Mike, as usual my mind engages with your words instead of letting them flow past like a gurgling clear mountain stream.
"It means no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, color, sound, taste," together with the final lines suggest "no experience." I've never had "no experience." Even when I imagine, as Alan Watts suggested, going to sleep and never waking up, i.e., death, it is the experience of imaging no experience.
For me, "It means nothing, nobody, empty space, the end, free." captures it well, except in the selfless empty freedom remains the experience of mystery, aliveness in the cloud of unknowing.
Noel, thanks for this. Good question. Looking at it right now, I’d say that there is what we could call an experience of the body and mind, thoughts, feelings, etc, but, staying with the experience,
It can be seen that the experience is not personal. The body/mind very quickly identifies it as a personal experience but, in reality, there is no one single, separate person experiencing anything. There is only awareness, which is essentially empty, uncreated space. It’s kind of mind-blowing to come in direct contact with the fact that everything that happens is formless awareness taking the from of whatever happens. This is the meaning behind the Heart Sutra, ‘no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, color, sound taste, touch or what the mind takes hold of.’
Mike, as usual my mind engages with your words instead of letting them flow past like a gurgling clear mountain stream.
"It means no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, color, sound, taste," together with the final lines suggest "no experience." I've never had "no experience." Even when I imagine, as Alan Watts suggested, going to sleep and never waking up, i.e., death, it is the experience of imaging no experience.
For me, "It means nothing, nobody, empty space, the end, free." captures it well, except in the selfless empty freedom remains the experience of mystery, aliveness in the cloud of unknowing.
Is that also an aspect of your experience?
Noel
Noel, thanks for this. Good question. Looking at it right now, I’d say that there is what we could call an experience of the body and mind, thoughts, feelings, etc, but, staying with the experience,
It can be seen that the experience is not personal. The body/mind very quickly identifies it as a personal experience but, in reality, there is no one single, separate person experiencing anything. There is only awareness, which is essentially empty, uncreated space. It’s kind of mind-blowing to come in direct contact with the fact that everything that happens is formless awareness taking the from of whatever happens. This is the meaning behind the Heart Sutra, ‘no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, color, sound taste, touch or what the mind takes hold of.’