Continuous Awareness

Yes, mindfulness isn’t just about noting or “awareness”, it’s investigating experience using dhamma principles, eg paying attention to the transient nature of sense-impressions.

No one is “brainwashing” themselves, there are many ways to interpret reality, and not just “the one truth” you keep pushing.

Your questions are called “loaded questions” meaning you’re not merely asking a question but you’re also injecting your biases and assumptions as truth, so it’s hard to take your responses seriously.

It seems you’re too attached to “only this is truth, and nothing else”, you’re holding such a strong grip about what you consider to be truth. I personally think there’s nothing fruitful I can tell you until you give up this notion, view and conditioning/habit.

You need to soften your grip on what you think is 100% fact. Keep in mind, that people who are fanatical, whether fanatical in religion or science or social movements or politics, all have a strong attachment to view “only this is true”, and giving up attachment to view is one of the first steps in the dhamma.

If you truly want to stop this habit, check out pyrrhonism (which was influenced by early buddhism):

Pyrrhonist practice is for the purpose of achieving epoché, i.e., suspension of judgment.

There’s 10 modes of achieving epoché (suspension of judgement), i.e. loosening your grip of what is “truth” and getting back on the fence of “I don’t know” - see the 10 modes here under “practice”:

Early Buddhism is what influenced Pyrrho (the father of skepticism) into creating this system of skepticism, so that should say something about Early Buddhism.

Skepticism is the philosophy that there’s very little that we can actually know with any certainty.

Pyrrho is considered the father of Skepticism, and he believed we ought to suspend our judgment on all those things to which we can never find an answer. By giving up the dogmatic pursuit of some kind of resolution, we can be at peace with ourselves and stop getting wound up so easily.

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I recall Ajahn Chah used to talk about “not sure, not sure”. Being unsure can be uncomfortable, but keeping an open mind is very useful. It allows one to explore different possibilities.

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Indeed, I see it more along the lines of picking your battles.

Do you want to be on the pursuit of “truth” and therefore always be craving and unsatisfied if there is no truth, like a dog chasing its tail.

Or do you want to let that craving go and be content in life.

The Buddha seems to imply that the only fight worth fighting for is the fight against suffering caused by craving.

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Allow me to correct: It’s a temporary goal in itself.

Ultimately we want to be free from suffering. But how is that possible through maintaining awareness?

When the skill of maintaining awareness is established, it becomes easier to notice defilements. That’s when we can see them as they really are, the creators of suffering. The more we see that, the more we learn that they are not worth holding on to, and the more we can let go of them.

Then, the lesser the defilements in the mind, the easier to see the reality of the six senses, and therefore naturally become emotionally detached from them.

That’s very Japanese of you Jim. That’s the place’s fame: how deeply mindfulness was integrated into its cultural life, built environments, everything.
For good and bad, the Tokugawa bakufu also used Buddhist temples for census taking, spying on people and control, but whatever. Maybe it’s a reason to why in general they’re such an excellent quality of people.

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