Field of Experience - the only actual

[John J]

Hello Jeffrey,

Recently I have discovered that when I put my attention on a sense field, usually vision as that seems the easiest to see 'this', with a subtle shift of attention I see that there is nothing outside of my field of vision, and that everything in my field of vision in this moment is who and what I am, the revelation is that this is all there is. 

If I enter 3rd Jhana while doing this, I would previously have said that I had gained a heightened awareness, clarity, of the world, which I am 'in', and which is independent of my being in it. But with this shift of awareness, I see that I am the objects in my field of vision, and that there is no separation between me and those objects, in other words, I and the world feel like a single connected piece. This becomes further puzzling and strange when noticing that the body is there in the field of vision!

I believe that this shift of attention is to the energy field of being, which then becomes everything perceived in the sensory fields of awareness. Shifting the attention like this would be a practice of noticing 'this', while closed eyes meditation would then be a deeper union with the non-sensory contact with 'this'.

This is not to negate or say the world doesn't really exist, or run independent of my being here, but rather, while that may be so, it is never the less simply a thought in my field of experience, and can therefore only form part of a belief system, which in essence, is delusional, fantasy, as it has no bearing on the actuality of my immediate experience. 

I'm only just beginning to see these things and haven't explored them with any depth, I am aware that non-dual practices, dzogchen, advaita, deal with these issues, but I have as yet not read the literature associated with these experiences I am having, and wonder if you could shed any light on this here.

With regards

John

[jhananda]

Hello, John, I am very sorry for the long delay in my response. In the last four years my health has gone down the tubes making it very hard for me to do much of anything. Fortunately my health has been improving for the last year, so I am attempting to get back to my work.

In response to your inquiry, as you have experienced it, the 8 stages of the meditation experience (samadhi) are experienced as progressively increasing non-dual experiences, such that we lose a sense of self, and develop a sense of everything being observed is us. The non-dual nature of the meditation experience (samadhi) begins at the second stage (2nd jhana), and increases exponentially the deeper we go.

However, as you pointed out, the world no doubt persists regardless of the observer. Thus, trees continue to fall in the forest and do not need an observer to make a sound when they do. So, your experience is well within the range of the typical mystic.

As you also pointed out, some of the non-dual schools are: Dzogchen and Advaita Vedanta. Since anatta (no-self) is one of the key concepts found in the Pali Canon, then it could be argued that the doctrine (dhamma) of Siddhartha Gautama represents one of the earliest non-dual schools of philosophy; however, I have found few Theravadan priests would recognize this.

Also as you pointed out an implication of the shift from the sensory world to the various phenomena of the meditation experience (samadhi), which you called the "energy field," suggests as shift of identity with that "energy field." I find this true.