Reminded

     While trying to post a comment on another blog, Blogger signed me into my account.  I had forgotten about The Whole Scratch...  I quite disagree with what I have asserted below, so I will do my best to share my most recent explanations of my experience.

     Reality lacks any inherent essence, as do I.  I have no "me."  It cannot be in my body or in my mind because nothing in my body or in my mind is static.  If anyone can find an essence, self, or soul that isn't constantly shifting, please do let me know.  It would clear some things up.
    
     To demonstrate what I mean about any object's lack of essence, think of a rock.  You might look at it, but you aren't seeing a rock.  All you can really "see" is light.  You cannot feel a rock, just pressure and texture.  You can taste sweetness, saltiness, whatever... but none of your senses can actually perceive the rock.  In fact, there is no rock.  There is an object there, but it has no fixed rock-ness.  The part that labels it a "rock" comes from the perceiver, not the perceived.  You put your observations together and, based on all other similar experiences, you say that is a rock.  But, basically, you are just making shit up.

     When this idea first became clear to me, I found it terribly depressing.  It is sort of ironic, to be upset because nothing matters.  But I have come to see that it does matter.  Because things lack their own inborn meaning, it is up to me to create the meaning that is most useful and beneficial to me.  I am not a victim of or even subject to how the world IS.  Truly, the world I live in is nothing but my own mind.  Creepy.

     What I mean is that there is some sort of objective world out there, I concede, but any living thing I have ever met is unable to directly experience it.  We are limited by our senses.  I can only experience the world through sights, sounds, tastes, scents, touch sensations and thoughts/emotions.  Clearly I am missing something to get a clear picture of what is actually out there!  These imperfect instruments of perception are my only tool with which to gather data about the world I am in.  I cannot have any experiences except that which passes through these sensual gates.

      So, then, doesn't it follow that all I experience all the time is my own mind?  There is no "me," but there is also nothing but "me" everywhere I look.

:)