What is experience?

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

@UnbornTao what you are asking has nothing to do with what I said . There is no such thing as perception or logic which are more fundamental than being/this . I was pointing 👉 to direct being which is not a process that happens through perception or time .you can't have logic or perception or time without being. But you can have being without these things (like in deep sleep).

It has to be authentic, though - it has to come from a personal insight instead of a theory. Important principle. 

[UnbornTao]

So we finally found out, and now everyone's absolutely clear on the nature of experience.

Edited Monday at 12:01 PM by UnbornTao

[Anton Rogachevski]

4 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

So we finally found out and everyone's absolutely clear on the nature of experience.

What do you mean? What's the insight?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Anton Rogachevski That little 'wound' of unclosed, un-concluded thought about what experience is - UnbornTao is ripping the scab off for more surgical brain probing... 

@UnbornTao I'll have another go...

Experience is... when seeing, there is the coming together of visible form, the eye, and visual consciousness. When hearing, there is the coming together of sound, the ear, and auditory consciousness. When touching, there is the coming together of tactual sensation, the body, and tactile consciousness. When thinking, there is the thought, the mind, and mental consciousness.

Combination of sense faculty and object... and a corresponding sensory consciousness arises...

Immediate direct experience... Being.

[Anton Rogachevski]

10 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Immediate direct experience... Being.

How do you conclude being from experience?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

3 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

How do you conclude being from experience?

I 'am' being - and experience is how that being knows itself. I should have ended the statement above with '?' because it cannot be concluded.

Experience is happening > something exists > being

Maybe more implicit - it feels as if the experience and being collapse into the same thing during meditation.

No me having an experience, just what is true right now...

I am deviating from the topic - apologies 

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Natasha Tori Maru

I think you are exactly on point. Maybe these two aspects are not as separate as we think. I don't think there's any being at all, just pure experience. The being is a secondary phenomenon. 

What does this word even mean to you? "Being" To deviate slightly. Sorry Tao

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@Natasha Tori Maru

I think you are exactly on point. Maybe these two aspects are not as separate as we think. I don't think there's any being at all, just pure experience. The being is a secondary phenomenon. 

What does this word even mean to you? "Being" To deviate slightly. Sorry Tao

I experienced it as truth - love. No time. No-self. All the silly aphorisms we use around here - not that it is common at all!

[kbone]

5 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@Natasha Tori Maru

I think you are exactly on point. Maybe these two aspects are not as separate as we think. I don't think there's any being at all, just pure experience. The being is a secondary phenomenon. 

What does this word even mean to you? "Being" To deviate slightly. Sorry Tao

I'm perfectly willing to give you a number of historical and comparative linguistic anecdotes that could shed some light, if that's what you are looking for. Only for certain kinds of minds think they are interesting and/or relevant, and I don't wanna bore you or anyone. I've literally been told to shut up on a message board dedicated to non-duality when bringing up such things about the English and proto-Indo-European languages. He didn't assume (as I did) that because people thought in language and pictures, that those meaningful/logical aspects of mind might be part of what arose as confusion and obscuring thoughts, hehe.

 

PS: I really like your essay and subsequent discussion with Jinzo on "existence-explained". Great stuff. You have a gift for putting things into words.

Edited Monday at 11:32 AM by kbone

[UnbornTao]

7 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

That little 'wound' of unclosed, un-concluded thought about what experience is - UnbornTao is ripping the scab off for more surgical brain probing... 

@Anton Rogachevski ☝️

7 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I'll have another go...

Experience is... when seeing, there is the coming together of visible form, the eye, and visual consciousness. When hearing, there is the coming together of sound, the ear, and auditory consciousness. When touching, there is the coming together of tactual sensation, the body, and tactile consciousness. When thinking, there is the thought, the mind, and mental consciousness.

Combination of sense faculty and object... and a corresponding sensory consciousness arises...

Immediate direct experience... Being.

Sounds good! Thanks.

Let's keep going at it.

[UnbornTao]

9 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I 'am' being - and experience is how that being knows itself. I should have ended the statement above with '?' because it cannot be concluded.

Experience is happening > something exists > being

Maybe more implicit - it feels as if the experience and being collapse into the same thing during meditation.

No me having an experience, just what is true right now...

I am deviating from the topic - apologies 

Is > direct experience > process (self is included here). Being might be absolute.

I'm just making something up here. 

When you say "a being," it makes me wonder whether you're actually referring to 'self' - to what we think we are - since you seem to be holding being as an entity. Being could also be thought of as what is, prior to the existence of an entity. Impersonal, in a sense. Maybe. 

It seems that what we generally mean by 'experience' is perceiving something - "I see the pineapple, so I'm experiencing it."

Edited Monday at 03:00 PM by UnbornTao

[Natasha Tori Maru]

12 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

When you say "a being," it makes me wonder whether you're actually referring to 'self' - to what we think we are - since you seem to be holding being as an entity. Being could also be thought of as what is, prior to the existence of an entity. Impersonal, in a sense. Maybe. 

I am with you and I LIKE it

Maybe just, consciousness

[UnbornTao]

12 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I am with you and I LIKE it

Maybe just, consciousness

So we agree that we are puzzled by this topic.  

@Anton Rogachevski What do you think?

[Anton Rogachevski]

@UnbornTao

As I've said before, I'm for simplification and I don't see being as something separate from experience, it's another cool sounding synonym that Heidegger made popular. (But in his view Being is also the interpretation of the world through experience.)

I would give it up easily to stay with only Undefinable Pure Experience as everything that exists or can exist from a Phenomenological perspective.

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

@UnbornTao

As I've said before, I'm for simplification and I don't see being as something separate from experience, it's another cool sounding synonym that Heidegger made popular. (But in his view Being is also the interpretation of the world through experience.)

I would give it up easily to stay with only Undefinable Pure Experience as everything that exists or can exist from a Phenomenological perspective.

We say that existence is - independent of us humans or sentient beings as a whole. As experience is ascribed to us animals and perhaps other living beings, wouldn't you say that Being precedes and allows for experience? The latter seems to require living beings for it to occur. So, not separate, but distinct - perhaps. Anyway, we don't know what Being is.

Granted, I don't want to move the discussion in the direction of speculation - despite my attempts to the contrary.   

[James123]

On 4/21/2025 at 3:24 AM, UnbornTao said:

I wanted to start a shared contemplation with you: 

What is experience? 

It is creation of attachment with thoughts.

[UnbornTao]

36 minutes ago, James123 said:

It is creation of attachment with thoughts.

What would you say your experience of this moment is? How would you go about describing it? Where would you put your attention on?

[Anton Rogachevski]

@UnbornTao 

Start simply from the ground up. Have you experienced anything before you have started experiencing? To actually talk about something we have to ground it first. Before experience there was no experience, and after experience, there is no experience. Experience doesn't start, or ends, it appears infinite to itself.

"humans or sentient beings" is secondary to experience, these are ideas arising within it, and could never occur without it.

I can see what you mean though. If I imagine earth 4.5 billions of years ago when we were all the same floating space dust, this very dust eventually grew conscious somehow, and that's truly when experience (in a basic form) started, at least here on earth.

This thought is very powerful for me, because that cloud of dust is you and me and everyone else - there is unity in that sense, and it's pretty cool.

Edited Wednesday at 02:09 AM by Anton Rogachevski

[Anton Rogachevski]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

we don't know what Being is

Yep exactly. It cannot by definition be an object of knowledge, as knowledge is second order, but being is first order.

Edited Tuesday at 05:41 PM by Anton Rogachevski

[James123]

25 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

What would you say your experience of this moment is?

I am writing to you. 

 

26 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Where would you put your attention on?

All there is, is this Moment. Therefore, attention can not be put anywhere, except the present moment.

28 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

How would you go about describing it?

What do you mean?