The Habit of Looking ‘Out There’
Vic Shayne author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering
Perhaps one of the most problematic habits when it comes to trying to figure out what we really are beyond the ego-self is the habit of attending to what is “out there” in the world where all the action takes place. Even when we believe we are attending to what is “in here” within our minds, we are usually still paying attention to thoughts or phenomena.
Anything that is impermanent is not what we truly are, including what we see, sense, think, experience, imagine, and even meditate upon. And when we make an object out of something, that something is not who we are.
The only thing that is not outside is the interminable emptiness that has no form, shape, structure, thought, and change, because this emptiness is not related to space, thought, or time.
I can think of no better method of directly experiencing the difference between inner and outer than Douglas Harding’s headless way “pointing experiment.” I have written about this elsewhere, so I won’t repeat how it works. You can see for yourself by watching the video below.
