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Post by ivory on Feb 17, 2011 0:13:07 GMT -5
ZD, I've seen you mention not-knowing a couple times in the last few days and its role in 'awakening'. I was hoping that you could expand on this a bit.
This seems to be the whole basis of Jed Mckenna's method. "Think for yourself and figure out what's true... No beliefs are true... This is a process of unknowning... etc"
I haven't read the whole book yet, but Peter Ralston has a book called "The Book of Not Knowing".
I've used some spiritual autolysis but it hasn't been my main method. What I've primarily done is study thought/mind. For whatever reason, that's just what came natural to me and I had an interest in the workings of mind/ego.
What I came to realize is that I couldn't in fact know anything for sure, especially when it came to self and time (past). I'm reluctant to post this publicly, but once I realized that, it was an extremely difficult time for me. Terrifying in fact. Luckily that's mostly over. Fear still surfaces from time to time, but what I realized is that that fear is in itself a result of the mind trying to know, when it obviously can't. There are a number of other factors that contributed to that fear, but that's largely irrelevant for this post.
I'm throwing a lot out there right know, I could probably go on an on about my experiences and what not. But what I'm really curious about is this "state" of not-knowing. Is this a state that is maintained, or is it one that you put yourself into so to speak? How does one go about not-knowing? Hope I'm making some sense here.
Thanks
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Post by enigma on Feb 17, 2011 2:13:21 GMT -5
If you realize that you can't know anything for sure, isn't this 'non-knowing'? It's not a state. In your study of thought, have you found the absolute foundation on which thoughts are based?
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Post by michaelsees on Feb 17, 2011 2:20:23 GMT -5
If you realize that you can't know anything for sure, isn't this 'non-knowing'? It's not a state. In your study of thought, have you found the absolute foundation on which thoughts are based? Not true but then again I am not speaking about thoughts since thoughts have no owner it would be true if it stopped there but thank god it doesn't realization does come. Why do you doubt it. How do you think Nis gave his satsangs with bold integrity. He was speaking from a place of knowing call it direct knowing if you want but it's real. When Nis or Ramana spoke they spoke from their own realization and it was and is true. Michael
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Post by enigma on Feb 17, 2011 2:56:36 GMT -5
The realization is fundamentally an unknowing. No master has ever told you the Truth because there's nothing to say about it, and there's nothing to say because there's no knowledge contained therein. Truth is not inaccessible to mind because it doesn't have the capacity to comprehend. It's inaccessible because there is nothing to comprehend. This can be absolutely known beyond doubt, but it is not a knowing of something, is it?
If you listen more carefully to your teachers, you'll notice they are using mind's language to tell you what is NOT so. Endless dissertations explaining in excruciating detail what never was and can never be.
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Post by frankshank on Feb 17, 2011 6:44:05 GMT -5
Enigma/ZD: In the 'is posting for fun' thread ZD stated: "In many realms of life thought is a prerequisite for action". Enigma agreed. For one I dont see how that can be known with certainty. Secondly, is this not a claim to know something?
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Post by onesadvocate on Feb 17, 2011 8:04:25 GMT -5
Hahaha Yes Now you're getting hooked On the straight and narrow path it seems Into the abyss of the unknowable to seek the one light In the ever-dark night
No veneer of identity No veneer of concept Just all-encompassing stark-naked isness being Whatever It is all at all times Timeless
Efforting takes place Cross-eyed and with a taste for words Keep looking at the finger and eating the menu Closer than the closest of the closest You'll get here No choice
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Post by ivory on Feb 17, 2011 10:41:35 GMT -5
If you realize that you can't know anything for sure, isn't this 'non-knowing'? It's not a state. In your study of thought, have you found the absolute foundation on which thoughts are based? So is that the point then, realize you cant know anything? If that is the point, then perhaps its that realization that shifts your attention away from thought. I was calling it a state simply because there was a period where this was felt / known... Not knowing was an experience. I'm not sure what you mean by the absolute foundation of thought. But I am very curious as to what you're pointing at, I'd like to see for myself. Perhaps you mean: What kicks off a stream of thought (sensory information), or the structure of thought ... as in how interdependent thoughts are linked in a machine like fashion, or what it is that's aware of thought.
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Post by enigma on Feb 17, 2011 10:50:28 GMT -5
Enigma/ZD: In the 'is posting for fun' thread ZD stated: "In many realms of life thought is a prerequisite for action". Enigma agreed. For one I dont see how that can be known with certainty. Secondly, is this not a claim to know something? It's not ultimately True. Nothing is required in order for life to happen as it does. But then again life only happens for you. Oops, there isn't really a 'you', and nothing is actually happening. But then again, the 'me' saying this is just an idea appearing to 'you', who isn't appearing. The 'me' who isn't here could go on all day with this nonsense, assuming time is a reality, but the point is that everything known ultimately collapses into This, whatever that is. Mostly, there's a game of context going on, which has it's own self referencing truth.
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Post by Portto on Feb 17, 2011 11:25:09 GMT -5
One of the most persistent 'straightjackets' is that one particular thing causes another particular thing. When looking at the world from there, it's not surprising to see cause and effect everywhere: foundations, beginnings, endings, etc. And the previous sentence is one extra disguise for the belief in causality. LOL
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Post by enigma on Feb 17, 2011 11:40:26 GMT -5
If you realize that you can't know anything for sure, isn't this 'non-knowing'? It's not a state. In your study of thought, have you found the absolute foundation on which thoughts are based? So is that the point then, realize you cant know anything? If that is the point, then perhaps its that realization that shifts your attention away from thought. I was calling it a state simply because there was a period where this was felt / known... Not knowing was an experience. Oh, okay. Maybe look at such experiences as dream versions of stuff that can be seen whenever one looks, and does not come and go. All thought is a bifurcation of Wholeness that cannot be made unwhole, a rendering of multiplicity within that which is irrevocably oneness. The dream of experience is formed through imagination and experienced as thought, feeling, sense. The meaning of duality is that it is self referencing. That is, all concepts are the invention of pairs of opposite ideas that define each other because there is no absolute reference for either. When knowledge is invented and experienced this way, nothing has a solid foundation that we can call ultimately True or Real, though all knowledge has it's own truth and falsity within it's own context. No thought is ultimately True. All thought is the establishment of conceptual boundaries within that which is inherently boundaryless. All ideas refer to other ideas. All words are defined by other words. All objects are perceived by carving shapes out of a seamless background. All sounds are the sound of Silence.
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Post by question on Feb 17, 2011 12:52:38 GMT -5
Enigma/ZD: In the 'is posting for fun' thread ZD stated: "In many realms of life thought is a prerequisite for action". Enigma agreed. For one I dont see how that can be known with certainty. Secondly, is this not a claim to know something? What follows is my rationalisation of the issue. I agree and disagree with you, both stances are context dependent. Ultimately the reason for my agreement is more relevant than the reasons for my disagreement. I agree with your doubt, because obviously there is nothing that can be determined that has any sort of unshakable foundation that can not be doubted. My preferred method of this doubt is the application of the cartesian inquiry and henceforth the noticing of the inconsistency of the conclusion of this doubt, which happens by dissecting the assumptions that carry the cartesian inquiry in the first place. I disagree with you for a slightly more complicated reason. IF you assume that "action" exists, then you equally MUST assume that thinking is an action or at least a prerequisite for some actions. If you don't, then your chain of arguments becomes inconsistent. Jed McKenna in his first book applied a similar line of reasoning with what was for me a surprising result (I will paraphrase from my memory): "A tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it. Does the falling tree make a sound? Yes. If you assume that there is a tree and a forest, then you have already assumed that a falling tree does make a sound." Even while you assume that action does exist, you can still try to doubt thought being an action, but then this doubt will be selective and highly inconsistent.
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Post by enigma on Feb 17, 2011 13:03:24 GMT -5
Yes, that's how context works, which has it's own content as well as stuff that's true and stuff that's false. It collapses ultimately but is valid contextually. Since all jabbering and thought are contextual, it's difficult to ignore, so it's helpful to understand.
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Post by zendancer on Feb 17, 2011 14:05:37 GMT -5
Ivory: Good question, and you already received some good answers. What Zen refers to as "not knowing," or at least my interpretation of it (ha ha) is non-conceptual interaction with the world. We start out as children not-knowing. Then, because of the power of abstract thought, we begin to imagine that what we see is divided into things and those things have names. We unconsciously create a dualistic mental simulation of reality and gradually interact more and more often with the simulation and our thoughts about the simulation rather than the real world. By the time we are adults we live in what can be called a "consensual meta-reality" and we spend most of our time thinking/imagining/reflecting/cognizing, etc.
During the process of growing from infancy to adulthood we learn to see/think an imaginary world composed of separate things and events happening in time and space. All of this is imaginary. People who follow a path of non-duality seek to reverse this process by focusing on the actual. It is like putting the genie back in the bottle. LOL.
When this body/mind started trying to see the actual, it was lost in a fantastic headtrip. As the actual came into view for the first time in many years, it was a real shock. I had not consciously seen a bird or a squirrel for several years and unconsciously assumed that they had all been killed off! When I began to see birds and squirrels again, I was amazed to realize that they had been here all along; I just hadn't been living in the same world they inhabited. Ha ha.
As soon as I realized what had happened, and how I had totally lost sight of the actual in favor of the intellectual, I made an intense and sustained effort to re-discover the actual. I began to shift attention again and again from thoughts to what is actual, and I began to un-know the artificial and imaginary world that had held my attention for so long.
I spent hours and hours staring at objects until I could see what was there without knowing them in the conventional sense. I looked at things such as chairs or tables until I could look at their isness in mental silence. Most people look around and name what they see or comment to themselves about what they see. I wanted to see "what is" in silence without the mind's usual commentary. I wanted to be able to look at a chair, for example, without the word "chair" being thought or spoken in the mind. Eventually the body/mind reached a point where it could suspend thoughts and verbal commentary at will. Now, when the body/mind looks at a chair, the chair is not-known intellectually; it is known directly through the senses. It is body-knowing rather than head-knowing.
Zen people use existential test questions, called "koans," to test how clear one's body-knowing has become. Here is a simple example:
Sage: (points to a bell) What is that? Student: A bell. Sage: You are attached to form. Student: It is not a bell. Sage: Now you're attached to emptiness. Student: (Contemplates the issue for a moment and then reaches out and rings the bell) Sage: Very good. No words or thoughts are necessary. Your body understands "what is."
Other koans are much harder than this, but this gives a sense of how they work.
To be able to answer koans one must be substantially free of the mind. Everyone knows the answer to every existential question, but the answers are usually concealed under layers and layers of thought.
In summary, not-knowing is the default state when the mind is quiescent. It is a child-like state of mind in which the world is seen, but is not acted upon or filtered by imagination. What we see when we see without knowing is a mysterious, undefined, unknowable, dynamic, unimaginable isness. Cheers.
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Post by michaelsees on Feb 17, 2011 16:24:05 GMT -5
The realization is fundamentally an unknowing. No master has ever told you the Truth because there's nothing to say about it, and there's nothing to say because there's no knowledge contained therein. Truth is not inaccessible to mind because it doesn't have the capacity to comprehend. It's inaccessible because there is nothing to comprehend. This can be absolutely known beyond doubt, but it is not a knowing of something, is it? If you listen more carefully to your teachers, you'll notice they are using mind's language to tell you what is NOT so. Endless dissertations explaining in excruciating detail what never was and can never be. Excuse me Enigma that is pure BS on your part. You are either very dumb which I doubt or very ignorant which I feel to be the case. I suggest you listen to Nis giving satsangs he is Not coming from a place of not knowing you have to be a loon to this this way. Nis gets very specific when he talks about life, you, where you were before you were born etc. I never heard such foolishness and surprise it came from you. I can fill this whole page with quotes that Nis is telling you directly how thing are.. eriously if you talked the way you just posted in Nis satsangs he would grab you by your shirt and kick your butt out the door. Nis by far of all the guru/teachers told you exactly how it is. He never skirted any issue and for sure did not come from a place of not knowing. That is just a bunch of crap you came up with and has nothing to do with the truth. Gessh what some will do to bend the truth to fit their idea is amazing. Michael
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Post by mamza on Feb 17, 2011 16:24:34 GMT -5
You gave me a few of those, ZD, and I highly recommend that sort of thing to others.But I still can't figure out why a strong man can't lift his own leg! Don't ruin it for me though.. I suspect it'll give me a nice laugh sooner or later.
Out of curiosity, does anybody know of a website / book / other source to find more koans? ZD gave me a few but I'd like to keep on my toes, so to speak, and I only managed to find sites with short stories / 'moral' bits.
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