Our meeting offered an opportunity to have a fresh look at how we commonly see ourselves and the world. In other words, it was a chance to re-examine how we see Life and perhaps discover the clear seeing position with no seer whatsoever in view, whatever what the sights may be...
It is indeed a habit well ingrained since childhood that the world is envisaged from a precisely located view point: “I” am standing here and the world is there in front of me: I am holding the central position - steering my too-often-powerless-wheel - in this threatening world surrounding "me".
Well, we saw that it is not about changing scenes, not even about changing the viewing point. It is about a total forgetfulness of “the character who sees”: There is only seeing.
Douglas Harding:
At first, like any animal, the new-born infant is for himself no-thing, faceless and at large, unseparated from his world, 1st-person without knowing it.
But as the child grows up his acquired view of himself-from-outside come to overshadow, and in the end to obliterate, his native view of himself-from-inside. In fact, he grows down. At first, he contained his world; now, it contains him - what there is of him. His cure is to take a fresh look at himself-as-he-is-for-himself and discover Who he really is.
Douglas harding “Headless way” exercises might help us relax into the natural all pervasive “no-thingness” that we really are.
We touched the topic of a practice called “Unprovoked happiness” - otherwise called “sensuous attentiveness” or PCE (Pure Consciousness experience) - whereby raw sensations by way of eyes, ears, nose, tongue or skin and completely devoid of judgment/label/interpretation by the mind lead to a direct experiential forgetfulness of oneself. Here again the famous"plastic bag scene" from the "American Beauty" movie as an illustration.
Here is the link to the video we watched: Rupert Spira - "A sound experiment"
As a bonus, to stay resolutely clear from the seriousness of this all, let's keep in mind hilarity may be the best of cure at times against the dreadful self-importance:
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