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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 9:27:12 GMT -5
As an idea and sense of identity define a particular relationship, I'd expect those to profoundly effect that engagement. Identity is at the root of how what one takes themselves to be relates to everything that they aren't. Yes, and that's what results in bringing need into the relationship, which sabotages it with expectation. There can be relationship without need, but I'm saying there are still dualistic aspects to the dynamics. So it's not that humans are social creatures any more than they are solitary creatures. The term 'social creatures' seems more like an explanation for the needy aspect. If you mean an excuse for the apparent need, yes. The expectation and the need form a self-reinforcing cycle that maintain the appearance of reality to the relation.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 26, 2015 9:28:49 GMT -5
Okay, you're not following me. I'm saying that what's happening NOW is what's happening. Only Now. Not five minutes from now. NOW. This has nothing to do with any hypothetical futures. My realization was that fantasizing about the future often ignores the present reality. My recurrent fantasy was that I "ought" to be off meditating and getting enlightened rather than pouring concrete (or doing whatever construction work I was actually doing). What I saw that day was that the thought of "going off to a mountaintop and getting enlightened" was a fantasy that psychologically separated me from what was actually happening. On that day I asked myself a simple question, "What must I be doing this moment?" The answer was amazingly obvious. I HAD to be pouring concrete. There was no doubt about it, and it was non-conceptually unquestionable. For someone else it might have been some other activity, but on that day it was pouring concrete in my case. It became obvious that reality is ALWAYS manifesting however it is manifesting in the present moment, no matter what we might think about it or fantasize about it.
FWIW, I did not give an example of walking off a cliff. That was Source. I simply explained that whatever happens is whatever happens regardless of what people think about it. You may think that you have choices about what you do, and from the standpoint of everyday language, I have no problem with describing things that way. But if you will look at what is actually happening, moment by moment, with a totally still mind, you will see that who you THINK you are is NOT who you are, and who you THINK you are is not controlling anything. Who you THINK you are is imaginary, but what's happening is NOT imaginary. It is what it is. I wasn't suggesting that Source walk off a cliff or not look where he's walking. I was saying that he can't go wrong because the cosmos does not go wrong. It does what it does. You might not like it, but that will be a thought. You might fantasize all kinds of alternative scenarios, but whatever is happening is what is happening. If Source took a path that led him to fall over a cliff, that would be the reality. It wouldn't be wrong or right; it would be the reality. E's point, that I was agreeing with, is that you can't make a wrong decision except in your imagination. I hope these words make the point more clearly. Cheers. Hi ZD: I took the liberty of highlighting the portion that resonates with my understanding.. and i would like to explain my understanding of volition/choice.. 'now', is the sum of the choices made prior to the choosing happening 'now', which creates the new 'now'.. if the experiencer thinks that who they 'think' they are is not who they are, is there a disturbance in the Force? Tzu: I "think" I follow you--ha ha--but I'm not 100% sure. I'll expand upon what I wrote, and you can see if it corresponds with the way you see these issues. I no longer think much about choices or volition (except when I read and respond to posts on this forum--ha ha) because "I" rarely reflect upon the body/mind as a person making choices. One could look at things I do and conclude that I made various choices, but from my POV everything is just unfolding, including what we call "choices." Sure, I pick one light fixture rather than another light fixture to go in a new home, but the self-referential thinking about that process that used to take place has sort of dissolved into the flow of whatever is happening. When it's time to pick a light fixture, the body/mind knows what it prefers in price, design, color, etc, and it acts accordingly. Much of what I do on a construction site is direct and non-conceptual and occurs without an internal dialogue. I recommend that people use the simple question, "What must the body/mind be doing this moment?" to help break the usual habit of fantasizing and reflecting and help keep them focused on what's actually happening. FWIW I don't think much about past choices at all. For this body/mind the moment-to-moment focus is upon now, and what I'm calling "now" is what I think you call "life happening." If we think of some specific activity, like walking to the kitchen for a drink of water, we can imagine that many steps were necessary to get us to the kitchen faucet, but people rarely think about each step they take, even in retrospect. They just walk to the kitchen without reflection. The body/mind knows how to get there without conscious direction. Individual "choices" are very much like individual "steps" leading to the kitchen. If there is no reflection about the process, then life just unfolds in what Buddhists call "emptiness." Life lived in "emptiness" is what Hui Neng was pointing to when he said, "Let the mind function freely without hindrance." "Without hindrance" means virtually no thinking about thinking, or thinking about selfhood, or fantasizing, or attachment thinking, or comparison thinking, or resistance thinking, etc. There isn't even any thinking about now, as now; there is just doing whatever needs to be done and living life in the moment. Thinking happens in emptiness, but not the kind of self-referential thinking, or "checking," that occupies the minds of most people. If thinking happens, it, too, is just part of the flow. Is this the sort of description that you can resonate with?
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 9:30:54 GMT -5
Actuality and authenticity don't suffer the perils of illusions, there's no inconsistency in the details.. Like: No inconsistency in the details? You really think the matters we're discussing can be related in technical precision? In fact, words fail right from the start. Did you ever come across such an idea in your intense study of nonduality? That it comes down to the absence of separation from what one isn't is a very satisfying paradox to the individual who insists on their objective existence, and furthermore insists that this objective existence isn't limited.
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 9:34:20 GMT -5
What i come across is people contradicting themselves, then trying to dodge that actuality by blaming the words.. that's the pattern nondualists use.. Yes, in matters of the experiencer's fundamental understanding of existence, precision matters.. you are precise in the following quote, making certain that your beliefs are understood, even threatening to go all Brown Bearish on someone.. The reason it sounds that way to you is because nonduality refers to 'something' beyond the conceptual about which nothing at all can be said that is really accurate
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 9:48:00 GMT -5
I don't know if what i'm saying is original, others may have said it, too.. "the clarity afforded by the 'absence of thought' will reveal the treasure of 'now'.. " Has anyone on this forum ever pointed to what this sentence is pointing to, before? Yeah, obviously the distinction between the potential that it might have been written here before by someone else, and the actuality that it was, is clearly a distinction with a big difference.
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 9:54:01 GMT -5
Right! fergot about those! ... the biologists and geneticists could correct any misconception I might have spun up for ya'. ... hope ya' got the general idea.. yeah, s'all good. Thanx for the ideas.. I get that 5 is beautiful and has many a significance, and the starfish on the shore certainly goes in the top ten pictures of the day.
It's just my adoration for 6 creeps out sometimes..
Yeah, I think I get the sense of why that happens. Best wishes for your niece, and dear old dad as well.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 26, 2015 9:57:31 GMT -5
OK, I was placing emphasis on the unalterableness of what is, from your standpoint. As a contractor, your job is to fix problems. A sub comes to you, such & such is not going to work. We can do this, we can do that, what do you want to do? You can say, do this, or you can ask, what would you do, or if you trust your sub, you just say, you do what you think is best. But a great contractor lines up all the ducks and the job flows and things get dome when they need to get done. You're like a conductor. One big hitch and then you have to make half a dozen calls, don't come tomorrow, come in two days, and then the next call, another sub, don't come in two days, plan to come in three days. I mostly worked for one contractor for over 25 years. I liked him but he had a superintendent that was an arrogant nightmare. He lied to subs to try to get his ducks lined up. And he would hang up the phone and say to me, I told him I needed him in three days because I really need him in 5 days, but if told him 5 days he would be here in 5 days. And then later I would talk to that very sub, and he would say, yea, I know Mack's game....I play the game. I think you are probably a great contractor, a "Chuang Tzu" Taoist contractor, like the butcher who hadn't sharpened his knife in fifteen years because he cut in the 'empty' places. But why? Certainly you plan ahead. You don't wait until the day you need a sub and call him up, and say, I have an emergency, can you please come today at 2:30? (Although that does sometimes happen through unforeseen circumstances). Now, I know you'll say that planning ahead is doing what needs to be done now. You fix problems by preventing them from happening through good planning. Now, I'm sure you leave some built-in wriggle-room in planning for unforeseen stuff that happens. I'm saying that I don't think your example of walking off a cliff was a very good example. When things happen, they happen in the only way they can happen. But Don Juan told Carlos that sometimes we do have a chance, but only a cubic centimeter of chance to make or alter a decision, but after that cubic centimeter, things happen in the only way they can happen. I don't think life is like a chain of dominos where the first one unalterably knocks down the thousandth one. You couldn't be a contractor without planning (for the future) and making decisions concerning unexpected problems (the carpenter doesn't have the lumber he needs because he unexpectedly ran out yesterday, you ordered, but the delivery truck broke down, etc., etc., etc...). Life unfolds and pushes us in the flow, but I think sometimes we have to push back, and can. When we're in L's double bind, we have to choose, even if it is just flipping a coin. And I'm saying one hand washes the other, both hemisphere of the brain are necessary in life. Okay, you're not following me. I'm saying that what's happening NOW is what's happening. Only Now. Not five minutes from now. NOW. This has nothing to do with any hypothetical futures. My realization was that fantasizing about the future ignores the present reality. My recurrent fantasy was that I "ought" to be off meditating and getting enlightened rather than pouring concrete (or doing whatever construction work I was actually doing). What I saw that day was that the thought of "going off to a mountaintop and getting enlightened" was a fantasy that psychologically separated me from what was actually happening. On that day I asked myself a simple question, "What must I be doing this moment?" The answer was amazingly obvious. I HAD to be pouring concrete. There was no doubt about it, and it was non-conceptually unquestionable. For someone else it might have been some other activity, but on that day it was pouring concrete in my case. It became obvious that reality is ALWAYS manifesting however it is manifesting in the present moment, no matter what we might think about it or fantasize about it. FWIW, I did not give an example of walking off a cliff. That was Source. I simply explained that whatever happens is whatever happens regardless of what people think about it. You may think that you have choices about what you do, and from the standpoint of everyday language, I have no problem with describing things that way. But if you will look at what is actually happening, moment by moment, with a totally still mind, you will see that who you THINK you are is NOT who you are, and who you THINK you are is not controlling anything. Who you THINK you are is imaginary, but what's happening is NOT imaginary. It is what it is.
I wasn't suggesting that Source walk off a cliff or not look where he's walking. I was saying that he can't go wrong because the cosmos does not go wrong. It does what it does. You might not like it, but that will be a thought. You might fantasize all kinds of alternative scenarios, but whatever is happening is what is happening. If Source took a path that led him to fall over a cliff, that would be the reality. It wouldn't be wrong or right; it would be the reality. E's point, that I was agreeing with, is that you can't make a wrong decision except in your imagination. I hope these words make the point more clearly. Cheers. ZD, I chased the walking off a cliff back to page 28. enigma said it's not possible to take a wrong path (1-23 7:20PM). source said I'd like to discuss that possibility. Essentially, so it's impossible to choose a wrong path yet end up falling off a cliff? (1-23 9:21 PM). .......And then you made the statement you did. I think if you state something, you then own it regardless of where it originated. You essentially told source, That's right, it's impossible to choose a wrong path, even if you end up falling off a cliff by doing so. And you have said it again here, "he cannot go wrong because the cosmos does not go wrong". I agree, like I said before, that when something actually happens, it happens in the only way it can happen. I've said that already. But the universe is growing and evolving. So there are two movements, two flows. There are two rivers, and we have the capacity, the possibility, to move from one river to the other. This is the movement from involution to evolution. But this move from one river to the other requires volition. As I've said previously many times, in the beginning this volition concerns only the use of attention and awareness, one cannot do from the standpoint of thinking or acting, but one can attend to what one thinks, feels and does. But at this point we have always disagreed. I presume you consider it the case that nobody has ever gotten further than you have, that it is in fact impossible to go beyond where you have. I disagree. If others have gone further, then anything they say concerning that, is yes, necessarily a "thought", a concept, an abstraction. But that does not mean it is necessarily imaginary. ....................... "In order to make what I have just said more comprehensible and concrete, it will be useful if we compare human life in general to a large river which arises from various sources and flows on the surface of our planet, and the life of any given man to one of the drops of water composing this river of life. The river at first flows as a whole along a comparatively level valley, and at the place were Nature has particularly undergone what is called a "cataclysm not according to law", it is divided into two separate streams. All the water of one stream.....ultimately flows into the vast ocean. The second stream, continuing its flow.....ultimately falls into crevices in the earth, ......and seeps into the very depths of the earth. Although after the branching of the waters the waters of both these streams flow further independently and no longer mingle......separate drops pass from one stream into the other. ...........as has already been said.....that one of these two streams ultimately empties itself into the ocean.....in consequence of which this drop of water has the possibility to evolve, as it is, to the next higher concentration. .........The foresight of Just Mother Nature consists in the given case in this, that the possibility is given to us, in certain inner and outer conditions, to cross over from one stream to the other. The expression which has reached us from ancient times, "the first liberation of man", refers to just this possibility of crossing from the stream which is predestined to disappear into the nether regions into the stream which empties itself into the vast spaces of the boundless ocean. To cross into the other stream is not so easy--merely to wish and you cross. For this, it is first of all necessary consciously to crystalize in yourselves data for engendering in your common presences a constant unquenchable impulse of desire for such a crossing, and then, afterwards, a long corresponding preparation". pages 1227-1232, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man, GI Gurdjieff, 1950 .................. I understand what you said in the first paragraph, I just consider it the case that there is a possibility of another way.......pointed to by Gurdjieff, above. ................ And not to muddy the waters, but this is why I consider that Tzu is more correct than you and E in his approach, as he keeps the door open, but you and E close it.
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Post by enigma on Jan 26, 2015 10:02:21 GMT -5
I'm going to indulge in a bit of speculation at this point. Given a rather deep level of unconsciousness, there are two aspects in play. * That which is rejected within is projected onto others in the form of accusation/condemnation. * That which is of interest in others is 'owned' by the self, and offered as one's own teaching.
There is no conscious awareness of either aspect of the dynamic. The first aspect has a 'trigger' that centers around the idea that ego is the labeling and rejection of that which one does not like about oneself. The second aspect has a 'trigger' that centers around the idea of ownership. Both of these 'triggers' will suffer a personalized distortion of meaning in his mind, and likely lead to a disproportionate reaction. That's quite normal though isn't it? Normal in the sense that a lot of people do it, let's call it popular instead. Projection is nearly a fully recognised psychological behaviour from what I've seen, as in, it is not just a buzz word on this forum. Yes. I'd say we're exploring the understanding, and 'teaching' it to others is the form it takes when we consciously believe we understand but unconsciously we're just following our interest and projecting the need to learn it onto others, so it's also an aspect of projection. It really doesn't have anything to do with others directly. Of course, that scenario isn't always the case, but it's very common.
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Post by enigma on Jan 26, 2015 10:08:20 GMT -5
This is what you said, that you are uncertain if others may have said it too: "i am suggesting that the clarity afforded by the 'absence of thought' will reveal the treasure of 'now'".. That could have come straight out of a page from Tolle's 'Power of Now'. I'm not saying it did, I'm saying it's essentially what Tolle's book was about. It's also reflective of maybe hundreds of discussions here over the years. Absence of thought, stilling the mind, be present. There's absotively nothing unique about any of it. Is there a sense that you own those ideas in some way?No, there's no sense of ownership, it's something i posted.. i repeat that understanding when others reveal their lack of a similar understanding.. i don't recall ever suggesting that the understanding is 'unique' to my understanding, and i am aware of hundreds of similar statements by others, some of which i agree with, some of which i remind the poster that they offer no evidence that they actually understand what that statement refers to.. So it's not true that "I don't know if what i'm saying is original".
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Post by enigma on Jan 26, 2015 10:13:23 GMT -5
I'm going to indulge in a bit of speculation at this point. Given a rather deep level of unconsciousness, there are two aspects in play. * That which is rejected within is projected onto others in the form of accusation/condemnation. * That which is of interest in others is 'owned' by the self, and offered as one's own teaching.
There is no conscious awareness of either aspect of the dynamic. The first aspect has a 'trigger' that centers around the idea that ego is the labeling and rejection of that which one does not like about oneself. The second aspect has a 'trigger' that centers around the idea of ownership.
Both of these 'triggers' will suffer a personalized distortion of meaning in his mind, and likely lead to a disproportionate reaction.You call it speculation, but it you painting another illusion about the actuality you don't like.. honestly, when you finally let go of your attachments to the beliefs that compel you to paint such illusions, you'll realize the burden of the painting.. you're trying to convince yourself and others that you are right, you do that because you have no evidence that you are.. A good projection of your process of projection.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 10:34:20 GMT -5
yeah, s'all good. Thanx for the ideas.. I get that 5 is beautiful and has many a significance, and the starfish on the shore certainly goes in the top ten pictures of the day.
It's just my adoration for 6 creeps out sometimes..
Yeah, I think I get the sense of why that happens. Best wishes for your niece, and dear old dad as well. Yeah it gives a better form here, and it makes sense why 3 of them together were demonised. Thank you, yeah she's doing grand. We still have regular check ups, 6 monthly I think now. The staff at the Children's Hospital here are incredible people. She had a mould done for a new artificial eye a couple of weeks back, and it will be ready sometime next month. Yeah he's ok as well thank you. I have run round and got him back on all the medication he needs. He got an atrial fibrillation diagnosis before he went to Thailand, so he's just started back on the warfarin to prevent another stroke, and the meds to prevent another angina attack are in his system. Other than that there isn't much more I can do. He's very attentive to the little princess and she's getting used to having her grandpa living with her.
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 10:39:58 GMT -5
He's very attentive to the little princess and she's getting used to having her grandpa living with her.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 10:40:04 GMT -5
"the clarity afforded by the 'absence of thought' will reveal the treasure of 'now'.. " Has anyone on this forum ever pointed to what this sentence is pointing to, before? Yeah, obviously the distinction between the potential that it might have been written here before by someone else, and the actuality that it was, is clearly a distinction with a big difference. Yeah, I still haven't written off the fact that it could just be forgetfulness. There is so much that he doesn't answer that it can't be known if it's just his letting go kicking in.
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 10:41:29 GMT -5
You call it speculation, but it you painting another illusion about the actuality you don't like.. honestly, when you finally let go of your attachments to the beliefs that compel you to paint such illusions, you'll realize the burden of the painting.. you're trying to convince yourself and others that you are right, you do that because you have no evidence that you are.. A good projection of your process of projection. Can a projection ever become more clear than a sentence that embodies what it describes??
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 10:44:43 GMT -5
Yeah, obviously the distinction between the potential that it might have been written here before by someone else, and the actuality that it was, is clearly a distinction with a big difference. Yeah, I still haven't written off the fact that it could just be forgetfulness. There is so much that he doesn't answer that it can't be known if it's just his letting go kicking in. (** straight face **)
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