Bodhicitta777 on Nostr: From a friend, Getting Behind the One That's Behind We can sit in meditation watching ...

From a friend,

Getting Behind the One That's Behind

We can sit in meditation watching the various mental events, feelings and sensations arise and subside, yet all the while not noticing that the one who is observing all the projections is itself a projection. You thought you were the actual aware and knowing one that was just observing the show.

But it can happen that suddenly a shift occurs and the show is suddenly seen to include "you" watching the show. "You" as the witness of the show are suddenly seen to be also a projection; a projection as a complete gestalt or vignette of "me watching the show".

When this insightful shift occurs, the subject/object dichotomy collapses. What remains is a non-dual state of knowingness without a "witness observing its projections".

I think very few meditators are familiar with this shift. That's why meditators can practice for 50 years and never really break through the mind's looping projections. The state of mind can become very quiet and relaxed, but the one enjoying that state is not noticed to also be the mind's projection.

This is much like our dreams at night. In the dream we see things and hear things along with having a body, but we have no idea that our self in the dream is being projected as a "someone seeing and experiencing the dreamscape." The subconscious aspect of mind is the projector of our self and the dream scape.

Likewise in waking life and especially when meditating, it's possible to notice that our current self as the "observer", is only a mental event or a projection of being a self-existing, and observing "me"; along with all the other thoughts and images being mentally projected.

The "me" that feels so real in waking life is no more real than the self experienced in dreams. Both are subconscious mind-projections.

But indeed, this shift out of the karmic mind loop can and does occur. But it's not helpful when teachers and doctrines validate this false self position as being "who" you are. It's a bit like a teacher character in your dream at night simply telling you how to improve your dream self, instead of pointing out that the self you believe yourself to be is a fictional projection of mind and thereby triggering the "awake" state. The dreamed identity disappears in that moment along with all its story content.

This is what "bodhi" means; awake. But in this condition of "awake", no one woke up, but rather the projection of an imaginary self as "me" just ceased. That is the moment of anatta or no fictional self. What remains is a center-less field of transparent consciousness that has no subject or object. It's a moment of inexpressible joy, insight and release.

The ordinary mind is stuck tightly in this karmic, self-reenforcing loop of bewildered grasping and rejecting, propelled by the twin engines of hope and fear.

Metaphorically speaking; taking the step behind the one "taking that step", is a rare dance step indeed!

The first step is to simply ponder this in vipassana contemplation by observing the mind's projection of "me" in the act of contemplating this.