The Appearance of Subjectivity
La apariencia de la subjetividad
A gentle exploration of how senses, thoughts, and the feeling of being a separate self all arise as effortless appearances in one seamless experience.
The Appearance of Subjectivity
Noticing the senses and their reflections
We can start noticing what this experience is made of, in a sense.
We can talk about the senses.
So there's sound, the sound of my voice and whatever sound in your location.
And then simultaneously there's the mirror aspect of that,
which is in the mind, in the thought process;
there's like a reflection on that sound.
So there will be, with speaking,
the reflection will be the understanding of words,
the finding of meaning,
words and concepts.
If you hear birds sing,
the understanding of that as a bird song,
that's appearing in thought.
So there's a difference between the actual sound experience,
the raw direct experience,
which, if we weren't using thought,
it would be more like,
for example, in the experience of spoken word,
you would hear something more like this:
Samarak, samarak,
sab sing timbr tak tak sing tera,
shublak sing sing bad sampal shil har hariram satsara.
Just sound, no understanding,
no meaning,
no concepts.
And similar with sight, there's an experience of forms and colors and shapes,
even with your eyes closed.
And then there's the reflective quality of thought,
the mapping of that,
and the understanding of what it is that is being seen.
Effortless appearing
The perception of sight or sound is instantaneous, so to say.
There isn't anything we do.
It appears.
There is no effort.
It's just present, you could say.
Effortlessly existing,
effortlessly appearing and effortlessly changing,
moving, flowing.
All of the visual experience,
all of the sound experience,
this constant change, constant flow.
Nothing remains the same, nothing remains still.
It shifts, it's glimmering.
Even if you try to focus on something, it will still move.
Turning to sensation
Now the same with the experience of sensation,
which you will find very familiar in the sense of the breath,
the sense of skin.
In the chest you will find a movement,
the belly,
the breath coming in and out.
And all of the experience of skin and flesh and body,
the experience of temperature,
the chair or couch where you're sitting,
all that contact.
And again there's a reflection in thought,
the mapping of a body,
the understanding of anatomy:
arms, legs, hands,
breath.
So on one side you have this mysterious,
vast,
always moving, shifting, changing mix,
like a multi-dimensional kaleidoscope of experience:
sound, sight, sensation, perception.
So take some moments to just scan,
from a place of non-efforting,
from a place of curiosity, of childlike discovery.
Scan the experience of sensation for a few moments,
sound and sight.
The difference between perception and thought
Notice the difference between the actual perception or sensation
and the thought process about it,
the reflection in thought.
Notice the mind does what the mind does,
and thoughts appear just like sensations and perceptions.
Just notice the difference.
Notice the pull towards the experience of thought,
the hyper-focus on the reflection:
reflecting on sensation,
reflecting on sound,
reflecting on sight.
This pull has a cause.
And it's, in a sense, an addiction,
an attachment to what we can call separation,
which you can also describe as
the sense of "me" or "I" here,
as opposed to "not I," "not me" there.
And this polarity cannot be sustained without the focus on thought,
and it only exists in thought.
Subject and object
Sound is sound appearing.
Sensations appearing.
Sight appearing.
There is no subject and object in sound.
There is just sound.
When we hear bird and reflect "bird,"
there's an implicit "not I" in that qualification.
And "I" knowing bird.
Me here, bird there.
An experience of sensation,
a tingling cloud of sensations in your feet or hands,
that is all just appearing.
The nature of it, now, experientially:
it just appears.
It's just present.
It's just there.
Absolutely effortless.
All of this is just appearing effortlessly.
The sense of effort appears effortlessly.
Inspecting subjectivity
Notice that deep, deep sense of subjectivity,
deep sense of "here, not there,"
"me, not you."
What is its nature?
Is it sensation? Is it images? Is it thoughts?
All of this struggle about this sense, this subject.
We rarely take a moment to inspect
or inquire or see it directly.
If you can notice the sense of subjectivity,
what's noticing it?
What would this be like without this subjectivity,
without that perspective?
Don't think about it, don't imagine.
Look right now in your experience.
Where does the subject end and the objects begin?
Find that line.
Find that mechanism.
If there are thoughts about this, just let them be.
As if nothing mattered more.
The Holy Grail is within reach.
Can you find the boundary between sights and sounds,
between sensation and thoughts?
Or is it all appearing in the same place, experience?
What if what you assume to be you,
this appearance of subjectivity,
is just an appearance?
That which knows this subjectivity:
nothing to focus on, nothing to see.
Letting everything do itself
Let the allowing do the allowing.
Let the seeing do the seeing.
Let the thinking do the thinking.
Let the hearing do the hearing.
Everything happening without you doing anything.
It's already the case.
The thoughts do the thinking.
The sounds do the hearing.
The seeing does the seeing.
Sensations do the sensing.
The body does the body.
The world does the worlding.
Love does the loving.