KlausKommoss
Open space
A dry lake somewhere in Nevada.
When you walk at this place and look around you feel as if you were walking on a conveyer belt or on one of these fitness-walking machines where you hold on to some kind of handle and just go through the motions of walking without really progressing. The ground is so homogenous and featureless that there is really nothing there, around you, that would change or move while you are walking and that could give you an impression of your own motion. The mountains, toward which motion could be perceived, are too far away. It feels like walking to the body, but you don’t get any sensual feedback of progress, the mind misses the expected visual confirmation of things around changing, that you actually cover ground. Nothing changes, not even slowly, you can walk for 15 minutes and everything looks exactly the same. It’s like in a dream when you try so hard to run but don’t move.
Once reason forces the mind to accept that there must be motion, it actually comes up with the sensation that the ground is moving instead, backwards, and I’m completely still, just my legs paddling and pushing the ground backwards. Not bad! What’s the difference? So I walk and make the world turn under me. Wouldn’t make much difference, would it? How do I know that this is not what’s really going on?
Ah, yes, that’s where my discriminating intellect comes in, the “experience processor” that saves us so often from getting undone or – what we so often forget – prevents us from seeing the truth!
At night a new moon illuminates the scene, just enough to see the mountains. But now, when I walk, I really get dizzy, the deceiving sensation of walking without moving is chillingly convincing. The wind stops at night, no sounds; it is so quiet that again the mind protests. It comes up with all kinds of objections, aversions, and fears. I hear my heart pounding, blood rushing, monstrous, strange sounds. “How can all this work without my control?” says mind and is confused. And then I even hear things that clearly are unreal: scary ringing gongs, piercing beeps and roaring surf. I need to stay with the irritation for a long time until I gradually manage to let it all be whatever it is without interpreting it. Have I ever experienced such enormous cosmic silence of open space? Even the concept of sound becomes uncertain, somehow, and dissolves. A completely new experience arises: not the lack of hearing something, but the sensation of hearing silence. It takes a long time before the mind gives up its expectations and objections and starts to believe this emptiness.
Much later, when the moon is gone and a thick overcast has developed that holds back even the starlight, I walk away from the motor home into the complete darkness. Now there is absolutely nothing to see anymore – it doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or closed – nothing to hear, nothing to touch, nothing to react on, nothing to work with, nothing to change. Awesome! – Nothing to find awesome. I feel a sensation of panic arise.
Imagine such a place: the ultimate model for the unobstructed freedom to go nowhere – you step out of your camper, spin around a few times, and start walking in an arbitrary direction. And you keep walking, for 20 minutes if you like, because – you have seen, it’s obvious – you can be absolutely certain that you cannot bump into anything wherever you go (unless you run into the van after two steps). It’s amazing how the mind gets alarmed and doesn’t quite believe it, in spite of the indisputable knowledge of no danger, how you stumble and how drastically you actually deviate from a strait line soon. You don’t walk blindly, your eyes are wide open, but there is nothing to see. You want feedback, you crave for news, you insist on information, but there is absolutely nothing happening outside.
Open space
A dry lake somewhere in Nevada.
When you walk at this place and look around you feel as if you were walking on a conveyer belt or on one of these fitness-walking machines where you hold on to some kind of handle and just go through the motions of walking without really progressing. The ground is so homogenous and featureless that there is really nothing there, around you, that would change or move while you are walking and that could give you an impression of your own motion. The mountains, toward which motion could be perceived, are too far away. It feels like walking to the body, but you don’t get any sensual feedback of progress, the mind misses the expected visual confirmation of things around changing, that you actually cover ground. Nothing changes, not even slowly, you can walk for 15 minutes and everything looks exactly the same. It’s like in a dream when you try so hard to run but don’t move.
Once reason forces the mind to accept that there must be motion, it actually comes up with the sensation that the ground is moving instead, backwards, and I’m completely still, just my legs paddling and pushing the ground backwards. Not bad! What’s the difference? So I walk and make the world turn under me. Wouldn’t make much difference, would it? How do I know that this is not what’s really going on?
Ah, yes, that’s where my discriminating intellect comes in, the “experience processor” that saves us so often from getting undone or – what we so often forget – prevents us from seeing the truth!
At night a new moon illuminates the scene, just enough to see the mountains. But now, when I walk, I really get dizzy, the deceiving sensation of walking without moving is chillingly convincing. The wind stops at night, no sounds; it is so quiet that again the mind protests. It comes up with all kinds of objections, aversions, and fears. I hear my heart pounding, blood rushing, monstrous, strange sounds. “How can all this work without my control?” says mind and is confused. And then I even hear things that clearly are unreal: scary ringing gongs, piercing beeps and roaring surf. I need to stay with the irritation for a long time until I gradually manage to let it all be whatever it is without interpreting it. Have I ever experienced such enormous cosmic silence of open space? Even the concept of sound becomes uncertain, somehow, and dissolves. A completely new experience arises: not the lack of hearing something, but the sensation of hearing silence. It takes a long time before the mind gives up its expectations and objections and starts to believe this emptiness.
Much later, when the moon is gone and a thick overcast has developed that holds back even the starlight, I walk away from the motor home into the complete darkness. Now there is absolutely nothing to see anymore – it doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or closed – nothing to hear, nothing to touch, nothing to react on, nothing to work with, nothing to change. Awesome! – Nothing to find awesome. I feel a sensation of panic arise.
Imagine such a place: the ultimate model for the unobstructed freedom to go nowhere – you step out of your camper, spin around a few times, and start walking in an arbitrary direction. And you keep walking, for 20 minutes if you like, because – you have seen, it’s obvious – you can be absolutely certain that you cannot bump into anything wherever you go (unless you run into the van after two steps). It’s amazing how the mind gets alarmed and doesn’t quite believe it, in spite of the indisputable knowledge of no danger, how you stumble and how drastically you actually deviate from a strait line soon. You don’t walk blindly, your eyes are wide open, but there is nothing to see. You want feedback, you crave for news, you insist on information, but there is absolutely nothing happening outside.