Mindfullness or Self Consciousness (Introvert's Struggle)

@user2929.. now that you have told a bit more about yourself, I have to add this & edit my post. To tell you being an introvert is a blessing in disguise. It is a good thing. Just try to reflect on this… A person can say that he/she is shy and would sound as if it is bad. I do not think so. Only those who have the innocence and gentleness, who have the shyness and fear to do wrong are the fortunate few (ones who have Hiri & Othappa”). They are the ones who will see the Dhamma and walk the Noble Eight Fold Path if they put their mind to it.

People who do not seek large crowds tend to turn their attention inwards, and there are very few of them in the world today. Buddha has pointed out that they have a far greater chance of going to heaven and finding liberation.

Still I am not going to change what I said before. This is a higher goal for you, that you got to work towards. The day that you come to the realization that what you conventionally call a ‘person’ can be understood in terms of five aggregates of clinging, and that the sum of which must not be taken for a permanent entity, your awkward feeling of self-consciousness will vanish. It is because you are now mindful of your true nature - that you are nothing but an amalgam of ever- changing phenomena.

If you do not acquire a thorough understanding of the five aggregates of clinging, you will not be able to grasp the liberation process at work within you. In reality you and I are nothing but an amalgam of the five aggregates of clinging. So please try to think it through.

Thank you for the elaboration. I have based my answer on one of your comments;

"...Lanka I have to say that, i experienced consciousness, but its like a temporary spark(for few seconds), it is not in a stable state.. in which i can get hold of it and continue in being in that state.. that is my problem.. and more often i encounter the situation i described above.. And if i feel frustrated because of this state..."

First of all, don't feel sorry or frustrated because you cannot stay in a certain state.

Instead understand, through insight meditation, that this is actually the impermanent nature of conditioned phenomena that you are experiencing. You cannot control anything as long as being in Samsara, i.e. the conditioned realm. Trying to control stuff is actually the source of your (and others) frustration.

All condition phenomena, whether mental or physical, follows a specific recipe/process. See drawing.

So when something comes into existence, it persists and then breaks up and falls apart. Even in the middle part of the process, i.e. the Presence-part the phenomena is already falling apart. It's already travelling towards its own disintegration. Nothing is stable. Everything is in a constant flux and no matter how hard one tries to hold onto the object, it will vanish as sand through ones fingers.

That is simply the nature of conditioned phenomena. One cannot really understand this through the process of thinking or intellectualization. Instead one has to practice insight meditation (Vipassana) and see with ones own eyes how phenomena arise, persist and disolves into nothingness. When the mind has seen that enough times it will begin to let go.

As the Buddha said; "Having known the world's impermanence, They (disciples) made an end to suffering¹".

Trying to grasp at things creates attachment and as long as there is attachment, one cannot be free. Having something as your target might instead become a hindrance, depending on the intensity of the craving. The mind is like a little child or a dog, you have to teach it over and over in order to develop and purify it.

Lastly, don't be too hard on yourself. Think about it, we are all in the same boat, trying to become free from Samsara. We are just on different steps on the path. Being born human is extremely rare. Being lucky enough to come in contact with the Dhamma is even more rare. You are here now and that means countless of life times of performing wholesome and meritorious deeds, e.g. the practice of meditation.

Let me know if you have any questions to what I wrote and I will try to answer you. If you are interested in the technique I practice, I will be happy to share it with you.

Lanka

¹ Samyutta Nikaya: Sagathavagga: Devaputtasamyutta: Connected Discourses with Young Devas, Bodhi trans, p. 139.

It is not clear if you are doing some formal practice; if you do it regularly, you are likely to see the conditions more clear and learn to deal with them. The best is to do a retreat.

In the usual forms of vipassana (Mahasi & similar I am familar with), you have an anchor (breathing, walking) and when something else comes to your mind (through the 6 sense doors -- western 5 senses plus mind, which includes thoughts, feelings, states of mind etc), you acknowledge/label/note/name what happened and come back to the anchor. This way you learn to (a) see what is there (b) let it go and come back to the anchor. Both points (a) and (b) are important; that's how you learn to deal with whatever happens.

In fact, various states of mind such as frozen, switched-off or dissociated are common. If you find yourself in a stuck state, you can use the "stuck" label to acknowledge that state, and come back. If you find yourself you want to get rid of that state (as you say), acknowledge that wanting and come back. The feeling of being watched is also a feeling you should acknowledge.

When you follow a condition (which the mind does automatically when you don't acknowledge it), you see that a whole drama unfolds: first you notice the stuckness, then you dislike it, then you want to get rid of it, then you perhaps remember that it happened many times and you get frustrated or desperate, then you think what you've done wrong so that it does not disappear, maybe you think there is something wrong with you in general etc etc. That is endless. Acknowledge it as soon as you can, as quickly as you can, and let it go. See what comes next. That's the practice, always coming back to the present.