A regular reader, Casey Kochmer, comments on the "Ovid, Daoist Sage" post below with a question: What do you think A Taoist would say Consciousness is?

Let's think about it…

(But first a note on usage.  I have not been adhering strictly to any one form of transliteration of late.  So, sometimes I write "Taoist" and other times I write "Daoist."  It really doesn't matter to me, since the Chinese terms are the same:  道 家). 

It seems to me that a Taoist would understand consciousness as a momentary experience.  It is the perception of Way that one has at a particular instant.  There would be no assumption of perceptual continuity: what my consciousness is now is not necessarily was it was a moment ago or what it will be a moment from now.  Since all things in Way are subject to transformation, consciousness would be presumed to be fluid, no static.   Chuang Tzu is the first source that comes to mind here. His comments on dreaming suggest a a continuum or interweaving of, not a sharp break between, consciousness and unconsciousness:

You might dream that you're drinking fine wine, then the next morning you're weeping and sobbing.  You might dream that you're weeping and sobbing, then the next morning you're out on a rollicking hunt.  In the midst of a dream, we can't know it's a dream.  After we awake, we know it was a dream – but only after a great awakening can we understand that all of this is a great dream. Meanwhile, fools everywhere think they're wide awake.  They steal around us as if they understood things, calling this a king and that a cowherd.  It's incredible!

Confucius is a dream, and you are a dream.  And when I say you're both dreams, I too am a dream.  People might call such talk a sad and cryptic ruse.  But ten thousand generations from now, we'll meet a great sage who understands these things.  And when that happens , it will seem like tomorrow. (32-33)

The "great awakening" he mentions in the first paragraph is, to my mind, an apprehension of the fullness and complexity and fluidity of Way, a realization of our incapacity to comprehend Way.  And in that incomprehensibility is our inability to completely understand the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, dreaming and not dreaming.

Another facet of this issues is life v. death, on which Chuang Tzu has much to say. He pushes against the notion that death is some sort of ultimate unconsciousness.  We simply cannot know:

This Mighty Mudball of a world burdens us with a body, troubles us with life, eases us with old age, and with death gives us rest.  We call our life a blessing, so our death must be a blessing, too. 

That passage appears twice in chapter six, suggesting that the author(s) want to emphasize that death may not be as bad as it is usually assumed.  In that same chapter there is a passage in which Confucius describes a sage-like man who seems to have overcome his fear of death (this is one of those moments where Chuang Tzu is putting Taoist words in Confucius's mouth):

He's lost track of what it is to live and what it is to die.  And he's lost track of which comes first, which last.  Like any other thing inhabiting change, he simply waits for whatever unfathomed transformation may come over him next.  He's changing and yet he knows the changeless.  He's changeless and yet he knows change.  You and I, on the other hand, we're dreaming: we haven't even begun to awaken.  His body may fear for its life but his mind remains unperturbed.  His spirit-home may vanish by morning but his true nature never dies…(96-97).

So what is consciousness, then?  It is an awareness of the fleetingness and malleability of consciousness.