. But I want to know. I want to understand what it means to be conscious. So I persevere. Little things remind me of the question – a look, a sound, a sudden emotion – any of them can propel me into asking. And then it happens again and again; it feels as though I am waking up. Yes, of course I am conscious now. Yes of course I am, but it seems as though I wasn’t a moment ago.
I know now, from all the many students who have trodden this path with me, that the hardest part is remembering to ask the question. Even though I feel driven to keep asking, there are often long gaps when I fail to do it. So I’ve tried various strategies, and my students have too. Some tell me they put stickers all over their house: “Are you conscious?” on the front door; “Am I conscious now?” on the toaster; “Conscious?” on the kettle; “Are you sure you’re conscious now?” on the pillow. Others get into pairs so that they can keep reminding each other – “Are you conscious now?”. Some take to special times and places; they ask the question every time they go to the loo, or always ask the question when going to bed, or always remember when they have a drink or food. Sometimes these tricks work; sometimes they don’t. I wonder why it’s so hard. It almost seems as though there is something conspiring to prevent us asking the question; some thickness in the way, some awful lethargy that makes it hard to face up to …. to what? To being fully aware, I suppose. The question propels becoming conscious and becoming open to everything around. Although it seems impossible, in good faith, to answer “No”, it is hard work to answer “Yes” “Yes, I am conscious now”, perhaps because it reminds me that most of the time I cannot have been. But it’s worth it. I persevere.
Am I conscious now? Yes. …
As the years go by and I keep on asking the question, something changes. At first it is very jerky. Something reminds me to ask, and I ask. Suddenly I am awake. Here it goes again. Here I am, awake in this moment. Where was I before? Have I been in the dark so much? I am annoyed with myself – how could you be so dull, so fast asleep. Wake up! But I am already awake. I am asking the question. All this is uncomfortable. Gradually the transition eases. Waking up becomes a little smoother. Indeed, each time is reminiscent of the last. It is almost as though being awake is always the same, or at least it has more in common with other moments of wakefulness than does the ordinary blurry, difficult-to-see, darkness. I keep on asking “Am I conscious now?”. Something odd happens. A continuity begins to appear. Whereas at first the question was always isolated and almost a shock to attempt, now it comes more easily and I try to keep the question open once I’ve asked, and answered, it. Is it possible to keep on asking the same question for a long time, I wonder. The logic is simple. Asking this question always gets the answer “Yes”. So if I keep on asking it I should remain conscious as long as the question is alive, shouldn’t I? I try, and as the years pass it becomes easier to keep the question open. No longer does a door quietly close, only to be wrenched open again in fury at having let it close unnoticed once again. Gradually, gradually it is possible to keep asking the question. The words aren’t really necessary any more. Rather, there just seems to be a questioning attitude, an openness of mind. Am I conscious now? Yes, I am, keep on that way, and now, and now, and gently now. …
I am in my garden hut, wrapped in blankets. It’s mid-winter and very cold. I have sat for some time and the daylight is fading, and now I ask the familiar question. Am I conscious now? Yes I am. But did I say ‘now’? When is this now? The only way to find out is to look. So I look some more. But this proves not to be easy, even though the present moment has stabilised. At first it seems that obviously there is a now. This is when everything is happening. What is happening? This. And then this. I had supposed there was some kind of sliding moment: the present moment, that glided along, making the difference between the things that have already happened and the things yet to come; a boundary between the future and the past. But somehow this just does not accord with reality. I have read, in the literature on ‘phenomenology’, that there is a now, a “just-past”, and an immediate future. But this does not accord with reality either. I keep steady and look. There’s stuff all right. But is it happening now? I cannot see. It is blurry and indistinct. It is hard and painful to look. I cannot see. Every thing that happens seems somehow to be spread out over time. There goes a flock of birds passing across my view. I hear a siren in the distance, ambulance, police car, fire engine, something passing along a road far away. But it takes time to be what it is. I cannot find its now.
… Years pass. Am I conscious now? No I’m not. What? I realise for the first time that I can answer “No”. What if this slippery, difficult, not quite being really here, is not being conscious, and I should have been answering “no” all along? Is this the same as looking into the darkness? Is there any light?
Discuss this chapter at the Ten Zen Blog Back Home To Sue Blackmore's Web Site Back to Ten Zen Home Page created 12 December
2008 |
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