headlessness

In Douglas Harding’s On Having No Head, he puts forth the idea that:

👉 We have never seen our head
👉 The meanings of things change based on distance
👉 What we perceive as a head is completely different on our head than on others

He also states that his findings are in line with those of zen budhism, and more specifically closely mirrors the study of koans.

In the classical koan “What was your face before the birth of your parents?”, which Harding call the “Faceless face” parallels his own discovery of the “Headless head”.

Harding goes so far as to claim all koans can be reduced to the “faceless face” and in a motion does a sort enlightenment-completeness, and links understanding the headless way equivalent to enlightenment.