This is a topic that is central to Eastern spiritual traditions. We are told that there is no intrinsic subject-object divide. It's the punchline behind the joke where the Dalai Lama tells a hot dog vendor: "make me one with everything."
It's not that one becomes one with everything; it's that one notices that "one" was never apart from "everything." Despite the seeming insurmountability of this goal, the idea behind it is fairly straightforward. It goes something like this.
The subject is that which experiences, and objects are those that are experienced. Now, to characterize something, you must be able to experience it. You cannot call something "purple" or "big" or "drowsy" if you cannot experience it. Therefore, characteristics belong solely to objects. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the subject is free of characteristics. In Buddhist parlance, it is "empty."
And yet, it cognizes. Or maybe you could say it is cognizance. But if that which cognizes has no characteristics, it's not a "thing" at all. It's not even an "it." That supposed dividing line has no-thing on this side of it: there was no division at all. Thus, cognizance itself belongs to "the other" side of the dividing line, the side which contains everything.
Since objects are those that are experienced, objects are nothing other than experiences. The thought or idea that there are unexperienced objects out there waiting to be experienced is itself just an experience. And it is never verified by experience (go ahead, try to find an unexperienced thing). In other words, everything fit to be called a thing is itself an experience. And there isn't anything that's not a thing.
And yet these words are (probably) not enough to get you to deeply experience this realization. How do we do that? The methods I'm using currently are Mahamudra meditation and Greg Goode's Direct Path. The former basically asks you to rest in empty cognizance (awareness itself) without modification, contrivance, or distraction. Modification implies the existence of a modifier (ego). Contrivance generates hopes and fears about keeping or reaching a state, and hopes and fears also belong to ego. Distraction happens when awareness constructs a divide, by putting something on that side and thus something (ego) on this side. The feeling is of me thinking about something. Meanwhile, The Direct Path gives techniques to demonstrate the absurdity of the notion of unexperienced things, to help you experience all objects as awareness itself.
I'm not sure yet whether these paths will mesh well together, but so far I have hope. They seem not to interfere with each other.
It's not that one becomes one with everything; it's that one notices that "one" was never apart from "everything." Despite the seeming insurmountability of this goal, the idea behind it is fairly straightforward. It goes something like this.
The subject is that which experiences, and objects are those that are experienced. Now, to characterize something, you must be able to experience it. You cannot call something "purple" or "big" or "drowsy" if you cannot experience it. Therefore, characteristics belong solely to objects. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the subject is free of characteristics. In Buddhist parlance, it is "empty."
And yet, it cognizes. Or maybe you could say it is cognizance. But if that which cognizes has no characteristics, it's not a "thing" at all. It's not even an "it." That supposed dividing line has no-thing on this side of it: there was no division at all. Thus, cognizance itself belongs to "the other" side of the dividing line, the side which contains everything.
Since objects are those that are experienced, objects are nothing other than experiences. The thought or idea that there are unexperienced objects out there waiting to be experienced is itself just an experience. And it is never verified by experience (go ahead, try to find an unexperienced thing). In other words, everything fit to be called a thing is itself an experience. And there isn't anything that's not a thing.
And yet these words are (probably) not enough to get you to deeply experience this realization. How do we do that? The methods I'm using currently are Mahamudra meditation and Greg Goode's Direct Path. The former basically asks you to rest in empty cognizance (awareness itself) without modification, contrivance, or distraction. Modification implies the existence of a modifier (ego). Contrivance generates hopes and fears about keeping or reaching a state, and hopes and fears also belong to ego. Distraction happens when awareness constructs a divide, by putting something on that side and thus something (ego) on this side. The feeling is of me thinking about something. Meanwhile, The Direct Path gives techniques to demonstrate the absurdity of the notion of unexperienced things, to help you experience all objects as awareness itself.
I'm not sure yet whether these paths will mesh well together, but so far I have hope. They seem not to interfere with each other.
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