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Post by Portto on Sept 29, 2010 10:28:17 GMT -5
What about your motivation, Burt?
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Post by zendancer on Sept 29, 2010 12:29:27 GMT -5
Imagine that ten seekers go to visit the same enlightened teacher. Each seeker asks the same thing, “What must I do to find the truth?” The teacher says the same thing to each seeker; she says, “Stop and be still. Spend every waking minute interacting with the world through your senses. Look, listen, feel, smell, taste, attend, and contemplate everything that happens.” Each seeker asks for more explanation, and the teacher further explains everything in exactly the same way. The mystery is that one seeker will do exactly what the teacher advises. Eight seekers will do some variation of what the teacher advises and will do it for various amounts of time ranging from ten minutes to three hours per day. One student will ignore the teacher’s teaching totally. Each student came to the teacher in psychologically the same place, lost in the mind, but interested in waking up. One student will wake up. Several students will attain various degrees of understanding without waking up, and the rest will attain virtually no understanding and will stay lost in the mind. The initial interest is the same, the intention is the same, and the teaching is the same, but how each student will respond is a complete mystery. Who we THINK we are has NOTHING to do with how the body/mind responds to __________. Who we THINK we are is an imaginary construct. To understand how much control this imaginary construct has we can imagine a cartoon gremlin and then ask ourselves if that imaginary gremlin can lift a paper clip off of our desk. Who we THINK we are has exactly the same power to move a paper clip or control what we see the body/mind doing. The one who actually controls the body/mind is the same one who pumps blood, transmits nerve impulses, regulates hormone levels, sees, and thinks. There is no space between the see-er and the seen and there is no space between the thinker and the thought. Look around. What we see if we are not thinking is ______________, and the one who sees is also ________________. So, to sum up _______________________________________________________________________! So this is "The Mystery" to you, from your point of view. This hypothetical situation has captured your attention and engaged your mind enough to write a story about it. Why? to engage in conversation? to solve some great mystery? To show your great understanding? To appear as a spiriual teacher that knows something? Or are you trying to lead? So I am questioning your motivation here. Burt: I hold up one index finger in silence. Do you understand?
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Post by question on Sept 29, 2010 16:02:53 GMT -5
Makes a lot more sense now, at least theoretically or as a thought-experiment. It's clear now that there is no need for a traditional operator. Thanks.
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Post by klaus on Sept 29, 2010 18:19:22 GMT -5
You say interact with the world thorough your senses, however your senses can and do mislead you. For example, you know the story of one who sees a snake which turns out on further investigation to be a rope or the one in which you cross your fingers and then slide a pencil between them your sense of touch tells you there are two pencils instead of one pencil. Of course these are simple examples, but they show how your senses can and do mislead you. Klaus: No, this is not the case. Your senses do not mislead you in these examples; your thinking misleads you. Your senses do not define or imagine anything. Your senses see ______, but your mind imagines things like "snake" or "rope." Again, the senses do not create; they are passive and function like the lens of a camera. They are innocent and empty. Using only the senses, one is led from creation to ____________. You also wrote, "There may be only chaos which our imagination turns into constructs." Please notice that "chaos" is another construct. I'm pointing to what is beyond all constructs. Look around. If you see anything (any thing), you aren't seeing what I'm pointing to. Only if you see WITHOUT KNOWING will you see "what is." Anyone can learn to not-know, but few people are willing to take the time to do so. It is ironic that having taken the trip from not-knowing to knowing few adults have any interest in taking the reverse journey. Yet, they often talk fondly and longingly of dimly remembered childhood memories where everything was alive and present, magical and mysterious, carefree and joyous. Zendancer, All we receive is sense stimulation which are just as likely to be false as true; consider optical, auditory illusions arising from direct sense stimulation free of imagination and mind constructs.
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Post by klaus on Sept 29, 2010 20:03:50 GMT -5
Zendancer,
You hold up one finger in silence. An action without sound.
Understandable.
What is you point?
________refers to_______refers to_______refers to ______.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 29, 2010 20:58:53 GMT -5
Klaus: You wrote, "All we receive is sense stimulation which are just as likely to be false as true; consider optical, auditory illusions arising from direct sense stimulation free of imagination and mind constructs."
I think you're missing the point here. For something to be seen as true or false there has to be an interpretive function, someone who judges truth or falsity. In the absence of one who interprets or imagines what is seen, then the eyes simply see "what is." IOW, take one step back before imagination comes into play; what then? The eyes then see like the lens of a camera, without any kind of judgement. We might call this "simple seeing," or "pure seeing" or "nonceptual seeing." This kind of seeing is what happens before the mind computer kicks in. This is how little children see the world.
Later, as the intellect develops, the child learns to imagine the world as if it were composed of separate objects "out there" being seen by a separate subject "in here." What I'm writing about is the process of learning how to shut off the mind and simply see without knowing. This kind of seeing is empty and silent. Verbal thought is not present, so there are no illusions created by thought.
Let us say that you hear a sound. If you are just hearing the sound, there is only the sound and nothing else. If you think about the sound or interpret the sound, then the mind has entered the picture and the sound, itself, is no longer the focus of attention. I am saying that if you focus on the sound and stay focused upon the sound, the habit of reflective thought can eventually become a subordinate utility rather than dominant taskmaster. Non-abidance in the mind is the ultimate goal (that is not a goal.)
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Post by karen on Sept 30, 2010 0:18:25 GMT -5
It seems to me if one is hallucinating in a visual or auditory way, if they are focusing on the elemental sight or sound of seeing or hearing in the hallucination, then they're still pointed towards truth. There are lucid hallucinations where this seems possible.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 4:19:23 GMT -5
Zendancer, You hold up one finger in silence. An action without sound. Understandable. What is you point? ________refers to_______refers to_______refers to ______. Klaus: When you ask, "What is the point?" it means that you don't understand the answer on the level that it was given. Again, the issue is imagination. Take one step back, and don't "touch" the finger with imagination. Simply see and understand directly. The problem is that when we think about the world, we become one-step removed from the world. To see it as it is we have to leave imagination behind. There is an old story of a guy who goes to see a sage and asks how to find the truth. The sage responds, "Attention." The guy replies, "What does 'attention' mean? The sage says, "Attention means attention." This frustrates the fellow because he is searching for the meaning behind the meaning without realizing that the meaning IS the meaning, so he says, "And how am I supposed to understand that?" The sage says, "Attention, attention, attention." IOW, don;t complicate something that isn't complicated. Attend the world like a little child before thinking gets cranked up and alters the picture.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 4:24:38 GMT -5
It seems to me if one is hallucinating in a visual or auditory way, if they are focusing on the elemental sight or sound of seeing or hearing in the hallucination, then they're still pointed towards truth. There are lucid hallucinations where this seems possible. Karen: Yes. A schizophrenic may look in the mirror and only see what could be imagined as "half a face." What they see is the truth, but it isn't "half a face;" it is _____________.
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Post by question on Sept 30, 2010 10:13:21 GMT -5
Yes, to be seeing something as true or false is a mental interpretative function. But to see anything at all is equally an interpretative function, only the interpreter is different (first it was the mind, now it is the brain). It's factually incorrect to say that the eyes see like the lens of a camera. Whatever is seen has been selected and interpreted in the brain and then incorporated into a coherent and unified model of the world. There is a world of activity that lies between the raw fact (ding an sich) and what it is perceived as.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 10:45:58 GMT -5
Yes, to be seeing something as true or false is a mental interpretative function. But to see anything at all is equally an interpretative function, only the interpreter is different (first it was the mind, now it is the brain). It's factually incorrect to say that the eyes see like the lens of a camera. Whatever is seen has been selected and interpreted in the brain and then incorporated into a coherent and unified model of the world. There is a world of activity that lies between the raw fact (ding an sich) and what it is perceived as. Question: I understand why this appears to be the case, but it is not true. A camera does not know what anything is (it makes no distinctions), so it captures the totality of what lies in its field of view. It is possible for an adult to see the world in exactly the same way, without distinction and without knowing.
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Post by question on Sept 30, 2010 11:50:47 GMT -5
I'm not talking metaphysics now, but simple biology. What sensory input an adult can learn to see without distinction is already distinguished. There is no "seeing" without a mediation of the brain, the sheer act of seeing means that sensory data is integrated into a unified model of the world, which is already an amazingly complex act. The eye doesn't "see" anything (because it doesn't have that function), it just gathers information and passes it on, which then is translated into what we call "seeing".
I believe you that one can learn to experience without mind's interfrerence, but this exercise isn't directed at some "real world out there", it's directed at what the body's mind has chosen to be experienced. Even if the eye were to see like a camera does, there is no way for this raw information to arrive at the possibility of being experienced without being mediated, selected and interpreted first.
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Post by karen on Sept 30, 2010 16:13:02 GMT -5
Question, you sure know a lot!
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Post by klaus on Sept 30, 2010 17:09:50 GMT -5
I'm not talking metaphysics now, but simple biology. What sensory input an adult can learn to see without distinction is already distinguished. There is no "seeing" without a mediation of the brain, the sheer act of seeing means that sensory data is integrated into a unified model of the world, which is already an amazingly complex act. The eye doesn't "see" anything (because it doesn't have that function), it just gathers information and passes it on, which then is translated into what we call "seeing". I believe you that one can learn to experience without mind's interfrerence, but this exercise isn't directed at some "real world out there", it's directed at what the body's mind has chosen to be experienced. Even if the eye were to see like a camera does, there is no way for this raw information to arrive at the possibility of being experienced without being mediated, selected and interpreted first. Question, That was my point, only you expressed it better then I ever could.
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Post by klaus on Sept 30, 2010 17:13:58 GMT -5
Zendancer, You hold up one finger in silence. An action without sound. Understandable. What is you point? ________refers to_______refers to_______refers to ______. Klaus: When you ask, "What is the point?" it means that you don't understand the answer on the level that it was given. Again, the issue is imagination. Take one step back, and don't "touch" the finger with imagination. Simply see and understand directly. The problem is that when we think about the world, we become one-step removed from the world. To see it as it is we have to leave imagination behind. There is an old story of a guy who goes to see a sage and asks how to find the truth. The sage responds, "Attention." The guy replies, "What does 'attention' mean? The sage says, "Attention means attention." This frustrates the fellow because he is searching for the meaning behind the meaning without realizing that the meaning IS the meaning, so he says, "And how am I supposed to understand that?" The sage says, "Attention, attention, attention." IOW, don;t complicate something that isn't complicated. Attend the world like a little child before thinking gets cranked up and alters the picture. Zendancer, _______________.
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