Notes on Jan Cox Talk 3171 by Cfish
/Jan Cox Talk 3171 = July 9, 2004
Copyright Jan Cox, Jan’s Legacy 2017
Notes by Fish October 2017
Suggested Title: Unscripted Music (Ordinary Consciousness is not Aware of Consciousness)
Begin: The origins of improvisational music and the desire to awaken have a common source. It is when a player dropped his music, kept on playing and discovered it made no difference.
For a while I thought it was just funny to be alive (I never said it out loud, because I thought there was something not right with that sentence) but it’s not just funny to be alive, it’s funny to be “conscious” that you are alive.
And the funny thing to me about all of this, and being alive, and being conscious that you’re alive, is that as long as “you” are “in place,” in the spot, where the unscripted music is being played, and listening, you can’t be aware of it.
Consciousness is not a physical place, it is an internal place. And in this internal place, where the unscripted music is being played, and thinking it’s “you” playing the unscripted music, you can never be aware of it. You are asleep.
05:00 “You” did not compose the music. It’s just there. An ordinary person may say, “but I interpret the music.” (ex. from education, reading Buddha, etc.) But “you” are playing from no music. Ordinary commentary is not original.
10:00 An ordinary person may say otherwise. But it’s like last time, “people do not really listen to themselves.” Check with your own “ordinary running of consciousness.” Ordinary consciousness thinks this is “me” talking.
And if consciousness is in the midst of itself, of it’s unscripted playing, it’s not possible to realize “what’s going on.” Is there anything else in life equal to this? Can you be in the midst of physically dancing or running and not be aware of it?
Can you be in the midst of emotions (ex. sadness, anger) and not be aware of it? Is there any experience outside of the ordinary state of consciousness you can participate in and not be aware of it?
15:00 Ordinary Consciousness is the epitome of what it is to be human. It is singular to humanity. It operates without any attention. You can interfere with ordinary consciousness, and become aware it’s operating without attention.
20:00 Life produces in man this second party, “you” and it protects ordinary consciousness from having to see what is going on. So that ordinary consciousness could talk about “you” not paying attention.
But your consciousness has got to know when it is stopped and that ordinary consciousness is not aware of consciousness. Ordinary thought thinks it is responsible for the automatic running of consciousness, and that is the one thing that consciousness can know for certain - that ordinary thought is not responsible for anything.
25:00 Asking ordinary consciousness “what are you going to say next,” stops consciousness. Just remembering “I’m where the music is playing” for all practical purposes, stops the mind.
And then you realize consciousness is totally out of your control. But how can you forget all that? How can men not realize that? All you have to do is be where the music is playing and it is not possible to be aware of “what’s going on.”
30:00 And when the mind stops, it’s no longer where the music is playing. Life furnishes the unscripted music and thoughts “you” hear. The unscripted music and thoughts are just there, like walking into a night club.
And as long as you “believe” “you” are playing/writing the unscripted music/thoughts, you can’t be aware it’s not “you” playing/writing the music. Consciousness did not compose the music. Life provides the music.
35:00 I assume I speak for all of you, when you first heard the idea that “man’s asleep, living in a dream” though he thinks he is conscious, and that with certain efforts, (ex. self remember, still the mind) he can awaken, that it’s not easy.
But I say after forty or fifty years, that it is even more unbelievable, that I can fall back into ordinary consciousness and take ordinary consciousness/unscripted music seriously for a couple of minutes. (not inferring we don’t fall back into it)
You have got to trust me. You may fully agree with all this, but you may not have fully experienced it. Maybe you get identified, seriously birddogging something, but when you see ordinary mind birddogging, it has the tendency to snap you out of it.
And whatever it was is no longer of any significance. Not even worth looking at. All you have got to know, all consciousness has to realize is:
“it was back in the midst of ordinary consciousness;
the nightclub;
listening.
End - 36:45
