Inés Aponte and the Direct Path

Introduction

  Inés Aponte wrote to me a while back about an art project she had in mind. It was inspired by her meditative experience, which in turn was based on my work in nondual spirituality. I’ll say more about “nondual spirituality” below, but for now, let me say that Ines’s art enacts a deep, unitive understanding of the nondual nature of the world. At the same time, it revolutionizes our experience of the body and its surroundings. Ines accomplishes all this without being literal or clichéd, and without trying to draw pictures of abstract concepts like “oneness,” “infinity” or “enlightenment.

  The work on “nondual spiritualty” can be found in a series of books and videos about how our usual disjointed view of the world doesn’t stand up to close examination.¹ The work is known by the tag “direct path,” and offers a modern take on the ancient Indian teaching called Advaita Vedanta.

  Our usual view of the world, which is reinforced by centuries of Western philosophy right up to the teachings we receive in school, is that the world is “out there” and we are somehow “in here.” According to this dualistic view, each of us is locked in a separate container. The result is scary and bleak. Since we are supposedly separate from the world as well as from each other, we feel finite, alone, vulnerable and anxious.

  But when we look closely, we find something much different. The separateness we assume to be inherent is nowhere in evidence. We find a sweet wholeness, devoid of separation.

  The direct path isn’t primarily about art, but its meditations and insights do foster artistic creativity. Students have reported increased facility with poetry, creative writing, sculpture, pottery, music and drawing.                 

No Separation–An Example

   The quick way to experience the lack of separation is to examine something we normally assume is separate. Let’s investigate something we feel is really separate: a physical object. Let’s look at a simple piece of fruit, like an orange. I’ll imagine that we have an orange on the table in front of us.

  Then we think about an orange, we usually assume that the orange is out there in the world. We feel that its existence is objective, which would mean that it is really there, independent of any ideas or sensations that we may have of it. We may see it or we may not, but it is there anyway.  Is possible observers of the orange, we feel that we are a kind of vantage point inside the body or the mind. We may have a theory picked up from school: that our experience of the orange depends on vibrations or information being transmitted by the orange through space to us. After we receive the information, it is then interpreted by our brain to form a representative image of the orange. We assume that the orange causes the vibrations, and we’re also pretty sure that even without our observation, the orange is there on the table regardless. When we see the orange, we assume that it’s the momentary pairing of “seer and seen.”

  So let’s take a closer look. Let’s see if our experience can verify any of this. I’ll imagine that we are investigating an orange sitting on a brown table. We’ll proceed by working with one sense at a time. Let’s start with vision and ignore any sounds or tastes or tactile sensations. And later, we will review how the insights apply to the sense of touch. Let’s keep to our direct visual experience. In doing so, we’ll also ignore any mental storylines that might try to intervene with conventional explanations of what is going on. 

So let’s begin: Observations

  • Looking at the orange, notice that we do not see a separate observer. There is no visual evidence that anything is looking at anything else. There is no visual evidence of a “seer” and a “seen.”

  • Going by visual evidence alone, notice that we distinguish the “orange” from the “table” by means of color. There are different colors occurring. But there is no experience of visual information other than color.

  • Notice that there is no experience of a physical orange that is separate or apart from the orange color. It’s not like we experience (a) seeing an orange color, and also (b) seeing an orange.

  • Notice that there is no visual evidence that this color has a label or is called “O R A N G E.”

  • Notice that the orange color appears, but we have no visual evidence that this color is caused by an independently existing orange. There might be a thought or a storyline suggesting that the color is caused by an underlying physical object, but in our visual investigation there is no evidence of any such causation.

  • This one may be more challenging. Notice that there is no visual evidence that the orange color is closer than the brown color. We normally think that the orange is a little bit closer to the physical observer than the place on the table it is sitting on. But there is no visual evidence of anything like this. Not only is there no evidence of a physical observer (our first observation above), but also, the lack of a sense of closeness in our observation is just like the lack of closeness in the surface of a painting. The orange in a painting is no closer than other colors. We may associate certain colors with the idea of shadows and the idea that certain objects are in front of other objects. But “closeness” in that sense is part of a storyline contributed by the intellect. Going by visual evidence alone, we find no verification for the idea of distance.

Contemplations

  Now let’s ponder a little about what we have observed.

  • Then we think about how we didn’t see a “seer” and a “seen object,” we realize that there was no visual evidence of a person looking out at an independent object. There is no evidence of any separation there.

  • Then we think about the orange color that appeared to vision, we realize that there is no physical distance involved. That is, the observed color was not found to be at any distance from the visual experience of the color. The visual experience is holistic and intimate.

  • Think about how the arising of the orange color happens in vision. Even in a dream, if there is no visual modality, there is no experience of orange or any other color. This suggests a more subtle point, that the experience of color doesn’t occur outside the sense of vision. Color is not experienced as objective, as being “out there” waiting for vision to come into contact with it. In fact, most of the direct-path’s insights verify this point, that what we usually think is objective and separate—isn’t. It is like our very own being.

For Further Exploration

  • Think about how even vision itself may be experienced and may not be experienced. This is a point for possible further exploration. In the direct path teachings, we cultivate a kind of soft and loving global witnessing awareness that is unbroken, without separation, and beyond the person. This witnessing awareness is the core of who we are. Vision may arise and be experienced by this awareness, and it may not be.

  • If you happen to have an intuition about this global witnessing awareness, you may realize how it is present even if vision is not present. The same goes for all the other senses. The same goes for thought itself. We are present as this awareness, as presence itself, regardless of whether thought or the senses happen to arise.

Applying the Insights to the Sense of Touch

  Ines’s work is multi-modal, involving both vision and touch. We began the exploration of “no separation” with vision, because the visual sense is easy to think about. The sense of touch is harder to think about, because we lump together the tactile sensations from touch itself (such as texture) with the input from other senses (such as proprioception and kinesthesia). But with direct-path inquiry, we “divide and conquer,” looking at each sense separately.

  In our consideration of the sense of touch, we’ll look quickly at texture. Does a close look at texture establish the independence of the supposed “sense objects” from awareness? That is, do we have any direct experience that there is a so-called “touched object” out there?

  Let’s say we’re focusing on the texture of the orange. We say it’s the “texture of the orange,” but do we have direct experience of this? Do we experience the sensation coming from an external object? Let’s see. When you focus on the texture, try to do it with your eyes closed. Focus only on the texture, and not on any colors or visual images. We’ll find that the observations from the sense of touch are parallel to what we noticed earlier about vision:

  • Allowing the texture to arise, we notice that there is no direct experience of a separate observer observing the texture.

  • We notice that during the direct experience of the texture, there is no evidence of an independently existent orange that the texture belongs to.

  • We don’t experience any label that identifies this sensation as pertaining to the “O R A N G E.”

  • We don’t experience an orange causing the texture to arise.

  • We don’t experience one texture to be located “out there” in space or to be “closer” than another texture.

  • We don’t experience texture apart from the sense of touch, even in imagination or dreams.

Takeway

  If we contemplate what these observations tell us, the findings are similar to what we discovered with vision. Going by the sense of touch alone, we don’t have direct experience of a separate observer. We don’t have any evidence that the texture comes from an “external” object. We don’t have any evidence that texture itself is an external object waiting to be sensed. We don’t have any evidence that the sense of touch “touches” a texture. If we think about what happens with just the tactile sense, it’s almost like the texture arises spontaneously against the clarity of witnessing awareness. It’s the same for texture as it is for color. Further investigation would confirm these findings with every other sense, as well as thought, feeling, intuition, imagination, and other modes of experience.

  And as we will see in the Molyneux Problem section below, this is still confirmed even if we try to combine modes of experience. We simply don’t experience true separation between seer and seen or between self and world. This insight also points to the lack of separation between people. What a sweet and loving realization!

The Molyneux Problem

  The direct-path investigations show that there is no evidence that physical objects exist in an external world, waiting to be perceived. There is actually a scientific brain-teaser that aligns with these investigations. Called the “Molyneux Problem,” it is named after the 17th-century scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656–1698), who proposed the following thought-experiment.

  Suppose a man is born blind, but able to get around in the world by his other senses. Going by the sense of touch, he is able to recognize a cube and a sphere. He can tell them apart; he knows which is which. Now imagine that he becomes able to see. Going only by the sense of sight, would he be able to tell which is the cube and which is the sphere?

  We would probably answer Yes. The way we normally think about how objects exist, we think that a cube and a sphere exist independently of anyone’s senses. We feel that these objects cause vibrations that are able to communicate with our senses, whether they be vision, hearing, touch, and so forth. It really seems as though the thing is out there, letting us see it and touch it.

  If we bring these thoughts to the Molyneux Problem, we find it natural to assume that a newly sighted man would recognize the cube and the sphere visually, just as easily as he was able to recognize them through the sense of touch.

  In each case, we feel that “squareness” and “roundness” are being transmitted from the objects to our senses.

  But the experimental results have not supported these conclusions. In 1728, William Cheselden (1688–1752), an English surgeon, was the first to report on this. He published an account in which a young patient was born blind and gained the sense of sight by having his cataracts removed. Upon being able to see, the boy was not able to tell what a thing was, and couldn’t distinguish one thing from another just by the sense of sight. Since then, there have been many similar results. The evidence has not supported the conclusion that the object is really out there, and that we are seeing it and touching it.

  The Molyneux Problem actually brings up the question: “Then how can we distinguish a cube from a sphere both visually and through the sense of touch?”

  The direct path doesn’t prescribe an answer, because it doesn’t assume that we see any independent objects in the first place. But we can think about this issue in an artistic way similar to the one that Ines brings to her work: we can look upon the two senses as linked through long periods of learning and association. There is no necessary connection between the visual image and the tactile sensation. But in an artistic sense the visual cube and sphere become poetic metaphors for the tactile cube and sphere. Because of the metaphoric exchange between vision and touch, we see a certain image, and we become able to predict what we will feel with the sense of touch. It’s like combining song with lyrics.

Ines’s Project

  Based on her experiences with the direct-path experiments, Ines investigates the process known as “making art.” The result is an artistic creation that treats the body in an unprecedented way. Ines applies ink to various places on the body’s surface —over soft tissues, bones and joints. Then she marks paper with the various inked places, while focusing various sensations such as pressure, friction and the feelings of heat and coolness.

  Without trying to draw pictures or even focusing on vision, Ines produces something visual—ink marks on paper. In direct-path terms, she translates a tactile experience into a visual experience. As though reverse-engineering the Molyneux Problem, she creates an active artistic metaphor.

  We invite you to enjoy Ines’s exhibit and just maybe, experience the world in an exciting new way.

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^{1) The most basic introduction to this work would be my book Standing as Awareness, which so far has not been translated into Spanish. Amazon permalink: https://www.amazon.com/Standing-as-Awareness-Direct-Path-ebook/dp/B01CKSMGG0/}