Putting it all on the Table

In order to understand that Self is only an idea, it is necessary to understand the difference between experiencer and experience. One metaphor I like to use is the image of a table on which all experiences are placed, with the experiencer standing over, surveying them.

First, you take all your sensory experiences and place them on the table. Sights, sounds, tastes, etc. This is only a tiny fraction of what you experience daily so it doesn't take up much of the table. I know this is an odd thing to say, but you have to remember that most of what we experience is ideas. For example, if you see a car in your driveway, you get a brief flash of color as a sensory experience, then you get the experience of identification with ideas (such as "car", "mine", "driveway" etc.), and the formulation of new ideas (i.e. "needs washing"). Most of what we "see" are ideas and thoughts.

So, the next thing to do is put all the ideas, thoughts, impressions, emotional reactions, etc. on the table. Now you are looking at the contents of your mind, and your senses, and your life begins to take shape in the myriad objects populating your table.

But now, who's looking at the stuff there?

"It's me!" you think. But wait, "me" is an idea, so that has to go on the table as well. "Me" is an idea that we attach to experiences we identify with, to differentiate them from things we don't, but as chapter 3 discusses, those things are not only all experiences (as opposed to experiencer), but they are free to change in any way imaginable without altering the presence of experience as a constant, and therefore, altering the experiencer of experiences in any way.

So, we revisit the question about who's looking at the stuff on the table, and no matter what we come up with, it's still an experience (usually an idea) and therefore must go on the table. Then what's left?

When you make the effort to experience the experiencer, you become the camera that tries to photograph itself. You experience a paradox. The experiencer which makes reality possible (See Ch. 3) cannot be experienced, because there's no experience there. There is only what the Buddhists call "emptiness", and it is the truth at the core of our existence.

Jim