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Post by lightmystic on Oct 10, 2009 14:10:35 GMT -5
This is a response I made to someone on another site, but there was something about it that struck me. There is some ability to express the relationship between Awareness and mind that I have not previously said this well in my opinion (I especially like the last sentence). So I thought perhaps to share it. It steps up as a logical progression. It's structured in three parts, and the understanding of each part (each number) relies on comfort with the previous number:
1. For me, it feels directly that I can have Awareness without perspective. In that reality, nothing is labeled, nothing is different, nothing is separate, and there's no demarcation line. Anything that distinguishes is what I'll call the mind. The undifferentiated process of perception (Awareness) gets divided up by the mind to look like something - like life. The Awareness extends infinitely, but the mind gives it a structure, and gives it the appearance of limitations, gives it a perspective.
A perspective is limited because it is the realm of duality. This/That up/down, duality/nonduality, etc. And so all distinctions come from the mind, not the Awareness that preceeds it. Of course, there would be no life without mind, so I am not devaluing that process in any way.
2. I find that the mind cannot be separated from the entire process of Creation and differentiation. To ask if it's individual mind or cosmic mind, for example, is something that takes place within the mind. More fundamental than that, there is no distinction. It's the mind that makes it. Further, while there can be the experience of Awareness without mind (although that certainly is not the whole story, but it exists as a direct experience) there can never be an experience of mind without Awareness. And if there could be, we would never know of course. So that is why Awareness appears to be more fundamental and contain the mind.
3. Although the mind is clearly contained within Awareness, the idea that mind is something separate from Awareness is something that, yet again, appears within mind. If I release the ideas that there is a fixed subject and object, then perception appears more naturally as a process that radiates in all directions. The mind then categorizes that into a story of duality, but the Awareness is still all encompassing, it's just that there is this overlay of distinctness on top of everything. So I, the perceiver, am perceiving the perceiver, who appears different because of the mind. That is where the recognition of unity comes from for me. The sameness. And, when those sureties of separation were allowed to really be looked at at the most fundamental level, then it was recognized that the separation itself (the job of the mind) was just that same flow of my own Awareness. Separation itself is not a different Awareness than the perceiver/perceived. And so Awareness feels more like a process, a flow. And while the conceptions of the mind may point to a structure, to limitation, there is nothing limited about it in reality. In the same way that a character in a movie is completely real and solid, but it truly nothing more than just quickly moving lights on a blank screen. Awareness is the light. Even the appearance of distinctions are that same moving light. Even the fact that the lights appear to be colored does not change that they are the same infinite white light filtered. And then the analogy breaks down because the filter itself is that same light appearing to filter light...
So the whole reality is simply the process of Awareness itself, which is unlimited, and that is not negated by the fact that it really looks like something, really appears to be separate and limited. The appearance is a real appearance, just like in a movie, but the limitation and separation is not. You could put your Awareness right through it, and in fact, are all the time.
As always, questions and comments are welcome.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 10, 2009 15:15:40 GMT -5
LM: I think you put that pretty well. I see "mind" or "intellect" like a graphics generator projecting images, ideas, and symbols on an internal screen coupled with a computer that can manipulate the images, ideas, and symbols. Awareness can perceive either reality or what's showing on the screen--the latest movie/video game.
Until we think, nothing exists other than the real world, and we can't say anything or think anything about THAT. We can perceive THAT directly, and we can know THAT directly, but the moment we think, we shift our attention to what is unreal.
Physicists like to say that nothing exists until there is an act of observation. They say that the act of observation "collapses the wave function" (using their terminology). However, they are wrong about this. It is not the act of observation that collapses the wave function; it is the act of distinction that does it. I like to use the following example to explain this.
I'm going to make a new distinction, and until I make this distinction it will not exist. After I make this distinction, almost no one will be able to forget it. My distinction is the idea that there is a class of people who stop lines of people from moving forward. I am going to symbolize this distinction with the word "glurch." Every time we find ourself in a line that stops moving forward we can think, "OMG, my line had a glurch in it!" So, if we are standing in line to cash a check at the bank, and the person at the head of the line pulls out ten transactions that need to be done--it's a "glurch!" If we're in the checkout line at the grocery and someone realizes that he's left his checkbook in his car and runs out of the store while the rest of us have to wait--it's a "glurch." Sometimes, to our embarrassment, we discover that we are the glurches. After hearing about the existence of glurches, it will be very hard not to remember them. It is the same sort of thing with every other distinction. We can distinguish "trees," "human beings," or "clouds," and they come into existence solely because we choose to imagine that they are separately-existing things. To "ex-ist" is to come forth from.......but from what? From the Absolute. Thus, when we look around without distinction (without thought), we see the Infinite--unthinkable and unspeakable. Physicists call it something like a "superposition of infinite pontentiality."
When we think/imagine that we exist as separate entities, we make a big mistake. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." Somebody should have hit him with a Zen stick!
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Post by lightmystic on Oct 10, 2009 16:14:17 GMT -5
Hey Zendancer, Thanks for your comments. Your stories and illustrations are always a joy to read.  You say that one can perceive images OR reality. For me, it's kind of like reading a book, allowing the words and the images they create to be analogous to the process of mind in Creation. The words are real, the structure of the story is real, the images are real, but only AS images. If one forgot they were reading a book and got so sucked into the story they thought they were the main character, then they would be clearly quite mistaken and probably quite miserable. Once one recognizes themself to be the reader, then things relax a lot. That said, I don't really feel like the images are "not real", they are just images. They are a good story, but not wrong. And, in perceiving reality, the story doesn't go away - without SOME perspective there would be no relativity. It's just that one isn't putting so much stock in them anymore, because they are, in reality, only images. And they are recognized to be such. So, for me, relativity, duality, etc. is all contained by Awareness. The process of mind is not in any way separate from reality, but is an inextricably linked part of reality. Does that make sense? I agree that it's the mind recognition that collapses a wave function, as the raw underlying Awareness never changes, and so was never "not there". In terms of how mind makes distinctions and operates, your example is quite a good one, and most likely will stick with me for a while. That said, it's, again, not the distinctions that are a misconception, but the idea that the distinctions are separate from us or can really grasp the universal nature of reality. IOW, the story isn't the problem, just believing that the story is something more than just a story. I used to agree with you about Descartes, until someone very knowledgeable in his philosophy explained what he is really saying. He's not saying that I know I exist because there is thought. He is saying that the very ability to ask the question if I exist (or any other thought) implies a thinker. So the very ability to ask the question if one exists proves that one does, in fact, exist. So he's not actually commenting one way or the other about existence without thoughts... Anyway, are we saying the same thing here? LM: I think you put that pretty well. I see "mind" or "intellect" like a graphics generator projecting images, ideas, and symbols on an internal screen coupled with a computer that can manipulate the images, ideas, and symbols. Awareness can perceive either reality or what's showing on the screen--the latest movie/video game. Until we think, nothing exists other than the real world, and we can't say anything or think anything about THAT. We can perceive THAT directly, and we can know THAT directly, but the moment we think, we shift our attention to what is unreal. Physicists like to say that nothing exists until there is an act of observation. They say that the act of observation "collapses the wave function" (using their terminology). However, they are wrong about this. It is not the act of observation that collapses the wave function; it is the act of distinction that does it. I like to use the following example to explain this. I'm going to make a new distinction, and until I make this distinction it will not exist. After I make this distinction, almost no one will be able to forget it. My distinction is the idea that there is a class of people who stop lines of people from moving forward. I am going to symbolize this distinction with the word "glurch." Every time we find ourself in a line that stops moving forward we can think, "OMG, my line had a glurch in it!" So, if we are standing in line to cash a check at the bank, and the person at the head of the line pulls out ten transactions that need to be done--it's a "glurch!" If we're in the checkout line at the grocery and someone realizes that he's left his checkbook in his car and runs out of the store while the rest of us have to wait--it's a "glurch." Sometimes, to our embarrassment, we discover that we are the glurches. After hearing about the existence of glurches, it will be very hard not to remember them. It is the same sort of thing with every other distinction. We can distinguish "trees," "human beings," or "clouds," and they come into existence solely because we choose to imagine that they are separately-existing things. To "ex-ist" is to come forth from.......but from what? From the Absolute. Thus, when we look around without distinction (without thought), we see the Infinite--unthinkable and unspeakable. Physicists call it something like a "superposition of infinite pontentiality." When we think/imagine that we exist as separate entities, we make a big mistake. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." Somebody should have hit him with a Zen stick! |
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Post by zendancer on Oct 11, 2009 10:14:58 GMT -5
LM: Are we saying the same thing? Yes. As soon as I started to read your post, I thought, "D**m, I meant to make that point, but forgot. Although I distinguish between the "real world," which we experience through direct sensory perception, and the "unreal world" of ideas, images, and symbols, I don;t mean to imply that the images are not part of the Infinite. I present it that way only to encourage people to shift their attention away from thoughts because it is their thoughts that cause all of their apparent problems.
Of course, after we see through the illusions created by thoughts, and become free from the domination of thoughts, then the images, ideas, and symbols can be utilized and enjoyed for what they are.
In the same way, if we understand the nature of a desert mirage, then we can see it and enjoy it for what it is without mistaking it for a real oasis/lake. The mirage is "real" in the sense that we can see it, but it isn't real in the sense of providing us with water to drink.
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Post by divinity on Oct 11, 2009 12:37:22 GMT -5
I don't see myself as the reader of the book, but the writer of the book.
There is really "nothing" "real" "here" anyway.
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Post by Peter on Oct 12, 2009 5:49:59 GMT -5
Physicists like to say that nothing exists until there is an act of observation. They say that the act of observation "collapses the wave function" (using their terminology). What I personally take from variations of the double slit experiment is quite the opposite - that everything possible exists until there is an act of observation. A single photon (which has a certain probability at both points A and B) appears to interfere with itself ie it "exists" in two places at once. If you measure for certain if it's at point A or B, then that interference stops. The Quantum eraser is especially interesting since it suggests that if you measure for certain if it's at point A or B and then forget that you measured it, then the interference pattern returns. Of course, I think we may need to reconsider what "exists" means... So I think that rather than say "the wave function collapses", I'd prefer to say "we experience the wave function collapsing". People say "The photon stops behaving like a wave and starts behaving like a particle". It makes more sense to me to say that the photon's nature (and behaviour) is unchanged. It's how we're seeing it that's changed. |
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Post by zendancer on Oct 12, 2009 8:33:23 GMT -5
Peter: I totally agree with the way you stated the issue, but I would change your last line to read, "It's how we're IMAGINING it that's changed." My argument was that the word "observation" is less accurate than the word "distinction" in describing what's going on. It is a minor point, but when we observe reality (when we look), we do not see things. If we only observe, nothing (no thing) exists. Existence (thingness) is a product of imagination, so it is only when we distinguish what we're looking at that things come forth from the Undivided. This is an act of abstraction in which we choose to imagine wholeness as if it were composed of parts. The parts do not "exist" until we imagine them.
If we look into a bubble chamber, we see what is. We usually imagine what we see as "the tracks of particles in a bubble chamber."
If our mind is silent, we see the infinite--a unified field of being, but when we think about what we see, we imaginatively divide the infinite into parts. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus has a number of quotes concerning this issue:
1. Someone asked him, "Who are you?" He replied, "I am he who exists from the Undivided."
2. "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and female one and the same...then you will enter the Kingdom."
3. "Recognize that which is within your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you."
4. "The Kingdom will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying "Here it is or thre it is." Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
5. A man said to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me." Jesus said to him, "O man, who has made me a divider?" He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I am not a divider, am I?"
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Post by Peter on Oct 12, 2009 8:48:31 GMT -5
When we observe reality (when we look), we do not see things. If we only observe, nothing (no thing) exists. Existence (thingness) is a product of imagination, so it is only when we distinguish what we're looking at that things come forth from the Undivided. This is an act of abstraction in which we choose to imagine wholeness as if it were composed of parts. The parts do not "exist" until we imagine them. Yes, I see (!) what you're saying. Thanks! |
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Post by lightmystic on Oct 12, 2009 10:18:31 GMT -5
Yes, I suspected we were on the same page.... LM: Are we saying the same thing? Yes. As soon as I started to read your post, I thought, "D**m, I meant to make that point, but forgot. Although I distinguish between the "real world," which we experience through direct sensory perception, and the "unreal world" of ideas, images, and symbols, I don;t mean to imply that the images are not part of the Infinite. I present it that way only to encourage people to shift their attention away from thoughts because it is their thoughts that cause all of their apparent problems. Of course, after we see through the illusions created by thoughts, and become free from the domination of thoughts, then the images, ideas, and symbols can be utilized and enjoyed for what they are. In the same way, if we understand the nature of a desert mirage, then we can see it and enjoy it for what it is without mistaking it for a real oasis/lake. The mirage is "real" in the sense that we can see it, but it isn't real in the sense of providing us with water to drink. |
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