Tag: sense fields

Falling asleep & noticing hearing turns off

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Sometimes, there is still consciousness as this human self and body falls asleep. When that happens, I notice a point where the hearing turns off. It’s a quick fade-out. The reverse sometimes happens when I wake up.

This is something I have noticed for a while now, likely since my teens.

It makes sense. The consciousness I am notices itself, so it sometimes stays awake and conscious even as my human self and body falls asleep. And it also makes sense that my bodymind switches off hearing at some point, as it falls asleep. (Of course, it’s not a complete switch-off since some sounds will still wake me up.)

The consciousness I am also sometimes becomes conscious slightly before the body wakes up. And it has also happened that there is consciousness through deep dreamless sleep, without any content.

How does this fit into the longer process? I take it as just another reminder of what I am, and that this human self and the wider world and all experiences happens within and as what I am.

Why do I mention it here? It’s because there is something universal in all of my experiences. I assume this says something about our nature, how the consciousness we are interacts with this human self and biology, and so on. And I assume I am not the only one who has noticed this. It’s likely a relatively common noticing.

Perception of time

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I find my perception time fascinating, and my perception of the past and future is a clue to my perception of what my thoughts call here and now.

PAST

Something that happened years or decades ago seems like it happened yesterday, and also as if it happened ages ago. That’s fascinating and perhaps also not so surprising.

My images of the past are just that, images. They are literally imaginations.

I imagine my past and call it memory.

In that way, it feels like yesterday. It’s alive and fresh in imagination.

It also feels like ages ago. It feels distant. Like a dream.

The future is the same. It’s literally imagination. It only exists in images.

FUTURE

I can only find past and future here, in my images here and now.

They are guesses about the future, based on my images of the past and present.

PRESENT

This says something about my perception of what my thoughts call the present.

That too is here in my images here and now, along with what’s here in the other sense fields.

It’s happening with and as what I am. It’s happening within and as the consciousness I am. It’s made out of the consciousness I am. It’s made out of this awake space.

MY NATURE

Any exploration of my perception of (what my thoughts call) the past, future, and present inevitably brings me back to my nature.

It points to my nature as this awake space that forms itself into it all.

It points to my even more fundamental nature of capacity for it all.

A capacity that forms itself into it all – consciousness and all it forms itself into.

GAINING SUBSTANCE THROUGH SENSATIONS

If my experience of the past, future, and present happens within and as the consciousness I am, why does it sometimes seem real and with a substance.

It’s because my mind associates certain physical sensations with certain images of the past, future, and present. The sensations gives it a sense of substance and reality. And the images give a sense of meaning to the sensations.

Since sensations come and go, for anything to appear persistently real and solid, it needs to be associated with persistent sensations. And for sensations to be there persistently, there needs to be contraction, a physical contractions of the muscles.

That’s why issues, wounds, and traumas come with chronic muscle contractions. They depend on them. That’s also why issues, wounds, and traumas can be approaches throughout the mind or the body since they are made up of both.

SEED

The seed for this brief exploration was someone posting a Kanzeon Zen Center event photo from twenty years ago , saying it felt recent and also a very long time ago. That’s my experience too of what happened years or decades ago. When I look at my experience, I can find good reasons for that perception.

When our nature notices itself, it’s more real than real

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I have noticed that people who have Near-Death Experiences (NDES) or other kinds of mystical experiences often describe it as more real than real.

That’s how it is for me too.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS

Sitting here, my nature – this awakeness – seems more real than anything it forms itself into.

This is in contrast to my world as it is here. This room, the music, the sound of the wind, this body, these emotions and thoughts, they all seem ephemeral and dreamlike.

And this awake space noticing itself is immediate and real.

They are obviously not two. They are two aspects of the same. Words can make them sound more separate than they are.

When the initial oneness shift happened in my teens, it was similar although more visceral and less differentiated. All without exception was revealed as God and it was more real than previous waking life. It was a visceral and undeniable experience of it as more real than real.

WHY MORE REAL?

So why does it seem more real?

It’s because it’s more immediate and it is more real.

As described above…

Any content of experience is ephemeral and dreamlike. It’s made of up the same as dreams. It’s the awakeness I am that forms itself into my world, this field of experience. It doesn’t seem quite real, whether we notice all of this or not.

What’s real to us is our nature – as this awakeness. When it notices itself, there is an immediacy and realness there. It’s a coming home. We notice our own nature.

All of this may not be consciously noticed, but the visceral experience is there.

AN ADDITION: MORE FINELY GRAINED

I thought I would go through this in a slightly more finely grained way.

When I say “more real than real” I actually mean two different things.

(a) One is more real than the ephemeral content of experience. That’s described above.

(b) The other is more real than waking life when it’s experienced through separation consciousness.

When we experience through separation consciousness, we are identified with the idea of being something within the content of experience. Usually, a combination of this human self, this physical body, a me, and I, an observer, a doer, and so on. We take ourselves to be that idea, and what that idea refers to. We experience as if we are that. Our perception is filtered through it.

Our perception goes through layers of filters. Our nature – the consciousness we are – is going through a lot of gymnastics in order to make this happen.

When our nature notices itself, it’s far more immediate and direct. And that feels more real.

In both cases, it feels more real because it’s more immediate.

In the first case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the content of experience which appears ephemeral and dreamlike. This is how it appears when our nature notices itself. (This is how it is for me, which is why I used this one above.)

In the second case, it’s because it’s contrasted with the filters of separation consciousness. This is how it is when our familiar state is separation consciousness and we have mystical experiences that give us a taste of our nature.

Note: Sorry for the additional section here. After writing the main part, I realized I had written it more from my own perception and left out the separation consciousness version. I may return to this later and write a more coherent article that take both into account from the start.

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Simple pointers I find helpful

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Some pointers are especially alive for me these days – to bring the noticing of my nature more into the foreground, or to help shift out of being caught up in this personality and his hangups.

I also like to scan the field of experience and explore whatever seems most contracted, or whatever seems most like I, me, an observer, or a doer, in this way.

Here are some I tend to use these days:

It’s an object. This experience – this thought/emotion dynamic, this discomfort – is an object. It’s not what I fundamentally am. It’s within the field of experience as anything else. It comes and goes as any other experience. It happens within and as what I am.

It’s made up of what I am. It’s made of the same as me. It’s this awake space taking this form. It’s the consciousness I am taking this form.

This is what life wants to experience now. Of all possible experiences, this is the one life wants to have here and for now. It has top priority for existence here and now.

How is it to meet it with kindness? If I experience discomfort, or this human self is struggling or upset, then how is it to meet it with kindness? How is it to meet it as I would a scared child or animal? How is it to be with it, allowing it to be as it is?

Notice and allow. If there is distress or discomfort, how is it to notice and allow? You are welcome here. Stay as long as you want. How is it to notice it’s already noticed and allowed, and align with that?

The words in bold are usually what I use as a pointer. Sometimes, I may use a few more words, and otherwise it’s mostly wordless noticing. And I sometimes use other pointers, depending on what comes up and what I am curious about. What works and is most helpful tends to change over time, and may be different for each situation, so it’s good to have a repertoire to draw from.

These pointers are helpful since they match where I am, and they say something about where I am in the process: I am relatively familiar with the terrain through noticing and structured inquiry, and I still need some support to bring my nature to the foreground of attention and help me shift out of being caught up in wounded parts of this human self.

At another time, and for someone else at a different place in their process, other pointers may work better.

The photo is from Finca Milagros.

What does non-dual mean?

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The term non-dual is used by a relatively small group of people, and it’s understandably confusing to many.

So what does it mean?

WHAT DOES NON-DUAL REFER TO?

It refers to what we discover when our nature notices itself.

In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s how most others see me, it’s what my own thoughts may tell me, and it’s an assumption that works reasonably well – although it also comes with inherent discomfort since it’s out of alignment with what’s more real.

When I look, I find I am more fundamentally something else. I am what this whole field of experiences – of this human self, the wider world, emotions, thoughts, states and so on – happens within and as. I am this awake space taking all these forms. I am what a thought may call consciousness, taking the form of the always changing content of experience, including this human self and any sense of a me or I within the field of experience. Even more fundamentally, I find I am capacity for it – consciousness and what it forms itself into.

Non-dual refers to how the world appears when my nature notices itself, and when that noticing is primary and any thoughts are secondary.

WHY IS IT CALLED NON-DUAL?

It’s called non-dual because my nature noticing itself reveals the oneness inherent in what I am, and the world as it appears to me.

Thoughts function by splitting the world into this and that. That’s the purpose of thoughts, and their gift. They help differentiate, sort, categorize, organize, navigate, and so on. Thoughts are essential for this human self to function in the world. They may even be very helpful as pointers for the consciousness I am to notice itself.

And yet, that does not reflect the reality of what I am, and how the world appears to me when the consciousness I am notices itself.

When my nature notices itself, it notices itself as oneness. As one without an other, as someone said.

And it also noticed all content of experience – this whole field of experience, including what’s conventionally referred to as “inner” and “outer” – as happening within and as itself, within and as the oneness it is.

So it’s non-dual. It’s not two. It contains the world of multitude and apparent separation, and it’s not one thing within the world as opposed to something else.

WHO USES THE TERM?

Who uses the term non-dual, and why?

The term itself comes from Sanskrit and the Advaita Vedanta tradition, as far as I know. Advaita means not-two, which has been translated into English as non-dual. (See the Wikipedia article for more details.)

What it refers to is something described by many traditions, and by many mystics across and outside of traditions. Outside Advaita, it’s perhaps mostly associated with Buddhism and Taoism.

These days, it seems that most who use the term are Westerns into this kind of exploration. It’s people who, like me, are not tied to any particular tradition, but uses pointers and practices from many.

HOW DO THOUGHTS APPEAR WHEN WHAT I AM NOTICES ITSELF?

How do thoughts appear when my nature notices itself?

They appear as questions about the world. As pointers and an aid for this human self to orient, navigate, and function. They can be more or less accurate in a conventional sense. And they cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth, that’s not their function.

When my mind associates a thought with a certain physical sensation (often created by tensing muscles), then the sensation lends a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the thought, and the thought gives a sense of meaning to the sensation. This is something that’s usually not consciously noticed, although it can be explored – in great detail – by investigating the sense fields. (For instance, through the Kiloby Inquiries.)

Also, any sense of me or I, or a doer or observer, are recognized as created by the mental field – often associated with certain bodily sensations. They happen within and as what I am, just like any other object, and any other part of the field of experience. They come and go as any other content of experience. They “slide around on (as) my nature” as I sometimes experience it as, and are not what I more fundamentally am.

This also means that both dreams and waking life happen within and as what I am. To me, they are made of the same, although they – in a practical sense – obviously are also quite different.

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TERM

How do I relate to the term, and how has it changed?

When I first encountered the term, I think it was when I was nineteen and read No Boundary by Ken Wilber.

Finding the book, and encountering the term, was exciting to me since it seems to beautifully capture what was revealed in the oneness shift when I was sixteen – which was still there and which I was actively exploring.

I used the term quite a bit in my twenties, mostly in my own journals and the occasional university paper, since I didn’t know others interested in it. (At the Zen center, people didn’t seem too interested in anything outside of Zen, the term would probably have seemed too intellectual for most, and we didn’t talk about these things anyway. The culture didn’t quite allow it.)

These days, I don’t use it actively. Why did it change? Likely because it seems somewhat intellectual, and it’s understood only by a small group of people. In general, I like to find words that seem more direct and ordinary. I still find it occasionally useful as a shorthand when I am with people who are familiar with it, so I don’t have anything against the term itself.

Note: I wrote this more as flow-of-consciousness than a planned and edited article. The Wikipedia article is much better for understanding the history and general use of the term, although what I write may be more interesting for seeing how it appears to someone in their own life and experience.

Exploring in the sense fields: Me

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I don’t usually record my inquiries since it’s an extra layer of activity, but I thought I would write down some simple inquiries here. This is an exploration of how specific things appear in the sense fields and I use a modernized version (Kiloby Inquiries) of traditional Buddhist sense field inquiry.

ME

Me – how does it show up in my sense fields? Is it, any of it or all of it together, what I fundamentally am?

Where do you find “me” ?

I see a picture of me sitting here, overlaid on physical sensations, and notice especially physical sensations in the face area.

Feel those sensations. See how it is to notice and allow them.

Yes, I notice them. I notice they happen in awake space.

Are they “me”? Do they feel like “me”?

No, they are sensations in space. They are space appearing as sensations.

Look at the picture of you sitting there. Examine the image, the colors, texture, and so on.

I see one picture of my face and the front of my body, as seen from the inside. This picture matches, more or less, the sensations in space.

Is that picture “me”? Does it feel like “me”?

Yes, a tiny bit right in the face where it combines with the physical sensations.

Feel those sensations. Notice the quality of the sensations. Notice the space they happen within.

Are there any words connected with those sensations?

Yes, the word “me”.

Do you see it or hear it?

Both.

Look at the letters. Notice the shape, color, texture, the space around.

Are those letters “me”?

No.

Listen to the sound “me”. Notice the voice, the space the sound is happening within.

Is that sound “me”? Does it feel like “me”? Is there any charge on the sound?

Yes, a small charge.

What is the charge? How do you know there is a charge?

It’s a combination of a color (blue), an image of my mouth and throat, and the sound “me”. Together, there is a small charge there.

Look at the color. Notice the color, the texture, that it happens in space.

Is that color “me”?

No, it’s a color. In itself, there is no charge there.

Look at the image of your mouth and throat. Notice the colors, texture. Take your time.

Is that image “me”?

No, it’s an image.

Listen to the sound “me”. Say it to yourself a few times. Notice the quality of the sound.

Is that “me”? Is there a charge on it? Is it connected to something else?

Yes, I see an image of me around age twenty, and there is an uplifted feeling I associate with that time.

Feel that feeling. Notice the space around it. See if it’s made up of space. Take as much time as you want.

Is that feeling “me”? Is anything connected with it?

No, it’s a sensation.

Look at the image of you age twenty. Notice the color, texture, and so on.

Is that image “me”? Does it feel like “me”? Is anything connected with it?

Yes, it’s a kind of desired me. There is a happy feeling connected with it.

Feel that happy feeling. Notice where you notice it. Notice it as a physical sensation.

Is it “me”?

No, it’s a sensation.

Look at the image of you at twenty. Is it “me”?

No, it’s still connected with the happy feeling but it’s not me. Neither the image nor the feeling is me.

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St. Augustine: If you understand God, what you understand isn’t God

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If you understand God, what you understand isn’t God.

– St. Augustine, slightly paraphrased

Yes, although that’s the same with everything.

If I think I understand an apple, what I understand isn’t an apple. What I think I understand is my idea about it, and I don’t even really understand that.

That’s for several reasons which can be boiled down to two that can be talked about in many different ways. It has to do with our relationship with thoughts and the relationship of thoughts with the rest of existence.

THE ESSENCE

Mental representations are questions about the world. Even statements are questions.

Mental representations help us orient and navigate in the world. They have a practical and pragmatic function only.

Mental representations cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. They can, at most, have limited validity.

Reality is always more than and different from our ideas about it. (And also less than, in our immediate noticing since it’s all, to us, happening within and as consciousness.)

THE MORE WE KNOW, THE MORE WE KNOW HOW LITTLE WE KNOW

The more we know, the more we understand how little we know. I have explored my nature, and these topics, for almost four decades now, and I feel I know less than I ever have. The more I explore, the more I understand how little I am familiar with and understand, and the vastness of what’s out there to explore. (That was my orientation from the beginning, but now it’s a more lived and visceral part of me.)

In a conventional sense, in the world, we may know more than most, and in a more real sense, we know we know almost nothing. We are just dipping our toes in the ocean.

A FEW MORE ASPECTS

Mental representations are different in kind from what they point to. This is just like a map is different in kind to the terrain, or a menu is different in kind from the food.

Mental representations are simplifications at best, they highlight some things and leave out other things.

Mental representations reflect our biases, limited experience and understanding, hangups, culture, hopes and fears, and much more. They inevitably say more about us than what they apparently are about.

Our mental representations about the world is a mirror for us. If a mental representation says something about the wider world, we can turn it to be about ourselves and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true about us.

Mental representations are more or less accurate in a conventional sense. Sometimes, they are completely inaccurate and downright wrong.

Mental representations take on a completely different meaning depending on the context, worldview, and set of assumptions they are understood within.

If we, or a part of our system, hold a mental representation as true, it’s inevitably stressful. It’s out of alignment with reality. We feel we have to prop it up, defend it, remind ourselves about it, and so on. Also, life will always come up with situations that show us the limited validity, or outright wrongness, of our cherished idea.

THOUGHTS IN THE SENSE FIELDS

If we, or a part of our system, hold a thought as true, that experience is created in a certain way. Our mind associates certain mental representations (mental images, mental sounds) with certain physical sensations in the body.

The mental representations give a sense of meaning to the sensations, and the sensations give a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the mental representations.

If it’s a central or important belief, the body will contract in order to create sensations used to give a sense of reality, solidity, and truth to the thought.

It sounds silly, and it is a bit silly when we notice. We get a peak behind the curtain.

It is relatively easy to explore and notice this. Anyone can do it, for instance, guided by someone experienced in sense field explorations. The one I have found that’s most effective is the Kiloby Inquiries which is a modernized version of traditional Buddhist sense field inquiries.

A PART OF OUR SYSTEM HOLDING A THOUGHT AS TRUE

It’s quite common, at least in my experience, that I consciously don’t hold a certain thought as true, but I find that a part of my system holds it – more or less – as true.

This is what Freud and many others talked about. Our conscious orientation, noticing, and insights is one thing. An entirely other thing is the many perspectives, beliefs, hangups, traumas, and so on that different parts of our system live from and within.

It’s good to explore both and invite the rest of our system to join in with whatever wisdom, insights, and useful noticing that’s happening at a conscious level.

APPLIES TO EVERYTHING

This applies to everything, not just God… or an apple.

It applies to our ideas about ourselves, our spouse, parents, children, bosses, employees, health, money, the past, the future, the present, life situations, and anything else.

How I experience the sense field

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How do I experience the world of experience? The sense fields?

It’s a little difficult to put into words, but here is one way to do it.

SEAMLESS

I experience it as seamless, as one whole. The sensations of my legs on the sofa, the sight of the trees, the sound of the music, the warmth of the body, the sounds of the clicking of the keys, the taste of the delicious fruit salad for breakfast, it’s all one field, one seamless whole.

HAPPENING ON ITS OWN

It’s all happening on its own. It’s all living its own life.

The sounds, sights, the movements of this human self, the thoughts, emotions, decisions, and so on, is all living it’s own life.

DIFFERENTIATION

There is also differentiation here, which comes from an overlay of the mental field. There are imagined lines and boundaries saying what’s this human self and what’s the wider world.

Also, when this human self lives his life in the world, he is completely free to use normal language and say “I” and “mine” even if those words have limited validity.

GOES INTO FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND

This noticing of (a) a seamless field of experience and (b) it all living its own life comes into the foreground or goes into the background at different times.

It depends on where attention goes. When attention goes to this, it comes into the foreground of attention. When attention goes into something else – a task, a story, or something else – this noticing goes more into the background. (Attention seems to always go to a story, by the way.)

There have also been states and phases where this noticing has come very strongly into the foreground.

After the initial oneness shift, it was very strongly in the foreground for years. (Mixed in with a lot of strong energies, this human self responding to the shift, a variety of states, and so on.)

Several years ago, there was a phase where it also came strongly into the foreground, this time with less of the drama of the initial shift and more clarity and calmness. This lasted about six months.

It also tends to come into the foreground during the times when I have done a lot of meditation for a long time, for instance when I was a resident at Kanzeon Zen Center and to some extent during longer retreats.

When it comes into the foreground in this way, it cannot be missed. It’s there the whole time. It’s the primary noticing even when other things are going on.

STATES HIGHLIGHT CERTAIN FEATURES

These states highlight certain features of my nature.

It’s my nature showing itself aspects of itself in a way that’s so obvious it cannot be missed.

In my experience, that makes it easier to keep noticing these features through changing states and experiences. Something in me knows what to look for.

WHO AND WHAT I AM

All of this is just another way to talk about who and what I am.

At one level – in a conventional sense and in the world – I am this human self. It’s not wrong, and it’s an assumption that works relatively well.

When I look in my own first-person experience, I find something else. I find I primarily am what the world happens within and as. I am what this content of experience – of this human self, others, the wider world, states, and so on – happens within and as. I am consciousness forming itself into whatever content of experience is here.

Even more fundamentally, I seem to be capacity for all of this – for consciousness forming itself into all these experiences.

MORE COMPLEXITY

There is always more to say about these experiences. There are always more details, layers, and perspectives.

Sometimes, this noticing – of the seamless field and it all living its own life – goes far into the background. It’s clouded over by getting caught up in wounds, trauma, and the perspectives and identities of the painful stories creating those. This usually doesn’t last very long, but it’s a part of the dynamics and process.

I am very aware that parts of me operate from painful stories that they hold as true. Consciously, I don’t agree with these stories, but that doesn’t make much of a difference for these parts of my psyche. This will inevitably color my perception and this human life. What I can do is be aware that they are here, even if I don’t know exactly what they are or how they color my perception and life. I can meet them with some understanding and kindness since they are here to protect this human self.

A NOTE ON THE SENSE FIELD

I often talk about sense fields in the plural – sight, sound, sensation, smell, taste, mental field, and so on.

Here, I talk about the sense field as a whole which includes all of those.

A NOTE ON THE WORD “I”

I should also mention that I use the word “I” here. Any sense of I – with an other – happens within the content of experience. That’s not the I that’s experiencing anything. Here, the word “I” is used because it’s familiar and I guess it can be used about my nature too, that which the content of experience happens within and as.

I could use more accurate language, and do sometimes, although then the wording becomes more convoluted. Our language is set up to work with an I with an Other.

If I did, the title could be “The experience of this sense field”. It’s more accurate since there is no I there, and also feels a little clunky because our language works better with a subject.

Michael Meade: Life is change

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Life is change and to be truly alive means to be repeatedly transforming ourselves.

– Michael Meade


Yes, I feel I have lived many lifetimes in this life.

It feels odd to say that it was me. Of course, it was, in a conventional sense. And in a more real sense, that person in the past – whether it was decades ago, yesterday, or a second ago – was another person.

He was also another person in that he now only exists as a mental representation and traces in the world like other people’s memories, photos, documents, and so on. In contrast, the person who is here now is also here in the other sense fields.

Life is a process and this person is part of that much greater process. He is a local and temporary expression of the unfolding process of the universe and existence. He is an eddy in a stream.

Even more essentially, change is here now.

The only reason I have an idea of change is because my mind compares mental representations. It compares mental representations of the past, including the very recent past, with mental representations it calls “now”. (Which just passed since the mental representations are always a little behind.) Without this comparison, there would be no sense of change.

Also, by noticing what’s here, I get, at a visceral level, that all content of experience is change and a process. Nothing is static. Nothing is ever the same.

So can I be any of it? Can I be anything within this changing content of experience? Can I fundamentally be this human self? Or any ideas of an I, me, doer, observer, or anything else?

If not, what am I more fundamentally?

(I find I am what it all happens within and as. I am what a thought may call consciousness, which forms itself into any and all experiences. It forms itself into its own always changing, always new content.)

Image by me and Midjourney

My multi-faceted self

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I have noticed that if I share one aspect of the richness that’s here, that’s what people tend to latch onto, so it seems important to put it in context and mention it’s just one of many things happening.

WHAT I NOTICE

Right now, I notice…

Sensations in my face, throat, chest, solar plexus, all towards the front of the body. Thoughts saying this is anxiety. A story of what it is about (my parents not having long left, losing my physical safe base in Norway, fear of not having enough money, fear about the future). Noticing these sensations are not very strong, maybe 3 out of 10. Noticing that the stories are mental images and words.

Sensations in my throat, face, and chest. A story saying this is a quiet joy and exitement. A thought saying it’s about life, enjoying the morning, being alive. Noticing that these sensations also are not very strong, about the same as the others. Noticing that these sensations may partly be the same as above, minus the solar plexus.

Sight and a thought saying it’s my to-do list. Sensations in the solar plexus. A thought saying it’s a dull sensation, a contraction. Mental images of me doing things in the house to get it ready for sale. Thoughts wondering if I will be able to do it all and do it in time. Thoughts about pressure from others. Sensations in my chest and face.

Sight and a thought saying it’s Simba the cat, and that he is sleeping on the carpet on the floor close to me with his head on a sheep skin. Sensations in the chest. A thought saying it’s joy. A thought saying I feel honored that he is here with me. A thought saying I love him. Noticing that these sensations too are quite mild, about the same as the rest.

Thoughts asking: What is here now? What is true now? Thoughts saying I am sitting here in this room. It’s a warm and comfortable room. Simba sleeps close to me. It’s raining and a bit windy outside. I have a free day, although I have a menu of things I can do if I am moved to. (Cleaning some berries from the garden and put them in the freezer. Put some of my books in storage boxes. Possibly sort out the most important books and put them in their own box.)

Thoughts saying I have the land in the Andes and the house there. I have a wife that loves me. I have friends and family that love me. Thoughts saying that if it all falls apart, I can likely still go to a Zen center – the one in The Netherlands or Northern Spain – and do what I am called to do. Thoughts saying I can do that anyway, and there is an impulse to do so. I can do it as soon as some of the major projects are finished, like selling this house. A thought saying I can go deeper in my own explorations here and now. Noticing it feels good.

I can keep going. Some is here already. Some comes up easily through associations and in different situations.

RICHNESS

I can find an apparently infinite richness in me.

I can take any label, shift into the part of me that the labels fits, take on the role of and become that part, and explore it by speaking and moving from and as that part of me.

I can take any story I have about someone or something, turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true.

The world, to me, happens within and as my sense fields. It happens in sight, sounds, sensations, taste, smell, thoughts, and so on.

This world, to me, is a kind of island of phenomena floating in space. This human self and his surroundings is an island floating in space.

I notice this human self is here, and find myself as what this human self and the world happens within and as.

I notice the awakeness that’s here that takes all of these forms.

The world, to me, is like a dream. It happens within and as the awakeness I am.

A thought calls it consciousness. The consciousness I am takes all the forms of waking life and dreams. It seems I have never known anything else.

WHAT WE SHARE

How much of this do I share with others? Not much, obviously. In some situations, my mind picks out something and it becomes the focus for a little while.

I notice that with some people, and in some situations, the focus can be on what’s unresolved and distressing in me. I suspect this is happening because of the trauma from some of what has happened during the dark night and the deep trauma that has been surfacing. It helps to notice it’s just a small aspect of the richness that’s here.

Then there is also the question “how are you?”. With my friends, it seems it’s mostly not just a polite phrase and they want to know.

In one sense, the question doesn’t quite compute. There is far too much richness to say, and it’s all happening within and as what I am.

In another sense, I understand where the question is coming from. Most of the time, I say “I am good” or “mostly OK”, or I say “many things at once” which is accurate. If something is coming up strongly and it seems appropriate, I may share that there is some anxiety or sadness coming up or whatever it is.

Sometimes, I also go into stories about it, although most of the time, that feels a little bit out of alignment unless it has a practical purpose. Why? Becuase it invites both me and the other to take it more seriously than is sometimes appropriate or helpful.

Healing my images

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What happens when I do tonglen, ho’oponopno, or something similar?

I can notice all sorts of shifts in me, of course.

HEALING MY IMAGES AND RELATIONSHIP WITH THE IMAGES

One of the things that happens is that I am healing my images. I suspect this is what leads to or supports the other changes.

I am not only healing my images of others, myself, parts of myself, and so on. I am healing my relationship with these images, and that’s as or more important.

The shift is a shift from a painful relationship to one with a little more ease and compassion.

I RELATE TO IMAGES – OF SOMEONE, THE WORLD, AND WHATEVER IT MAY BE

The world, to me, happens within and as my sense fields. It happens within sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, the mental field, and so on. This mental field creates an overlay – of mental images and words – that makes sense of the world for me, and to a large extent creates it.

A big part of the world, as it appears to me, is created by my own mental images and words.

The world, as it appears to me, happens within and as what I am.

That means that when I see someone – whether that’s me/I or someone else – I see my own mental representations of the person, and these come with stories, interpretations, and much more.

When I relate to someone in a certain way, something else is really happening. It’s all happening within and between images. There are images of me and the other, and stories about what all that means, and that brings up a certain way for the me to relate to the other.

TONGLEN AND HO’OPONOPONO

If I have a challenging relationship with someone or something, that’s where it’s found.

So it makes sense that explorations like tonglen and ho’oponopno can heal my images and my relationship with those images.

There are, of course, many similar practices: Metta, sincere prayer for the wellbeing of another, and much more.

WHAT I AM FORMS ITSELF INTO MY WORLD

In an even more immediate and essential sense, what I am forms itself into my world.

The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it.

Noticing that helps it shift too.

Image by me and Midjourney

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Is the self an illusion?

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I saw this question yesterday and thought I would see what comes up for me.

As usual, it depends and it has different layers.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A SELF?

First, what do we mean by a self?

It can mean this human self1 or any other kind of self. A doer or observer can be seen as a self.

More to the point, any thought that’s held as true creates a sense of self. There is identification with and as the viewpoint of the story and the identification that comes with it. To us, that becomes a self with anything else as Other.

SELF AND NO SELF

In a conventional sense, there is a human self here with a passport, biography, identities, and so on.

That’s not wrong. It works reasonably well and it helps this human self function in the world.

The illusion is that it’s what we fundamentally are.

When I look, I find I am more fundamentally something else. I am the field of experience as a whole. I am what any and all experience happens within and as.

I am what a thought may call consciousness, and this consciousness that I am forms itself into any and all experiences, including of a self.

Even more essentially, I find I am capacity for all of it. I am capacity for consciousness and what it forms itself into.

HOW IS THE EXPERIENCE OF A SELF CREATED?

How is the experience of a self created?

In a sense, it’s a useful fiction.

It happens within and as what I am like any other experience. It’s the consciousness I am temporarily forming itself into that experience.

More specifically, it’s created through a combination of what happens in different sense fields. In the mental field, there are images and stories of a self, and the mind associates these with what happens in other sense fields (sight, sound, smell, taste, physical sensations).

There are also physical sensations that lend a sense of solidity and reality to the mental representations, and the mental representations give a sense of meaning to the same sensations.

HOW IS THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING A SELF CREATED?

How is the experience of being a self created?

This experience is created any time a thought is held as true. When that happens, there is identification with the viewpoint of the thought and anything else becomes other.

We perceive ourselves as the viewpoint of the story. It becomes what we, to ourselves, are. It becomes an identity to prop up, remember, reinforce, and defend. Anything else becomes other.

Another way to talk about this is to say that there is a shift into identification with something within the field of experience.

DOES IT MATTER?

Does it matter? That too depends.

It obviously doesn’t matter hugely. Most consciousnesses function fine even if they are caught up in the illusion of fundamentally being a self. There is some inherent stress, but most can function OK anyway.

In some cases, it matters. It matters if it matters to the consciousness. If there is curiosity, a draw to explore it, a glimpse, or something similar.

It also matters in that it can have real-life consequences. If the consciousness we are recognizes itself, stays with that noticing, and allows it’s human self to reorganize within that noticing, there is a kind of unwinding and reorganization that happens.

SO IS THE SELF AN ILLUSION?

Is the self an illusion?

As so often, the answer for me is yes and no and it depends.

It makes sense to assume there is a human self here functioning in the world. (The other options tend to create weirdness in a practical sense.)

This human self is not what I more fundamentally am in my own first-person experience. Here, I find I am more fundamentally what the whole field of experience happens within and as. Even more fundamentally, I am capacity for all of it. The illusion here is about identity, it happens if I take myself as fundamentally this human self – or a doer, or observer, or similar. I can explore this through the Big Mind process or the Headless experiments, and also basic meditation2 and a range of other approaches.

It also makes sense to acknowledge that my experience of this human self and the wider world is created by the mind. The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it. It’s a kind of virtual world. This human self and the wider world are not inherently as I experience it. With different sensory inputs (a different body and sense organs) and different stories, it would all appear very different. I can explore this by examining my sense fields and how they come together to create an experience, for instance by using traditional Buddhist sense-field exploration or modern versions like the Kiloby inquiries. I can also notice that night dreams and waking life both happen within and as the consciousness I am.

MY STORY WITH THIS

I was a very curious kid, but this wasn’t really on my radar until two shifts happened in my teens.

First, there was a shift into being an observer. I found myself as observer and anything else – this human self, thoughts, emotions, the wider world – as distant and far away. To this psyche, it felt like something had gone terribly wrong. This happened when I was fifteen and it lasted for about a year.

Then, there was another shift. This time into oneness, into the consciousness all experience happens within and as. My psyche interpreted this as: All without exception is God. All is God exploring itself as all of it, including locally and temporarily taking itself to be a human self.

That fundamental shift stayed with an overlay of a psyche3 with its conditioning and hangups, and deepenings and additional shifts of many different kinds.

Consciousness showed itself itself, and that it’s not fundamentally this human self or a doer or observer or anything else. So this psyche naturally got interested in it. It was curious and wanted to explore and learn more about how to navigate and live from and as this.

NOTES

(1) A physical self can be seen as a kind of eddy of matter and energy (in a physical sense) in the world of matter. It’s a subsystem within a larger social and ecological seamless whole. It’s a holon in a holarchy.

(2) Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here, and notice it’s already noticed and allowed, and rest in and as that noticing and what’s here.

(3) I thought I would add a brief note on the words I use here. Consciousness refers to what we are to ourselves, what forms itself into the content of experience, and it’s all we have ever known whether we notice or not. Some call it “awareness” although I prefer to use that word for being consciously aware of something. The psyche is more our human operating system and it consists of evolutionary predispositions, conditioning, biases, hangups, and so on. To us, the consciousness we are forms itself into the psyche and everything else.

Image by me and Midjourney

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Free will?

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I have seen articles about a neurobiologist (Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University) who spent decades arriving at the conclusion that we have no free will.

With these types of things, the process of exploration is often more interesting and rewarding than what we arrive at.

And yet, to arrive at that conclusion doesn’t need to take decades.

INFINITE CAUSES

Everything that happens has infinite causes. We can always find one more, and one more, going back to the apparent beginning of time and stretching out to the widest extent of existence.

So where is there room for free will?

OUR NATURE RECOGNIZING ITSELF

Also, the experience of free will only seem to happen when there is identification with and as the mental representations of an I, doer, free will, and so on. When this identification is softened or released, and our nature recognizes itself more clearly, our human self happens within the content of experience as anything else. Our human self lives its own life. It’s happening on its own. There is no experience of free will. Similarly to above, there is no room for free will. The idea of free will or not seems irrelevant.

THE EXPERIENCE OF FREE WILL

We may have the experience of free will. Our mind uses mental representations to create a sense of I and free will and a me that operates according to that free will. That requires a lot of mental gymnastics, but it can appear convincing. This human self does something, and there is a thought saying: “I did that”. There is the experience of free will, but that doesn’t mean there is free will.

The experience of free will can only seem valid to the extent there is identification with these mental representations. It happens as long as our nature doesn’t recognize itself very clearly and doesn’t recognize the nature of thoughts. And it’s reinforced by a worldview telling us we are separate from the larger whole.

ASSUMING WE HAVE FREE WILL

On the other hand, it seems good for us to think and experience that we have free will. I imagine that helps many of us to be slightly better stewards of our lives.

And, of course, whether we experience that we have free will or not is not really up to us. It happens or it doesn’t. Each one has innumerable causes.

IN MY CASE

I don’t want to leave this too abstract so I’ll include a few words about my own experience.

When I was fifteen, it was as if the world became very distant. This human self, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and the wider world all became infinitely distant. It seemed to happen far away. This human self obviously got scared by this and went to a number of doctors and specialists who couldn’t find anything.

In hindsight, I realized what happened. There was a release of identification with the content of experience. There was no “I” within (most of) the field of experience. The only sense of “I” that was left was as an observer. There was a simple observer-observed duality.

Of course, at the time, there was no conscious reflection of it like that. It just seemed like something had gone very wrong.

Just about a year later, there was another shift, equally sudden as the first one. From one moment to the next, there was a shift into oneness. There was no “I” anymore, only (what this mental field interpreted as) God. This was simultaneously immensely familiar and obvious, and also a great shock to this human self who was a die-hard atheist at the time with absolutely no interest in spirituality. Any idea of I, me, observer, observed, and anything else was recognized as created by the mental field and not inherent in reality.

Although this mind didn’t recognize it at the time, the first shift showed me that this human self happens on its own. He lives his own life. And the second shift showed that while putting it in a larger context. All is God (Spirit, the divine, Brahman). The question of free will was revealed as the creation of the mental field, just like the experience of free will is.

Note: We can also take a more limited psychological approach to arriving at the conclusion that we have little or no free will. Our perceptions, thoughts, emotions, choices, and behavior are influenced by a huge amount of things outside of our conscious awareness. We are not aware of how our brain takes sensory stimuli and creates an experience. Many are not so aware of how the different sense fields combine to create an experience. Many are not very aware of how our biology, evolution, culture, and personal experiences color our perception and behavior. And so on. Most of what influences us happens outside of our conscious awareness, so how can there be much free will?

Image created by me and midjourney.

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How we notice change and impermanence: Comparing images

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It’s tempting to say that we can notice two types of change and that we notice it in two different ways.

IMMEDIACY AND STORIES

We can notice change and impermanence in immediacy. What’s here now is fresh and different from what just passed.

And we can notice change and impermanence in stories. I have a mental representation of a timeline and how things are different at different points in that timeline.

When I look more closely at what’s happening, I find that those two are not that different. They are essentially the same.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING WITHIN MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

Even when I notice change in immediacy, I do it by comparing images of what’s here and now with what just passed. (The images of “here and now” is also, in reality, about what just passed.)

So how do I notice change and impermanence? My mind creates a timeline and compares two or more points on that timeline, even when one of those points is what thoughts call “here and now”.

HELPS ME SEE IT (MORE) FOR WHAT IT IS

Is this useful to notice? I don’t know. But I do find it fascinating to notice as it happens.

It helps me recognize that my mental representations of time, a timeline, points on a timeline, and even the ideas of change, all happen as and within my mental representations. It’s an overlay over the world as the world appears to me.

The image – a polyptychis with different scenes – is created by me and Midjourney.

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Coming to my senses

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Why do we say “coming to our senses”?

Likely because there is a sanity we can find by literally coming to our senses, and people throughout time have noticed it and found the expression useful and insightful.

GOING OUT OF OUR SENSES

We inflict suffering and discomfort on ourselves by going into fantasies and taking them as true. We imagine a painful past, a scary future, something uncomfortable happening somewhere else. We even put a layer of interpretation on what’s right here.

Right now, I am sitting in a quiet room with sunlight through the window, a candle on the table, and a cup of warm tea. And I can imagine painful past experiences and childhood. I can imagine something terrible happening in the future. I imagine others living a better and more happy and fulfilling life. And I can imagine that all of those imaginations are real and true and define who I am, and I can get lost in all of it.

COMING TO MY SENSES

Instead, I can come to my senses. I can notice the room I am in. The textures, colors, flickering light, smells, the sensation of my legs on the seat and my feet on the floor.

I can notice what’s here in my senses. I can notice what’s here in my imagination. And I can notice the difference between the two. I can notice that what’s here in my mental field is literally imagination. It’s a collection of labels, interpretations, stories, and so on. It’s full of questions about the world. It’s not reality itself. (Although it can become a reality for me if I get lost in it.) None of it is a final, full, or absolute truth. Reality is always different from and more than my imaginations.

That brings a kind of sanity. It helps me ground in what’s here. It helps release charge out of the imaginations.

EXPLORING IT MORE THOROUGHLY

And it may help to investigate this more thoroughly. I can explore what’s in each of my sense fields and how my mental field creates an overlay of labels, stories, and so on, and how those are all questions about the world to help me orient and navigate. They are not anything more. I can also investigate specific stories more thoroughly and find what’s already more true for me (and more peaceful).

THE WISDOM IN COMMON SAYINGS

There is something a lot of wisdom in common expressions.

In this case, “coming to our senses” is a direct pointer to how we can ground, find more sanity, and be more kind to ourselves and others.

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The world doesn’t fit categories

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It seems pretty obvious. The world doesn’t fit neat little categories.

So why do I even mention it?

Because it points to something important about how our minds work.

MENTAL FIELD OVERLAY

Our experience can be distinguished into sense fields. We can say that these sense fields are physical sensations, sight, sound, taste, smell, the mental field, and so on. (That distinction itself is made up of categories and we can imagine other ways to make that differentiation. It’s made up for convenience.)

Our mental field functions as a kind of overlay on the world. We make sense of the world through an overlay of mental images and words. And we can say that this overlay consists of labels, imaginary boundaries, stories, and so on. (That too is a somewhat arbitrary distinction made for convenience.)

These mental field overlays are created by our minds. None of it is inherent in the world.

That seems obvious too.

WE IMAGINE THE REST OF THE WORLD

And yet, there is another layer here.

Our immediate experience of the world is filtered through this mental overlay.

And what’s not here in our immediate experience – the whole rest of the world – only exists to us in our mental field.

There is a whole lot of imagination going on here.

We imagine boundaries, distinctions, labels, categories, stories, and so on. And we imagine anything that’s not here in immediate experience. We imagine the whole rest of the world.

ANY THOUGHT IS CATEGORIZATION

In a sense, all this mental field overlay is doing is categorizing. It creates imaginary divisions, labels, stories, and so on. And it’s all a way to categorize the world.

What’s the function of this?

It’s all to help us orient and function in the world.

Without it, we wouldn’t be able to function. It’s all essential for our life in the world.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THOUGHT

Thoughts have some characteristics.

They function as a map of the world, to help us orient and navigate.

They help us explore possibilities before we act in the world.

They are questions about the world. They are always provisional and up for revision. (Even what may seem the most solid to us is that way, including what comes from what we see as the most authoritative source. And the idea of authority is another question about the world.)

They cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth. That’s not their function.

THE WORLD IS MORE THAN AND DIFFERENT FROM OUR MAPS

And the world is always more than and different from our maps.

Our mental field overlay is an overlay created by our mind. The distinctions, labels, and stories are not inherent in the world. It’s ours.

IF SO OBVIOUS, WHY EVEN MENTION IT?

Again, all of this may seem obvious. So why even mention it?

It’s because it may be obvious to us in a general sense and intellectually, but is it obvious to us at a more visceral level?

Often not. Our mind and system tend to hold onto some stories as true, often without even realizing it.

And that’s what creates hangups, closed minds, a closed heart, rigidity, contraction, tension, and stress. Taken to the extreme, it’s what creates fundamentalism, bigotry, and intentionally harmful behavior.

EXPLORING HOLDING ONTO STORIES AS TRUE

How can we explore the parts of us holding onto stories as true?

Inquiry is one way, and especially structured inquiry guided by someone familiar with that terrain.

What I have found most effective is The Work of Byron Katie, Kiloby Inquiries, and perhaps also the Big Mind process.

Another approach is any form of therapy we are drawn to and that works for us. That too can help us identify and find some freedom from taking stories as true.

WHY DO WE HOLD ONTO STORIES AS TRUE?

Why do we have such an apparently unhealthy relationship with our mental field?

Why do we hold onto some stories as true even if they are obviously painful and not as true as we pretend they are?

The simple answer may be that we do as others do. As we grow up, we do what we see others do.

Another answer is that we try to find safety in holding certain thoughts as true. It seems to give us an advantage. We can pretend we know how things are. We don’t need to stay open and receptive, at least not in the area of life covered by that particular story.

The reality is quite different. Holding onto these stories is out of alignment with reality. We pretend something that’s not true. And somewhere in us, we know what’s going on. We cannot trick ourselves. And that creates stress.

Holding onto stories as true creates stress in other ways as well. It is created by our mental field so we need to remember, rehearse, and prop up the story. We need to defend it when life or others inevitably show us something out of alignment with the story. We create rigidity in our perception and life. We miss out on options in life. We may get into conflicts with others just because we hold different and apparently incompatible stories as true.

WHEN TAKEN FURTHER

We can take these explorations further.

We may realize that even our ideas about who or what we are are ideas. They do not reflect reality in an accurate or complete way. We can even examine each of these stories and find what’s more true for us.

So what are we more fundamentally?

When I look, I find I am more fundamentally capacity. I am capacity for the world as it appears to me. I am capacity for the sense fields and anything happening within content of experience.

I am the field all of it happens within and as, including any sense impressions that my mental field says is this human self, any ideas of what I am or am not, and any tendency to hold any one of those ideas as true or not.

Does all time happen now? Yes, to us it does

moe Leave a comment

I remember having this experience in my teens, following the oneness shift. It was as if I could see, for my inner eye, all of time happening now, and I imagined that’s how time is to God. This was one of the early side effects of the shift, and it changed as I found more clarity about what was going on.

Since then, I occasionally talk with people who share a similar experience, often relatively early in the awakening process.

Is this topic important? Why do people experience it this way? And how can we explore it for ourselves?

IS IT IMPORTANT?

At a philosophical level, it’s about as important as other abstract philosophical topics. For most of us, it’s not very important in our daily life.

If it’s an experience – or a sense or intuition, then it’s often important for the ones having it.

And as a topic to explore in our own direct noticing, it can lead us to notice our nature. It can lead us home, to the home we already are whether we notice it or not. And for us, nothing may be more important than that.

WHY DO SOME HAVE THIS EXPERIENCE?

Where does the “all time is happening now” experience come from?

It comes from noticing reality. Not necessarily some absolute reality out there but the reality of our own experience.

To us, any content of experience happens within our sense fields. Any experience happens within one or more sense field – sight, sound, smell, taste, sensation, mental representations, and so on.

And that includes our experience of time. Any ideas of past, present, and future, and any ideas of what’s in each of these, happen within our mental field. It all happens here and now.

Any sense of all time happening now also happens within our sense fields. It happens as a combination of certain mental representations (of a timeline and past, future, and present) and certain sensations in the body. Our mind associates the two so the sensations seem to lend a sense of solidity and reality to the mental representations, and the mental representations give a sense of meaning to the sensations.

That means that to us, all time happens now. It’s inevitable. It’s always been that way.

So if we experience that all time happens now, it’s because it does – to us. It was always that way. It cannot be any other way. It’s just that we don’t always notice.

And that doesn’t mean that this is how reality itself is. It’s just our inevitable experience because of how our mind works.

DIFFERENTIATING OUR OWN EXPERIENCE FROM REALITY “OUT THERE”

It’s important to differentiate the two.

To me, all time happens now. I cannot find the past or future, or even the idea of the present, outside of my mental representations. And they all happen here and now.

And that doesn’t say anything about reality itself. It doesn’t tell me how existence in itself is. What we call “time” is a mental overlay on (our mental overlays of) existence.

It says something about my own experience.

A POINTER TO MY OWN NATURE

More importantly, it says something about my own nature.

It’s a pointer to what I more fundamentally am, in my own first-person experience.

If I notice a sense of all time happening now, it’s an invitation for me to take a closer look. How does my mind create this experience?

This can be an invitation to explore our sense fields. To explore what’s happening in each, and how the mental field combines with physical sensations to create a sense of solidity and reality out of imaginations and sensations. (These imaginations are essential for us to orient and function in the world so there is nothing wrong with them, it’s just good to notice what’s happening.)

And this may lead me to find what I more fundamentally am. I may find that I more fundamentally am capacity for anything appearing in the sense fields. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.

HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THIS FOR OURSELVES?

How can we investigate this for ourselves?

There are many approaches out there and what works depends on the person and situation. Here are a few I have found helpful.

Traditional Buddhist sense field explorations. For instance, pay attention to one sense field at a time and what happens there. Notice what happens in the mental field. Notice how the mental field interprets what happens in the other sense fields, how it interprets what’s not here in any other sense field, and perhaps even how certain sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to some mental representations (give them a charge) and how certain mental representations give a sense of meaning to certain sensations.

The Kiloby Inquiries is a modern take on this traditional Buddhist inquiry. This inquiry usually requires a facilitator, at least unless we are trained and have some experience with it for ourselves.

The Work of Byron Katie can be helpful, especially if we explore this specifically.

Apart from sense field explorations, the most direct ways to explore this may be the Big Mind process and the Headless experiments. Here, we get a direct taste of any ideas of past, future, and present as happening here now, and happening within and as what we are.

Basic Meditation can do the same, although it tends to be a slightly slower process. Notice and allow what’s here. Notice that it’s already noticed and allowed. Notice how any content of experience comes and goes, including any ideas of past, future, and present. So what am I more fundamentally?

ALL OF TIME DOES HAPPEN NOW

So yes, all of time does happen simultaneously. To us, it does. It’s inevitable since time can only be found in our mental representations, and these happen here and now. I cannot find time outside of my present experience.

That doesn’t tell me how reality itself is.

And it’s an invitation for me to take a closer look, which may lead me to find my own nature.

Although much is important in life, we may find there is no greater treasure than that.

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Alejandro Jodorowsky: I am the others, the others are me

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I am the others, the others are me

– Alejandro Jodorowsky in Jodorowsky’s Dune

I can find several ways it’s true.

The first two are more loose and poetic. The next three are something we can check out for ourselves in our direct noticing. And the last one either depends on our definition or is an assumption – at least for me now.

POETIC & SENSE OF US

We can mean it in a loose and poetic way.

I have a sense of fellowship and a sense of us.

So I am you and you are me in the sense that we are all in it together.

SYSTEMS VIEW

We are all part of and expressions of larger social and ecological systems.

We are expressions and parts of a larger whole, just like cells are part of a larger organism.

We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.

In this sense too, I am you and you are me.

MIRROR

I see in others what I know from myself, whether I know I know it from myself or not.

I can take any story I have about someone else (or anything in the world), turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of where it’s true.

You are my mirror. You are me.

I am your mirror. I am you.

This is something I can find for myself by exploring projections. One of my favorite ways is through inquiry and especially The Work of Byron Katie.

SENSE FIELDS

To me, the world happens within and as my sense fields.

To me, any experience is found within sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, thoughts, and so on.

To me, you happen within and as my sense fields.

Here too, you are me. And to you, I am you.

This is something I can explore and find for myself, by noticing my sense fields and how any experience happens within them. Traditional Buddhist sense field explorations are especially good for this.

WHAT I AM

In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s an assumption that’s not wrong and it works pretty well.

And when I look closer at what I am in my own experience, I find something else.

I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the world and anything that happens in my sense fields. I am what allows any and all experience, including what I think of as you.

I am what the world, to me, happens within and as. I am what you, to me, happen within and as.

If I want to put labels on it, I can say that to me, I am consciousness and the world happens within and as this consciousness I am.

In a very literal sense, you are me. And to you, I am you, whether you notice or not.

This is also something I can check out and find for myself, perhaps most effectively through forms of inquiry like the Big Mind process and Headless experiments, and also Basic Meditation.

SPIRIT

We can take this one step further.

If we call all of existence Spirit, the divine, or God, we can say that we are all aspects and expressions of Spirit.

I am you and you are me.

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The relationship between who and what we are (our human self & consciousness)

moe Leave a comment

What are some of the relationships between who and what we are? Between our human self and consciousness (AKA Buddha mind, Big Mind, Spirit).

It’s obviously a big topic so I’ll mention just a few things here, based on my own experience.

PARTS OF THE SAME

The first answer is that they are part of the same.

It’s thoughts that differentiate the two. I can’t find any diving line outside of my mental representations.

I can also say that to me, my human self happens within and as what I am.

Who I am happens within and as what I am. They are not two.

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

To me, everything happens within and as my field of experience.

That includes any human self, they all happen within my field of experience. To me, they all happen within and as the oneness I am, as does anything else.

And there is also a special relationship with this particular human self.

It’s around a lot more than any other humans and most or all other content of experience.

And this consciousness perceives through and as this human self. What I am experiences the sense fields of this human self – sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, thoughts, movement, acceleration, and so on.

OUR HUMAN SELF WHEN OUR NATURE DOES NOT RECOGNIZE ITSELF

When our nature does not recognize itself, our human psyche tends to operate from separation consciousness. It tends to assume that what we most fundamentally are is an object within the field of consciousness. It perceives, lives, and acts as if this is how it is.

That’s how it was for me too. In my childhood, my psyche was formed within separation consciousness and many parts of me learned to function from separation consciousness.

That’s also how hangups, identifications, emotional issues, traumas, and so on are formed. They are expressions of and operate from separation consciousness. If they didn’t, they would align with reality and find healing.

OUR HUMAN SELF WHEN OUR NATURE NOTICES ITSELF

When our nature notices itself, there is an invitation to keep noticing, explore how it is to live from this noticing, and for our human self to transform within this new context.

All of this is ongoing. The noticing, exploration of how to live from it, and the transformation is ongoing.

It’s all happening within and as the oneness we are, just like anything else.

COLORING OUR PERCEPTION AND LIFE

Even when the oneness we are notices itself, many parts of our human self and psyche still operate from separation consciousness. These parts of us will inevitably color our perception, choices, and life in the world. And they will get triggered more strongly in some situations.

THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS

The transformation process can also be difficult and messy at times, especially as deep issues surface to be seen, felt, befriended, loved, and recognized as love and part of the oneness we are.

When this happens, our habitual responses to our deep and painful issues tend to come up as well, with an invitation for us to see, feel, and befriend these too.

In periods, what’s unprocessed in us may be mostly under the surface, although they will color our life and some issues tend to come up. This can happen during a kind of honeymoon period after an initial noticing or oneness shift.

In periods, they may come up in mostly smaller portions and now and then. This allows us to explore and befriend painful parts of us without feeling too overwhelmed.

And in periods, the metaphorical lid may be taken off and a huge amount of them come up at once. When this happens, it can feel overwhelming, confusing, scary, painful, and even unbearable. This happened for me some years ago, and I am still in this phase although it has quieted down a bit.

In general, the more trauma we have, the more this process can feel difficult, overwhelming, and messy. And the less trauma we have, the more manageable it may feel although still with its challenges.

WHY IS THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS HAPPENING?

There are a couple of answers:

When our general system recognizes itself as oneness, what’s out of alignment surfaces so it can heal, transform, and align with oneness noticing itself.

When our general system recognizes itself as oneness, anything in our human self still operating from separation consciousness distorts the expression of oneness. They are out of alignment. They need to transform and realign so the oneness we are can express itself more clearly in more situations and more areas of life.

To me, this seems a natural and perhaps even inevitable process.

And it’s certainly not always comfortable. For me, it’s been the most difficult, messy, and humbling phase in my life by far, and I have not always dealt with it gracefully.

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The world in me

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There are – at least – two ways the world is in me.

And I can find both here and now in my own direct experience.

FINDING A PART OF ME THAT MIRRORS WHAT I SEE IN THE WORLD

If someone asks me if I feel or experience something, I almost always can find it and say “yes”. (And in the past, before I learned to not assume that everyone understands this, that has gotten me in trouble.)

Why is that?

It’s because I find that my psychology has innumerable parts. Whatever I see in the world, I can find in myself here and now.

There is always one part of me that has the characteristics I see out there. There is always one part that right now is experiencing what I see out there. It may not be very strong but it’s there, and it’s there at the very least as a potential.

I discovered this first in my teens, and since then daily and over and over.

And it also makes sense. If I imagine a characteristic or experience in someone else, it’s because I can connect with it in myself here and now. I am already connecting with it as soon as I imagine it in others.

Sometimes, what I see out in the world may be somewhat unfamiliar to me. I am not used to finding it in myself, and then the exploration may have to be a bit more thorough and detailed. Sometimes supported by a form of structured inquiry like The Work of Byron Katie or the Kiloby Inquiries.

So the world mirrors me. I can find what I can see in the world in me here and now.

THE WORLD IN ME

There is also another way I can find the world in me. And that is to see that the world is literally in me.

In one sense, I am a human being in the world. That’s not wrong. And when I look more closely, I find I more fundamentally – in my own first-person experience – am something else. I find I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.

I can also find this by examining my sense fields. I notice what’s in each sense field. (E.g. sound, smell, taste, sensation, thought.) I notice that any experience happens within one or more sense fields. (And that the sense fields are all one, the distinction between them happens only in my mental field.) I find that the world, to me, happens within and as the sense fields. I find that the world, to me, happens within and as what I am.

Said another way, and a little more from the logic side, to myself I am consciousness. If I think “I have consciousness” it means that to myself, I am consciousness. And that also means that the world, to me, happens within and as consciousness. It happens within and as what I am. It happens within and as the oneness I am.

When someone says “I am not in the world, the world is in me” or talks about “oneness”, then that’s something I don’t need to take anyone’s word for. I can find it here and now in my own direct noticing.

THE EFFECTS OF NOTICING THIS

This is about noticing what’s already here. Nothing needs to be fabricated. We don’t need to tell ourselves any stories about it, or rely on or trust those stories. We can find it here and now.

Our imagination may tell us we are separate. We may have images of ourselves as separate, and those images are inherited from our parents, teachers, and ultimately the culture we live within. We are told we are separate, and that we most fundamentally are this human self, so in our innocence and from our kind heart, we take it on. We do as others do. We learn to pretend that’s how it is.

And that has consequences. We naturally feel somewhat isolated, alone, separate from others, perhaps separate from our body and nature, we learn to be defensive, and so on.

Noticing that the world is in me, in the two ways mentioned above, and noticing it here and now, also has consequences.

Using the world as a mirror helps me get in touch with more of the natural richness I am. It opens up for recognizing in myself what I see in others in more situations, and that opens for a natural empathy.

Finding the world in me helps me see I am not most fundamentally this human self. It helps me relate to any content of experience a little more consciously. It helps me live a little more from this noticing and from the oneness I am.

Mostly, this noticing is a kind of seed and who knows what comes out of it. There are no formulas here. It’s an adventure. It’s something parts of us already and naturally are curious about and even fascinated by.

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Spiritual stories vs what’s here in immediacy

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Anyone into spirituality has all sorts of spiritual stories floating around in their minds. And most who are not into spirituality have these kinds of stories as well, they may just dismiss them.

For instance, if we are into mysticism or non-duality, we may have stories about the afterlife, karma, what awakening refers to, what awakening would mean for us and our future, the role of masters, the existence of non-physical entities and deities, and so on.

It’s helpful to differentiate mental representations and our immediate noticing.

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

For me, all of these stories are mental representations. I cannot find them anywhere else.

Someone created those stories, told them to someone else, and then they reached me.

I may have stories about the source and whether it’s reliable or not. There may be research matching the stories to a certain degree. Some of the stories may even match my own experiences.

And yet, to me, they remain mental representations and stories. I cannot find them outside of that. I cannot find it in my immediate noticing.

DIFFERENTIATING MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS AND IMMEDIATE NOTICING

For all I know, reality may not be anything like what the stories describe.

That’s a sobering realization and an important one.

In life, it helps us stay grounded and it’s a kind of vaccination against going too far into spiritual fantasies.

And more importantly, it’s a part of learning to differentiate mental representations from direct noticing. It’s a part of learning to recognize mental representations for what they are, holding them more lightly, and also differentiate all that from a direct noticing of what’s here – which is our own nature.

The only thing I can notice directly is actually my own nature. Everything else is a noticing plus a story, a mental representation.

WHAT I AM LEFT WITH

Any story about who or what I am is a story. Any story about the content of experience is a story. Any story about reality is a story.

And what I am left with is a direct noticing of my nature and that any and all experience happens within and as what I find myself as.

IT’S ALL I KNOW

When I learn to differentiate the two, I also notice more clearly that all I know is my own nature. Any content of experience happens within and as what I am, within and as my nature. Even the nature of mental representations is my nature.

To me, the nature of everything is my nature, whether I notice or not.

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The universality of my experience

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Whatever I experience, I can be certain that it’s shared with innumerable humans. Innumerable humans now, in the past, and in the future will share this experience in a very similar way.

It may also be that innumerable beings of many different species have experienced something very similar, are experiencing it, and will experience it.

We are in it together.

SINGLED OUT VS FELLOWSHIP

If I tell myself this is only happening to me, it’s easy to go into “poor me” and “why me” thoughts. I feel isolated and alone. I feel singled out. I feel especially unlucky. I feel that others have it better than me, and I can find any number of examples. (Based on comparing imaginations of me and them.)

If I remind myself of the universality of my experience, I realize that this experience is shared by a vast number of beings. Perhaps most experience something like that at some point in their life if they are lucky to live long enough. We are in it together.

It gives me a sense of fellowship. It gives me a sense of connection. It removes the feeling of being singled out, whether my personality sees that as good or bad.

Reminding me of this naturally deepens my empathy with myself and others. They are like me. And this empathy especially deepens when this noticing becomes a habit, a part of daily life.

EXPERIENCES MY PERSONALITY LIKES AND DOESN’T LIKE

This applies to the experiences my personality doesn’t like – physical or emotional pain, overwhelm, struggle, confusion, illness, discomfort, and so on.

It also applies to the experiences my personality does like – pleasure, joy, excitement, calm, comfort, contentment, peace, and so on. This too is experienced by innumerable humans and likely innumerable beings of many different species.

This too ties us together. This too is a reminder of our fellowship. This too deepens my empathy when I notice.

WHAT IS AN EXPERIENCE?

It’s important to clarify for ourselves what we mean by “an experience”.

Our initial response may be that we know. And when we look a little closer, we may surprise ourselves.

When I explore this for myself, I find that my experience is whatever is happening in my sense fields – sight, sound, smell, taste, movement, physical sensations, and an overlay of mental representations making sense of it all. (Sometimes in painful ways.)

It’s especially the combination of physical sensations and mental representations that creates my experience.

And in this context, it’s mainly the physical sensations with most of the conscious stories stripped away.

These are what my personality responds to with likes and dislikes. (And, of course, the likes and dislikes have stories behind them, many not conscious and learned early in life.)

For me, the focus is mainly on my physical sensations and how my system responds to these. How is it to remind myself that this experience – these physical sensations and the way my system responds to them – is universal? Is shared by innumerable humans and beings?

This is the essence of this exploration, and honing in on the physical sensations simplifies and gives a more clear focus.

A SIMPLE EXPLORATION

This can be a simple exploration in daily life.

What happens when I remind myself of the universality of what I am experiencing now?

What happens when this becomes a new habit? When I do it whenever I remember through the day?

What happens if I use difficult experiences as a reminder of this? And enjoyable experiences? And more neutral experiences?

How does my relationship with myself and others shift?

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“It’s so easy to be tricked by our senses”

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I just heard someone say this, and it is true enough in a rough conventional sense.

We may perceive something that’s not accurate and often do. Most of the time, we may not even notice. And sometimes, life shows us the error in our perception.

A MORE CLOSE LOOK

And yet, it’s not exactly what’s happening.

Our senses don’t trick us, they are innocent.

It’s our stories – about what we sense and anything else – that tricks us.

And it’s not even our stories that trick us. They too are innocent.

We trick ourselves when we naively hold these stories as true.

And we don’t really trick ourselves because, somewhere, we know what’s going on.

EXPLORING WHAT’S GOING ON

We have the wisdom in us, and we can find it by looking a little closer at what’s going on.

We can idenitify the stories we hold as true and find what’s more true for us.

We can explore our sense fields and how our mental representations combine with the other sense fields to create our experience of the world.

We can learn to differentiate our mental representation and what’s here in immediate noticing.

We can notice that our mental representations may be more or less accurate in a conventional sense. That they are different in kind to what they point to. That they help us orient and function in the world. That they cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. And that reality is always different from and more than our ideas about it.

DIFFERENTIATING OUR STORIES ABOUT WHAT WE ARE AND DIRECT NOTICING

We can also explore the difference between our ideas about who and what we are, and what we notice directly. In a conventional sense, we are this human self in the world, and that’s not entierly wrong. And when we look more closely, we may find what we more fundamentally are what the world to us happens within and as.

We are the field all our sense experiences, including our mental representations, happen within and as.

We are the field the world, to us, happens within and as.

How is it to live from that noticing, and as that?

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The outer is (also) inner

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This is one of the Life 101 topics many talk about.

The outer is (also) the inner.

A CONVENTIONAL VIEW: THE WORLD IS A MIRROR

The outer world – and the dynamics we experience with others – reflect something in us.

We have the dynamic in ourselves, and we have what we see in others in ourselves.

For instance, we may have an identity as a victim. We see ourselves as a victim of others, situations, life, or even God. That’s one side of it. And the other side is that we also have a victimizer in us. We have a part of ourselves that play the role of the victimizer. Otherwise, we wouldn’t and couldn’t feel like a victim. We couldn’t maintain that identity over time and through various situations, including when the outer victimizer is not present.

In a practical sense, that means that if I work on finding healing for (my relationship with) the victim in me, I also need to work on finding healing for (my relationship with) my inner victimizer. I need to notice and get to know each, find healing for my relationship with each and their dynamic, and possibly also invite healing for both of these parts of me.

This is the conventional view: The world is a mirror. Whatever we see in the outer world is also in us. Whatever story I have about others or the world, I can turn that story to myself and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s valid.

A MORE REAL VIEW: IT’S ALL HAPPENING WITHIN AND AS WHAT I AM

There is another layer to this, and that is that it’s all happening within and as what I am.

My mental field creates an overlay of mental images and words that makes sense of the world for me. This overlay is where any and all labels and stories happens. All my interpretations happens here. And it’s all happening within my mental field. Any ideas of victimizer and victim, and any ideas of inner and outer, you and me, and so on, happens within my mental field. And I can notice this in real time as it happens.

Also, in one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s an assumption that works reasonably well. And when I examine what I am in my own first-person experience, I find something else. I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the world and any content of experience. And I find that the world, to me, happens within and as what I am. Any content of experience happens within and as what I am.

THE LAYERS

So there are several layers to this.

The world is a mirror. Whatever I see out there is also within me, including all the roles and identities I try to exclude. Those too are here. I have an inner victimizer as much as I have an inner victim. And that goes for any and all of the polarities I see in the world.

My interpretation of the world – labels, stories, and so on – happen within my own mental field. It’s all created by my mental images and words to make sense of the world. It helps me orient and function in the world. So any stories about victimizer and victim, and anything else, happens within my mental field. (That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen “out there” in the world as well, just that my stories about it are mine.)

To me, the world – and any content of experience including of this human self – happens within and as what I am.

All of this are things I can explore for myself in my own immediate noticing. It’s all something I can notice here and now, in real time since that’s the only place it happens.

THE EXPLORATION

How can we explore these layers?

Personally, I explore the mirror dynamics through projection work, including The Work of Byron Katie.

I get to know the mental field through examining my sense fields and how they interact, for instance through traditional Buddhist inquiry or modern versions like the Kiloby Inquiries.

And I find myself as what it all happens within and as through inquiries like the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.

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What is memory?

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I have been unusually exhausted the last few days (after travels), and yesterday forgot to bring a book to return to the library. I had a vivid image of putting the book in my mochila (bag) so it was surprising to not see it there.

I realized that my apparent memory was actually an image I had created when intending to put the book in my bag. It wasn’t an image created from actually placing the book in the bag.

And that says something about what our memory is. It’s a set of thoughts (mental images and words) often associated with bodily sensations.

Just because we have an apparent memory doesn’t necessarily mean it’s accurate.

These images, which our thoughts call memory, are created and recreated in numerous ways.

In my case, they were created from having the intention to put the book in the bag. My mind created an image to support that intention and later took it as a memory.

Even when something actually happens, our memory is always a story. It’s an interpretation. It reflects our psychology as much or more than the actual event. It reflects our biases, viewpoints, access to and lack of information, hangups, issues, traumas, and much more.

And they are always recreated here and now. Just like with Chinese whispers (the telephone game), the story as it is now may be quite different from the original story.

Memories are stories. Sometimes, they reflect something that happened in a conventional sense, and sometimes they don’t. And when they do, they are always recreations and colored by our psychology.

That’s why healing often includes healing our stories about the past. Healing comes from finding a more accurate, kind, honest, and peaceful story about what happened.

And no matter what, it can be fascinating to explore our memories. What do they consist of? What mental images are there? What words? What sensations in the body are they associated with? How do these sensations influence how I perceive the images and words? (They tend to give them a charge and sense of reality and even truth.) How do my images and words influence the sensations? (They tend to give them a sense of meaning.)

Examining the stories we call memories allow us hold them more lightly, and that gives us more peace of mind and more receptivity, curiosity, and kindness in how we relate to ourselves and the world.

The body as capacity, space, and consciousness

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I just had a conversation with someone who is taking a Vortex Healing class and said she experienced only space in her chest area.

It made me realize that the way I experience my physical body may not be how it is for everyone. At some level, I know that. And at another level, it’s not something I am aware of or think about.

HOW I EXPERIENCE MY PHYSICAL BODY

So how do I experience my physical body?

For me, it’s mainly capacity. Everything is capacity and this capacity forms itself into the content of experience, the world as it appears to me, and this includes how this body appears in my sense fields – the shapes and colors, the sensations, the movement, and so on.

I can also say that this body is space. It’s space and this space sometimes takes the form of sensations. The sensations happen within and as awake space.

And I can say this body is consciousness. It’s happening within and as consciousness, just like the rest of the world appears to me.

HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THIS FOR OURSELVES?

This experience of my body and anything physical came with the initial awakening shift when I was fifteen and sixteen.

And I keep exploring it.

I explore what I most fundamentally am in my own experience, and find what I can call capacity for the world as it appears to me, and what the world to me happens within and as. (Headless experiments.)

I do inquiry on my experience of this body and any sense of being this body. I notice the sensations. Visual impressions. I notice the mental representations associated with these. I notice the sensations are sensations. I notice the mental representations are mental representations. And what’s left is this capacity and awake space taking all these forms. (Traditional Buddhist inquiry and modern versions like the Living Inquiries / Kiloby Inquiries.)

Through this, I also notice how any sense of solidity is created. It’s created in the same way as much else, through associating physical sensations with certain mental representations. The sensations lend a sense of solidity and reality to the thoughts, and the thoughts lend a sense of meaning to the sensations. And, in this case, this meaning is physical solidity. Here too, when this is seen and explored and we get familiar with this terrain, the “glue” that holds the sensations and thoughts together softens. We see through how the mind creates its own experience of the world. And what’s left is capacity and awake space taking all of these forms.

Why is (what we discover through) awakening difficult to put into words?

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What we find through awakening – our more fundamental nature – is notoriously difficult to put into words.

It’s not because it’s far removed. (Our nature is what’s most familiar to us and what we already are.) Or that it’s so amazing that words don’t do it justice. (It’s becomes very ordinary as we get more familiar with noticing it and living from it, although it’s also extraordinary.)

It’s because words have another function.

WHAT ARE WORDS?

Words are mental representations.

They are questions about the world. They are maps of the world.

They are made up of mental images and sounds. And when we hear or read the words of others, we have our own mental images and words that helps us make sense of them.

Words helps us communicate with ourselves and others. They even allow us to communicate with people we will never meet or people who live long after we are gone.

THE FUNCTION OF WORDS

Our experience is, whether we notice or not, as seamless whole. To us, the world – this human self, others, the wider world – is a seamless whole that happens within our sense fields.

To orient and function as human beings in the world, we need mental representations that splits this whole into parts. We mentally differentiate within this seamless whole in order to make sense of the world.

This helps us orient and function in the world, and also communicate with ourselves and others.

That’s the magic and amazing gift of words and mental representations in general.

THE LIMITS OF WORDS

At the same time, words and mental representations have their limits.

They cannot hold any final, full or fundamental truth for several reasons.

They are different in kind from what they point to. They are maps, and maps are not the terrain.

They are simplified representations. Reality is always more than and different from our ideas about it. And it’s also simpler.

And they are also guesses about the world. Sometimes educated guesses, and still guesses.

These are some of the limitations inherent in mental representations, including words.

There is another limitation of mental representations that is more to the point here. And that is that they differentiate within oneness. 

To ourselves, we are oneness, whether we notice or not. And the function of words is to split the world, not to represent oneness. 

That means they are not very good at describing what we are. They can point to it. They can orient us to notice it for ourselves. And they cannot describe oneness itself very successfully.

THE BEST WAY TO USE WORDS

The best way to use words is to recognize their function and limits. 

We can recognize they are questions about the world. They are provisional maps. 

They help us orient and function in the world. 

They cannot capture any final, full, or absolute truth. 

And when it comes to awakening, they can guide us to notice what we are. Either indirectly through various practices, or more directly through different forms of inquiry. 

UNDERSTANDING THE STORY VS NOTICING FOR OURSELVES

We can use words to – very inadequately – describe our nature

For instance, here is how I sometimes describe it:

My nature is capacity for the world as it appears to me. And the world as it appears to me – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as what I am.

That’s the best I can do. These types of inadequate descriptions can be one of several pointers for others to find it for themselves, although more structured guided inquiry is far more effective and to the point.

There is also a drawback inherent in these types of descriptions. We can understand the words, at a conceptual level, and that’s different from finding it for ourselves.

A conceptual understanding doesn’t, in itself, lead to any transformation. And finding it for ourselves, and keeping noticing and exploring how to live from it, can be profoundly transforming – for our sense of fundamental identity, perception, how we live our life, and our human self and psyche.

At most, these types of descriptions are a good first step. They can wet the appetite for exploring it for ourselves.

And when we notice our nature for ourselves, we see that – or whether – the words fit.

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Investing energy into certain images short term

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I usually write about my own more intentional explorations here, and not so much about what’s happening spontaneously. So I thought I would make an exception.

THE PAST AND FUTURE AS IMAGES

For a few weeks now, if I talk about the past or future, it’s even more clear that I am talking about mental images and stories. I am reporting on my own mental images and words, and not anything else.

Sometimes, a slight sensation accompanies these stories, and they are recognized as sensations, although I also know what emotion label I can put on them and that these sometimes reflect unresolved issues in me.

INVESTING ENERGY INTO TEMPORARY STORIES

I don’t know if it’s directly related, but over the last few weeks, I notice something else very clearly.

When I need to do something, I intentionally invest energy into that story so I can remember it, and when it’s no longer needed, it lingers for a few minutes. It creates an odd experience of parallel worlds for a little while.

For instance, we have a cat that’s been an indoor city cat for most of her life. Now that we are in the countryside, she is more outside but often under a bit of supervision. If she is gone, I create a mental image of her somewhere outside and me finding her, and my mind invests some energy into this image since it’s relatively important to me.

After she returns or I find her, I see her in front of me, and I also see my mental images of her roaming somewhere. She is here. And my images of her not being here is here. As I mentioned, the images fade after a few minutes, but for a little while, there is a clear and odd experience of parallel worlds.

This happens any time I create mental images of needing to do something or go somewhere, and that’s no longer necessary. The images retain some energy for a few minutes and then it fades, and there is that experience of parallel worlds.

FAMILIAR AND NEW

None of this is really new to me. It’s very familiar. It’s something I have explored and noticed for a long time.

And yet, something is different. I am more acutely aware of it, and it happens without any intention.

This may mean it’s more in my bones and more of a habit. And it likely also reflects another shift in me I am not completely aware of.

INTENTIONAL EXPLORATION VS SPONTANEOUS SHIFTS

I mentioned these two in the introduction and wanted to say a little bit more about their dynamic.

In a conventional sense, these two go hand in hand. Intentional explorations may lead to apparently spontaneous shifts, and spontaneous shifts may lead to further and intentional explorations.

And in a more real sense, this is all happening within and as what we are. We are capacity for both, and intentional explorations and spontaneous shifts happen within and as what we are. They are part of the creativity of the mind.

In a bigger sense, this is life taking these forms. Life engages in intentional explorations and produces spontaneous shifts.

And we can also say it’s all part of the play of the divine.

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Our daily life hallucinations

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I have often thought of how strange this may seem to another species incapable of doing it.

Also, when it comes to fictional stories, we willingly and often enjoyably get absorbed into our own hallucinations.

And when it comes to what we call real life, we sometimes unwillingly and painfully get absorbed into our own hallucinations.

HALLUCINATING LIFE

Our experience of life is a hallucination. Our mind puts together sensory input to a more or less unified experience for us. And our experience of life is largely created by our mental images and stories.

It’s often a functional hallucination. Our mental field, combined with the other sense fields, helps us orient and navigate in the world.

And sometimes, when we take our hallucinations to be true and reality itself, we can mislead and create stress and suffering for ourselves.

GETTING TO KNOW OUR HALLUCINATIONS

Fortunately, there is a way out, and that is to examine our hallucinations.

What stories do I tell myself? What happens if I take them as true? How would I function in the same situation without that stressful story? What do I find when I explore the validity in the reversals of the story, finding genuine examples in each case? (The Work of Byron Katie.)

What’s happening in each sense field? What happens when I tell myself specific stories about myself, others, or the world? What’s in my mental field? (Mental images and words.) What’s in my sensation field? How does my mind associate the stories with the sensations? How is it to “take a “peek behind the curtain” and see how my mind creates its own experience? (Living Inquiries.)

When I look at what I more fundamentally am in my first-person experience, what do I find? How is it to keep noticing this? How is it to live from it, in the situation I am in? (Headless experiments, Big Mind process.)

I am the mountain?

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When mystics (or wannabe mystics!) say “I am the mountain”, “I am you”, “be the river”, and so on, what do they mean?

I don’t really know, and I assume it will vary with the person.

When I explore it for myself, I find a few different possibilities.

ONENESS IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

Some may use those phrases to acknowledge the oneness in the physical world. We are all parts of the same living seamless systems, so – in a metaphorical or poetic sense – I am you and you are me.

I would phrase it differently, but I understand where it is coming from. We are all part of the oneness of the world. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.

THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR

The world is my mirror.

I can imagine being a mountain, a river, and so on. I can find the part in me that corresponds to it and notice how it feels, how it views the world, and so on. I can have a dialog with that part of me and get to know it.

Similarly, what I see out there reflects something in me.The stories I have about anything in the wider world also apply to me, and I can find specific examples in each case. I can use how I see the world to get to know myself.

TO ME, IT HAPPENS WITHIN AND AS WHAT I AM

To me, any experience – of this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within my sense fields. It happens within sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, mental representations, and so on. In that sense, what I experience is what I am at that moment.

To me, all experiences happen within and as what I am. In a very immediate and literal sense, I am the content of my experience. I am what I am experiencing, as I am experiencing it. I am the mountain, the river, you, and anything else. This is the oneness that’s already here in my experience if I notice.

CONVENTIONAL SENSE

In a conventional sense, I am of course this human self in the world. That co-exists easily with all the other ones, and which one is in the foreground depends on the situation and where the attention is.

FIND FOR OURSELVES

These ways of looking at it are all pragmatic and relatively down-to-earth, and it’s even mundane in a good way We can explore it for ourselves. It doesn’t require anything very mystical or removed from our immediate experience as it already is – if we just notice.

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Transcendent state of oneness?

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I saw someone use this phrase, partly as a joke.

Recognizing oneness can happen here and now, it doesn’t require any particular state (apart from the state of noticing) and it doesn’t require transcendence.

As I often write about, certain simple and structured inquiries can help us notice oneness here and now. For instance, Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.

And, over time, exploring sense fields is another effective approach.

I notice that all my experiences happen within my sense fields – sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, thoughts, and whatever else we want to label and look at.

I notice that my sense fields are a seamless whole, and any “outside” and “inside” are both parts of this seamless whole and only come from an overlay of mental representations (mental images, words).

I notice that my nature is what allows all of this and takes the form of all of this. I am what all of it – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happen within and as.

And here, it’s oneness. It’s all a seamless whole.

To me, the world and all of existence happen within and as what I am. It’s all one.

It’s already this way. It’s already my nature and here. All that’s required is to notice it, and that’s independent of any particular states (although strong states can be distracting) and it’s independent of any transcendence. It’s also independent of any spirituality or religion, and any dogma or even worldview.

All of this – states, transcendence, ideas – happen within and as what we are.

There is a slight irony here. Some who seek awakening assume it’s a state or connected with a state, so they seek certain states. In reality, their nature is already here and is what already allows any and all states. And it’s in some ways easier to notice in a more mundane and ordinary state since we are not distracted by the fireworks of unusual states.

In many cases, we may have some strong states which help us recognize certain things. These then fade, and we are invited to notice our nature here and now, in this more ordinary and mundane state. And then to keep noticing as states come and go.

Dissolving into the field

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This is one of my more common explorations, and also something I don’t write much about.

I notice myself as this field of experience, this field that has no end in space, that time happens within, and so on.

I notice what “sticks out” of this field. What seems more dense. What’s seems a bit like “other”. What’s perhaps not so easily recognized as having the same nature as the rest of the field.

I notice it’s nature, the same as the rest of the field. I rest in that noticing. I invite it, the contraction, to find itself as that, and rest and sink into that noticing.

This allows the contractions to, in a sense, “dissolve” into the field. They are more easily seen as having the same nature as anything else, and they relax and reorganize in that noticing.

As usual, there is more to say about it.

For instance, if it’s a strong contraction and one my system is used to struggling with, some earlier steps may be needed. I may need to befriend it before I can notice it’s nature and rest in that noticing. I may need to intentionally welcome it, allow it, see what it’s needs and wants are, notice the lack it’s coming from, give it what it needs and wants, see it’s innocence and is here to protect this separat self, find genuine love and appreciation for it, and so on.

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The past is like a dream

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Do you remember how it was before? It’s almost like a dream, isn’t it?

I heard someone say this in reference to the time before the pandemic.

Why does the past seem like a dream? Because, just like a dream, we can only find it as mental images and stories. And, just like a dream, it happens within and as consciousness.

The future is also like a dream, for the same reason. We can only find it in mental images and stories, and it happens within and as consciousness.

And really, the present is very similar. Our mental images and stories about the present, including about what’s physically present with us, are the mental images and stories we find in a dream. And it all, including what’s appearing within all the sense fields, happens within and as consciousness.

If we don’t notice what we are, we tend to take all of this as more solid than it is. The past seems real to us, even if we can only find it as mental images and stories happening within and as consciousness. The future can seem relatively real to us, especially if we attach fears and hopes to it, even if that too only consists of mental images and words happening within and as consciousness. And the present seems real, even if our mental images and stories about it are just that, and what’s happening in all of the sense fields – sight, sound, taste, smell, sensations, thoughts – happen within and as consciousness.

And that’s why, when we notice what we are, it can feel like the world is a dream. It’s because it is, to us. It always was and is and cannot be anything else, we just didn’t notice. This can be disorienting and perhaps disconcerting at first, but we get used to it as anything else. We are just noticing what’s always here and what we already are more familiar with than just about anything else.

As what I am, all is subject and object

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In one sense, I am this human self in the world.

And when I look more closely, I find I am capacity for the world as it appears to me. I am what all my experiences – including of this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.

And here, I find that all of my experiences are both subject and object.

Anything happening within my sense fields – of this human self and the wider world – is an object. It’s all happening within me. It’s not what I more fundamentally am.

And anything happening within my sense fields is a subject. It’s what I am. What I am takes all these forms.

THE PRACTICAL USE OF THIS

Why is this important? In some ways, it isn’t. It’s just something to notice, and it can be a bit fun to notice.

At the same time, it is helpful to notice all the content of my sense fields as objects. That helps me find myself as capacity for it all, and as what it all happens within and as.

And it is helpful to notice all of it as subject since that’s helps me find myself as oneness. As what takes the form of all of it, as it appears to me.

THOUGHTS CREATING A SENSE OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT

There is one thing here to clarify.

When we normally experience something as subject (what we are) or object (other), it’s really a thought telling us this, and a thought we hold as true.

The conventional sense of subject (me as this human self with all these identities and roles) and other (the rest of the world, and the parts of me that don’t fit my desired image) comes from holding a thought as true. It comes from identifying with a thought.

A thought says: I am this human self with these identities. My mind holds that thought as true and identifies with the viewpoint of this thought. In my own experience, I become the viewpoint of this thought.

Another thought says: I am not this table, or phone, or this room, or what’s outside the window, or these other people. And my mind identifies with the viewpoint of that thought, and that becomes my experience. All of this then is “other” to me.

This is our conventional experience of ourselves and the world. We take ourselves as this human self (roughly since we exclude some things we don’t like), and we are not the rest of the world.

That’s not wrong. But it’s not what we more fundamentally are, in our own first-person experience. To ourselves, we more fundamentally are capacity for it all, and what it all happens within and as.

This human self and the wider world happens within my sense fields, and I am what these sense fields – what this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.

And we can find this for ourselves. We can notice it, and it can become something we live from – and as.

And here, all my experiences – including my thoughts – become objects. They happen within me. They are not what I more fundamentally are.

And they all become subject. They are all what I am. What I am takes all these forms.

NOT QUITE AS CLEAR CUT

There are some wrinkles here. It’s not quite as clear-cut in practice.

Yes, I may notice what I am. And at the same time, I may still be partially identified with certain thoughts – mental images and words.

Both can co-exist. The task here is to notice where there is identification, and find that too as what I am capacity for, and what happens within and as what I am.

I can find it as having the same nature as myself – capacity for itself, stillness & silence, and so on, and invite it to find itself as that and relax in that noticing.

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Triggers and what’s triggered in me, and how I relate to it all

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There are several ways of looking at the interactions between our life situations and what’s triggered in us.

THE SITUATION TRIGGERS SOMETHING IN ME

The most common one is to see a situation as triggering something in me.

My neighbor is using his noisy lawn mover, and it’s triggering an issue in me around noise.

If we look more closely here, we’ll see that the situation in itself is not triggering anything. It’s my thoughts about it that triggers the issue in me.

My perception of the situation triggers someting in me, and that perception is part of what’s unhealed and unresolved in me.

This is a very useful way to look at it, especially if we look at it more closely. It means that I can use ordinary life situations, and how I respond to them, to identify and explore something unhealed and unresolved in myself.

MY PERCEPTION CREATES MY WORLD

My perception creates my world, in a couple of different ways.

The stories I have about a situation, shapes how I perceive it and respond to it. These stories are the difference between stress and peace.

My stories also influence and, to a large extent, determine the choices I make and how I live my life. It shapes my life and the situations I find myself in.

Said another way, my mental field – with its labels, mental images, and interpretations – shape how I perceive and respond to a situation. And my mental field determine, to a large extent, how I live my life and the situations I find myself in.

ALL HAPPENING WITHIN MY SENSE FIELDS

To me, this human self and the wider world happens within my sense fields. More specifically, anything triggering (in the wider world) and triggered (in this human self) happens within my sense fields. It’s all happening within and as what I am.

I get to see that the whole trigger-triggered dynamic is happening within my sense fields, and within and as what I am. And my mental field and it’s labels and interpretations is what creates the whole dynamic.

To the extent we take this in, from direct noticing, it transforms how we relate to triggers and what’s triggered. We cannot any longer wholeheartedly blame anything outside ourselves.

We know it’s all an inside job, and that the solution – apart from sometimes taking care of things in our life situation, is to take care of it in ourselves. Perhaps through working with projections, inquiring into stressful stories, dialog with parts of ourselves, and so on.

ASSUMING THAT OUR SITUATION MIRROR US CLOSELY

Beyond all of these interactions, some seem to assume that our life situations mirror us closely. Whatever is unresolved in ourselves is reflected in our life situation, and whatever clarity and kindness is here is also reflected.

To me, this seems a bit naive and it’s something I can’t really check or verify. At most, I could possibly say that it looks like it, without knowing for certain. (And I personally can’t even say that.) If I take it literally, I would either have to take someone’s word for it (which I won’t), or I’ll have to leave it in the “don’t know but that person says so” category.

There is a more pragmatic way of taking this:

Take it as an what if thought experiment.

What if my current life situation is reflecting something in me, what would it be? What issue in me could create this situation? What happens when I identify and explore that issue?

There is nothing to lose here, apart from perhaps some time and a stressful belief or emotional issue.

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What’s inside? Inside & outside in a conventional sense and when I look more closely

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When we say “look inside”, what do we mean? What’s inside, and what’s outside? And what do I find if I look at this more closely in my own experience?

INSIDE & OUTSIDE IN DAILY LANGUAGE

In our daily language, inside refers to what only we have direct access to – our sensations, emotions, thoughts, and so on. Outside refers to our shared reality that we all can access.

This is obviously a useful and accurate enough differentiation.

WHAT INSIDE & OUTSIDE HAPPENS WITHIN AND AS

If I look more closely, and am more intimate with my experience, I find something else as well.

I find that all my experiences happen within my sense fields. What’s inside happens within my sense fields. And what’s outside happens within my sense fields.

It’s all happening within and as what I am.

THE MENTAL FIELD CREATES THE DIFFERENTIATIONS

The differentiation between inside and outside in a conventional sense comes from an overlay of mental images, labels, and stories.

It’s conveniently created by the mental field to help me function and orient in my daily life and in the world with others.

BOTH TOGETHER

These two go beautifully together.

In my own first-person experience, I cannot find any real inside and outside. I still use the inside and outside differentiation in a conventional sense, and I know it’s a convention and doesn’t reflect any reality beyond that – at least not in my first-person experience.

As who I am, as this human self in the world, inside and outside point to different things. And when I look more closely, I find that the conventional inside and outside both point to what’s happening within my sense fields. What they each point to is happening within and as what I am.

CHILDLIKE EXPLORATIONS

Does any of this matter? After all, the question itself seems childlike and naive, bordering on the ridiculous.

And what we find may seem like an interesting concept, and not more. We may even notice for ourselves that inside & outside happens within and as what we are, and see it as interesting but of little or no practical use. It remains a minor curiosity.

In reality, this type of sincere exploration of simple and childlike questions can be profoundly transforming.

From starting with a simple question (what’s inside?), we may discover what we are in our own first-person experience.

And if we keep noticing what we are, and keep exploring the implications and how to live from it, it can be profoundly transforming. It can transform our perception, our life in the world, and our human self beyond what we could have imagined.

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I am in you and you in me?

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When you call me European, I say yes. When you call me Arab, I say yes. When you call me black, I say yes. When you call me white, I say yes. Because I am in you and you are in me. We have to inter-be with everything in the cosmos.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

This can sound like a poetic expression or well-intentioned wishful thinking.

And if we look more closely, we may find something else. We may find it’s an accurate description of how it already is.

BIOLOGY

We share ancestry not just going back to the first cells but to the beginning of this universe. We share 99.9% of our genetic material.

We are basically the same, in all the essentials. We have the same basic needs, wants, fears, and so on.

PROJECTIONS

If I have a story about you, and turn it around to myself, I can specific examples of how it’s true for me as well. I can find how it’s as or more true for me.

You are my mirror. You help me see myself. (If I allow it and notice.)

In this sense, you are me. What I see in you is what I know from myself, whether I notice or not.

WHAT I AM

My experience of you happens within my sense fields. If you are here, or I see a movie or picture of you, you happen within my sight and possibly touch, smell, and so on.

Whether you are here or not, you also happen within my mental field. You happen through my mental representations of you – my mental images, labels, memories, and stories.

I find I am capacity for you. You happen within and as my sense fields. You happen within and as what I am.

In this sense, you are me. You happen within and as what I am. And I am you. What I am takes the form of my experience of you.

I AM IN YOU AND YOU IN ME

In several ways, it’s true that you are in me and I am in you.

It’s true in a biological sense.

It’s true since you are my mirror. What I see in you is what I have in myself.

It’s true since my experience of you happens within and as what I am.

The question is: if I keep noticing this, and keep exploring it and seeing it’s undeniably so, what does it do to me? If I take this seriously, how do I live my life?

More pervasive emotional issues tend to be felt all over the body

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I notice how my mind associates certain sensations with certain thoughts, in order to give these thoughts a sense of substance, reality, and truth, and this also gives a sense of meaning to the sensations.

The more we recognize this pattern and learn to differentiate the sensations with the thoughts, the less charge these thoughts tend to have. The sense of substance and truth in them tends to go out.

I also notice that the mind creates physical contractions in the body, and these – in turn – allows for a stable access to sensations that lend a sense of solidity and reality to certain thoughts. In order to believe and have emotional issues, we need sensations, and in order to have reliable access to these sensations, the body contracts.

If the issue comes and goes, the contractions tend to come and go. If it’s a more stable issue, the contractions tend to be more stable as well.

This is how identifications, beliefs, hangups, emotional issues, and traumas are created. This is how our mind creates all of these, and they are really just different name on the same dynamic.

There is one pattern here I have noticed for a long time: The more pervasive and central the emotional issue, the more I feel those sensations all over the body.

A more limited and peripheral issue may be connected with contractions in a certain part of the body – solar plexus, center of belly, throat, face, and so on.

And a more pervasive issue is often associated with stable sensations all over the body.

When I work on something, and I notice it’s connected with all-over sensations, it’s a good hint that this is a more central issue, that it’s from early in life (sometimes infancy), and that there is a strong and familiar identification with this issue. It has become the water we swim in.

We can still work on it as we do with any other emotional issue. It just means it’s worth focusing on and prioritizing since it may be pervasive. There may be a good deal of branches to explore. And when we find some resolution for it, we’ll likely see the effects in most or all areas of our life.

Our mental activity is a kind of dream

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I mentioned this briefly in a previous article, and thought I would expand on it a bit here.

THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW ON DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE

Many think of dreams and waking life as categorically different.

A dream is a fantasy and product of the mind. It may say something about our internal life, and that’s about it.

Waking life is real, as it appears to us. It has nothing to do with dreams, with the possible exception of daydreams and fantasies.

THE GENERAL DREAMING FUNCTION OF THE MIND

The reality is quite different.

When we look, we may find that all our mental activity is a kind of dream.

We put mental representations on top of what’s in our sense fields – sights, sounds, sensations, smells, taste – to make sense of them. We label and have stories about what’s here. Similarly, we have mental representations of what isn’t here – the wider world, the past and future, and so on.

In a very real sense, all our mental activity is imagination and a fantasy. It’s a kind of dreaming activity.

It can be very useful in helping us make sense of the world and in helping us orient and navigate in the world. It can be more or less accurate, in a conventional sense. And this dreaming activity doesn’t hold any absolute or final truth.

THE DREAMING ACTIVITY OF THE MIND – IN NIGHT DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE

This general dreaming activity of the mind plays itself out while awake and also in our sleeping dreams.

Both are an expression of the creativity of our mind.

Both create a world for us. Sleeping dreams happen in the absence of sensory inputs. And these waking dreams happen partly as an overlay over sensory inputs (what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste etc.) and partly in the absence of these sensory inputs (imaginations of a wider world, past, future, and so on).

Both can seem real if we take them that way, and we can learn to see through both. We can recognize a sleeping dream as a dream while we dream (lucid dreaming) and we can recognize our waking dreams as they happen (through inquiry). It takes time, but recognizing dreams as they happen can become a new habit.

What we are is capacity for both types of dreams, they both happen within and as what we are. When we notice this, identification with them tends to soften. It’s easier to recognize them as dreams.

Our sleeping dreams are one expression of the general dreaming activity of the mind.

NOTICING THIS HELPS RELEASE IDENTIFICATION OUT OF THE DREAMING ACTIVITY

Recognizing this general dreaming activity of the mind can help us take it a little less seriously. It is immensely valuable in helping us navigate the world. And it doesn’t hold any final or absolute truth.

When we notice that all mental activity is a kind of dream, it helps release identification out of this dreaming activity.

HOW CAN WE EXPLORE THIS FOR OURSELVES?

If we just read or hear about this, it becomes part of the dream. It may be interesting, but it doesn’t really do anything for us.

So how can we explore this for ourselves?

The simple answer is by noticing the dreaming activity directly. By noticing this dreaming activity as an overlay on the other senses for what’s in our immediate environment. And for anything else – the wider world, past, future, and so on – it functions on its own.

And to do this, structured inquiry can be very helpful. We may not be used to noticing this, and may not even know how to go about it, so a structured inquiry will function as training wheels and helps us explore it more systematically and in depth.

The best approach I have found is the Living Inquiries, which is a modern version of traditional Buddhist Inquiry. Here, we get to explore the different sense fields, and how the mental field combines with other sense fields to create our experience of ourselves and the world.

As we get more familiar with this, we learn to notice and recognize the dreaming activity of the mind – the mental field activity – as it happens. And that makes a big difference. It helps us hold this dreaming activity more lightly, recognize it as a kind of dreaming activity, and not something that holds any final or absolute truth.

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Thoughts as an evolutionary experiment

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We can see our human ability for elaborate abstract thought as an evolutionary experiment.

Thoughts as tools

Thoughts are tools. They help us orient and navigate in the world.

They provide us with mental maps of the world. They give us images of the past, present, and possible futures. They provide us with the opportunity to mentally test out actions before we make them.

All of this makes it possible for us to function in the world.

Thoughts mimic senses & language

Thoughts seem to mimic our physical senses and, in our case, language.

In our case, we have thoughts mimicking sight, sounds, sensations, movement, and words (mental images and sounds).

Other species may have thoughts mimicking their own senses, whatever these are.

A helpful way of using this tool

What’s the optimal way to use this tool of thought?

It seems that the best way to use this particular tool is to recognize thoughts as thoughts. They are questions about the world. They help us orient and navigate. They provide maps about the world. They have a very important practical function. They are provisional. They are not what they appear to refer to. And none of them hold any final or absolute truth.

When we recognize this, we can hold them more lightly. We can find the validity in them, question them, find the validity in their reversals and other views, and use them more consciously as a tool. We recognize their value and their inherent limitations.

Misuse of the tool of thoughts

How can this tool be misused?

The easiest is to hold a thought as true. When we do, we identify with the viewpoint with the thought. We take ourselves as the viewpoint of the thought, make it into an identity for ourselves, create a sense of I and other, and feel a need to prop it up, elaborate on it, and defend it if it’s threatened.

When we hold a thought as true – either consciously or a part of us holds it as true – we perceive and live as if it’s true. We get out of alignment with reality since no thought can hold any final or absolute truth, and a thought and its reversals all hold some validity.

This is how a huge amount of human suffering is created, and it’s also how we create a good deal of problems for ourselves and others.

Thoughts as an evolutionary experiment

I assume many types of animals have some form of thought.

Specifically, they may have thoughts mimicking their senses. They may have mental maps of their surroundings. Mental representations of friends and foes. Mental representations of however they communicate. And so on. In most cases, these may not be conscious thoughts.

Human thought has gone a couple of steps further into abstraction. We have developed complex language and mental representations of this language, and that allows us to imagine and explore a wide range of things in our minds. Our minds are immensely creative.

This form of more abstract and elaborate thought is, in a sense, an evolutionary experiment. It’s as if nature said to itself: let’s see what happens with this species if they have this ability. Let’s see how they use it, and whether it aids their survival or becomes their undoing.

We can see how it has indeed aided our survival and made us into a powerful species. And we can also see how it has brought about conflicts, war, and immense suffering, and brought the ecosystems we are dependent on for our own survival to the brink of ecological collapse.

Abstract and complex thought as a new evolutionary experiment

This more elaborate form of abstract thought is a relatively new evolutionary experiment. It may have evolved over just a few hundred thousand years.

In an evolutionary sense, this is a very new tool for us. We are still learning how to use it.

We are systematically misusing it by assuming thoughts can do more for us than they can. They are powerful, and they have helped us create this civilization, technology, culture and so on. At the same time, they have their limits. They can’t hold any final or absolute truth, and we often perceive and live as if they can.

I assume that if we survive long enough, we may also learn to relate to thoughts more consciously. We may learn to recognize what they can and cannot do for us, and their inherent limitations. If this ever happens on a collective scale, it will mean a revolution in human evolution and history.

How we can explore this for ourselves

We can explore many aspects of this for ourselves.

We can explore our sense fields – sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, and mental representations – and see how mental representations combine with the other sense fields to create our experience of the world.

We may recognize how our mind associates certain thoughts with certain sensations, so the sensations lend a sense of substance and reality to the thoughts, and the thoughts give a sense of meaning to the sensations. (Traditional Buddhist inquiry, Living Inquiries.)

We can examine any thought we hold as true and find what’s more true for us. (The Work of Byron Katie.)

We can use basic meditation to notice and allow our experience as it is. This helps us notice and allow thoughts, recognize that they live their own life, and perhaps soften identification with them and hold them a bit more lightly.

In a sense, through examining our thoughts and our relationship with thoughts, and learning to relate to them more consciously, we take the next evolutionary step in our own life. We find a more sane and healthy relationship with thoughts, and that is one of the things that can most help humanity today.

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