It’s possible to be conscious and aware, without having to be self-conscious. The ‘self’ is a survival mechanism—the brain develops a ‘sense of self’ as a way to protect the body and the psyche, to guard one from danger and harm. It’s essentially a defense mechanism—it’s protective. So if you can let go of that survival mechanism, you can experience conscious awareness without the protective sense of self. Some people call this ‘open awareness.’ It’s a spacious freedom from fear of harm, an openness to life, to experience.
‘Sense of self’ is the organizing function that includes many other instinctive reactions that are designed to protect us from harm. Fear, shame, rage, jealousy, and other so-called “kleshas” are biologically imprinted instincts that are part of our mammalian brain and nervous system whose function is to keep us alive, to hold our place within the social group, to protect us from danger and harm, so we can stay alive. “Anxiety” is the sensitive self-monitoring function that tells us we might be in danger. “Self” is the coordinating mental function that regulates all those instinctive reactions. Tantric Buddhism sees these instinctive reactions as not problematic, but only as reactions that need to be understood. By letting go of the ‘sense of self’, we can be open to experience without fear of harm. “Seeing, one just sees”, without reference to a protective self. “Hearing, one just hears” without reference to a self.
There’s an inner dharma and an outer dharma. And I know this is a dichotomy, a sin against non-dualism, but I think it makes a useful distinction, albeit a temporary one. (Neither is it a reference to the “outer, inner, secret” dharma of tantric Buddhism.) The inner dharma is the inner reality, the domain of traditional Buddhism: meditation, non-self, freedom from clinging and grasping, non-reactivity, and all the other mystical and psychic states. The domain of outer dharma is about the nature of the world, society, the universe. Of course these two domains have everything to do with each other; they’re interdependent and not separate. But it helps to conceive of the outer dharma differently from the inner dharma, and that’s where I would refer to the dharma of emergence, systems, ecology, holism, interdependence, compassion, loving kindness, ethics, emptiness, space. Distinguishing the two helps me to apply the right dharma to the right domain. It also brings a sense of harmony and balance to the two domains. Furthermore, I don’t use the wrong dharma. For instance, meditation is an inner dharma. The meditation posture and experience is not that helpful to apply to the outer domain of political action. For that, I need an active dharma that communicates with the world around me.
Dharmaecology 