I've heard suggested there are more options available when we are fully present and aware in each moment. More possibilities are spread out like a tantalising platter of tasty snacks, or fertile seeds of choice waiting to be impregnated by our response. The unfolding of creation?
So I wonder: what is the relationship between awareness and choice? Choosing seems to me to be a decision making process that engages the mind - a thinking process that weighs options to determine the best action. And, according to what I've come to understand in the practice of meditation, there can be awareness of thinking but little awareness in thinking as, being in our heads, we find ourselves temporarily removed from our present reality and if not disciplines can easily get lost there.
Being aware, our eyes and ears open, allows us to take notice of options and, the more aware we are, the more it's possible to identify alternatives from which we can then choose. If we don't see the fork in the path we won't know it's an option. I get that. It's the choosing I'm uneasy with.
From what I've heard, read and experienced, when we are calm, centered, balanced and focused with full conscious awareness there is no thinking and certainly no choosing. We are simply 'in a zone' and know what to do. It's the closest I know to intuitive action - responding with a deeply felt impulse and complete clarity. Thinking would be inadequate, too slow.
But, in this intuitive, no-thinking mode of impulsively responding, where are the options and where is the choice? Do we even have an option but to follow this intuition? Where to not follow would demand incredible effort to ignore, cover, hide, pretend, distract ourselves or make excuses? Like sticking our heads in the sand or keeping very, very occupied. It would be as though we don't want to know what we simply have to do; as though it's easier not to know because what may be requires of us is more than we can face; as though our unconscious responses demand less of us and we're actually happy with less of us. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
So what I'm thinking is the choice is firstly to take notice of what we absolutely have to do and secondly to go with the flow or fighting it. That our spontaneous response in each moment could be different when we simply pay attention to what's going on and listen for that response. That we don't choose from options, but choosing to be aware unveils the direction we are compelled to follow. Choice in relation to awareness is not the cart, it is the horse.
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