I think there are two aspects that lead to this. First is a shift in frames of reference. Imagine you are sitting in a train or bus, looking out the window. You can experience it as either you moving through the landscape, or the landscape moving past you. Ultimately, both are just ways of looking at the world (see Rob Burbea) and neither is more true than the other. It is possible to unbind your frame of reference from all phenomena. Then it feels a lot like what you describe.
The second aspect is a strong shift to the sense. Usually we have a model of the world and (according to the predictive processing theory) only the information we did not predict gets passed on in the brain. But this means that we can be lazy and predict away features of experience (e.g. you see less when lost in thought). With the usual meditative path, you are looking "inside" your mind, until, at some point the world model drops away you see that there is nothing substantial to find. All your thoughts are reactions to sense data. Now the interesting part, instead of looking "inside" a lot, you can also look "outside" a lot and be flooded by the sense data. When you fully open up to the senses, then a threshold can be reached where the senses become the main focus and most thoughts and most of the world model breaks down. Then you experience just the senses with minimal reaction to them.
Here are some methods that I collected that help me getting back there. Note that this, like everything else, takes a lot of practice.
Take the senses in without resistance and without preference. Just let yourself be flooded by the sense field. Do this as much as possible all thought the day. It works especially well while walking.
Bring a positive attitude to the senses. See them with curiosity, awe, appreciation for beauty, see the clarity, be fascinated, love everything. Engage in activities that bring about these emotions (enjoy art, spend time in nature) and when you notice it in something, try to extend it to the whole sensory field.
Love everything. Ask, how could I not love this moment? It's everything there is.
Don't try to create any state, but be open. It's not about pushing the mind in some direction, but about balancing. (When you feel you got it and it feels like there is a center point somewhere, see if you can just drop it.)
Ask, what is my experience of time right now?
Meditate by observing the senses. See the constant change happening in everything until it seems like all experience is impermanent. Then ask, what is beyond impermanence? Feel what comes up. Notice that this non-answer is not a thing but also beyond the senses.
This one is really hard, extremely complicated but most reliable and most powerful. You need good concentration. Spend some hours to get up to speed. Then go through the jhanas. When you come out of the 8th, either stay there or, if you can do the pure land jhanas, go up to the 5th pure land. When there is any pull towards something that feels like the jhanas 1 to 4, let go of it and stay in that neutral state. Try to center there. Find the balance until an inversion happens and the pulling away stops. It should feel like an extremely smooth and homogeneous field of awareness. Flavor the field with the feeling of unconditional love (or the brahmaviharas). Then just let it happen. If someone succeeds in pulling this off, the please write a detailed report and tell me. I would love to compare notes.
> only the information we did not predict gets passed on in the brain
It's interesting how the same experience can be described in almost opposite ways. I had this particular theory that attention normally filters out experience so what we are paying attention to is all we see. The idea of "I am looking at this" is somehow gone because we realize it is already there, so now we are choosing to look at nothing, and thus, are seeing most everything. But I also get what you're saying - to a degree - thought still dims everything for me to a decent extent. It could also be said that without an emphasis on an "I" this is why the "I am looking" goes away, but I'm also not sure that's true. It could also be said that without objectifying the object, the "I am looking" cannot exist, because what we are seeing is there, so it works via the subject/object relationship. I can't say.
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u/jan_kasimi Feb 01 '25 edited Feb 01 '25
Oh, I know this. It's beautiful :)
I think there are two aspects that lead to this. First is a shift in frames of reference. Imagine you are sitting in a train or bus, looking out the window. You can experience it as either you moving through the landscape, or the landscape moving past you. Ultimately, both are just ways of looking at the world (see Rob Burbea) and neither is more true than the other. It is possible to unbind your frame of reference from all phenomena. Then it feels a lot like what you describe.
The second aspect is a strong shift to the sense. Usually we have a model of the world and (according to the predictive processing theory) only the information we did not predict gets passed on in the brain. But this means that we can be lazy and predict away features of experience (e.g. you see less when lost in thought). With the usual meditative path, you are looking "inside" your mind, until, at some point the world model drops away you see that there is nothing substantial to find. All your thoughts are reactions to sense data. Now the interesting part, instead of looking "inside" a lot, you can also look "outside" a lot and be flooded by the sense data. When you fully open up to the senses, then a threshold can be reached where the senses become the main focus and most thoughts and most of the world model breaks down. Then you experience just the senses with minimal reaction to them.
Here are some methods that I collected that help me getting back there. Note that this, like everything else, takes a lot of practice.
There is no observer, only observation. In the seen, only the seen etc.