Consciousness

Chapter

Eighteen

Waking up

to do anything else’ (1957, p. 161). This is ‘unmotivated non-volitional function-
ing’. It is ‘non-action’ or ‘not-doing’. It is how things are because really there is
no entity to act; no entity to be either bound or free (Wei Wu Wei, 2004). Wu
Wei (whose name comes from Taoism) suggests ‘asking yourself whether you
are not still looking as from a phenomenal centre that has only an imaginary
existence. If so, you will be misled; if not – you will understand at once’ (Watts,
1957, p. 163).

PRACTICE 18.2

MINDFULNESS

Your final task is to be mindful for a whole day (or forever, if you prefer). If

possible, choose a day when you will have time on your own, and when

you might be walking, doing housework, gardening, or taking part in

sports, rather than reading, writing, and socialising. Decide that you will

stay fully present in every moment and then begin. You must begin – and

continue – with this moment and not think about how well you have done so

far, or how long you still have to go. Just attend, fully and clearly, to what

is going on now. You will probably find that it seems easy to begin with,

and that everything seems bright and clear when you do, but then you will

suddenly realise that you have gone off into some train of thought and lost

the mindfulness. Do not get cross with yourself but just return to the present

moment. That’s all you have to do.

It is very difficult. Don’t get discouraged.

You might like to make notes on how you got on, or discuss the following

questions later with friends. What made it harder or easier to maintain

mindfulness? Were you ever frightened? Did being mindful interfere with

what you were doing? How does this task relate to all the previous ones?

Can you imagine being mindful all your life?

What is it like being mindful?

How is it possible to live without doing? One way lies in the simple phrase ‘as if ’.
You can live as if you have free will; as if you are a self who acts; as if there is a
physical world outside yourself. You can treat others as if they are sentient beings
who have desires, beliefs, hopes, and fears. In discussing free will with scientists
and philosophers (Blackmore, 2005), Sue discovered that this compromise is a
common solution. Alternatively, you can throw off the idea altogether and simply
accept that all your own actions are just part of the inevitable play of the whole
amazing, complex universe of which your ever-renewing body and illusory self are
part. This way of living drops any distinction between real and as-if intentionality,
or real and as-if free will, and drops the illusion of a self who acts (Blackmore, 2013).

Does any of this help us with the hard problem, and with the dualism that bedev-
ils every attempt to make scientific sense of consciousness? It is said that when

‘I do the “as if ”. And

I think almost everybody

who’s happy and

healthy tends to do that.’

(Dan Wegner, in Blackmore,

2005, p. 257)