The body as well as the mind is generally conceived of as a container.
In the case of the body, the skin is regarded as the container, the cage or the border that separates me from the world. Inside the skin is the stuff we call my body. On the outside of the skin is the stuff we call the world.
The mind, like the body, is generally conceived of as the container of thoughts, memories, dreams, beliefs … Furthermore it is believed that this mind is trapped inside a body.
There is a sense that the mind is me, the world is definitely not me and the body is somewhat unclear since it seems that on the one hand we can control the body. If I want to lift my arm, I can lift it.
On the other hand things such as breathing, digesting … are not under my direct control. Still, I could influence them ...
Anything happening to the body, happens to my property: I broke my arm, I have a headache … Anything happening to the mind happens to me: I am sad, I am guilty, I am funny …
This is a finger painted summary of what most of us think, believe and feel.
Now ask yourself, without referring to thought or memory.
Have we ever directly experienced this container?
Have we actually experienced several sensations at the same time surrounded by a border?
Have we ever experienced sensations living outside that border distinct from the ones inside the border, providing we found that border?
Also, where are sensations when we are not experiencing them?
Do they live in some secret room back stage ready to make an entrance, and waiting for us to be discovered?
Have we ever experienced a non-experience, perhaps lurking in the background, waiting to make it self known as experience?
Remember we are talking about our actual experience. Regardless whether we believe our body is constantly there or not, our experience of our body is obviously not always there.
When we try to feel the totality of the body, it ‘appears to disappear’ even more.
The more we ‘zoom out’, the more it becomes blurry or shimmer-like. The more we ‘zoom in’ the more we see ‘areas’ of ‘’it’ more clearly but at the expense of everything else.
All we directly know of the body is the current sensation which is borderless, indivisible, transparent …
Hence we have never found a sensation moving through another sensation. Put differently, if we were to go to the experience of our arm to which the word ‘arm’ refers to, can we find another sensation inside that sensation …
See clearly that the arm is not a container through which sensations or energy pass or flow. In fact the word ‘arm’ is the place holder for the sensation or series of sensations themselves.
And concerning the mind, have we actually directly experienced multiple thoughts at the same time, contained in one place, called mind or even brain? Again when I say directly I mean that you can not find out by thinking about it. The content of thought might say of course I am having multiple thoughts contained in one place. But does it actually happen like that. You don't need to ask anyone or trust anyone. We are experiencing right now and nobody has more direct access to ones experience than yourself.
When thoughts appear, where do they come from, and where do they go to …
All we experience is the current thought.
Please understand that these are not philosophical propositions. What is being said here can cause a revolution when deeply contemplated.
In a sense what is being done here is that one thread is being pulled out of the enormous tapestry that consists out of our beliefs and corresponding feelings that are being imagined and consolidated.
By pulling one of these threads sincerely and thoroughly this whole tapestry might become undone.
But the unravelling can only happen when we look and listen free from memory.
We need to look and listen free from imagining.
We have to become quiet, not be seduced by the content of thought which is indirect and second hand information.
What will this unravel into?
Well, ultimately this can not be expressed or described.
Therein lies the dilemma.
We always want to get it.
We want to understand conceptually.
We want to nail it down
It needs to make sense within the framework of our understanding and our so called evolution. We want to know how A relates to B. Or how A caused B so we can navigate ‘our’ lives better.
It is a closed circuit if you will.
But one can not step out of the totality since that totality would no longer be total.
We have to die without attending the funeral.