332. Total Awareness

Total awareness is the ability to see everything from every possible perspective in every moment. It is not merely adopting a balanced position between two opposing perspectives, but to be capable of seeing both simultaneously. It is to be able to raise oneself up to the perspective of a god and to lower oneself to the perspective of a grain of sand. It is to be able to see not only from these extremes but also from every point along the continuum between them.

The complete perspective granted by such an awareness encompasses all possible subjectivities of all possible entities. It is from this paradoxical position that all that appears permanent is also impermanent and all that appears separate and distinct is also a continuous part of the whole. It is from here that it is possible to see all particulars and thus also to be completely free of them. This is the freedom of emptiness, which is also liberation from attachment.

To live from such a place in every moment is an incredible challenge. A human being is always partial, always pulled in some dominant direction, because their awareness is incomplete. The inevitable result is that attachments form and suffering is produced. Suffering can take the form of regret, stress, anxiety, grief, despair, anger, and countless other feelings.

Through open and free attention to both the external world and the internal self, awareness expands gradually to include more of experienced reality. There is always more to be seen, always more to be incorporated into awareness. It is by allowing this process of continuous expansion to take place that freedom from the particulars of attachment becomes possible and suffering is eliminated. In place of the vanquished suffering arises an unmistakable joy — the joy of creation, the joy of compassion, the joy of existence itself.