In meditative states, I sometimes experience a base level of perception. A floor. Everything else – thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds, sensations – rests on it.

This floor – this most basic experience of witnessing – is the only part of “me” that feels constant across my life – even while dreaming. Every other experience of “me” is fleeting – a shapeshifting conglomeration of sensations that arises mostly on its own and cannot be pinned down.

I consider this a glimpse into nonduality.

From this glimpse, the feeling of being a person is essentially quiet. What remains is contentment, curiosity, and noticing.

From this glimpse, phenomena are felt as phenomena rather than what they typically represent. In ordinary perception we look at an appearance as the object it stands for. A patch of color isn’t a patch of color – it’s a cup, over there, in the world, mine. In the glimpse, that representational layer goes quiet. The patch of color is a patch of color. A thought is a cloud that passes in the sky among many other thoughts, of no apparent consequence or concern.

From this glimpse, boundaries fade – the normal senses of a me, an inside, an outside, other people, objects, emotions, attitudes – appear as aspects of perception in its totality, hence the term “nondual”.

From this glimpse, I realize at any moment, I will return to seeing cups as cups, and thoughts as thoughts, and feeling like a person in the world with desires, possessions, and wishes.

However, there is a shift: a remembrance of that fundamental position – a remembrance of how my mind seems to run itself – without a “me” orchestrating it. This is not to say, I have no agency. Rather, that much of my “mind” is not under my control. My control is not what arises, but how I relate to, and engage with it.

The significance of this is profound.

First, in knowing that a baseline feeling of peace is always present. Second, in knowing that so many aspects of my mind are not necessarily worth entertaining. This second one may seem obvious, but cuts deeper than it seems – into our deepest identities, beliefs, lifelong dreams, and struggles. These are two life-altering insights.

Note, it is not a single “glimpse” that is life-altering. It is many glimpses and contemplation over months and years of life.

Comparing To Nondual Philosophy

Metaphysics

Popular nondual philosophies often reach into metaphysics, whereas I am agnostic.

I am not saying consciousness is fundamental in the metaphysical sense, or that we are bodiless spiritual entities, or that there is one universal mind. I am simply describing what my bare experience feels like. A phenomenological report. Consciousness is fundamental only in the sense that it’s where everything appears.

Subject/Object Dissolution

Certain nondualism treats any remaining trace of subject and object as a failure – proof of ignorance, one more knot to untie. It feels like a witnesser witnessing? You’re not done. The knowing hasn’t fully dissolved into the known? Keep scrubbing.

When I say, “I experience base perception”, this might be questioned as residue. Here I shrug. I cannot control how my words are construed vs how I mean them, and we cannot reconcile without climbing into each other’s perception. No matter what, witnessing remains. It has to. Without it there would be no conscious experience at all. If this description is nitpicked as residue, I chalk it up to misunderstanding beyond the precision of language.

A Single Report

I offer this as a single report of no particular authority. I’ve been exploring meditation, nonduality teachers, books, and discussions for approximately six years. My approach is to look for common ground while holding any sort of doctrine skeptically. Take this for what it’s worth, among a larger landscape of anecdotes.

Coming soon: a short review of a book comparing major eastern nondual philosophies.

Discussion

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