
3. Examine the nature of unborn awareness.
“Regarding all dharmas as dreams” can lead me to complacency about my experience, so that I drift into fantasy and dreaminess and lose touch with the vivid quality of phenomena. This slogan brings me back to simply looking at the mind. Mind is unborn because it has no discernable beginning, shape, color, texture or history. Whenever I notice the mind, it’s just there, although like all phenomena it is free of a separate, permanent existence.
Mind is also awareness, because it has the capacity to perceive what’s happening. I can examine this awareness and ponder its nature. “Who or what is aware? Who or what is doing the thinking?” This is the essence of mindfulness meditation practice.