The Curiosity of Having No Head: Another Reason to Meditate

You may have a new year’s resolution to meditate. Here’s hoping I can add some fuel to your fire.

The typical arguments to convince you to meditate are that it offers some benefit like stress reduction. Many of these benefits are even validated in academic studies.

However, while most people might agree meditation is good for you, they still find it hard to keep up, much like working out or eating healthy.

Meditating as a science experiment

There’s another perspective you could take on meditation. Treat it like a science experiment. You do science experiments out of curiosity, to see what’s true and what’s not.

For me, this science experiment approach taps into the powerful driver of curiosity. And that may be helpful for making it a habit. Curiosity can be much more sustaining than looking for a temporary benefit.

The first person is so close, it’s easy to overlook

So what is there to be curious about? One place to start is:

“Who or what am I?”

It’s a foundational question. All your experiences, thoughts, goals, emotions are built on you. So how do you get to understand this “you-ness”?

Douglas Harding, an English philosopher, called this type of investigation the “Science of the First Person”. Meditation does not have to be about achieving some state, it can just be to honestly look at your first person experience.

I’ve heard that the Tibetan word for meditation means “to familiarize”. So what you are meditating on might not be far away or even difficult to see. If it wasn’t already there it would be external to you and therefore not your first person.

Your first experiment: Do you have a head?

One of my favorite experiments from Douglas Harding is to simply look for your head and see what you find. Here is my paraphrased version of his pointing experiment.

Do you have a head? On first reaction, of course I have a head. I’ve seen it in the mirror, I touch it and feel it with my hands.

Let’s take a fresh look. As you follow the prompts below try to suspend your disbelief. Look at things as they appear to you on present evidence. Don’t add what you remember or imagine anything. Don’t impose what you think should be there. Treat it like if you were a newborn, or an alien suddenly dropped into the present experience of yourself:

1. Extend your hand and point at something in the room or space you are in. Notice how what you are pointing at is a solid, opaque thing. It has a clear color, shape and boundaries.
2. Now point at the ground. Again, notice it’s solidity and some coloration.
3. Now point at your foot. Notice how it’s a solid thing out there with color and boundaries.
4. Now bring your finger up to point at your torso. It to is another thing in your visual field. Perhaps it seems very wide as you look down on it.
5. Now bring your finger up to point at the space you are looking out of.

Pointing at where you are looking out of

On present evidence, without imagination, memory or thinking what should be there, answer the following questions:

• In your experience do you see a face? Can you find eyes, an ear, a nose? Is there any “thing” at your center you can point to?
• On present evidence, what color is what you are pointing at?
• On present evidence, what shape is it? Does it even have a shape?
• On present evidence, is it opaque or totally clear?
• On present evidence, how big is this thing? Can you detect any boundaries?

My experience (for you to validate)

Here is my experience, which you must confirm for yourself by doing the experiment. You are the only authority on your experience.

I find that when I point to where my head should be I find no-thing at all:

• As I bring my finger up past my upper torso my body disappears. What I am pointing at has no face, no eyes, nose, or mouth that I would expect to find on a head. I do not find any “thing” where my head should be. I find that rather than pointing at a thing I pointing at a vast capacity for the scene.
• What I am pointing at it is completely colorless. I see colors out there on things, but what I am pointing at has no color. It’s colorless-ness allows colors out there to come through.
• It is transparent. What I am pointing at is totally transparent. It makes room for the scene without imposing any sort of hindrance of its own. Things out there are opaque, here it is completely open.
• It has no shape. It is a vast scene with fuzzy edges that fade to oblivion. Only things out there have a shape.
• I can’t find any boundaries here. It has nothing to keep the scene out. I am not separate from the scene. The scene is in me. There is nothing I could even use to keep it out.

Note: Try the video version of this same experiment as taught by Richard Lang if my instructions were unclear

OK I don’t see my head, so what?

To all this you may say “so what?”

For me this was a glimpse into seeing that at my center I am something different than what I’d taken for granted. So much around me reinforces the idea that I am a solid, separate person. While this is a useful concept to function in this world, it does not match the experience I have in my first person. Instead of being a lumpy human, my experience is one of a vast open space that contains the whole scene. There’s no limited head to contain it. I am something very different than what I had assumed myself to be.

Congratulations you’ve done your first first-person experiment!

Meditation is just honestly looking at your experience and seeing what you find. This type of looking can help dispel some wrong ideas and bring you closer to reality.

Ways to continue your experimenting

1. Try out more of Douglas Harding’s multitude of first person experiments as taught by Richard Lang. Also visit Headless.org
2. The Joy of Living Course by Mingyur Rinpoche is a very straightforward and friendly way to learn meditation.
3. Waking Up by Sam Harris helps you further explore your space in many other ways.
4. Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka is taught via no-cost 10 day residential meditation courses. This ancient technique focuses on morality, concentration and insight.