11 - Experiencing and Representing
Like a child who confounds her parents by endlessly asking, “Why?" or "What does that mean?"
* When reading this book for the first time, it is best to read from the beginning without skipping forward. Otherwise, the intended meaning of some words might not be obvious.
Experiencing and Representing
EXPERIENCING: “Experiencing” refers to awareness of unreal things. All experiences of every kind are unreal things.
REPRESENTING: “Representing” refers to an aspect of experiencing in which experiences refer to other things. Representation occurs when one thing re‑presents or refers to other things that are not present in the immediate experience. For example, a photograph of a tree represents or refers to a tree that is not present in the photograph. A patch of green refers to or represents virtually all past experiences of color to give meaning to the current color-experience through comparisons, contrasts, and memories.
It is like reading or hearing the names of people in a family. The names refer to family members who may or may not be present. The name alone does not provide an experience of that person, although it may stimulate the experience of an idea or memory of that person; and the name only has meaning in relation to other experiences, memories, ideas, confusions, and so forth.
Chains of representation never have a first link, because representations represent only other representations.
It is like a child who confounds her parents by endlessly asking, “Why?” or “What does that mean?”
Awareness allows representations of things that are not immediately present in awareness. Each experience indirectly refers to other experiences that are not immediately present in awareness. Experiences have content, and all content represents or refers to other experiences, memories, and ideas. All experiences arise and have meaning only in relation to the meaning of other experiences.
This is what is meant by relativity of experience.
Chains of representation become confused. In casual conversation we generally ignore this confusion (or we might even make some use of it). Deep chains of representation are impossible to trace, and the universe is immeasurably deep in representations of other representations. Every world is a world of representing and referring. Every representation is a container. Every container is made entirely of other containers.
This is relativity of existence:
No existing thing is what it appears to be; everything is relative.
In Set Theory, a formal language of containers, no container can ever contain itself, nor can it contain any other container that contains that container. But in experience, this rule is almost universally broken.
Notice how every word in a dictionary is defined almost entirely by reference to other words in that same dictionary. This is acceptable in casual use because we instinctively know that no two instances of any word can have exactly the same meaning. Words acquire meanings more by usage than by definition. Every instance of a word has a unique meaning because each occurs in a different context, and meaning arises only from context. We want and assume consistent meanings for words, but meanings change according to context, and every context is unique across the universe.
Experiences define one another in the same way that words define one another in dictionaries.
This is relativity of meaning:
The entire universe of meaning arises only from relativity.
Reality, being, and awareness cannot be experienced. Unreality cannot represent reality. Existence cannot represent being. Experience cannot represent awareness. Being and awareness are the reality of the universe.
Your reality can never be re-presented.
Is this a puzzle? Is it really not possible to represent your reality, being, or awareness in words, symbols, gestures, and so forth? Seek direct knowledge of reality, not indirect experience of mere ideas about such things. Know the truth directly. See though the endless puzzles of unreality.
Depend upon words only to help you grasp the failure of all words in the light of your reality—even these words, here, in this text.
The Five Paths
This is from the mountains of Tibet. It is not exactly a story. Some might read it as instruction, and some might read it as just a tall tale. You can easily find other versions of The Five Paths; just look for one that appeals to you.
These five paths are often couched in terms of reincarnation through numerous life-times. If you do not care for reincarnation, think instead of relative numbers of people in a population, like “out of every 125,000 only a few will have any good idea of what wisdom is, while maybe only one has actually found true wisdom.” On the other hand, you might think of these as different phases of learning. Be flexible. Like all stories, it is up to you to interpret this the best way you can.
The Five Paths is a good puzzle to consider if you have even the slightest curiosity about such ideas or experiences. Ask yourself this: To what do the words refer? What is their purpose?
Life-Time. Meaning. Happen. Understand. Accomplish. Succeed. Fail. Wisdom. The Best You Can. Devotion. Teacher. Try. Rest. Realize. Form. Formless. See. Hear. Stained‑Glass. Window. Mirror. Time. Peaceful. Become. Know. Obvious. Again.
These five paths are to be completed sequentially:
1st Path: Accumulation (125,000 life-times). Struggle. Little to no sign of any reason or meaning to life. You may fail at whatever you do; you may be successful and have a great family around you; you may be wealthy; you may be famous for your accomplishments or your knowledge; you may toil long and hard just to make ends meet; you may love and protect nature and the people around you. But you do not understand why there is all this misery and suffering. This lack of understanding and lack of real meaning slowly eats away at you until sometimes you feel you cannot take it any longer.
2nd Path: Wisdom (100 life-times). Signs. You begin to hear or learn something that seems right to you. You do not yet understand why it seems right. You try to do the best you can with this insight. You might talk about it with other people, and it might appear that you are all talking about the same thing or at least something similar (on the same page, from the same teacher, the same ideas), but deep down you know that you do not understand what these things mean. All you can do is work harder and do the best you can with what you have. Trying as hard as you can. Resting when you can.
3rd Path: Seeing (3 seconds). Suddenly. Without form, without thought, letting go. An image that is not standing still, yet there is nothing in it that moves. Not silent. Not distant. Like a stained-glass window too near to touch. Like a mirror seeing itself.
4th Path: Meditation (3 life-times). Time. The potter finishes the pot and takes his hands away from the clay; he must let the wheel spin down on its own or the pot will be ruined. Sitting quietly and at peace, immersed in the stream, becoming the stream.
5th Path: No More Learning (completing the final life-time). The end of the search. Now you know. Now you understand. There is nothing more to do. It is so simple and once again so obvious.
——
In your view of this story, …
What is an individual life or life-time?
What are worlds and world-views?
What does the 3rd Path represent?
What is intuition?
What does the 5th Path represent?
What is relativity?
Why are there any paths at all?
How far away is reality?