The nature of experience

The nature of experience

If our attention were now to be drawn to the screen on which these words are written, we would experience the uncanny sensation of suddenly becoming aware of something that we simultaneously realise is so obvious as to require no mention. And yet at the moment when the screen is indicated, we seem to experience something new.

We have the strangely familiar experience of becoming aware of something of which we were, in fact, already aware. We become aware of being aware of the screen. The screen is not a new experience that is created by this suggestion. However, our awarenessof the screen seemsto be a new experience. 

Now, what about the awareness itself, which is aware of the screen? Is it not always present behind and within every experience, just as the screen is present behind and within the words on this page?

And when our attention is drawn to it, do we not have the same strange feeling of having been made aware of something of which we were, in fact, always aware but had not noticed? 

Is this awareness not the most intimate and obvious fact of our experience, essential to and yet independent of the particular qualities of each experience itself, in the same way that the screen is the most obvious fact of this page, essential to and yet independent of each word?

Is this awareness itself not the support and the substance of every experience, in the same way that the screen is the support and the substance of every word?

Does anything new need to be added to this page in order to see the screen? Does anything new need to be added to this current experience in order to become aware of the awareness that is its support and substance?

When we return to the words, having noticed the screen, do we lose sight of the screen? Do we not now see the two, the apparent two, simultaneously as one? And did we not always, already experience them as one, without realising it?

Likewise, having noticed the awareness behind and within each experience, do we lose sight of that awareness when we return the focus of our attention to the objective aspect of experience? Do we not now see the two, the apparent two, awareness and its object, simultaneously as one? And has it not always been so?

Are not ‘awareness’ and an ‘object’ just two names for one seamless, intimate experience, just as ‘screen’ and ‘words’ are two names for the current experience?

Do the words themselves affect the screen? Does it matter to the screen what is said in the words? Does the content of each experience affect the awareness in which it appears and with which it is known? 

Every word on this page is, in fact, made only of the screen. It expresses only the nature of the screen, although it may describe the moon. 

Every experience expresses only awareness, although experience itself is infinitely varied – the never-changing reality of ever-changing experience.

 

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Awareness is the empty, knowing openness on which and with which all experience is written. 

It is so obvious that it is sometimes not noticed. 

It is so close that it cannot be known as an object, and yet is always knowing only itself. 

It is so intimate that every experience, however tiny or vast, is utterly saturated and permeated with its presence.

It is so loving that all things possible to be imagined are contained and allowed unconditionally within it.

It is so open that it receives all things indiscriminately into itself.

It is so spacious and unlimited that everything is contained within it.

It is so present that every single experience is vibrating with its substance.

It is so unlimited that it can take the shape of all possible limitations.

It is so fully the totality of all experience that there is no room in itself for any resistance or seeking.

It is so totally immersed in itself, in the shape of the current experience, that it cannot step outside of itself and give itself a name or a form.

It is so seamlessly, intimately one with itself, with all experience, that it cannot separate out a separate ‘experiencer’ and a separate ‘experienced’ – an ‘inside self’ and an ‘outside world’, a ‘this’ and a ‘that’, a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, a ‘me’ and a ‘not me’, a ‘now’ and a ‘then’.

It is this empty, knowing openness – the source, the substance and the destiny of all experience – that is revealed and celebrated in all experience, over and over and over again.

This empty, allowing, knowing openness isyourself.

Just as all you see now (relatively speaking) is the screen so, in all experience, wherever you go, you find only this empty, allowing, knowing openness, taking the shape of all experience.

You find only yourself.

You find or know only yourself in all experience, and this absence of otherness or separation is the experience of love and beauty.

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