I thought I’d post this transcription of a meditation by Sam Harris (from his Waking Up app called The feeling of awareness. It quite clearly diambiguates awareness/consciousness from the feeling of a self or a ‘you’.
The original meditation is at https://dynamic.wakingup.com/daily/DA07B1E and I post the transcript below without permission.
Okay just sit comfortably and close your eyes and become aware of the sense of paying attention. Just notice the feeling associated with awareness itself. What is this like to hear and feel and see? To notice thoughts and emotions? There’s a clarity and an openness. Notice if it feels located anywhere. Does it really feel like it’s inside your head? Notice that every sign that you have a head – feelings of pressure, temperature, tension whatever is there – is simply appearing in the same open condition. Is awareness inside of anything? And if it feels to you like you’re still located as a source of attention behind your face, inside your head, feel a sensation associated with your face as clearly as you can. Feel your jaw. Are you above your jaw? Are you behind your face? Feel the top of your head. Are you beneath the top of your head? Feel the back of your head. Are you in front of the back of your head? Aren’t all these sensations simply appearing in consciousness? And where is that? Again feel your face as an appearance in this open space and feel the top of your head as an appearance. Feel your jaw. Feel the back of your head. Are you as the witness of experience in the middle of all that? Or are all those sensations simply appearing in consciousness? And now just let awareness rest wide open and notice whatever appears: sensations, sounds, thoughts.
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