Simple Experiments to See Reality as It Is

22 investigations into your direct experience

Vineyard in Bosnia - photo by yours truly

Whoa, hey now! Seeing reality as it is implies there’s an objective reality to be seen. That’s not what I mean here.

So, let’s first clarify a few things: I’m not trying to make an ontological argument here; forget the philosophy for a moment; by reality, I mean your experience — the only reality you have access to.

This isn’t about subjective versus objective or right versus wrong. This is about taking a look and seeing what is actually given in your direct experience, regardless of what you think about it. Though it might be technically more accurate to say we’re doing subjective exploration because “objective” implies experience-independent, which isn’t on the table.

There are conclusions about experience/reality that we haven’t reached after careful deliberation, and that we habitually confuse for reality, and that thus influence the quality of our experience. For example, few have considered the issue and concluded: I am a ghost-like being in a fleshy machine interacting with a world separate from me. And yet, virtually everyone believes that by default. And, as you are well aware, this belief entangles you in a tight emotional mess of fear, shame, guilt, anger, pride, etc.

These conclusions hide in every aspect of your experience, and the following experiments expose those hiding spots.

By doing them, you become the scientist of your own experience (though investigating your experience is an art as much as a science). I’ll try to avoid telling you what you’ll find, though at some turns I might be unable to help myself.

Many of these experiments conclude in not finding what I’m asking you to find. You’re free to believe that whatever isn’t in your direct experience is still somewhere outside beyond your reach, but what we’re doing here is discovering what is and isn’t given in direct experience.

You’re not asked to believe anything.

Please hold off on arguing yourself out of your own experience. This happens all too often — people never sincerely engaging with inquiry and contemplation because they already know what they’ll find; they’ve got the conclusions from someone else. It’s like saying I won’t order any food because I’ve seen the pictures and I can imagine what it tastes like.

Some people are great at arguing about the menu, too great for their own good, and make excellent points, but they’re starving. Being too clever with this stuff can trip you up.

Don’t starve at an open buffet.

The following is a buffet of experiments. You don’t need all of them, and you certainly don’t have to do them all in one sitting, but you can try all of them and see which one works. Sometimes doing an experiment once is enough; sometimes it’s more like an acid bath — repeat until dissolved. If something doesn’t do anything for you, drop it and move on.

How do you know something works for you? Simple: you’ll know.

Before doing any of these experiments, it’s useful to take a few deep breaths, clear your mind, and give it your undivided attention. Whenever you reach the end of one of these inquiries, don’t rush into the next one; rest there for a moment.

1.

Put your attention on each sense in succession. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting. Just spend a few moments enjoying each sense. Notice how these senses make up your world. You might be convinced that the senses allow you to perceive the world and aren’t actually the world, but that’s only conjecture. Just try to separate your sense experience of the world from the world. I mean it: try it.

2.

The common way of thinking about our experience is that I am the experiencer experiencing something. What we’ll do now is look for each component of this trifecta, and the point where one stops and another begins.

Let’s begin with hearing. Listen to any sound that is present, preferably a consistent background hum, like your fridge or the tortured screams of the damned. As you listen to this sound, try to find a clear demarcation between the hearer (you), the sound, and the hearing of it. Isolate each element, if you can.

Now do the same experiment for the other senses. Is there a seer, seeing, and seen? Is there a feeler, feeling, and felt?

3.

Pay attention to each sense in succession. Cycle through them a couple of times. Then notice the common denominator of all senses.

4.

Be aware of everything in your visual field; note every element and then be aware of the visual field as a whole. Be aware of everything in your auditory field; note every sound, including the most “faraway” sounds, and then be aware of the auditory field as a whole. Be aware of everything in your felt sense; scan your experience from bottom to top and top to bottom and note every feeling, and then be aware of the felt experience as a whole.

Finally, be aware of your sense experience as a whole. It can help to frame it as “relaxing your attention” so that it can hold all these sense fields simultaneously. In essence, be aware of everything you can be aware of, including the ‘aware’ itself.

5.

Sit down and look straight ahead. Without moving your head or your eyes, move your attention to the periphery of your visual field. First, left and right. Then, top and bottom. Become aware of the shape and size of the visual field. Notice how there might be objects at various distances. Now, without consulting thoughts about it, does the visual field come with labels such as “far,” “close,” “small,” “big” attached to anything?

6.

While you’re already sitting and looking straight ahead, I want you to look for space. The idea of an independently existing space is the basis for an independently existing world. So please find this space now.

Whatever you’re looking at right now, is there space between you and whatever you’re looking at? Or is it just… there, appearing as part of the visual field?

Space implies depth. Try the following: see if you can see without adding depth to the visual field. Imagine you could take a photo of exactly what you’re seeing with your eyes. You print the photo, and it perfectly resembles the scene you’re seeing; you know the photo has no actual depth. So, without consulting thoughts, how’s the photo different from the scene you’re looking at?

7.

Pick an object, let’s say a cup, and put it in front of you. Focus on it intently and try really seeing it. See what the cup’s made up of in the visual sense. Usually, we would say it’s made up of ceramics, painted blue, etc., but here I want you to forget the cup’s history. Forget that it’s called a cup. Look at the cup like a baby would before she learned the word.

Now you might say it’s made up of shapes, textures, colors, light, and shade. Simplify! What are shapes, textures, light, and shade, but colors arranged in a specific way?

This isn’t to reify color, but to break “cup” down into one unavoidable element. Is there anything else to the seeing of a cup besides color? If your cup were in front of a perfectly white wall and the cup changed to match the wall’s color, could you still see the cup?

The main question is this: can you differentiate between seeing and the presence of color?

8.

Touch the table in front of you. Notice what it feels like. It probably feels hard. Now close your eyes and keep touching the table. This might be like saying don’t think of a monkey eating a banana, but try to drop the concept “table.”

What’s present now is a feeling of hardness. But that implies there could be a feeling without hardness. In other words, it implies feeling can exist without the felt quality. Is that so? Try to separate the feeling from the hardness.

9.

You might believe you are a body moving through the world. Try this: go on a walk and become aware of the visual field as a whole. Notice the slight wobble of the field. Notice the scenery (i.e., colors) changing. Could it be that instead of you moving along the scenery, the scenery is moving through you?

10.

Focus on seeing. What is it? What is seeing made of? Same for hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. Without consulting thoughts, what is it? Pay attention to your thoughts. What is a thought made of? In your direct experience, what is any of it? Really try to find the essence.

11.

Without consulting thoughts, is blue closer to green than it is to the song of a bird?

12.

We assume thinking originates in our head. Is there proof for that in your direct experience? Focus on thinking and see where it arises from. Does it arise from your head? You might notice that when you focus on thinking, you’re automatically including a “head-sensation.” Is that proof that thinking arises in your head?

Try this: think while paying attention to a “gut-sensation.” Then try the same with a “foot-sensation.”

13.

Think of something uncomfortable. Try to find a topic your mind tends to navigate around. It might be a past embarrassment or regret, or it might be something you fear will happen in the future.

Whatever it is, let the thinking begin, and then drop it as fast as possible. It’s probably pretty easy to drop it right after it arose. Now pick the thought back up and let it run a little longer. Pay close attention to how it seems to develop its own momentum. Then drop it again. Still easy? Or a bit harder?

See thoughts as an invitation. If you’re invited to a party and party sounds good, you accept the invite. If you’re invited to take part in a bank heist but your favorite balaclava is in the laundry, you decline the invite.

When you see thoughts as invitations and not something you’re forced to take part in or identify with, do they feel different?

14.

We take the mind for granted. We believe there’s an actual container or source for thoughts. Can you find such a container or source? Is there an actual mind, or is there simply thinking?

15.

Emotions. Pesky fellows. Rarely quite how we would like them. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you there are good and bad emotions. The good emotions feel good, and the bad emotions feel bad. Duh. But let’s take a closer look at that. What exactly makes an emotion good versus bad? Why is joy good and shame bad?

Notice how you feel right now. There’s most likely some emotion moving through. Would you label it good or bad? What experiential quality tips the scale? Zoom in on the emotion and, like in the previous experiment, find out what it’s made of. And then try and see where good and bad factor in.

It’s useful to do this with every kind of emotion. You don’t have to force yourself to feel anything right now. Just investigate whenever an emotion arises.

16.

Time’s ticking. At least, it seems so. Many of us run around with a sense of urgency that translates into anxiety. Some even encourage us to develop a sense of urgency. But what is time in your direct experience? Time is what we call the duration of an appearance, which isn’t a problem. But what about psychological time — the idea that I am a being moving along a linear timeline?

First, something simple: find the past and the future in your direct experience. Memories aren’t the past or the future. Thoughts might be very convincing in claiming that the past has really happened and the future will really happen, but without consulting thoughts, where is the past and where is the future?

Next, try to find time in your direct experience. The actual “thing” called time. You might point at a withering flower as proof of time’s effect, but where is time itself? If time is only inferred based on your experience, what is time without it?

17.

Speaking of time, we’re having a moment right now, don’t we? And now we’re having another one, right? It seems as if life is a series of moments stitched together by time, but is that so?

Try to find the exact point where one moment ends, and another begins. In your experience, is there a clear separation between moments, and are there actually multiple moments?

18.

The belief that there’s an I or me to whom experience happens and who’s more or less in control of things is one of the foundational beliefs that influences the quality of our experience (e.g., I judge myself for not being better, smarter, more disciplined, and feel bad about it). But what proof is there for this I or me?

Repeat the thought ‘I’ or ‘me’ a couple of times and then look for what it actually refers to. Where and what in your direct experience is this I or me? You might notice attention going to your head or heart or gut — is this sensation I?

If you’re convinced that “I am thinking,” see how you’re doing it. And if you’re doing it, can you not do it? Can you stop your thoughts for a day or two? Can you predict your next thought? Can you control which thoughts arise?

Same with feeling. Are you feeling? Can you stop feeling? Can you control which feelings arise?

Are you making decisions? Have you chosen the preferences that go into making decisions? Can you decide not to decide?

19.

We believe without us actively pushing the river, nothing happens in our lives.

When you have some free time, sit down on the couch, and do nothing. Whenever a thought appears saying you should do something, don’t. Don’t engage in any premeditated activity. Wait until the body moves on its own, without you having to convince it.

20.

Perhaps you’re already convinced there’s no separate individual self. But now you might have adopted a subtle belief in ‘no self’. Try to find a no self (or what you think might be the opposite to a self).

21.

Most of the experiments here depend upon something we’ve called looking. So when I asked you to look for an I or a me, you might object and say that I can’t find myself because I am the one who’s looking.

Do any experiment again, but see if you can notice what this ‘looking’ is. Can you turn the looking back on itself? Is the looking an I or me or self? Note any label that might arise. If you say you’re aware of the looking, then see if you can turn the aware back on itself.

22.

The main concept I’ve mentioned multiple times is your direct experience. This implies that direct experience is something you possess. Look for the ownership aspect. What exactly is it that makes this experience yours versus not yours?

Whew! After having partaken in this investigation of your direct experience, chances are something feels different. Even if not, you might’ve opened up for a different way of seeing, looking, experiencing. And I bet you’ll notice how these inquiries will start happening on their own, and then something unexpected might occur.

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