We all have this strange, fascinating thing we carry around, which is the body. And every time we look at the body, every time I move my arm, every time I touch, every time I look and take this glass, this gesture—and it is only within the realm of the bonding experience that this happens, that you have two irreducible facts together, inseparably together. On the one hand, there is the motion of the arm. There is all of the external description that I can do of how this is done. At the same time, and also as part of the data that phenomena is proposing to me, I have my experience of seeing the glass and drinking it. Again, all I’m saying is that these two sets of data need to go together, and they are irreducible.
What is now? How do you experience right now? What is the nature of that experience?
You can say: “Oh yes, I understand. My self is just an association of stories that I’m telling myself.” And you can have a very elaborate theory about how your self is a composite entity. Many scientists do. In fact, lots of people who write upon consciousness do. That’s not the point. The point is: why is it that we’ll continue to behave as if we had a very solid reference and a very solid fixed point of view to defend, to maintain, to sustain, to distinguish, and to create—in the ultimate analysis—a whole bunch of trouble for those around us?
I personally see absolutely no problem, or no conflict, between science and spirituality because, in fact, we’re talking about the same thing. We’re talking about what is contained in the nature of experience.
We do have a self. I’m Francisco. Hi. How are you? I have no problem with that. Nobody is trying to convince anybody you don’t exist. The question is: what is the nature of that existence? We have a mode of existence that deserves a really precise answer. And what the examination and phenomenological analysis yields, at the first level, is something quite simple. That is that this composite—first of all, it is a composite, but we can also deduce that even from science. And second, that it is not findable. As Dalai Lama says: you cannot put your finger on it.
