This got me thinking about experiences. All experiences are in motion. They are vibrations – on and off; Neurons firing – on/off; Light waves, sound waves – on/off.
Playing catch is a slow vibration. Throw – catch – throw – catch.
There are perhaps an endless number of such pairs:
Birth/Death, Sleeping/Waking, Breathing: In/out.
I’ve noticed that I get into trouble when I interfere with any particular vibration – when I try to make-permanent only one half of a vibrating pair.
Try only breathing in. Trouble! (Okay that was an extreme example.)
The experience of being a self is a kind of vibration. It is really the experience of self and not-self. It is like breathing. You can’t just breathe in. Likewise, you can’t just feel like a self. The feeling of being a self is dependent upon a corresponding experience of not-self.
For example, the computer before you is definitely not you (relatively speaking). Maybe you look at it (and feel not-self) and a split second later get a sense (perhaps a gentle tension around your eyes) that it is you that is reading. You can’t have one experience (self) without the other (not-self). Together they form a vibrating pair.
So we could say that there is a small experience of self which is one pole of the self/not-self vibration.
And we could say that there is a larger experience of Self – which includes both vibrating poles: self and not-self.
We don’t want to stop the sense of small-self from arising any more than we want to stop breathing in. But rather, we want to notice that the experiences that are masquerading as the small-self, are arising in the context of a greater self/not-self experience.
You are this greater “self/not-self experience.”
When you notice this something rather interesting happens.
Okay time to play again . . .
Tallis (Written May 2009)
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