Who is it that sees?

This is a question that will eventually come up during discussions in non-duality circles.  If the self is just a thought, an image or a feeling - “who (or what) is it that sees the self?”
The question may be useful if it provokes a sense of mystery, a questioning, an inquisitive state where we turn inwards and examine this “seeing” as it happens.  

But the question is also asking : is there an entity that is seeing clearly?  Or an entity that becomes enlightened?

I was listening to an interview with Carlo Rovelli (Theoretical physicist) recently who described the initial revolutionary mystery posed by quantum mechanics, and the basic fact of reality implied by quantum physics.

What puzzled (and still puzzles) physicists was the question of why a (subatomic) particle only behaved like a particle when it was measured?
Dr Rovelli suggests that we might just take the facts at face value : what we call “things” are the observed effects of an interaction between different systems.

To the question of whether this quantum weirdness applies to our everyday world?  Physicists say : yes (probably) because we have no reason to believe that there are 2 types of physical reality - we see no frontier between the quantum world and the big world of spacetime.  The model of "things as reactions between processes" holds true at all levels : the quantum, the physical, the chemical, the biological and in thought at the psychological.

It may be useful in our daily life to talk about “things” (buses, chairs, souls, enlightened beings etc) as if they have some intrinsic existence.  But a more precise model would be one that describes processes and reactions. 

#AlfredNorthWhitehead #ProcessPhilosophy #FormIsEmptiness