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Post by earnest on May 17, 2015 3:05:50 GMT -5
Ok cool, were you going to answer my question? I'm trying to keep it ultra straightforward and direct. There were many questions of yours i chose not to answer because they deviated from the simplicity of the spoon scenario. Can you not be strightforward and direct with that? The scenario is a spoon. Please don't complicate things for me by introducing other scenarios. Ok. I gave you my answer a few pages back. Both direct and non-direct experience.
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Post by andrew on May 17, 2015 6:34:38 GMT -5
I'm very pleased that my way of articulating this makes sense to you. Good. I also have very little difficulty understanding your vernacular. You are right that I experienced and understood 'direct experience' before the healing occurred. I suspect that it's partly because I was quite young (24), and at that point in my life, although I knew that direct experience was what I wanted, there was also a sense of having a lot to lose in terms of my relationships. I didn't make a conscious decision to take it slowly, but with hindsight, I feel there was a part of me that knew that the process would best unfold over a long period of time. I think I wanted to give those that I was closest to, time to adjust to my new way of relating and understanding. This continues to unfold. Change - theoretically the only constant in existence, and it's at the top of the list of things we humans struggle to accept. Slow change is much easier to deal with. Subject to the situations of course. And i can relate to your hindsight understanding you took it slow to allow others to adjust. As a person with a strong will, thus able to handle quick changes well, i am conscious of others who are not wired as i am and would be adversely affected in our relationships. In answer to your question, it was the intense belief/faith that I had in the rational mind that I consider to be unnatural and out of balance. I think the rational mind itself is perfectly valid. These days the rational mind has its place in my experience and I fully respect its role, and what it offers to my experience. I experience the separate physical aspects to be as real and valid as the unified aspect, in fact, I would say that I have more respect, am more sensitive to, and have more reverence for the separate physical aspects these days than I did 15/20 years ago. I was never a particularly harmful guy, but these days, it would trouble me to hurt an insect or pluck a flower from the soil. Whereas intense 'objectness' has the effect of somewhat deadening the physical world, experiencing the unified aspect brings everything to life, and this does affect our behaviour, as I'm sure you can relate to. Your clarification is understood. And yes, i relate very closely. I used to be cruel to animals in my youth, and destructive, uncaring towards things in nature. And even during the beginnings of my spiritual \inner walk, via Christianity, i began to increase my respect and love for all things. I am the same as you , in that i do not even kill flies or ants in the house. And when i come across the extremely dangerous Recluse spiders, i take them outside and tell them to not come back in. And when GG, who is a natural green thumb and has literally hundreds of potted flowers outside that she lovingly interfaces with, i still feel a tinge of sadness when she cuts off flowers just to place them in a vase inside. I say to her, "The flowers last longer on the plant, and these plants are right outside your door, why do you cut them off and bring them insiode, just go outside and enjoy them?" The deadening you speak of, when focused only on the material forms in an imbalanced way...i am reminiscing as i ponder your words, and at first i could not agree or see what you were describing, but then as i kept observing, it now seems so obvious that to be dead to something, means no active present relationship with it of an intimate nature. And yes, as one clear example, that's exactly how i felt as a kid, shooting or watching my brothers shoot dozens of wild parrots out of a tree with our air rifle. The remaining parrots did not fly away as they were so upset at the senseless death of their friend or family member, and they were screaming at us, and we just laughed at how stupid they were for hanging around, so we just kept killing more of them. As i remember this particular incident, what i was thinking and feeling on the day...i can see the majority if me was dead to life, but there was that tiny flame of light, that spark of life that allowed me to be aware near the end of our killing spree of what i imagined the parrots might be feeling and thinking as they could do nothing but watch their kin being slaughtered, my empathy was active, and a rising of remorse as i realized how horrible my actions and attitude was,and i was confronting and examining myself internally about my behavior and the motives for doing so, and even in my intellectually underdeveloped as a child, i reasoned that i was causing harm to others because i was hurting myself. And as i finish that paragragh, i recall a Buddha quote i recently came across that just fills me with confidence that the specific path i have been on for the last 2 decades is important enough to dedicate my whole being to, and hope for humanity and all life on earth, considering we humans are the only species capable of wiping the whole lot out... "If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another." - Buddha That was just a really great insightful message, I don't even want to add my comments to it really, you described what I meant by 'deadening' exactly as I meant it. I like the quote too. As a student, I lived with Christians for a couple of years, the kind that took it seriously ( no drinking or sex before marriage etc). I would talk to them for hours about it at night, I was often drunk and my curiosity intensified when in a state of inebriation. In one sense I envied them for their sense of purpose and their faith, and they demonstrated a genuine harmlessness to their fellow creatures which I liked. Part of me really WANTED to be able to get on board with their understandings and life choice, but I couldn't quite get there - I found their core understandings flawed and unfortunately exclusionary and unfair at the deepest level, and I also wasn't willing to trade in my freedom to get drunk and swear and chase girls for the sense of purpose that they seemed to have. So I let it go, but it would be another couple of years before self help and spirituality came into my life.
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Post by earnest on May 17, 2015 15:26:08 GMT -5
Ok. I gave you my answer a few pages back. Both direct and non-direct experience. Yes you did... I can't help myself I'm not sure what an indirect experience of something is... direct experience examples - feeling the temperature of it when you pick it up - hearing the "tink tink tink" when you knock it on the edge of a cup after stirring - seeing the shape and colour of it not direct experience examples - thinking about a commemorative spoon your grandmother owned. - thinking about how spoons are made - Talking about spoons on a forum You start of with stating you're not sure what a non-direct experience of a spoon is. Great,. you can repeat what I said.. Then you express some non-direct experiences of other spoons. I gave you examples of non-direct experience which is what you asked for. It's the same whether is a hypothetical spoon or the one that I'm looking at right now. I'm thinking about washing up my plate and spoon in a few minutes. I'm reading the ikea stamp on the back of the spoon and thinking it would be good to get a new cutlery set when I next go to ikea. That is my present moment non-direct experience of the spoon. Yet none of those are experiences of the same spoon in your 'direct experience' statements. see above present moment non-direct experience of the spoon. It's simple to me. Some people claim 'direct experience' of a spoon(one spoon you are currently observing or holding) allows the self to experience the spoon as it truly is. And because they state there is 'direct experience', they are also inferring there is an opposite way to experience existence(a spoon) that does not allow them to experience the spoon as it truly is. So i have asked people to express their understanding of both a 'direct and non-direct experience' of a spoon. If you cannot do this, if it does not make sense to you that there is 'direct and non-direct experience' of the one same spoon you are observing or holding, then that is your understanding and nothing more need be said about it. The scenario is not to tell me of the numerous experiences you had or can have of many spoons. It's the one spoon you are currently observing\holding, and how some people claim there's two ways to experience this one spoon, directly and non-directly. Answered above. Does this clarify things for you? Edit: I can have a non direct experience of a spoon regardless of whether I'm holding a spoon or there are none in the house.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 0:55:04 GMT -5
There were many questions of yours i chose not to answer because they deviated from the simplicity of the spoon scenario. Can you not be strightforward and direct with that? The scenario is a spoon. Please don't complicate things for me by introducing other scenarios. Ok. I gave you my answer a few pages back. Both direct and non-direct experience. I am wondering how a direct experience can be described at all. As soon as you attempt to describe it, it becomes an indirect experience.
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 1:03:13 GMT -5
I'm thinking about washing up my plate and spoon in a few minutes. I'm reading the ikea stamp on the back of the spoon and thinking it would be good to get a new cutlery set when I next go to ikea. That is my present moment non-direct experience of the spoon. Nice ! My tea spoon is also from Ikea, from about a decade ago. Thanks for your 'non-direct experience' of a spoon. Now please provide a description of your 'direct experience' of that same spoon. I have spoon! Temperature, cool then warm tactile, smooth,. sharp edge Smell, none Taste, metallic Visual, shiny, reflections, the outline Sounds when I tap it on the table.
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 1:17:51 GMT -5
I have spoon! Temperature, cool then warm tactile, smooth,. sharp edge Smell, none Taste, metallic Visual, shiny, reflections, the outline Sounds when I tap it on the table. Cheers. Now describe to me the differences of the spoon between each type of experience, because i cannot see any. Between direct and non-direct?
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 1:36:26 GMT -5
Nice ! My tea spoon is also from Ikea, from about a decade ago. Thanks for your 'non-direct experience' of a spoon. Now please provide a description of your 'direct experience' of that same spoon. I have spoon! Temperature, cool then warm tactile, smooth,. sharp edge Smell, none Taste, metallic Visual, shiny, reflections, the outline Sounds when I tap it on the table. That's an indirect experience of spoon displaced by the intermediary of memory and language.
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 1:44:08 GMT -5
I have spoon! Temperature, cool then warm tactile, smooth,. sharp edge Smell, none Taste, metallic Visual, shiny, reflections, the outline Sounds when I tap it on the table. That's an indirect experience of spoon displaced by the intermediary of memory and language. Yep true, doing what I can with words.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 1:51:45 GMT -5
That's an indirect experience of spoon displaced by the intermediary of memory and language. Yep true, doing what I can with words. A direct experience is seeing without naming, so this exercise is futile.
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 1:54:59 GMT -5
Yep true, doing what I can with words. A direct experience is seeing without naming, so this exercise is futile. We'll see
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2015 2:01:52 GMT -5
A direct experience is seeing without naming, so this exercise is futile. We'll see A word can never be the object. You can only directly see the spoon in the moment. If it is subsequently reported, then the seeing of it is not in the moment. The importance of direct seeing crops up in various spiritual traditions because it teaches how to be present. If it is then described it entirely defeats the objective.
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 3:49:04 GMT -5
Between direct and non-direct? Sure, if you like, the difference between 'direct and non-direct experience', but also, any differences in the quality of the spoon that is derived from your different approaches to it. We're going into TMT,. but why not. A) I can only have a direct experience of the spoon when there is an actual spoon in front of me that can be perceived through 5 senses. B) I can have a non direct experience of the spoon independent of whether I have an actual spoon or not. All the spoons on earth could be launched into space or teleported to the moon, and I could still have an indirect experience of the spoon. (happy for E, ZD, L, R, STA etc to tell me I'm wrong with any of this. I'm going for the basic differences) I don't know what you're really getting at in your second point so you'll need to give me some examples if you want an answer.
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Post by andrew on May 18, 2015 4:50:32 GMT -5
Sure, if you like, the difference between 'direct and non-direct experience', but also, any differences in the quality of the spoon that is derived from your different approaches to it. We're going into TMT,. but why not. A) I can only have a direct experience of the spoon when there is an actual spoon in front of me that can be perceived through 5 senses. B) I can have a non direct experience of the spoon independent of whether I have an actual spoon or not. All the spoons on earth could be launched into space or teleported to the moon, and I could still have an indirect experience of the spoon. (happy for E, ZD, L, R, STA etc to tell me I'm wrong with any of this. I'm going for the basic differences) I don't know what you're really getting at in your second point so you'll need to give me some examples if you want an answer. Do you see a difference between 'imagined' and 'indirect'?
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Post by earnest on May 18, 2015 5:03:25 GMT -5
We're going into TMT,. but why not. A) I can only have a direct experience of the spoon when there is an actual spoon in front of me that can be perceived through 5 senses. B) I can have a non direct experience of the spoon independent of whether I have an actual spoon or not. All the spoons on earth could be launched into space or teleported to the moon, and I could still have an indirect experience of the spoon. (happy for E, ZD, L, R, STA etc to tell me I'm wrong with any of this. I'm going for the basic differences) I don't know what you're really getting at in your second point so you'll need to give me some examples if you want an answer. Do you see a difference between 'imagined' and 'indirect'? Not directly, but I could be wrong. What's the direct difference between remembering my breakfast spoon and imagining riding a dragon to work?
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Post by tzujanli on May 18, 2015 5:59:21 GMT -5
Do you see a difference between 'imagined' and 'indirect'? Not directly, but I could be wrong. What's the direct difference between remembering my breakfast spoon and imagining riding a dragon to work? The memory of the breakfast spoon is based on an actual experience, riding a dragon to work is purely imagined..
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