Please Help With Descriptions Of Mindfulness Awareness Consciousness

[growthaboveall]

I keep getting confused with those three terms
PLEASE GIVE DESCRIPTIONS FOR

• Mindfulness
• Awareness
• Consciousness

Mindfulness is the only one I think I understand. Degree to which you perceive through your 5 senses (hearing,seeing,touch,smell,taste)

 

The other ones I have a vague idea. I guess they are closer to Feeling of awareness of cosnciousness
For example "freedom from outcome" can be described as a feeling

[cetus]

@growthaboveall My interpretation of mindfulness is exactly as it is. Be mindful. That is what an individual person experiences and interprets through mind.  Awareness and consciousness have about the same meaning but are separate from the individual's mind as in mindful.  Awareness happens of itself. Being mindful of that difference between mind and awareness is a beautiful thing. Good question!

[ZenMonkey]

"Consciousness is whatever is reading these words right now, and understanding them."  (Francis Lucille)

Most teachers don't make a difference between consciousness and awareness.
Only some (Nisargadatta Maharaj) referre to them differently: Consciousness is always of something and awareness is beyond that, on its own. And there can be no consciousness without awareness. (Here Rupert Spira explains both teachings)

Mindfullness means bringing your attention to your present experience, internal and external.

 

[Guest]

Teachers of spirituality generally have their terms all over the place, but are usually only referring to the exact same thing. As ZenMonkey says above, most teachers use consciousness and awareness interchangeably.

I personally think mindfulness is the hardest term to describe, and the easiest one to misunderstand. What is mindfulness? To be aware of the present. What is the present? The mind cannot grasp the present. It tries to, but one moment passes, and it is still clinging on to that moment. Mindfulness is to understand that the mind is always trying to understand, and therefore accept each moment as it comes, allowing the mind to let go, so that the awareness/consciousness can be in the true present.

[Nic]

In my opinion,

-Awareness is the spotlight of your experience, your "5" senses limits and capacity. 

-Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to what the spotlight puts into the light, like paying attention to the force of gravity that we don't pay often attention to, and the art of moving that spotlight at your own will. The spotlight is mostly controlled by our lower self, being aware of this puts you in a higher state of consciousness. This is why we practice mindfulness.

What the spotlight lands on comes into your consciousness. The rest remains in the dark, but the darkness, the unconscious world, has more influence on us than one would think or like to admit, in fact, it has a lot more influence than the conscious world.

I hope it makes it a little clearer for you,

Good luck!

 

[Leo Gura]

Mindfulness is your ability to objectively observe phenomena in the present moment, as they arise, without mental distortion.

Awareness/consciousness you will not really understand without an enlightenment experience. What they are cannot be described in words. But if one was to try, the best description I've heard is that awareness/conscious is pure empty knowing, and ultimately absolute nothingness. It's the eternal "space" or dimension within which everything phenomenal becomes known.