SkillfulA wrote: ↑Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:21 pm
I have experienced states where the perceiver and the perceived is clearly felt to be two different things/separated. On the other hand I have also experienced states where everything is one, no difference and separation between perceiver and perceived is perceived, same nature, the mind boundless, perception boundless.
I think I know what you are referring to and it would seem the significance and meaning of it depends on the intention towards experience.
In experience, there is the quality of a certain thing as being the subject opposed to an object, yet in a certain sense is that very subject which too has appeared (if it didn't then the distinction would not be possible). So it would seem that the subject has the quality to both appear and be the reason for appearance. But in order for a thing to be deemed the subject (the "I"), it should primarily (perhaps fully) be that thing doing the perceiving of things, not be there completely among the things themselves. In other words, that distinction between subject and object does not take into account the
direction towards that which has appeared. It is that direction itself which always remains outside of the appearance, but without it appearance wouldn't be. Nevertheless there is the intention to draw it out as a tangible appearance. That intention is simply the belief that the direction can be pushed out into the field to be seen, that it can be transferred or brought into the realm of appearance, failing to take into account that no matter what the appearance is, all appearance comes with the direction that does not appear, it is merely implied. This, like any implication, is knowing that a thing is there without actually seeing it. That direction is therefore a thing, but not just any thing.
I think it is safe to say that there is not problem with that direction being known in this way. Clearly it is there. The problem arises by assuming its nature: that it belongs to a subject, that it is the subject. Of course that assumption is negatively present, for it is even more obscure than that directionality in terms of not having that nature to appear positively. But that negativity takes on the quality of something positive. Why? Because we are accepting of its elusive nature that too is implied...by ignorance: whether or not it is accepted, denied, both accepted and denied or neither accepted nor denied the subject, that subject has a valid position in experience.
Ven. Nanavira wrote:A determination [sankhara] is essentially negative—'Omnis determinatio est negatio' said Spinoza --, and a negative, a negation, only exists as a denial of something positive. The positive thing's existence is asserted by the negative in the very act of denying it...and its essence (or nature) is defined by the negative in stating what it is not... A negative thus determines both the existence and the essence of a positive. -Notes on Dhamma, A Note on PS
my emphasis
That is why it seems as though both subject and object appear and that both are tangible. There will always be that aspect of subject, but the arahat has cut off the significance of it being the reason for the appearance of things. For the arahat it is that thing that used to point to "I" but now points to nothing.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
