Henosis Foundation.

Layer 2 is the first layer beyond Layer 1 and involves the experience of all-containing spaciousness and emptiness. The experience of it at Location 2 is what the majority of Finders and literature on Fundamental Wellbeing describe as persistent awakening, nonduality, or enlightenment. It is relatively rare for Finders in the general public to persistently go beyond this combination of location and layer. 

The most distinguishing qualities of Layer 2 are those of spaciousness, emptiness, vastness, nothingness, expansiveness, formlessness, and so on. There is a sense that this aware emptiness contains and encompasses everything, and that everything seems to be arising from and within. Attention is centered more in the present, in direct experience rather than thoughts about experience. When Layer 1 is no longer front and center in experience, the overlay of labels, concepts, and interpretations on being and/or existence is no longer present. Everything is experienced to just be here, within the limitless spacious clarity of Layer 2, and can feel truly miraculous from this perspective. 

Layers have degrees of depth to them, meaning someone can be on the shallow end in Layer 2, in the middle, or deeper. As one deepens into Layer 2, one gains increasing distance from Layer 1 and mental activity feels increasingly impersonal and spontaneous. As this happens, it becomes clear from a subjective experience standpoint that one is not one’s thoughts or emotions, nor the agent of them. This results from subjective experience centering deeper in Layer 2 and away from Layer 1. Consequently, the contents of Layer 1 can feel more in the background, or as though they are arising within an overall context of stillness and spaciousness (i.e., Layer 2) that feels deeper and more real than the movement of thought. 

As perception moves into deeper layers, there are progressively greater depths and qualities of stillness/silence. (The terms “stillness” and “silence” are used interchangeably, with some Finders preferring one term over the other. “Silence” in this context does not refer to an absence of audible sound, and “stillness” does not refer to everything being perceptually motionless. Both “stillness” and “silence” are used to point to an existential quality of experience itself that emerges as the perceptual filters, most obviously the activity of Layer 1, are progressively removed.) 

As mentioned, the stillness/silence relates to stripping away or getting beneath the processes that filter and structure perception, beginning with the Layer 1 (i.e., labels, concepts, interpretations, etc.) in the case of Layer 2.  Layer 2 feels like a greater or more foundational context for the unfolding of experience at Layer 1. The deeper layer, in this case Layer 2, feels independent of the content of the preceding layer(s), in this case Layer 1. 

This sense of distance from and space around Layer 1 makes its activity seem much less compelling, and one typically becomes less reactive. This makes Layer 2 very effective for releasing and reprogramming previously acquired psychological conditioning at Layer 1. The downside of this is that Layer 2 can be used to disown and escape the parts of the system where challenging conditioning resides. This is usually what is meant when people speak about “spiritual bypassing”. Deepening away from Layer 1 may remove it from one’s subjective awareness, but that does not mean it stops operating. This essentially leaves the conditioned psychological tendencies that reside at Layer 1 to function unsupervised, which may not lead to optimal life outcomes.

This tendency of Layer 2 is mostly relevant from Location 2 on, where one is able to more fully isolate in Layer 2, and where this layer can feel like one has “made it” in terms of Fundamental Wellbeing. A significant amount of religious and spiritual literature describes this experience and assumes it to be the end of the path of deepening further into Fundamental Wellbeing. This can lead people to root into it as deeply as they can, which can prevent the experience of still deeper layers, and also significantly disconnect them from Layer 1. This, as mentioned, can have unfavorable consequences in terms of overall integration and life functionality.  

The deeper experiences of Layer 2 typically only occur for Finders from Location 2 on, where the experience of Layer 2 moves more to the foreground of moment-to-moment experience. Location 2 is nondual, meaning that there is no perception of separation between subject (observer) and object (observed). There is only a unified field of experience.

As a result, in Location 2 the experience of Layer 2 is also nondual. It feels as though one is indistinct from the space in which everything arises and, deeper into the layer, from the substance of everything arising as well. Because of the nonduality at Location 2, especially beyond Layer 1 and the shallow end of Layer 2, there is no sense of distinction between the object of experience, the experiencer, and the process of experiencing. It all seems to unfold as one field of experience. There is no longer a sense of within or without, the spaciousness is all encompassing. 

In this deeper experience of Layer 2, there is an association with the substance of its spaciousness as one’s true nature, which is also experienced as the essential nature of everything. Perception becomes progressively centered on Layer 2’s central qualities of spaciousness and emptiness. This increasingly highlights the impermanent and relative nature of other aspects of perceptual experience, like thought, emotion, sensation, and so on, which seem to come and go, all contained within the properties, the spaciousness, of Layer 2. Subjectively, it can feel as though, instead of one’s body moving through the world, the perceptual experience of the world is flowing through the motionless, spacious clarity of Layer 2. As one moves progressively deeper into the layer, the experience of Layer 2 often feels more real to Finders than anything else, in this case because everything else seems impermanent by contrast.

Shifting deeply and exclusively into this layer can begin the process of even more comprehensively leaving behind one’s former sense of self, particularly the personal self that resides at Layer 1. In its place there is a more formless sense of aware presence, which relates to the association with the qualities of Layer 2 (or 3). Both Layers 2 and 3 have a quality of aware presence/beingness, which is a quality of self that falls away in Layer 4. However, unlike Layer 1, which can have a quality of individuated or personal self, the quality of self in Layers 2 and 3 is impersonal and formless. 

An alternative to isolating perception increasingly into Layer 2 is to move fluidly between Layers 1 and 2 (and 3 and 4, if possible) as is appropriate for the moment at hand. This enables greater integration of the system and can allow Finders to experience the depths of Fundamental Wellbeing without compromising effectiveness in the world. The degree to which this is achievable depends on the location one is in and its innate tendencies and access to the layers. Location 2 probably has the greatest range of access across the layers, followed by Location 3. 

Differences in Layer 2 across Locations:

Location 1	Layer 2 is accessible to a degree, but experiences are usually partial and temporary. These experiences of Layer 2 are often mixed with Layer 1 and the gravity of Layer 1 in Location 1 tends to make the experience of Layer 2 unstable for most people. Layer 2 is usually the layer that Finders in Location 1 have temporary experiences of, and this experience makes them conclude that they must be going in and out of Fundamental Wellbeing. In reality they are sinking in to deeper experiences of Location 1 (Layer 2) and then being pulled back to a more shallow experience (Layer 1) by the habitual patterns in their attentional systems and their psychological conditioning. The habit patterns can be changed over time with consistent reorientation of attention to Layer 2, although this can take more effort to do from Location 1 than a later location. Over time, the natural unfolding of Fundamental Wellbeing helps with the conditioning and triggers.
Location 2	Layer 2 is one of the default layers for Location 2 (the other is Layer 1) and is most characteristic of the “classic” nondual Location 2 experience described in religious and spiritual literature. Layer 2 is highly accessible and is very often the layer people land in when they transition to Location 2. For some people, this location and layer can feel lonely at first, because it feels like there is only one thing that exists and it has a pervasive sense of emptiness. As the experience of a personal self is left behind, a sense of meaninglessness or starkness can also accompany this layer. These experiences usually do not last, but people can go through periods that are challenging as they become accustomed to this layer.
Location 3	Layer 2 is highly accessible in Location 3 and the experience of it becomes infused with the divine or panpsychist presence that is central to experience in this location. Usually this is a mix of Layer 2 being infused with Layer 3. The sense of union with divinity or a panpsychist sense makes Layer 2 in Location 3 feel less detached and alone than it can in Locations 2 and 4. It is relatively common for Location 3’s default layer, Layer 3, to be experienced along with Layer 1, bypassing the experience of Layer 2 altogether.
Location 4	Layer 2 is accessible in Location 4, although it is far from the default and is usually experienced from within the perceptual experience of a deeper layer. If a person deepens into Location 4, they can essentially lose sight of this layer. When experienced by itself, Layer 2 of Location 4 can seem like a desert of emptiness. It is profoundly stark and distant and can even lead to one feeling like nothing exists at all. This is typically only passed through on the way to deeper layers because Location 4 does not stabilize in Layer 2. More than any of the other locations, transitioning to Location 4 is associated with difficult psychological experiences that are often referred to by terms such as the “dark night of the soul.” This is especially the case if someone is coming into Location 4 at Layer 2.
Location 5+	Layer 2 is not readily accessible in later locations, which tend to gravitate strongly to Layer 4. When it is touched upon it is typically blended with the deeper layers, and is mostly experienced as greater dimensionality in perception, including spatial perception. From the perspective of Layer 4, every level of experience and state of perception, including the emptiness of Layer 2, shows up as the unfolding of pure existence. Any quality beyond a sense of undifferentiated existence appears secondary and relative and, in contrast to existence itself, unreal.