Think about it for a moment. “Just seeing” includes the miracle of being able to see and the in-the-moment non-conceptual knowing that you are seeing. “Just hearing” includes the knowing that you are hearing. The knowing is awareness. It is available before thinking sets in. Yet it can also include any and all thoughts when thinking does come into play around seeing, hearing, or any other aspect of experience.
As you saw in the last chapter, I sometimes use awareness as a present participle, as if it were a verb: awarenessing. There is a particular flavor to saying it in this way which conveys a tonal feeling that is important for the cultivation of mindfulness. Awareness is no longer merely a noun, a thing or a desirable state to be attained and therefore static. It becomes a verb and thus carries a whole dynamic suggesting a process rather than an end state — a dynamic that is critically important to the whole adventure of looking into who we are as human beings and of making use of our capacity to be aware, to be present, to be mindful, and to live more effectively in a very stressful and sometimes highly disordered, chaotic, dis-eased, and sometimes tragic world, a world that is at the same time beautiful in an infinite number of ways.
That beauty includes the inhabitants of this world, its creatures, including ourselves. Including you.