The mind likes solidity and fixed concepts. Why? Because of the limited thing we believe ourselves to be. We, for the most part, believe ourselves to be a mind embedded in a body, moving about a universe which can be very hostile to us. So the more fixed and predictable things are, the more we are comfortable, the safer we feel.
Yet the reality is that nothing is fixed.
This can be observed quite easily. Sit quietly for a few moments, and notice the constant change of phenomena in experience. The coming and going of sounds, sights, thoughts, feelings and so on. Even while a particular, say, sound is present, it is never the same - if carefully observed it can be seen to be modulating and changing.
This is real life.
Yet the mind generally doesn’t want to notice this constant change. It fixes the world as something objective, “out there”, and it also fixes that which experiences as an object-thing which moves about that world. This is the source of the limited, separate idea of “self”, of “I, me, mine”.
Yet if attention is brought to bear on what is actually experienced, no such solidity is found. Even the concept of “me”, which we take to be our fundamental identity, is simply a thought-family which comes and goes.
To become more conscious of this, mindfulness teacher Shinzen Young suggests the “Gone” practice. This practice consists of taking note when some phenomena or experience disappears. A thought may rise up unnoticed, but if we become aware of it, we can notice it slipping away into non-being. At that point, we mentally note “gone”. This can be done for any experience, a sight, smell, touch, sound. Note “gone” when they disappear. Notice the silence, the space into which they disappear.
You may begin to notice that nothing it solid, but rather everything is in transit, in flux. A contraction of being and then an expansion and dissolution.
The same goes for “self”. What I think I am, the words I gather together to explain myself to myself, are also transitory. This may lead you to the insight of “no-self” as the Buddhists call it.
There is experiencing, but no experiencer. Thinking, but no thinker. Seeing, but no seer, hearing but no hearer.
Take note of a sound - in the experience of the sound, is there a person or “me” in the experience? Or is there just the experience of hearing? This can be done for any part of experience. In thinking, also, there is no “me” and the thought. There is just the arising thought/thinking which is nothing substantial but rather disappearing as it is arriving.
This is an important insight to arrive at. At this point there is no longer any practice. No method to cling to. What would cling to this method? Only when there is a belief in solidity, in a person who acts, can this “knot” of being be operative. Once there is no more “me”, there is nobody to practice, no method to execute.
There is no more solidity - just liquid experiencing. There never was any solidity, just a recurring belief, unnoticed, of something solid.
Thank you so much for sharing these musings. Wonderful soul food.