Date: 07/19/2025 07/20/2025
Location: Star Ocean Meditation Center
Teacher: Sara
Sitting Meditation
The Timeless and Unchanging Nature of Primordial Awareness
Before all experiences, there is an awareness that does not depend on conditions and does not move with circumstances. It is not created, nor produced by practice. It has always been present. Practice is not about generating new states, but about returning to this overlooked yet ever-present primordial awareness. When its unchanging nature is directly seen, the mind no longer loses itself in arising and passing phenomena.
1. Recognizing Primordial Awareness: Unborn and Undying Knowing
1.Awareness precedes all experience
Before thoughts arise and while sensations change, there is always knowing. This knowing never breaks.
2.Awareness belongs to no object
It is not the body, emotions, or thoughts, nor is it dependent on any content. Objects come and go; awareness remains.
3.Awareness does not change with states
Clarity and confusion, calm and disturbance are states. Awareness knows them without being altered.
2. Why Does Awareness Seem Obscured?
1.Mistaking experience for the subject
Identifying thoughts or feelings as “self” causes awareness itself to be overlooked.
2.Attention absorbed in content
When the mind chases objects, it sees only what is known, not the knowing itself.
3.Seeking instead of resting
Trying to obtain awareness obscures the fact that it is already present.
3. How to Realize Its Unchanging Nature
1.Returning to present knowing
Ignore content and recognize the simple fact of knowing right now.
2.Noticing the invariant within change
Thoughts and sensations shift, yet the fact of being known does not.
3.No interference or fabrication
Awareness needs no correction, purification, or enhancement.
4.Abiding in awareness in all conditions
Whether in stillness or activity, ease or difficulty, awareness remains clear.
4. Transformations Through Realization
1.Fear of change dissolves
Seeing what does not change removes fear of what does.
2.No fixation on states
All experiences are seen as transient, while awareness stands unmoved.
3.Stability becomes unconditional
True stability arises from awareness itself, not from conditions.
4.Clarity naturally infuses action
With awareness recognized, all activity remains illuminated.
5. Awareness Ever-Present, Nothing to Attain
1.Not creation, but discovery
Practice adds nothing; it reveals what was always here.
2.Not maintenance, but non-forgetting
Awareness does not need to be held, only not overlooked.
3.Not withdrawal from life, but full presence
Awareness is not apart from life, but shines within every experience.
Conclusion
Primordial awareness has never arisen and never ceased. It does not change with time, circumstances, or stages of practice. When its timeless nature is directly realized, the mind stops seeking stability in what arises and passes, and rests in its original clarity and freedom.
