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Post by zendancer on Sept 16, 2011 14:02:33 GMT -5
Yes, MAX, sometimes a trivial observation can trigger big internal changes in understanding and/or realization. Realizing through direct experience that the nature of awareness does not change with time helps us realize that who we THINK we are is NOT who we are. It gives us some insight into the truth.
The other day I was telling Autumn about a landscape artist who went to a sage for advice. The sage told the artist that although his paintings were good, they were based upon an illusory understanding of the world. The man asked what he could do to gain a deeper understanding. The sage told him to go sit and look at a landscape scene until he could see the truth of it rather than his intellectual interpretation of it. The guy actually followed the sage's advice (he must have intuited that the sage was correct). He sat down on a bench and looked at a large unusual tree and the garden of which it was a part. Day after day the guy came to the garden, sat down, and silently looked. After two weeks he reached a point where he no longer knew what he was looking at, but he kept on looking. His mind grew emptier and emptier. After about 9 weeks, he was sitting there one day when suddenly the entire universe disintegrated, and he saw the truth. He had a classic enlightenment experience that Zen calls "kensho." He saw his true nature for the first time, and it changed him forever. Freed from thought, he lost himself but discovered the infinite. He finally understood what the Buddha reportedly said to himself after his enlightenment, "Wonder of wonders, in all the universe I am the only One." The artist supposedly continued painting landscapes after this event, but they were different than before. LOL
After a significant insight, how the body/mind will react is unpredictable. It may sit in silence, it may observe the observer, it may start thinking like crazy, etc. Ironically, there is no personal entity that has ever been involved in what it does either before or after such an insight. There is a body/mind that can be imagined as Max, but there is no Max. Remember the existential music video by Morcheeba, "Enjoy the Ride?" Well, no roller coaster in the world has half the thrills that THIS has. Enjoy!
BTW, several years ago Mike Snider wrote me a letter. The first sentence of the letter made me realize that he was probably enlightened. I called him up and we laughed non-stop for about two hours. Afterwards we began to meet regularly for dinner, and every dinner was a laughfest. He is one of the funniest guys in the world. Of course it helps to be a professional comedian, world-class musician, and country music star. LOL. A few years ago, he was sanctioned to teach by Adyashanti, but today he does his own thing in his own way and is not formally part of any tradition. He is the clearest person I know in Tennessee.
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Post by enigma on Sept 16, 2011 14:04:01 GMT -5
Hahaha. Get ready cause the waters are gonna be cold. Luckily I got my waders. Cool! The weather has been hot here so a good dunking is probly just what I need.
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Post by zendancer on Sept 16, 2011 14:18:50 GMT -5
I understand how the idea makes sense after the fact of realization, because then the idea has an actual referent to which the idea is pointing. But prior to your own realization, was the idea a certainty to you? @max: If you allow me, I would like to ask you the same question. I assume that you haven't had the same realization as Enigma, yet you seem to be certain that the idea he presents is entirely consistent and a logical certainty beyond the shadow of a doubt? The reason for my question is trivial. There are many people who claim to understand that primordial persistent awareness must be a fact and that it is indeed already grounded in logic, they are absolutely certain of that idea without even having had a realization of that awareness. Yet despite my best efforts I can't come to the same conclusion and certainty, which makes me wonder whether I'm too 'stupid' to understand the idea or whether those people have taken the idea on faith and haven't reflected on it deeply enough to notice that it can't in itself be a certainty. I understand what you're questioning here. First of all, what we call realization of Truth is precisely the same 'function' as the realization of non-volition or the realization of the futility of dualistic happiness or the realization of the reality of Love or any other 'transcendent' realization that you may have had. The effect of that particular realization is all encompassing, but the 'mechanics' are not different. To imagine that it is somehow uniquely different than the way in which any realization occurs would be to add a confusing layer of mystique to it. So we can TRY to talk about realization in general as a different mode of seeing, much like Wolfe did. I understand what Wolfe is talking about but I can't 'borrow' his words. I have to talk about what I'm seeing. Uncertainty is a property of thought, inherent in the self defining nature of conceptualization, and so thought can only support itself with other thoughts, which are also supported by other thoughts, which is what the process of logic and reason is. We can certainly pretend that there is certainty within thought if we make it sufficiently complex and convincing, but it cannot be so. Mind cannot actually know anything for certain. As such, we can't say that self evident truth is evident within the context of thought, which would mean it is not self evident but rather evident on the basis of other evidence. IOW, conceptual understanding rests on the 'truth' of other concepts, while self evident Truth does not. In this, the issue of evidence or verification does not arise at all, not because it is overwhelmingly convincing, but because the function of uncertainty, integral to the conceptualization process, has itself collapsed in the absence of conceptualization. To put it simply, doubt is a function of mind, realization is not. Hencely, realization does not call for certainty simply because it is not encumbered by conceptualization. When the straight jacket of conceptualization is not donned to begin with, it's not necessary to overcome it's implied limitations. So what we're saying is that realization, in it's raw essence before mind conceptualizes it, is not conceptual at all. In it's most common form, this is the 'AHA!' moment that I believe everyone has experienced, but perhaps most have not understood. It's a bit difficult to reflect upon with mind because that moment was both instantaneous and transcendent. That is, it did not occur as a concept and did not occur in mind's formulated sense of continuity that we call time. Initially, it's not clear what is seen in that 'AHA!' moment, and yet it is clear that 'something' is seen. Mind will need to conceptualize it in some way before it can be said what is known. That's the process that is occurring now; looking, seeing, conceptualizing, typing, followed by you reading, conceptualizing, translating, and possibly looking and seeing. If you do not also look and see, the circle is incomplete and the seeing 'here' does not translate into seeing 'there', and the communication fails utterly. So what is this seeing that is not the seeing of something conceptual? Essentially, it is the expansion of perspective beyond the boundaries that define perspective, which means that it is no longer a perspective as such, which is why it is not conceptual. When one sees from 'outside the box' one is not seeing from another larger box or context, but from a kind of empty space in which all the boxes appear. There is nothing to be said about that space as a perspective because it is the origin of perspectives. There really is nothing to be said about what is seen from that space because all that appears are perspectives, but this is the point. What is seen is what is NOT so, and in this seeing there is not knowledge, but rather the collapse of knowledge as a paradigm of some kind of actual reality. From a practical standpoint, the perspective of a separate, volitional entity is seen as an imaginary perspective. The notion of separation is seen as an idea only, the concept of boundaries of any kind is seen as merely conceptual. Oneness is not so much the realization of oneness as true, but the realization that separation is false. It's not the acquisition of knowledge, but rather a loss. Perhaps it can be seen that nothing is needed beyond this loss. Oneness does not need to be conceptualized or understood or believed or proven once the idea of separation has been seen through completely. It's the idea of separation that causes the trouble, not the absence of the actuality of oneness. That actuality is already 'what is' in the absence of the idea of separation. Now THAT was a beautiful bit of writing! It encourages me to put the computer away and go for a walk in the woods, or.........join 1HC with that statue he keeps threatening to build. LOL. I'd warn you about letting this praise go to your head, but you lost your head a long time ago, so I don;t think there's any danger.
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Post by enigma on Sept 16, 2011 15:08:17 GMT -5
Now THAT was a beautiful bit of writing! It encourages me to put the computer away and go for a walk in the woods, or.........join 1HC with that statue he keeps threatening to build. LOL. I'd warn you about letting this praise go to your head, but you lost your head a long time ago, so I don;t think there's any danger. Cool! Please forward the specifications for the pure-of-heart Buddha statue and I'll sign off on it. Hehe.
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Post by onehandclapping on Sept 16, 2011 15:29:00 GMT -5
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
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Post by question on Sept 17, 2011 17:12:59 GMT -5
That's pretty amazing. Certainly one of the most difficult 'philosophical' (lol) points I have encountered, not because the math is so hard to do, but because it's extremely counterintuitive to conceptual thought. From within conceptual thought the point seems extremely subtle, but it has tremendous implicatons. It hints at the possibility that there is no boundary whatsoever to what can be understood, because understanding is not defined by conceptual boundaries. I think the toughest part here is to understand how understanding can in itself not be taken as a proposition and that a conceptual formulation is merely an expression and a fundamental distortion of the intial understanding and that the expression should indeed only be taken as a pointer. The point is obvious from within understanding but it is difficult to make the point compatible with language because language and logic have too much gravity and at every step of the way sabotage the cause by drawing attention back into a conceptual framework. Now I have a new toy to play with, thank you!
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Post by tathagata on Sept 17, 2011 18:43:08 GMT -5
That's pretty amazing. Certainly one of the most difficult 'philosophical' (lol) points I have encountered, not because the math is so hard to do, but because it's extremely counterintuitive to conceptual thought. From within conceptual thought the point seems extremely subtle, but it has tremendous implicatons. It hints at the possibility that there is no boundary whatsoever to what can be understood, because understanding is not defined by conceptual boundaries. I think the toughest part here is to understand how understanding can in itself not be taken as a proposition and that a conceptual formulation is merely an expression and a fundamental distortion of the intial understanding and that the expression should indeed only be taken as a pointer. The point is obvious from within understanding but it is difficult to make the point compatible with language because language and logic have too much gravity and at every step of the way sabotage the cause by drawing attention back into a conceptual framework. Now I have a new toy to play with, thank you! Question...a mental excercise for you if ya will.....for three days spend as much time as possible trying to imagine something unimaginable....and report back your experience please....will be a big help to people and I think your just the right guy for the job brother....its kinda like a scientific experiment....don't influence the results by trying to figure out what they will be before you run the experiment.
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Post by therealfake on Sept 17, 2011 19:45:44 GMT -5
To understand the limitations of the conceptual mind is easy...
The challenge is simple.
Come up with an original 'concept' that no one else in the whole world has ever thought of...
TRF
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Post by tathagata on Sept 17, 2011 19:55:58 GMT -5
To understand the limitations of the conceptual mind is easy... The challenge is simple. Come up with an original 'concept' that no one else in the whole world has ever thought of... TRF Hehehe
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Post by enigma on Sept 17, 2011 20:53:35 GMT -5
That's pretty amazing. Certainly one of the most difficult 'philosophical' (lol) points I have encountered, not because the math is so hard to do, but because it's extremely counterintuitive to conceptual thought. From within conceptual thought the point seems extremely subtle, but it has tremendous implicatons. It hints at the possibility that there is no boundary whatsoever to what can be understood, because understanding is not defined by conceptual boundaries. I think the toughest part here is to understand how understanding can in itself not be taken as a proposition and that a conceptual formulation is merely an expression and a fundamental distortion of the intial understanding and that the expression should indeed only be taken as a pointer. The point is obvious from within understanding but it is difficult to make the point compatible with language because language and logic have too much gravity and at every step of the way sabotage the cause by drawing attention back into a conceptual framework. If we talk about conceptual understanding, which I'm equating to knowledge, it is made up entirely of boundaries much the way a football field is literally defined by pounding goal posts into the ground. Until then, it was a grassy field. Likewise, goalposts are not goalposts until we pound them into the ground to make a football field. They are just metal poles, which are not metal poles until we shape rolled steel into a cylindrical form, etc. All knowledge is formed by imagining a mutually defining pair of opposing polarities. While the process may become obscured because of its exponential nature, the fact remains that everything we know is conceptually imagined into apparent existence in this way, and nowhere is there an absolute foundation for any of it. Everything is defined ONLY by it's polar opposite, which must arise simultaneously and must remain as a free-floating conceptual reference from which it derives it's meaning. This means that every idea, along with it's expression in the form of sensory perception, appears from no-thingness and derives it's meaning from other ideas arising from no-thingness. Hencely, nothing we can think has any ultimate 'reality' beyond the thought itself. No knowledge is ultimately true, only contextually so. Oops! (hehe)
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Post by enigma on Sept 17, 2011 20:55:01 GMT -5
To understand the limitations of the conceptual mind is easy... The challenge is simple. Come up with an original 'concept' that no one else in the whole world has ever thought of... TRF Clearly, that has occurred innumerable times already.
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Post by question on Sept 18, 2011 12:21:06 GMT -5
No knowledge is ultimately true, only contextually so. Yes, and I think it isn't difficult to understand on a conceptual level. My understanding of this was that this rule is itself a contextual knowledge that one can particiate in or not. As such it would still be a conceptual way of understanding, we could call it contextualism. It can be formalized in notational systems and offers superior capacity because it can potentially contain all forms of logic and contexts, depict their relationality and thereby systematically resolve paradoxes which arise from missing the contextuality of knowledge. But what completely escapes the logician is that there is another way to read it. Your quote can also be read as a pointer towards that which informs conceptual knowledge. Then we have a shift where we not merely organize different forms of logical frameworks into a web of contextuality, but rather pay attention to that from where knowledge is sourced, which isn't conceptual, but real nonetheless, but it looks unreal and unverifiable from within conceptual thought, because it isn't conceptual. You lost me there. Are you equating ideas to sensory perceptions? Are the qualia 'red', 'pain', 'sweet' expressions of ideas?
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Post by zendancer on Sept 18, 2011 13:47:18 GMT -5
Okay, so here is a new concept--"glurtch" which can also be spelled "glurch." The definition of a glurch is "anyone who keeps the line you're waiting in from moving forward." If you're in line at the grocery and the person in front of you can't find his checkbook or credit card, you're standing behind a glurch. If you're in line at the bank, and the person at the teller's cage spills all of her coins on the floor and has to pick it up and count it before continuing.......that's right, you've got a glurch in your line. Notice that a glurch never existed prior to the idea of a glurch, which is an idea dependent upon the mutual appearance (usually ignored) of everyone who is not a glurch.
The next time you are standing in a line that stops moving forward, you will probably realize what the problem is and say, "OMG, my line had a glurch in it!" Even worse will be those times when you suddenly realize that you are being a glurch to people standing behind you.
Get the idea solidly into your head, and then see if you can get rid of it. When the next line you're standing in stops moving forward, see if you can NOT imagine that your line has a glurch in it. Glurches, like all ideas, can be sticky little suckers. LOL
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Post by therealfake on Sept 18, 2011 15:07:03 GMT -5
To understand the limitations of the conceptual mind is easy... The challenge is simple. Come up with an original 'concept' that no one else in the whole world has ever thought of... TRF Clearly, that has occurred innumerable times already. Maybe you can provide us with an example...
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Post by question on Sept 18, 2011 16:49:17 GMT -5
ZD, is your 'glurch' story a response to the question how sensory perceptions are supposed to be expressions of ideas? If so, I don't see your point. We have an idea of the colour red, but no matter how hard we focus on the idea, our ideation won't produce the experience of seeing of a red colour. The idea will remain an idea.
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