The typical way of seeing is to conceive of ourselves as a perceiving object, a subject, which gazes out onto the universe, which is a conglomeration of objects.
Yet if we go looking for this perceiving object that we consider ourselves to be it is never found. Try to find it now, you may find yourself in the same position as Hui K’o:
Hui-k’o said, “My mind is not yet at peace. Pray set it at peace for me, Master!”
The master said, “Bring me your mind, and I will set it at peace for you.” Hui-k’o answered, “I have searched for it, but in the end it is unobtainable.”
The master said, “Your mind has been set at peace.”
Dialogue between Hui K’o and the master, Bodhidharma
Of course, the eye cannot see itself. That which sees cannot be seen by itself, at least, not as an object.
Awareness, that by which we see, cannot itself be seen in an object-like way.
So when one goes looking for that perceiving “thing” we imagine ourselves to be, we find nothing objective. We find emptiness, silence, peace.
Yet this silence, this peace, is known (or rather, is knowing). Known in a way that is different from the subject-object duality that pervades our language and thinking about our place in the world.
Awareness knows itself, but not as an object that it is separate from.
This knowing is peace.
The apparent subject-object split
So, there is this peaceful, knowing Awareness, which knows itself as emptiness.
This is different from the way we talk and think about our relationships with apparent “things” in the world.
I conceive of myself as a separate perceiver, who looks at things “out there” in the world. If I say I’m looking at my dog, then I posit a looker (“me”) and a separate entity (“my dog”).
From this conceptual framework, the whole universe if born. I am a human being, moving around space and time. I measure distance by the way I consider my point of view to change as I apparently move myself to and fro. I measure time by the way different objects reconfigure themselves in my field of view.
So, when I consider myself a seperate subject, a “viewer”, I by necessity also create those “things” which are apparently separate from me. There is a subject and an object. With subject and object, there then comes the place and time in which those separate objects must find themselves in. And so the universe if created.
But let’s go back a bit
Previously we (hopefully) discovered that when there is an attempt to find the perceiver, emptiness is the result. It is like a silent, aware, space (but this is just an analogy).
It is not a thing. That which perceives is not an object.
Ok, but if there is no subject “thing”, how can it be in relation to the supposed object “thing”. How can I say that “I” am here, and my dog is over there? I am the perceiver, who is not a thing, and therefore cannot be in a spatial relationship with anything, let alone my dog. Only objects can be in a spatial or temporal relationship with other objects.
But I (that which is aware) am not an object.
But the very definition of an object is in relation to a subject. Objects without perceivers cannot be proven to exist (for, to prove that, one would need to perceive them). Yet objects can also not be said to be “out there” with respect to me, the perceiver i.e. a spatial relationship, because “me”, the perceiver, is not a thing in space.
So objects don’t exist as separate “things”, and if objects don’t exist as separate things, then space and time which apparently hosts those seperate things don’t exist either.
What is left then?
Just the seeing, the thinking, the feeling, the smelling, the hearing, the awareing. Just the knowing.
We started with subjects, objects separate from those subjects, and therefore the whole universe of space and time.
But now we see that subjects aren’t “things”, and therefore cannot be in any kind of thing-like relationship with objects. But that’s how objects are understood - as being in a thing-like relationship with subjects. So objects don’t exist either. And with that goes the whole space-time universe that we conceptualised to house these objects.
Concepts break up the world into pieces - me, you, the world. Prior to such concepts, there is no such separation.
All that is seen is You, that which is seeing is You. Yet “You” are not a thing, is not anything that can be grasped. But You can be known, only by You.
All that is left then, is the dance of knowing. No subject, no object, no universe.
If that’s the case, what is there to worry about? And who would do the worrying?
I am active on X again, sharing daily snippets on non-duality and spontaneous expressions from emptiness. If you’d like to follow me, my handle is @everyday_awaken.
Very clear. Thank you Andrew!