Experience is all we are -- no "experiencer" inside our head

Showing my age, I'm digging a re-reading of Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity." I'm on a blogging triple-play with the book, previous posts being here and here.

What Watts did masterfully, way back in 1951, was bring a sort of core spirituality down to earth, shorn of superfluous lofty religious, mystical, and supernatural abstractions. It's a purified philosophy of living -- ageless wisdom trimmed of dogmatic theologies.

So simple. So, so simple. What we're looking for has always been right before our eyes. Also, our nose, mouth, ears, hands, and every other part of us. 

Here's how I'd encapsulate the basic message of the first five (of nine) chapters I've re-read so far:

Life is change. Take away the change in life and you've got death. No change, no life. But all that changing is scary. Also, wonderful. The same growing that enables us to mature from babies to adults also leads to old age, disability, disease, and death.

Observing this with our peculiarly human ability to cognize, we understandably, yet wrongly, conclude that the solution to all the problems that come with change is to stop the changing. 

This arresting of change has external and internal aspects. Meaning, we want to find something unchangeable in the world outside of us, and we also want ourselves to be something unchangeable that's capable of enjoying an unchangeable world.

Religions, mystics, and other purveyors of eternal'ness give us what we're asking for.

Great example of free enterprise. Satisfy a demand. The market has spoken. People desire to be free of fearful change. So give them the promise (not the reality) of unchanging life in an unchanging world.

Heaven is such a world. So is nirvana, paradise, God's mansion, and all the other imagined eternal places that are thought to exist apart from our ever-changing everyday existence. But as noted before, an eternal abode isn't any good if there is no part of us equally eternal which can live on in eternity.

Our bodies, which includes our brains, which includes the minds that are brains in motion -- they clearly aren't unchangeable. Thus the human mind has come up with abstract concepts that offer a promise of the eternal existence which isn't evident in reality.

Soul. Spirit. God-consciousness. Atman. Astral form. Pure awareness. These are some of the many ways people have conceptualized an entity for which there is no evidence of, but it sure would be nice if it existed. 

Because then the "me" which is my body could change and die, while the "I' which is my really real nature would live on... and on... and on, forever and ever, eternally. In that eternal abode which so pleasingly fits with my own eternal aspect.

Sounds great. Just like every other too-good-to-be-true scam. No down payment, no payments for eternity! Wow, what a deal! 

Throughout "The Wisdom of Insecurity," Alan Watts points out the problems with this whole assumption that eternal I is going to spend eternity with eternal God, or whatever we want to call the Great Unchanging Essence of the Cosmos.

In the chapter I re-read this morning, On Being Aware, Watts presents the essence of Zen and other more-or-less non-bullshit forms of spirituality: there is no "I" that can be eternal, or even can be anything else. The "I" we consider ourselves to be doesn't exist.

All there is, is experience.

Ever-changing experience. No experiencer. Just experience. To paraphrase Zen masters, deal with it, dude. Show me your Buddha-mind, your Buddha-nature! Ha, you can't! You are your mind, your nature! Gotcha!

Here's some quotes from the chapter:

When you were thinking, "I am reading this sentence" you were not reading it. In other words, in each present experience you were only aware of that experience. You were never aware of being aware. You were never able to separate the thinker from the thought, the knower from the known. All you ever found was a new thought, a new experience.

To be aware, then, is to be aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, and all other forms of experience. Never at any time are you aware of anything which is not experience, not a thought or feeling, but instead an experiencer, thinker, or feeler. If this is so, what makes us think that any such thing exists?

...When you see clearly that memory is a form of present experience, it will be obvious that trying to separate yourself from this experience is as impossible as trying to make your teeth bite themselves. There is simply experience.

There is not something or someone experiencing experience! You do not feel feelings, think thoughts, or sense sensations any more than you hear hearing, see sight, or smell smelling.

"I feel fine" means that a fine feeling is present. It does not mean that there is one thing called an "I" and another separate thing called a feeling, so that when you bring them together this "I" feels the fine feeling. There are no feelings but present feelings, and whatever feeling is present is "I."

No one ever found an "I" apart from some present experience, or some experience apart from an "I" -- which is only to say that the two are the same thing. 

...The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the "I" out of the experience.

We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting ourselves into two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate "I" or mind can be found.

Comments

[Roger]

"There is not something or someone experiencing experience! You do not feel feelings, think thoughts, or sense sensations any more than you hear hearing, see sight, or smell smelling."

Yes, but the spiritual experience topic is for me the fascinating topic. When one claims to have had an experience of heaven, astral plains and regions, and meeting with the Godman within, and such. Then is this too, "simply" experience? A "simply" experience can only be generated by the human brain? Is simply experience different from a personal subjective experience?

[cc]

"A "simply" experience can only be generated by the human brain? Is simply experience different from a personal subjective experience?"

Yes, as different as lucid dreaming is from waking consciousness. Since most people don't dream lucidly, a lucid dream is a remarkable experience when it occurs.

One could build a religion on a lucid dream; make lucid dreaming a religion.

[just me]

Ah yes... eat, drink and be merry.

Alan Watts was a drunk and a womanizer and died of complications due to alcoholism at the age of 58.

So there you go. There's no spirit or soul. No afterlife. All spiritual experiences are simply the brain's imaginings and hallucinations. Only one life and then you are nothing. May as well spend your life in drunken bliss...

[cc]

"Alan Watts was a drunk and a womanizer and died of complications due to alcoholism at the age of 58."

Can't see past the booze and the broads to the brilliance?

[Brian Hines]

just me, I'm not sure what your point is. Einstein enjoyed the company of women. I seem to recall that he was sort of a "wild thing," engaging in what some would call immoral behavior.

Yet he revealed truths of the cosmos that have stood the test of confirmation. In my opinion, Watts did the same. Modern neuroscience is confirming Watt's thesis that there no is "I" inside our head, just natural body/brain.

Also, I've read many of Watts' books. I don't recall him ever saying that his goal was to teach people how to be chaste and sober. That is, sexually discreet and alcohol moderate. So if that wasn't what Watts set out to teach, how can he be criticized for not knowing how to be chaste and sober?

[Brian Hines]

just me, a P.S. that just came to mind:

My mother was an alcoholic. One of her sisters probably also was. My mother eventually got cirrhosis of the liver, when I was in high school. Her sister died tragically from a fire seemingly caused by a cigarette igniting a chair while she was passed out in it.

Calling heavy drinkers/alcoholics "drunks" may be accurate. But it also has a judgmental tone that bothers me. I know what a wonderful flawed person my mother was. Heck, even that word "flawed" is judgmental. Who I am to say what is a flaw?

Science is coming to know that many mental and physical problems have a genetic basis. Maybe my mother, and Alan Watts, were driven to heavy drinking in part by their genes. You should keep this in mind when you dismiss the value of someone's life because of their behavior.

[Malcolm]

Yep, I think so too Wait... who is that you say that thinks so too?

I have trouble with the "inside your head" idea. I don't feel that thoughts exist in any "place." It seems to me that mind does not have a location. Not everything has to have a location, you know.

But yes, all we know is what "we" experience. The "we", it seems, is a mental construct too. It's worse than unnecessary, it's a tiresome burden. Those who have experienced it suddenly disappearing are quite clear about this.

The fact that we cannot find a person within is only circumstantial evidence; if I did find someone there, it wouldn't be me since I am doing the searching and finding.

[Mike Williams]

We know there is no "WHO" within us.

Personalization of impersonal thought,
is the grand delusion.

Thought and experience are things, they
can never be a WHO.

Alan Watts drank wine, not hard liquor.

There are many false rumors about such people.

The big question after realizing there
is no WHO that can live on after death is,
is there any way to survive death at least
as an experiencer ?

Is there an unknown factor .............
Something Else we have not considered.

Something Else which can make real ...
what was unreal before ?

Every entity leaves a trace.

Can it be our vibration rate somehow
continues ? Like DNA passes down through
the generations always improving itself ?

[Sita]

As in opening the hand of tought..Kosho Uchiyama:

Jiko..is the small and also great Jiko 'I'__----------Self or not self..:)

What eventually is'nt there even ,just experience..awareness..conciousness.

Same...(?) I think so..eventually.

[Roger]

Thanks cc,

Is Lucid dreaming not a personal subjective experience? Clarify that for me. Same for waking consciousness? Surely, all human experiences are personal subjective experiences. I'm just trying to clarify, if a spiritual experience lies outside a personal subjective experience. Thanks for your response.

[cc]

A "spiritual experience" is totally personal and subjective because it has more to do with the meaning attributed to the event than to the alleged event itself. For instance, people who are convinced they can leave their bodies are convinced they will not die, and that's the whole point of the exercise. Or take gurus, for example. If Alan Watts facilitates your emerging understanding and self-knowledge, that's a good guru. But if Baba Gunuj would have you believe something that can be neither proven or disproven, that's a bad guru.

[matthew]

The experience and the experienced go together, like when you have a nice refreshing beverage, it would not be nice or refreshing without the you factor in that experience.

[david r]

Pick up a pychology textbook and look up the section on "personality"

Hope that helps.

[Brian]

"Ever-changing experience. No experiencer. Just experience. To paraphrase Zen masters, deal with it, dude. Show me your Buddha-mind, your Buddha-nature! Ha, you can't! You are your mind, your nature! Gotcha!"

Lol,
First you have to explain me, If there is only "ever-changing experience", what is in here that (when I took a drug pill to maximize my brain memory) what is in here that knows that I am experiencing it, and experiences it? Experience passes, I remain, what is that? What is that that knows my old memories NOT CHANGING, something in here not changing knows about it. It is not an experience AT ALL, experience comea and goes, like cause and effect.
What is that? I must say, IT IS THE EXPERIENCER.

[777]

The mistake here in Alan s and your reasoning
is that you think you are a coat or coating
This is false
It snot impossible to realise°° that you are a vibration
actually a very unpure resultante of many quantum vibrations
but you can "consult" your original state ( a Sound )
above your eyes
by means of Love
Then you will know but unable to tell anybody because nobody
would believe you
After consulting , you will BE that vibration

°°Realisation can only be done if the person practises some Love without agenda ,
is compassionated
but you are still a vegetarian - without agenda : so no problem

777

[Sauabh]

Lol..
True, all that exists is the ever changing experience, but who is aware of the experience? Rather, who is aware of the experiences that have been experienced and the experience going on now?
Who is that which can think about/reflect over any experience that has already been stored in the memory? If experience is the only thing that is, to who does it happen?

There is surely some difference in the non-living things and living things. Non-living things are also undergoing experiences - like, sunlight falling on a wooden table is gradually destroying it, but there is no one which is reacting to that experience. There surely is some difference in non-living things and living beings. Our bodies, made up of atoms, just like non-living things consistently undergo chemical reactions when it interacts with anything in the world. But, in a human body, there is someone who knows whatever has been experienced. There is no one in a non-living thing who is knowing.

You need someone who, at will, decides to either experience or reflect on a past experience or not experience at all. Who is that which is navigating through the memory? Even if that is happening on its own, there is surely someone through who the choice of experiencing is being made.. That, without which no experience exists.. :) It is that because of which the entire experience exists.