The Witness and the Illusion
El Testigo y la Ilusión
A student raises questions about the subtle sense of a witnessing subject, the illusion of duality between seer and seen, and how to work with what remains after disidentification.
The Witness and the Illusion
A student raises questions about the subtle sense of a witnessing subject, the illusion of duality between seer and seen, and how to work with what remains after disidentification.
I am confused by what you said about not being able to find that in anything, because I was previously pointed to find insight in thought. It's in everything.
You're bringing up something important, because it involves a different stage. There is first the process of disidentification. That identification still creates an ultimate subjectivity: there is a sense of a witnessing subject, and then all else is witnessed, which is "not I." That's a first step, and it can always be refined and clarified further.
The division between experiencer and experienced
Then there is still going to be a division, which creates a tension between that which is experiencing and that which is experienced. In a sense, we work toward an experience of really subtle and clear duality, where there is subject and object, but only one subject, one object. The entire phenomenological world, all of the skandhas, is experienced as one thing. And then what is experiencing is seen as this subtle object. It's not exactly an object, yet it still functions as one. It's not experienced as an object; it's a subtle thought.
Yes, and yet it does start to suggest something here.
Yes. It's going to have some subtle form, and that's where ultimately the last leap is: you question whether those are two, whether that which is experiencing and that which is experienced are separate.
The problem about this subtle something is that it's not perceivable. There's no seeing of it. It's not actually there. It's nonexistent. It's illusion. It's just what they're referring to as illusion. So what do I do about an illusion? Anything I do about it makes it real. It already feels real because of this visual experience, this feeling of a starting point from here to the object. This position of viewing somehow makes it feel real and tangible, but it's actually not perceivable. And energetically it feels real, to the point that it is more convincing than what thought suggests or says.
Yes. That which you're referring to as "not real" is that subtle sense of "I." There is a felt realness to it, and that feeling supports the function of relating, of relationship.
Right.
And by that, you're referring to the relationship between that which knows and what is known. For example, the experience of perception, what you're seeing visually, and something that is seeing it. These two. That's what you're referring to as the illusion.
Like the screen we are seeing. The screen and the screen being seen are not two separate things. Immediately, the screen and the seeing of it arise at once.
Yes, exactly.
Clarifying the stages
Let me clarify, because there's quite a bit of Buddhism in this conversation and it might be confusing. First, there is the seeing that in the image of the body or of any experience, that subjectivity, that sense of "I," is known as the body or as thought. You see that what is known as "I" cannot be the body, cannot be thought, cannot be sensation, perception, and so on. In seeing that, we come to what you're describing: there is nothing there. You could call it an emptiness. In that which I call "I," there is emptiness. You are describing it as illusion.
But there's still, which is what you're focusing on, a subtle sense of duality between what sees and what is seen.
Yes.
That can be clarified, but only after the first stage is clarified enough. We can go back and forth a bit, but it's important to first clarify what you could call neti neti.
Okay, you think I'm taking a leap.
No, not for you. We're just talking about different things. What another student is working on and what you're working on are a little different. For you, we may just be clarifying language. What we were clarifying with the other student is a different phase of the process.
I understand now. Because there's no witness, and that is not a very strong belief of a witness, though.
Exactly.
Working with the witness
But I'll say more simply, since you used the word "witness": it is often very valuable to work with the witness being real. The witness as something that knows. Then it becomes so subtle that we can work on the witness not being real. First, working with the witness; then, seeing it is not real. And then something is left that is real, but it's no longer related to anything. It's not related to experience, not related to phenomena, sensation, perception, thought. It is just what is real. And everything is part of that.
Do you suggest that I continue seeing what I'm seeing around me?
I still suggest for you to look at what you've discovered, to see that it is also in all of what you experience. One way is to work with sight. When you look at something and there's a sense of the witness looking, just pay attention. Go back and forth between what you're seeing and the experience of the witness. Keep looking back and forth: where is the witness? Where is that which is seen? Start to see what that movement is. Between what and what are you moving?
It's going to become clear that you're moving between thought and perception. In a sense, that will collapse the idea, the experience of there being two, an ultimate subject and an ultimate object. It's actually like moving between sight and sound. There aren't actually two things there. There's no way you can separate sight and sound.
No, it is a thought that creates the separation.
Yes, it's a thought. Exactly.
The limit of language
I have a question about that. To say "there is nothing" is just an approximation in language, right? It's saying a little too much to say there is nothing. It's a way of saying that the "I" we seem to experience is a thought.
Yes. It's correct that you cannot name it, you cannot describe it, and by saying it is nothing, you are saying too much.