Most of us in the current western world are identified with the area where our head is. We have a general identification with or as the body and a slightly stronger identification with the head area.
WHY THE HEAD AREA?
There may be some physical and practical reasons for this head-identification.
Some of our most used senses are located in our head: Eyes, ears, nose, and tongue.
And others tend to look at our face and eyes when they look at us, suggesting that’s where we are mostly located.
CULTURAL COMPONENT
At the same time, there is a cultural component here.
Our head-identification is not inherent in who or what we are. It’s not inevitable.
We happen to live in a culture where most people are identified with their head, so we naturally adopt it as well. We learn that’s what people here do, so we do the same, mostly without even noticing or questioning it. It’s natural and innocent and even sweet. (Our culture’s value on the intellect and, indirectly, the brain, may also play a small role here.)
We can imagine a culture where it’s different. For instance, a culture where we are most identified with or as the heart area. If we grow up in a culture that values the heart, and where people are mostly identified with or as their heart area, our main sense of self would likely be there as well.
EXPLORING IT THROUGH THE SENSE FIELDS
How is this identification created? How does the mind create a sense of an I or me mostly in the head area?
If we explore this through the sense fields, we may find that the sense of self in the head area is created the same way the mind creates any other identification with a mental representation.
We have mental images, in this case of our head area. We have words saying we mostly are in the head area. The mind associates these images and words with certain bodily sensations, often in the same area. The sensations lend a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the mental images and words. And the mental images and words give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
As we discover this, we can more easily recognize the mental representations as mental representations, the sensations as sensations, and we are less blindly caught in the temporary appearance of a sense of self in the head area – or the body in general.
And this allows us to more easily notice our more fundamental nature as capacity for the world as it appears to us, and as what the world to us happens within and as.
HAPPENS WITHIN CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE
In general, what do we find if we explore this for ourselves through, for instance, inquiry or basic meditation?
We may find that any sense of an “I” or observer or doer in the head area (or anywhere else) happens within the content of experience. It comes and goes like any other content. Since it comes and goes, it’s not what we more fundamentally are.
It happens within and as what we more fundamentally are.
HEADLESSNESS
This typical head-identification is, I assume, why Douglas Harding created the Headless experiments and the Headless Way.
If we are mostly identified with the head, then pointing out basic headless nature is the most direct remedy.
In our own first-person experience, we don’t have a head so we cannot be a head. There is a pink blob where my mind tells me the nose is. If I am in front of a mirror, there is a face out there in the mirror behind the glass. If I look at my mental images of myself, I see a head but that’s just a mental representation. That’s not me. Others may tell me I am this body and head, but I cannot find that in my own first-person experience.
I know this can easily sound silly, childish, and just like an oddity to mention at a party.
And if we explore it for ourselves, with sincerity and diligence, and see how it is to live from it, it can be profoundly transformative. It shifts our deepest sense of identity. It transforms our perception. It transforms how we live our life. And it, over time, transforms our human self and psyche.
Drawing: Self-portrait by Ernst Mach, 1886.
WHY DO WE TEND TO BE IDENTIFIED WITH THE HEAD?
Most of us, at least in the current western world, seem identified with the area where our head is. We have a general identification with or as the body, and a slightly stronger identification with the head area.
This is not inevitable. It’s easy to imagine a culture where it’s different. For instance, a culture where we are most identified with our heart area.
At the same time, there are some reasons why we are most identified with the head area. Some of our most used senses are located there: Eyes, ears, nose, and tongue. And others tend to look at our face and eyes when they look at us, suggesting that’s where we are mostly located.
As we explore this, we may find that any sense of an “I” or observer or doer in the head area (or anywhere else) happens within the content of experience. It comes and goes like any other content. And it happens within and as what we more fundamentally are.
How is this identification created? How does the mind create a sense of an I or me mostly in the head area?
If we explore this, we may find that the sense of self in the head area is created the same way the mind creates any other identification with a mental representation. We have mental images, in this case of our head area. We have words saying we mostly are in the head area. The mind associates these images and words with certain bodily sensations, often in the same area. The sensations lend a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the mental images and words. And the mental images and words give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
As we discover this, we can more easily recognize the mental representations as mental representations, the sensations as sensations, and we are less blindly caught in the temporary appearance of a sense of self in the head area – or the body in general.
And this allows us to more easily notice our more fundamental nature as capacity for the world as it appears to us, and as what the world to us happens within and as.
…..
CULTURAL COMPONENT
This is not inherent in who or what we are.
It’s not inevitable, and it’s easy to imagine a culture where it’s different. For instance, a culture where we are mostly identified with or as the heart area. If that’s the area most valued, and it’s referred to as where we are located, and others experience it this way, we very likely would too.
We happen to live in a culture where most people are identified with their head, so we naturally adopt it as well. We learn that’s what people here do, so we do the same, mostly without even noticing or questioning it. It’s natural and innocent, and even sweet.