In this incantation, I offer the simplest yet most comprehensive framework I have articulated yet, defining my being in two fleshy parts: my dark and light flesh. I realize that my dark flesh, like the soft encasing of a fruit, is my true body, ever-present and surrounding me in every direction. I explain how my light flesh, projected outward through sight, thought, desire, narrative, and experience, creates the illusion of separation, space, time, otherness, and life. When I close my eyes or sit in darkness I am able to withdraw from my light flesh and allow my dark flesh to fully reassert its continuous, encompassing presence.
My dark flesh is my true body—similar to the soft, encompassing flesh of a fruit. It is ever-present, forming the continuous, surrounding field that I am always inside of. I can sense it behind me, above me, and below me—this vastness that holds and encloses me.
However, when my eyes are open, it becomes harder to sense my dark flesh in front of me because it is obscured by the visual part of my light flesh. Through my open eyes, I project a spatial cavity “out there,” masking the dark flesh that actually encloses my light flesh. I know that my dark flesh remains behind my light flesh I project outward into space because when I close my eyes my dark flesh resettled back into place. My simple act of opening and closing my eyes clearly reveals that my visual projection is only a momentary extrusion into and stretching of my dark flesh, yet never separate from it.
I can think of the visual part of my light flesh as a marble pressed into my all-encompassing dark flesh. It parts and stretches the dark flesh but never removes it. When I close my eyes, the marble disappears, and my dark flesh resiliently returns to its natural, unbroken form, continuing to envelop my awakening body on all sides.
My light flesh is like the seed encased within the fruit of my dark flesh. Though the two are fused, they seem distinct and separate until I understand what I am perceiving. When I awaken and open my eyes, my awareness becomes centered upon the more rigid form of my light flesh — my defined body, my thinking mind, and the spatial environment I project.
When I close my eyes or sit in darkness, I shut off my strongest channel of projection: the visual. My dark flesh then closes in again from the front, restoring the sense of wholeness that always surrounds me, uniting the behind-me, above-me, below-me, and all-around-me. What remains is only the faint presence of my light flesh—the thoughts in my mind and the sensations of my body—but they are smaller, more contained, and more easily re-absorbed into my encompassing dark flesh.
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