I’m conscious of the room, these phrases, my bodily sensations, emotions, ideas. These are objects of consciousness. However what is that this consciousness? Consciousness is likely one of the biggest mysteries we face. Why ought to it exist in any respect?
I’ll check with the expertise of ‘consciousness itself’ as a pure consciousness expertise. Most individuals, apart from these aware of non secular traditions corresponding to Buddhism, have by no means heard of pure consciousness, not to mention consider that there’s such a phenomenon. They suppose that consciousness is simply the qualities of expertise corresponding to seeing the pinkness of the water lily and smelling its candy perfume. Based on many meditative traditions that is to overlook the essence of consciousness. It’s to concentrate on the contents of consciousness, whereas overlooking consciousness itself. There’s a rising curiosity amongst philosophers and scientists in pure consciousness experiences reported by contemplatives. A current instance is a research by Alex Gamma and Thomas Metzinger which surveyed the traits of pure consciousness experiences in 1,400 meditators.
The popularity of pure consciousness is especially necessary in Tibetan Buddhism as it’s Buddha Nature itself. As it’s described within the Tibetan E-book of the Lifeless:
This good vacancy is the radiant essence of your individual consciousness. It’s past substance, past traits, past color… The moment of your individual presence is empty, but it isn’t a nihilistic vacancy, however unimpeded radiance, good and vibrant… Your individual consciousness, an enormous luminous expanse, readability inseparable from vacancy, can also be the Buddha of unchanging mild, past delivery and demise. Simply to understand that is sufficient. In the event you acknowledge this good essence of your individual consciousness as Buddha Nature, then gazing into it’s to abide within the state of enlightenment.
This consciousness is empty like all phenomena as a result of it lacks its personal inherent existence. It isn’t merely nothing, nevertheless, as a result of it’s luminous, which is one other approach of claiming that it’s awake and alive. This consciousness lacks color and all different qualities. It’s colourless, shapeless, feelingless and silent. It’s described as pure and clear — a transparent mild. It’s as huge and boundless because the open sky. Francesca Fremantle refers to it as ‘luminous vacancy’.
Given the significance of pure consciousness in Buddhism, the query is — how does one recognise it? Usually, it’s thought to grow to be manifest in deep meditative states, when all ideas, and in reality all objects of consciousness, have fully ceased arising. All that is still is a self-luminous consciousness. Nonetheless, how this realisation of pure consciousness is supposed to have sensible advantages off of the meditation cushion is unsure. There could also be some psychological advantages that carry over into on a regular basis life, however certainly recognising it within the midst of on a regular basis actions could be much more useful. Moreover, the notion that pure consciousness is the essence of consciousness, means that it should be implicit in each expertise of the world, so there appears to be no cause why it couldn’t be recognised in on a regular basis expertise.
Douglas Harding (1909-2007). Used with permission of The Shollond Belief.
A novel method for recognising pure consciousness in on a regular basis circumstances was pioneered by the thinker and mystic Douglas Harding. He’s most well-known in non secular circles for his traditional On Having No Head which introduced his unconventional method to self-inquiry. The Headless Way is a up to date non secular apply primarily based upon Harding’s strategies. The important thing to this methodology is noticing that you simply can not see your head. As an alternative of a head, I appear to be searching of an enormous unbounded hole. The objective of the ‘headless meditation’ is to carry your consideration again many times to this void — this spot that’s empty in some sense, but additionally filled with the scene.
Meditation from the First-Particular person Perspective. Picture licensed from Remains, 2015.
The importance of the ‘headless’ expertise for Harding could be understood within the context of his broader philosophy. Harding was introduced up in a strict fundamentalist Christian sect, the Unique Plymouth Brethren, by which literature was banned aside from the Bible, Brethren writings, and the minimal of college books. Neither might he go to the cinema or theatre. He broke away from the Brethren on the age of 21.
Harding skilled as an architect and labored in India within the 1930’s and 40’s. However his coronary heart wasn’t in structure, reasonably his burning query was: What am I? He was influenced by relativity and he realised that what he was for others depended upon the gap from which he was noticed. From a couple of toes away he appeared human. However because the observer retreated, he appeared as a metropolis, a continent, a planet, a star, a galaxy. As they approached, he appeared as a human, cells, molecules, and with additional equipment as atoms, particles, and eventually nearly nothing. What he actually needed to know was what was on the centre of those layers of look. What was he at zero distance?
Ernst Mach’s Self-Portrait. The Evaluation of Sensations (1914). Public area.
Lastly, someday throughout his analysis he got here throughout a self-portrait by Ernst Mach drawn from the first-person perspective. Within the image, there was no head. Harding all of a sudden realised that from his standpoint he wasn’t searching of a head. At zero distance he was ‘nothing’. The mysterious centre of issues (their basic nature) wasn’t someplace on the market, reasonably he was already at it — he was searching of it. Nonetheless, this wasn’t a mere nothing as a result of it was awake and contained every part.
Douglas Harding’s philosophical work, which he wrote from outdoors of the academy, is just not well-known in academia. Although Harding’s method is clearly ‘phenomenological’ in a broad sense of this time period, not like the extremely summary and technical work of Husserl, Harding’s work as a substitute focuses on concrete first-person expertise. His method is maybe most just like the type of experimental phenomenology present in Gestalt psychology, which makes use of equipment inside expertise (corresponding to drawings) to display Gestalt results. Harding additionally developed equipment to discover expertise, however his focus was to make use of them to help in attending to the spot one is trying from.
I’ll information the reader via a few Harding’s first-person experiments and attempt to present how they allow one to recognise ‘consciousness itself’, as it’s described in contemplative traditions. Please notice that you simply really must do the experiments, not simply examine them, in any other case this text won’t make any sense.
Earlier than continuing, I’ll attempt to clear up a few attainable misconceptions. The workout routines should not about imagining that you simply don’t have a head, however reasonably noticing what you’re looking out of in your direct expertise, when frequent sense assumptions are put aside. Additionally it is definitely not the declare that ‘you’ the particular person doesn’t have a head. Others see your head from the place they’re and also you additionally see it in a mirror. Importantly, neither is the purpose to disclaim your third-person id, like in some non secular practices, or to attempt to eliminate the sense of self. Your personhood is a beneficial a part of your id and means that you can operate on the planet. This being stated, your private id is just not your central actuality (proper the place you might be), not less than that is the declare we will probably be testing.
The Pointing Experiment
The primary experiment makes use of a pointing finger to direct your consideration.
Take a look at your finger and see its colors, form, textures, wrinkles. Now with this factor, by pointing, direct your consideration to a far wall. Discover the colors of the wall. Now level to the ground. Discover the patterns, colors and textures. Now level to your foot. As soon as once more you might be pointing at a formed and colored factor. Level at your leg. One other factor with form and color. Then your torso. It has a form and color, maybe motion out of your respiratory. Now level at the place you’re looking from. Out of your current expertise is your finger pointing at an object, a factor? Does there appear to be a head or face right here? Any eyes? Any color, form, motion? Is there something right here in any respect or is it simply an open house? Is it true to say that this house incorporates every part on present — your finger, hand, arm, physique and the room? Does it additionally comprise ‘facial’ sensations and floating ‘nostril’ blurs? Is there something visually outdoors of this Hole, or is it as open and boundless because the sky? Quite than a mere vacancy, isn’t it additionally awake to itself and the scene? Might you name this an unbounded clear consciousness?
Pointing outwards and inwards. (Picture by the creator)
The Mirror Experiment
For this experiment you will have a mirror. Look into the mirror and take discover of your present expertise. Going by what’s given now (not by what you consider, bear in mind or think about) what number of faces do you see? Are you face-to-face or is the setup face-to-no-face? Discover that the face within the mirror is small and a ways away, not in your shoulders. Additionally it is going through the incorrect approach. Research the face. Discover the main points of its eyes, nostril, mouth, cheeks. It’s a colored, formed factor with wrinkles and different imperfections. As a factor, it excludes different issues. It’s always altering, and is just a little older every time you see it. Now carry your consideration to the place you’re looking from — what it’s prefer to be you at zero distance? Are there any eyes right here? Mouth? Cheeks? Colors? Wrinkles? Imperfections? Motion? Is your aspect opaque like that face or is it clear? Is there something right here to exclude issues? Is there any change right here? Are there any personally figuring out traits the place you’re looking from? Any gender? Any age? Any species? Would you name the place you’re looking from a useless void or is it alive with consciousness? Might you describe this as a ‘luminous vacancy’? Is there any dividing line or boundary between this aware-gap and the face? Don’t you disappear in favour of that face, and certainly all faces, to not point out the given world?
These experiments are fashionable meditation strategies. The objective is to show consideration 180 levels from the objects of consciousness to who or what’s experiencing this stuff. Though the tactic is novel, the outcomes are per contemplative traditions corresponding to Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism and the Advaita Vedanta, which all describe your ‘true nature’ as colourless, shapeless, soundless and changeless.
Though consciousness is distinguishable from the world, in reality reverse from it in each approach, this doesn’t make it separable from the world. Being distinguishable in expertise is just not the identical as a metaphysical duality. Relative opposites like black and white exclude one another. This transparent-silence, alternatively, by missing all qualities in itself is totally united with the world. Paradoxically, in some sense, the attention is the world. Is that this the way it appears to you? To take a concrete instance, when conversing with a pal, their face is mine. My very own face by no means will get in the way in which. In addition they have my face. We commerce faces in dialog. In a way, every part is a mirror held as much as me. Though it has been referred to as ‘luminous vacancy’, couldn’t we equally say that the given world itself is self-luminous?
The declare for testing is that the ‘nonduality’ of self and world, reasonably than being an idea we have now to attempt to perceive or tackle religion from a non secular instructor, describes one’s on a regular basis, pristine perceptual expertise.
All we have to do is to look to see if there’s a head blocking up the centre of our world. The huge literature on ‘nonduality’, whereas in fact helpful, consists of an excessive amount of mythology and conceptual baggage, and therefore can characterize one more and much more delicate distraction from noticing one’s direct perceptual expertise.
The Headless Approach is a direct and de-mythologised method to self-inquiry. In most non secular traditions, academics and sacred texts are handled as authorities. Douglas Harding, against this, maybe partly as a response to his personal extremely restricted upbringing, by no means bored with saying ‘dare to be your individual authority!’ Quite than taking the claims of non secular academics and spiritual texts on religion (or the claims of frequent sense for that matter), take a look at them by their very own expertise. Simply as importantly, for Harding, non secular claims should be per cause and science if they’re to be taken critically. The Headless Approach can therefore be thought-about to be a type of empirical or rational spirituality.
The non secular literature, to not point out quite a few web sites and blogs, additionally invite us to get caught up in theories and ideas about ‘nonduality’, and even worse to argue about them. That is like electing to review a restaurant’s menu, and to debate about the way in which it’s written, as a substitute of having fun with the meal. Noticing that your face doesn’t get in the way in which of the world is a straightforward non-intellectual apply for noticing the setup of the lived perceptual world. After all, this isn’t to say we shouldn’t philosophise concerning the expertise. I’m definitely responsible of doing this. We are able to do each. Quite the purpose is, as Ken Wilber is fond of claiming, to not mistake the map for the territory.
This consciousness is outwardly not like any goal phenomena investigated by conventional science. Third-person science observes issues from the surface. Because it solely appears outwards, it overlooks what is definitely observing. Douglas Harding’s first-person science, with the help of equipment corresponding to pointing fingers, tubes and mirrors, exhibits easy methods to look inwards to recognise consciousness itself — not less than, that’s the declare for testing. First-person strategies are nonetheless extremely controversial inside science and philosophy, but certainly a rigorous first-person investigation of consciousness is required to supply an entire empirical image of the world and most significantly to supply perception into what we’re.
Considerably, the popularity of pure consciousness doesn’t appear to rely upon having expertise in conventional meditation strategies. The outcomes, not less than in my expertise, are intriguingly just like what contemplatives and mystics describe as Vacancy, no-self, True Self and Buddha Nature, amongst many different phrases. But reasonably than being an esoteric or mystical expertise, the popularity of pure consciousness is solely atypical and pure. It’s directly a thriller and but what you already know most intimately as a result of it’s what you might be on this very second.
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Brentyn J. Ramm is a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow within the Division of Psychology and Psychotherapy at Witten/Herdecke College in Germany. His analysis focuses on utilizing first-person experimental strategies to research aware expertise (experimental phenomenology). He accomplished his PhD in philosophy on the Australian Nationwide College in 2016. His honours in philosophy was on the College of Queensland. Earlier than this he accomplished a PhD in cognitive psychology on the College of Queensland in 2006.
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