When a gap or space occurs in our experience of mind, when there is a sudden glimpse of awareness, openness, absence of self, then a suspicion arises: “Suppose I find that there is no solid me? That possibility scares me. I don’t want to go into that.”
The intelligent quality of space II
Point: The emptiness of space is a threat. The unconditioned Witness consciousness does not have itself as an epistemic (perceptual) presence. There is a point in the fall from pristine samadhi where volition-intentionality splits and sprints in two opposite directions, inward and outward—inwards towards the infinitesimal most inward point, and outwards forever towards infinite space. Trungpa is saying that space (the object) is presented prior to the point-like self, indeed that the latter is fabricated as a panic response to the openness of the former. All this infinite outward emptiness is given, and after this a panic about the subject’s ontological status arises.
We think —
All this outerness is infinite and empty. All this … all-this is here and now, all-this is a presence-for an awareness that is absent. What if my core (the core of the “I”) is void and passing and nothing at all?
… and this is a cause for panic.