Morning Thought
Jeffrey Angelson
If It Can’t Be Experienced… Why Study It?
I’ve heard it said:
“You can’t experience non-duality. Experience is always dualistic.”
That makes sense conceptually.
And yet… there are moments—
quiet, ordinary moments—
where the sense of separation softens or disappears.
Not an achievement.
Not something to hold.
Just… different.
In traditions like kensho, this is sometimes described as a glimpse—
a moment where the usual sense of self drops away.
So I find myself wondering…
When the self drops away, what is that?
Is that still just another “experience”?
Or is it something else entirely?
Maybe it’s not an “experience of oneness,”
but a moment where the usual division isn’t running.
At times it feels like nothing is added…
and in that, nothing is missing.
And in those moments, it’s hard to escape the sense that
we are THIS—
not separate from it, not observing it from the outside.
As if we’re all cut from the same cloth.
Not connected… but not-two to begin with.
There’s even a strange familiarity to it.
Like that line from Joe Cocker—
“What do I see when I turn out the lights…
I’m not certain, but it sure feels like me.”
Not “me” as a person…
but something undeniable.
So what are we studying?
Not to collect experiences…
not to arrive somewhere…
But perhaps to become sensitive to what is already the case.
To THIS.
Not as an idea…
but as what’s undeniably here.
So I wonder—
If it’s not something to experience…
what is it that keeps drawing us back to look?
⸻
Nothing to get… and yet something here keeps calling us to look.