Our feeling body does not have the shape and appearance of the physical body that our senses or fixed perceptions would have us believe. Our senses have produced a body that ages and dies. Yet the sensation of the body never ages, never dies. And although sensation may alter in frequency between pain and wellbeing, it is never absent. This body of indeterminate sensation is the ground of our psychic existence, whether we are alive, dead or dreaming. This body cannot die.
It is always some other body which is seen to be dying. If I should ever see my body dead, then I cannot be dead. If I never see my body dead, then death is an assumption. Only our fixed perceptions are seen to be dying.
Here is another example of fixed perception. I am conditioned to imagine that this mind of mine is confined to somewhere in my head, when really it is not positional at all. 'My head' is one of its fixed perceptions. If the head is taken away, as in sleep, where is outside, where is inside? All is just space or psyche in which heads and dreams are created every moment.
How necessary are our senses, our physical bodies? The senses are utterly necessary to physical existence. But they are not vital to our psyche or non-positional being. Which means that without our senses or bodies, we still are.
Does this mean there is no physical world in reality? No. It means there is no reality in the physical world except that which I provide.
- Barry Long