by Tang Huyen

The more one leaves oneself out, the less room one occupies, and the more one leaves room for the world — including others — to enter undisturbed. In this state, one comes to perceive more clearly than one normally does.

One point of logic: you are arguing from
reality, from the point of view of reality, in the name
of reality, so you may not deny to others the same
right, namely to speak from reality, from the point of
view of reality, in the name of reality.

That said, to perceive the world without assessment
whatsoever is what Krishnamurti calls choiceless
awareness, and what the Buddha calls "In the
seen there will be just the seen".

Lots of people, especially those who are into
scientific psychology and physiology, deny that it
is possible. I have never been near there, but if
there are people who testify that they have been
there, frequently even, and the rest of what they say
seems believable (i.e., they don't seem to be crooks,
but appear very clear-minded and penetrating),
I am willing to allow room for it, even if I rarely
or never get there myself. (Such a state doesn't
create a self for one to carry around, which is what
Buddhism calls the absence of self, and means that
if one gets there, there is no self to witness it.)

Short of that, one can try to perceive the world
in as an accurate and unbiased way as possible,
whilst abstaining as much as possible to impose
oneself on it. It is still an assessment, it is still
within language and thought, but one tries to
leave oneself out as much as one can. One tries
to bracket oneself out of the picture, to the best
of one's ability.

The more one leaves oneself out, the less room
one occupies, and the more one leaves room
for the world (including others) to enter
undisturbed. (There are two elements here: the
world, including others, has room to enter, and
it enters undisturbed and without encountering
resistance.)

In this state, one comes to perceive more
clearly than one normally does. This applies to
the human world, including the inner human
world, of oneself and others. To some extent
one can perceive what is going on in others, at
least more clearly than one normally can. This
is not mind-reading, it is inference, and it applies
to mere words on the screen, which is what one
is limited to on these boards. And one can say
what one sees, inside and outside the human
world.

Now, if one perceives that way (which is still
a limited and fallible way) and says what one
perceives, others (especially those about whom
one says what one says) can react and confirm
or disconfirm what one says.

Most people who get negative feedback tend
to deny massively and frontally (and their
pyrotechnics can be spectacular, even if they
talk about no-self or God all the time), but it
does happen that some people who get negative
feedback accept it and accept it as accurate
(perhaps after some lapse of time) and thank
one for it.

In terms of human communication, especially
as it is limited to mere words on the screen
and involves people around the globe whose
native languages and cultures are different,
that is about as good as one can hope for,
considering human foibles of everybody
around. Hey, it works!

It is true that some people have a high degree
of intrapersonal and interpersonal perceptivity
without having to learn it or develop it.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on June 28, 2004. Author: Tang Huyen (Laughing Buddha, Inc.). Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen was a scholar of Buddhist studies with deep command of Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan sources. This post distinguishes two levels of non-assessmental perception: the radical state of choiceless awareness (Krishnamurti) or "in the seen just the seen" (Udāna 1.10 / Khandha Samyutta), where no self is present to witness, and the more reachable practice of consciously leaving oneself out of the picture — still within language and inference, but progressively less self-imposed. Tang Huyen's central image — that reducing one's own room increases the room available to the world — is both practically concrete and meditatively exact. The post applies this not just to formal meditation but to interpersonal perception, including the possibility of seeing clearly into others through mere words on a screen.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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