Two Worlds of Experience

In Wake up to you Life, Ken describes it thusly on page 379, "Experience is a mystery... The names we give to objects are not the experience of the object, whether it be a thought, feeling or sensation.Language abbreviates and condenses experience for the purpose of communication. Because connection is a basic human need, we readily forget or neglect the world of our own experience (limited and conditioned by habituated patterns) and take the world defined by communication, the world apparently shared, as what is real."

Two Worlds of Experience (HSW03) (from Heart Sutra Workshop03 00:33:56.1 - 00:42:36.6)

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Now whether you do it with a table or a chair or a chariot, which is a very traditional thing, you know--a glass, a cup--things seem solid. You know a book (Ken bangs the book on a table) seems solid. But we have to be careful here, because Buddhism is not talking about the world of things.

We have two worlds: The world I think I experience and the world I actually experience.

The world of objects, careers, family, responsibilities is this the world I actually experience or the world I think I experience?

How many vote for think? How many vote for actual?

Student: Do we have a choice? (Great laughter) We picked a winner.

Ken: If you think that's practicing the middle way, think again. (giggling)

The sensations, thoughts and feelings I talked about earlier--are they the world you actually experience or the world you think you experience?

Student: Closer to actual.

Ken: Yeah. In the world that we actually experience there are only three things: sensations, thoughts and feelings. That's it! There isn't any drum, there isn't any bell, there isn't any paper. There isn't any paper--there's white, rectangle, seeing. This is what the Sarvastivadins were getting at with their dharmas.

The world that we think we experience is a shorthand which we use to communicate. There is a very interesting difference between these two worlds.

I know this is California and we talk about sharing experience, right? So anybody have a good lunch today?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: What'd you have for lunch?

Student: Falafel.

Ken: Falafel, I'm not going to ask you to share that experience, I hate falafel. (Laughter) Anybody else? Who had a good lunch? (giggling)

Student: I had salad.

Ken: Oh, very nice. What kind of salad?

Student: Greens and tomato and avocado and walnuts.

Ken: Sounds good what kind of dressing?

Student: Like a Chinese chicken salad.

Ken: Oh, excellent. Did you enjoy it?

Student: Very much.

Ken: Could you share that experience with me, please?

Student: I don't think so.

Ken: Are you being selfish?

Student: No.

Ken: Why do you say I don't think so?

Student: Because it happened already.

Ken: Well, can you recall it?

Student: Oh, okay, you want me to share the product I experienced?

Ken: Well, do you have a memory of it?

Student: I do.

Ken: And when you have that memory can you sort of feel the textures and the tastes and all of that?

Student: Exactly.

Ken: Could you share that experience with me?

Student: I could try.

Ken: Please. I mean I had a salad but I didn't have that salad. I didn't have the walnuts.

Student: Would you like words about my experience?

Ken: No, I want to share the experience. I'm not interested in words. I want the experience.

Student: I can share with you tomorrow. (Laughter)

Ken: How would you do that?

Student: I would make you a salad.

Ken: Oh, so now we're going to eat out of the same salad? This is getting a little intimate but we'll go with it.

Student: Out of the same large salad.

Ken: Yeah, yeah, okay. Two separate plates here, you know we're not cohabiting yet. (giggles) So when I eat that salad I will have an experience and you're going to have an experience. I want to share your experience! I know my experience but I want to share yours.

Student: I'll...that same one.

Ken: Well, are you going to share it or not?

Student: If I could I would!

Ken: What do you mean if you could?

Student: My experience is going to be different experience from yours. My experience--you won't be able to experience the same thing.

Ken: I can't experience your experience?

Student: No.

Ken: You can't share your experience?

Student: No.

Ken: Is this because you're being selfish?

Student: No.

Ken: Well I don't understand. How did this phrase, "share experience", come about if you can't share experience? I mean I moved to California because I heard that everybody (laughter) shared experiences. And now you're telling me I was lied to. (greater laughter) Is that right?

Student: Yes.

Ken: So in this world there's no possibility of sharing experience?

Student: No.

Ken: Wow! Okay forget about sharing, can I buy it?

Student: No matter what you pay you will not experience what I experience.

Ken: Wow! So no buying, no trading, no exchange, no sharing, none of that stuff! It's interesting isn't it? In this world there is no form of exchange possible. Your experience is your experience and that's it.

In this world, we buy and trade and exchange all over the place.But in this world, it's not possible at all. This is the world that Buddhism is talking about and that's often not understood.

There is experiencing and experienced

One of the hardest parts about my practice is recognizing when I've divided the experience from just experiencing it... into an experienced moment. Instead of just be aware and in the moment, I bring other "stuff" into it. As Ken describes that action, I have appropriated the experience. Thus I changed what is, into what my conditioning has dulled me into believing is real. Ken calls this the dead world.

Experiencing and experienced (from Heart Sutra Workshop03-HSW03 00:13:44.5 - 00:19:59.5)

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Any other questions? From this morning, Speak now or forever hold your peace, because I'll launch into bunch another of stuff. Yes?
Just hold for the mic, for a moment.

Student: Yeah, I'm not sure I really completely understood your pencil example about the eraser and the missing the middle and if you could maybe give a different turn at that?

Ken: Okay. You have the experience of seeing this, right? Seeing this piece of paper is something you experience. What's the experience made of?

Student: Sight, physical sensations in my body, thoughts.

Ken: No the physical sensations those are other experiences, what's the experience of seeing this piece of paper made of? Do you want me to make it a little bit easier?
What is a thought made of?

Student: I don't know if it is made out of this but there's supposed to be an energetic charge that (inaudible)

Ken: Yeah, certain thoughts. Definitely, but what's the thought made of?

Student: Memory?

Ken: Well, that just leads me to ask what's a memory made of. It doesn't get us anywhere. It's very interesting you know...how often do you wrestle with thoughts in your meditation? You can't even tell me what they're made of? Strange isn't it? So, what experiences a thought?

Student: Intellectual images.

Ken: Intellectual images experiences the thought? No, I'd say that is the experience of the thought. That isn't what experiences the thought. What experience the thought? It's a little difficult to say, isn't it?

Student: The mind that thinks it's the experience, the mind...

Ken: The mind, yeah okay. I've heard rumors about that. What's the mind made of?
(Silence)

Student: It's thinking stuff.

Ken: I like that (laughter), I'd say the same thing: "It's thinking stuff". You know, we can say that the thought is made of stuff. So what's the relationship between what the thought is made of and what the mind is made of? Do you have two different kinds of stuff or is it the same stuff? You say?

Student: Same.

Ken: Same, how many of you vote for same? Can't say what it is but there it is. Experience arises...in each moment of experience, there is experiencing and experienced. Because of our conditioning, we appropriate the experiencing to ourselves and thus relegating experienced to object.

Touch the back of your hand with your finger, there's a sensation there, right? Do you feel it in the back of your hand or in the finger?

Student: Can't say.

Ken: Just so. It's exactly like that. We make this division but actually there's just the experience. The awareness aspect we appropriate for ourselves thus we experience a dead world. In which there is no awareness, because we have appropriated the experience of awareness to ourselves.