The Experience of Never-Ending and the Subtle Subject
La experiencia de lo interminable y el sujeto sutil
A wide-ranging exchange about the felt sense of permanence in difficult experience, the nature of seeking, and the subtle thought-form that masquerades as the observing subject.
The Experience of Never-Ending and the Subtle Subject
A wide-ranging exchange about the felt sense of permanence in difficult experience, the nature of seeking, and the subtle thought-form that masquerades as the observing subject.
The only time I get really frustrated is when I feel stuck, when something doesn't feel funny anymore and it's like never-ending difficulty.
On that point, because it's really important: the experience of "never-ending" is not that something is never-ending. It feels like it's never-ending. "Never-ending crap" is an experience. It involves thought as well. Sensations, thoughts. You can go into that experience, because there's a really thin line between two things. One is the experience of "this is never-ending," where there's a felt reality to never-endingness, a projection in time that this is going to repeat or continue as it is for a long time. The other is to see it as an experience, in a sense, out of time. It's a flavor of experience: it feels like it's never-ending. And that experience comes and goes.
Tasting the experience at its root
When whatever is getting activated brings up this contraction into never-ending time, never-ending discomfort, you can go more into it with a more subtle attention and really taste it. When I say "taste," I mean: what is this made of? Not as an intellectual exercise, but really savoring it. You see, "Oh, there's this sense of contraction, this sensation in the body, this narrative and belief that this is going to be like this for a long time." And that belief is made of thought.
All of that, as you taste it more directly, you can start to see that in a sense it's empty. It doesn't have any true nature or power over you. It's just a thing that's being created. Then you can actually see that you're creating it. There's a narrative you're choosing that produces it. But only through not fighting it, only by tasting it, can you see it all the way to its root.
That makes it feel richer. Something that superficially feels quite flat and stagnant is actually richer than that.
Yes. You can go deeper and deeper into that sense of richness, into that aliveness. Then the qualities that make it problematic start to become part of the richness. And then it all does change. In fact, it's impossible for something to be permanent. The experience of "this is going to be like this forever" is an experience that tastes like it's going to be forever, but that experience itself comes and goes. It's impossible to sustain it over time, even if you try. And in fact, trying to sustain something over time is the struggle. Identification is these mechanisms that attempt to create something that persists over time, and nothing does.
It's interesting what might change. My parents lived in the same house my whole life growing up and didn't like change. It's like wanting things to stay the same but also wanting to be free of that need for things not to change. And as you say, it's always changing anyway. But also, there's something still within that change, the paradox of it.
The only thing that doesn't change
The only thing that doesn't change is what I often call beingness, what others call "I am-ness." It's all the same. That doesn't change. But what is experienced is always in motion, always changing, no matter what. The more you try to preserve something in time, the more it will become a struggle to keep something that inevitably will change. I'm not talking about things in life like wanting to own an apartment for the rest of your life. I'm talking about experience. Even if you look at one object, you look at it, and the experience of it is going to be constantly in motion.
The whole root of this struggle is the issue of change and no-change. Self-inquiry is to see that what we think we are is an attempt at keeping an image of ourselves constantly unchanged. The more we see that, the more we see that we are not that. What we think we are is constantly changing, so it's not us. That's not where we are.
There is still belief here that I'm seeking. There's still seeking happening.
Seek and don't stop seeking
I quote Jesus, where he says, "Seek and don't stop seeking." There are many teachers today speaking about seeking as the problem, and I agree in a sense, because the end comes when seeking stops. But I would say seeking stops when we find. That's why I appreciate the first saying in the Gospel of Thomas: "Seek and don't stop seeking until you find."
The problem is: what are we looking for? If we are expecting to find something in the future, something that we imagine, then we're looking in the wrong place. Keep seeking, but seek now. Seek in the now. What you are looking for is something valuable, true, and real, but it's not in time. It's always here now.
Why is it not known? Because it's veiled. How is it veiled? By our misunderstanding of what we are experiencing, the nature of this experience, the nature of this reality. It's a misinterpretation because we haven't looked closely enough, haven't tasted it directly enough.
The object and subject of experience
We can explore the nature of what is being experienced: the reality of sensation, perception, thought. What can be called the object of experience. But we can also look more directly at the subject of experience, the apparent subject. All of that is here now. It's always present.
When we look in time, we're always going to be looking in thought, because time only exists as imagination. The future only ever exists in imagination. It never comes to be. That's the wrong place to look. That's the seeking that is uninformed.
There's a phrase I love, which is simply: "This is it." In a sense, it's a complete teaching. What are you looking for? What is "this is it"? It always applies. Seek and don't stop seeking till you find. Till you find what? This is it. You will find when you realize "this is it," when you see for yourself, "Oh yes, this is it." Then seeking stops, because this is here. It's always here. You don't need to do anything. It always is.
Why isn't seeing that there's nothing there, seeing through the thought, enough? I've looked many times. There's just nothing there.
Because there's more to see. What is the nature of that which knows? When you say "nothing is there," that statement itself is known.
Let me give another example. When I pinch my arm, there's immediately a pain feeling. There's no sense of a separate "pain-feeler." It's felt immediately. There's no one in between. There's no gap between the pain and the self. And another example: when I direct attention to the feet, there's sensation in the feet, but directing attention doesn't create that sensation. The sensation is already there. Directing attention doesn't create anything; it's just a sense of control that confirms a sense of self, as if there's a self. I have clearly realized there is just no such person. Everything is on its own, automatic, autopilot. There's a really deep understanding that there is no control. Isn't that the end of seeking?
Well, you tell me. You told me you are seeking.
I don't know. It's probably a thought I believe in. It's still a belief that there's seeking.
The subtle, unformed subject
No, because if it were the end, you would be saying something different. There would be satisfaction. That's what I mean: seek and don't stop seeking till you find satisfaction.
Here is one place you can keep looking. You were talking about this sense of self. When you direct your attention to your feet and there's a sense of control or a sense of self, notice that there might be a really subtle object of thought. Not quite an object, but almost like an empty subject. It's still a subjectivity that is empty. There's nothing there, but it's a subjectivity that seems different from that which is known, different from what is experienced.
Does that subtle subjectivity have to go?
It doesn't have to go, but it can be seen more clearly.
I totally agree. There is this very subtle, almost energetic thing. Even when seeing there's nothing there, seeing through the thought, there is this very, very subtle thing. I haven't seen through that, so I keep seeing it.
Exactly. The mind has a capacity to create unformed objects. You identify with that, but it's still a thought. It often appears as part of this process. Once we've identified all the objects of thought that come and go, we create a kind of ultimate unformed subject, an abstract subjectivity that is now observing all the objects. But it's still a thought, a subtle thought. In a sense, it's a doorway, the last object. You could call it the witness, the seer, the subject. But it's still an object of thought.
Yes. Compared to a normal thought that has content and a story inside, this thought has no content. It's more in the form of a suggestion.
Exactly. That's it. And that is also a thought.
I have noticed it, but maybe not enough.
Investigating the subtle subject
When you pay attention to your experience, you're not wanting or looking for something to end. You're wanting to see what really is there. You can sit and contemplate anything in your experience: sensation, perception. But look at that really subtle sense of subjectivity and objectivity. Then try to see: where is that subjectivity? Does it have a sensation? Does it have a location?
There's no sensation to it, but there is energetic movement. The suggestion causes energetic movement, which isn't really seen (it's like imagining), but it does feel like something.
That energetic movement will likely have two aspects. One is what you're describing as images or thought. The other is that the energetic quality is a subtle sensation as well.
It is a sensation, definitely. But very, very minute, easily ignored.
Yes. Just notice that. Notice it especially in relationship to that which it's being created as: a subject, something separating from an object. It doesn't necessarily have to be in relation to a specific object. It could be all objects of experience, all form, all phenomena. And then there's a subtle phenomenon, a subtle form of subtle sensation, which is then "subject."
Look at that and notice: even that subtle sensation is object. It will create even a subtle location, even if it's spacious and unformed. It's very tricky because it's subtle, and the mind has this capacity to create the illusion of space. When we talk about beingness or consciousness being the space where objects appear, that "space" is not actually a space. It's a subtle object, a form, a subtle thought-form. So just keep looking at that subtle subjectivity.
I'm feeling envious, because I'm shocked at how fast certain realizations seem to be happening for someone else here. I've been on a path for around twenty years, and things that are being described are things I only started to see a year ago. There's a judgment toward myself, like, "Why is my process so slow?" I know it's pure conjecture and interpretation, but it does seem slow. I also feel happy, perceiving a lot of realization happening. I just wanted to share that.
I remember feeling like that a lot as well.