The Absence of Experience
La ausencia de experiencia
A student describes a meditation in which all content dissolved, leaving only a formless knowingness, and the teacher offers a precise reframe about how to interpret what occurred.
The Absence of Experience
A student describes a meditation in which all content dissolved, leaving only a formless knowingness, and the teacher offers a precise reframe about how to interpret what occurred.
What has been absolutely amazing me lately is the synchronicities that happen. It is all one field. The whole of last week I was feeling into this knowingness beyond thought, before thought. That was what I was being with. And now this topic comes up here, and I came thinking I would talk to you about it. It was a beautiful conversation.
To go a bit into story and mind interpretation now: a couple of weeks ago I was meditating, resting as this unbound consciousness, watching thoughts come and go, flowy stuff. And then everything started expanding. Then there was nothing, as in no content. The watching went away. There was no body, it seemed like. No colors, no forms.
What my mind now interprets is that there was this knowingness and aliveness, a kind of live fuzziness of something almost knowing itself, without a separate knower. And there was no time. When I came out of it and looked at the clock, it was four in the morning.
I do understand that it was an experience in meditation. But what really remained is that sense of knowingness, that aliveness. Without forms to watch or interpret, it was just there. That is what I have been feeling into.
It is just here. It just knows. And it is also the unknowing, because it is nothing mental. You can see when the mind comes in and starts interpreting. There is just the sound, and really, even "sound" is a bit of an interpretation. It is just that happening. The knowing is instantaneous, and then comes the mind, the parade of interpretation. But that is known too, so it is all part of it. That is what is coming up here now.
I only have one comment on what you shared. You said there was an experience in the meditation, or you framed it as, "Well, you see, it was just an experience in meditation." I would invite you to revisit that interpretation. Consider it as the absence of experience in meditation.
Reframing the absence
I cannot know for certain what happened, but from what you described, it sounds like the absence of experience. And it matters, if that is what it was, that it is not interpreted as an experience. That is my only point. And it sounds beautiful.
I guess the reason I call it an experience is because, when I am talking about it now, there is already a mind interpretation that makes it into an experience. And even with time after that event, there is more and more understanding and feeling into it, and more opening. Now it is opening everywhere. It is just being absorbed, or digested, or integrated.
But yes, I like that: the absence of experience. There was just nothing. No colors, no forms. Yet it was awake. It was alive. Yes. Thank you.
You're welcome.