Clarity Reference / Consciousness and Mental Awareness / Consciousness and Experience
Consciousness and Experience:
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Experience consists of what appears to the mind: sensations, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and states. These experiences arise, change, and subside.
Consciousness is not an experience. It does not appear or disappear, nor does it vary with what is experienced. Experience requires consciousness to be present, but consciousness does not depend on any particular experience.
Confusion arises when vivid or subtle experiences are taken to reveal consciousness itself. Pleasant states, clarity of perception, or absence of disturbance may coincide with understanding, but they do not constitute it. They remain events within experience.
Experience is known because consciousness is present. Consciousness is not known as an object of experience.
Recognizing this distinction prevents mistaking changes in experience for insight into what makes experience possible in the first place.