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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 18:29:59 GMT -5
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, _______________. Klaus; Now you're talking turkey! Stay right there and you can't go wrong.
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Sept 30, 2010 21:39:32 GMT -5
What about your motivation, Burt? my motivation was to point out that zendancer's mystery exists only in his own mind, and possibly in others who want to tag along. Now to me the mystery might be why so many are buying this story, playing along with his game. Then I wonder why he is doing it. Why are you doing it? Aren't you capable of looking into your own experience? Nobody can do it for you.
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lobo
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Post by lobo on Sept 30, 2010 21:46:35 GMT -5
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? So holding up yor finger is your answer? Is this mimicking some ancient story? Is this your game? Pretending to be some zen master or whatever? Remember simplicity and honesty? Are you capable of this?
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Post by karen on Sept 30, 2010 22:00:22 GMT -5
Ah...the plot thickens.
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Post by mansuit on Sept 30, 2010 23:16:12 GMT -5
Idk, seems to me that a Mystery is that which can be solved or understood with the mind, and this (which Zen eloquently describes as __________, a good enough description for me, since this defies description) can never been understood with the mind- which is why we continually go around and around for fun on this board. Fun fun.
Also seems to me this all boils down to a simple equation, which is the essence of Yoga: Stilling leads to Seeing. If what keeps us from realizing the truth is our habitual thinking, which destroys pure experience by polluting it with conceptualization based on memory- more thinking, then we must break the habit. Habits can only be unlearned. That means noticing all of that which PREVENTS the stillness and settling of mind, recognizing it, and in the conscious recognition of addictive thinking, allowing transformation to happen. So, we CAN do something- we can work with whatever it is that causes our mind to still- without attachment to result, without effort toward result, but merely for the experience of stillness. Then, if the "Ah-Ha" happens, it happens. If not, our life flows so much easier and more fulfilling with the stillness we have cultivated.
That, was a lot of words.
Michael
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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 23:34:24 GMT -5
Burt: The other day I was installing some hardwood flooring. The work was strenuous and I was sweating like a pig. There was a guy painting walls in an adjacent room. At one point he came over and said, "I bet you'll be glad when you're finished with that." I replied, "Well, to tell you the truth I'm having fun, and I'll probably be having fun then, too." He said, "You call that fun? Man, that's twisted." I said, "Yep, I agree, but it's the truth. To me this is pure fun." On top of it all I wasn't even being paid for the work. I was doing it for free. Now, that's really funny. Ha ha.
This forum is just as much fun to me as laying that hardwood flooring, or pouring concrete, or ballroom dancing, or hiking in the mountains, or trading stocks, or talking with my wife, or any of the myriad other fun things I do. I spent 35 years searching for the truth, and I love to write about what I learned and unlearned along the way. I was a real dummy, an intellectual who lived totally in his head, so it took a long time before I stumbled onto a path that led out of the mind and back to reality. Hopefully, you and everyone else will find reality much faster than I did.
I could say that my motivation for writing on this board is to help other people find the truth faster than I did, and that would be partly true. I could say that my motivation is to have fun, and that would be partly true. I could say that I write here for no reason at all, and that would be partly true, too. I could give forty other verbalized reasons why I write here and they would also be partly true (and partly false), but holding up one finger in silence is an answer to all of your questions that is totally true. I could have blinked my eyes or turned around in a circle, but I've always preferred one finger. My family is so used to having their "why" questions answered in this manner, that they automatically laugh whether they understand or not.
I write about whatever strikes my fancy, and I never know what that will be until my fancy gets struck. Some people enjoy what I write and some people don't. That's part of the mystery. Moment by moment this body/mind is always and only doing exactly what it has to be doing in what Alan Watts so appropriately called "this fabulous electronic dance." Best wishes.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 30, 2010 23:43:06 GMT -5
Question, all I'm saying is that it's possible for adults to look at the world without seeing it divided into things. When you point a camera at the world, it "sees" a unified field of view. In order to see a separate thing, such as a chair, the image of a chair would have to be created with a graphics generator and projected on a contrasting screen. This is why I tell people that a camera cannot take a picture of a chair; it can only capture the entire field of view. Most adults see the world through an imaginary grid that makes it appear to be composed of separate things. They do not see the world as it is; they see it as they imagine it to be. A camera sees "what is" whereas most adults think-see a surreal mixture of reality and ideas. All adults with an IQ above 90 realize that the words we use to represent the world are imaginary and arbitrary. Most adults DO NOT realize that all boundaries defining "things" are equally imaginary and arbitrary. That is the only point that seems to be relevant in a discussion about non-duality. How the brain initially organizes the sensory input in a newborn is another issue. By the time a child is a year old it sees the world as it is but without the imaginative overlay that will come later. It enjoys several years of substantially direct interaction with the world before it shifts from direct perception to imagination as a dominant mode of mind. Returning to a child-like state of being brings the same kind of joy and non-reflectiveness that anyone with a good memory and a happy childhood remembers so fondly. That state of being is what I'm pointing to.
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Post by mansuit on Oct 1, 2010 9:57:01 GMT -5
I think this is what Zen is talking about in the above post:
The Hierarchy of Experience
Volition (action) Story Inferences (relate the associations to the future) Associations (memories) label form SENSORY EXPERIENCE Energy (everything)
We construct drama and story around a event- a sensory experience (even a simple event- as in looking at a chair), and we react to the stories and drama that we create through thinking- not to the actual event.
The challenge is to stay with the sensory experience...stay in "substantially direct interaction" instead of thinking our way up the ladder to volition. If volition happens, it happens based on the actual sensory event, not on the form, label, associations, inferences, and story we create around it.
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Post by souley on Oct 12, 2010 11:30:41 GMT -5
An example of what question and klaus is talking about is the scientist who wore some "upside down glasses" for a few weeks, and suddenly his brain adjusted and he saw the world turned right again, with glasses on. I think that is an excellent example of how the brain processes the input information in some unknown mysterious and awesome way. But this doesn't have much to do with nonduality.
Other examples might apply more to nonduality in some way, for example how unconscious needs would make the brain notice certain things in a view.. (if it does). But I don't think we know enough about this to use it in this context.
All this is without having followed the discussion closely, I apologize if I misinterpreted the whole thing:)
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Post by charliegee on Oct 12, 2010 11:48:56 GMT -5
can't really describe things half as well as most of you or as eloquently ... all I know is my wife died and the playing field was leveled somehow bringing me to the immediacy of the present moment without as many preconceptions ...
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Post by ashtavakra on Oct 17, 2010 6:45:25 GMT -5
Zen Dancer, your saying that "it's possible for adults to look at the world without seeing it divided into things" could happen only to one in a billion..!!! and that would be the Enlightened one !!! most of us can talk and speculate on that knowledge learnt from the wise ones...and "try" to enjoy whatever comes our way....! but that state is hard to come by.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 17, 2010 9:17:48 GMT -5
Zen Dancer, your saying that "it's possible for adults to look at the world without seeing it divided into things" could happen only to one in a billion..!!! and that would be the Enlightened one !!! most of us can talk and speculate on that knowledge learnt from the wise ones...and "try" to enjoy whatever comes our way....! but that state is hard to come by. Ashtavakra: Actually it's not difficult at all. People do it all the time without realizing what they're doing. However, it does take some serious practice to do it conciously and at will. It is a matter of staying focused on "what is" until the mind ceases its habitual talkativeness and becomes silent. "Talking and speculating on knowledge lernt from the wise ones" is the very sort of thing that keeps us from perceiving our oneness. As the third patriarch of Zen so eloquently put it, "Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing that you will not be able to know." It is our thinking that causes ideas of separateness to arise. Not-knowing is a direct path to the infinite, and anyone can learn to not-know. Trust yourself 100% and you can verify this for yourself. Cheers.
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Post by mysticwinds on Oct 17, 2010 18:53:56 GMT -5
Looking at a very young child...........a soul who does not label things, does not place judgement on others, does not let the older humans affect his/her moods. Somehow it seems we are backwards..... as if we older humans should look more closely at our younger children as the REAL SPIRITUAL TEACHERS. Whatever happen to living by feelings alone? Well, what happen was...that humans chose to create noise and language to label and judge....or is that when ego was born?
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Post by ashtavakra on Oct 19, 2010 5:18:53 GMT -5
zd.... how can anyone "learn" to not-know...: ) trusting the ego is the reason for all the mess...guess the inner grace has to unfold itself and anhilate the ego with its thinking mind....then the state may be called not- knowing.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 19, 2010 14:47:25 GMT -5
zd.... how can anyone "learn" to not-know...: ) trusting the ego is the reason for all the mess...guess the inner grace has to unfold itself and anhilate the ego with its thinking mind....then the state may be called not- knowing. Ashtavakra: you can learn to not know by looking at the world in silence. Go look at what can be imagined as "a tree." If your mind names what you're looking at, ignore the naming and look with more intensity. If your mind talks about what it imagines is being seen, ignore the talking, and look with more intensity. Keep shifting away from thoughts to what you can see. It is like learning to speed read. The goal is to see and understand without verbalization or reflection. Look at your "hand," "wrist," and "arm." Where, precisely, does one thing stop and the next thing begin? Are there lines separating these things? No. All of the boundaries are imaginary. Let that sink in for a moment. Then, look again at what is in front of your eyes without imagining a hand, wrist, or arm. You are then looking at the truth without knowing or imagining anything (any thing) about it. Spend some time staring at the unified wholeness in front of your eyes, and then lift your eyes and look around yourself with the same kind of not-knowing. Your mind will want to name what you are looking at, and also comment upon what you're looking at, but ignore the mind's verbalizations and stay focused on "what is." It will require some practice, but you can learn to look at the world without knowing or imagining anything. Remember, all boundaries are imaginary. In front of your eyes there is only oneness. Thinking is what creates the illusion of separateness. In the real world there are no things, only a unified suchness. The ego is a very deep structure of mind, so it is not nearly as easy to see through that illusion as it is to see through the illusion of "hand-wrist-arm." Start with the simple stuff and let that kind of seeing pave the way to deeper seeing. Cheers
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