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Post by teetown on May 21, 2014 17:44:17 GMT -5
Well, me for one.  You were hinting at it pretty hard there. My 2 cents are that it doesn't have much to do with ATA specifically, as it does with attention in general. You could be deep in thought and lose sense of the body, or focused on a conversation, or driving. "The body" itself is just an aggregation of sensations, along with ideas about it. Anyway, I didn't meant to sound hateful. I found this thread highly entertaining. "The body" didn't come to my mind because the body is an object within my field of perception. My response to "where are you?" Would be 'perceiving' as my "location" is more about what state exists than in what subregion of the perceptive field do I locate myself? Yeah. I only guessed it because halfway through he started dropping no so subtle hints about body parts, not because I was able to follow the line of thinking. I still don't see how the answer (the body) fits into the original question "where are you." |
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Post by teetown on May 21, 2014 17:50:18 GMT -5
Perhaps there's no need to take a position on it one way or another? Most of the teachers who suggest there's no justification for an "out there" still seem to function pretty well "as if" there was an "out there." Why is that? Are they just contradicting themselves? That's a koan for ya. Well put. sdp Thanks, but I actually was disagreeing with you.  Even the simplest explanation is suspect if the evidence is based on rumors and hearsay. |
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Post by topology on May 21, 2014 17:53:43 GMT -5
That there is no distinction between "out there" and "in here" doesn't have an explanation. Replacing objectivity with subjectivity ("it's all mind"), is just a belief swap, and it doesn't get rid of the problem of objectivity, it just turns it inside out. Sutra 100 of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra: "The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same in an enlightened person as it is in an un-enlightened person, the former has one greatness, (s)he remains in the subjective mood...not lost in things." Quoting scripture? |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 17:55:32 GMT -5
This is actually very 'mind blowing' and is the basis for the film The Matrix. I saw this as a teenager It came out in '99 or are you referring to some different version that was copied maybe??  I guess this was bad phrasing. What I saw as a teenager was not the film The Matrix, but the fact that we don't directly experience the exterior world. That was the basis of the film. Neo and most other people thought they lived in the real world. At the beginning of the film, his brain/neural structure/body was plugged into this womb-like enclosure with tubes and stuff feeding his body and stimulating his neural circuits, feeding him information to make him believe he was experiencing the real world. He wasn't. In philosophy this is called a brain in a vat. Trinity, plugged into the Matrix, had put the white rabbit on the girls shoulder (a prearranged message with Neo) then Neo followed her (girl with the white rabbit) to the nightclub where Trinity talked to him. ya-da, ya-da, ya-da-fast forward.....Neo takes the red pill which shows Morpheus where Neo's real body is, and they rescue Neo's real body. As we don't experience the real world, some civilization advanced enough could bypass our neural circuits and feed us false information, giving us experiences that don't correspond to the actual exterior world. There is actually a philosopher, Nick Bostrom, who says there is a good chance we are living in a virtual reality, now  . sdp |
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Post by teetown on May 21, 2014 17:56:47 GMT -5
In this moment, are you aware of all your body parts at once? Of course not. If you are experiencing your head(sensation) then you are not experiencing your feet(sensation). You never actually experience a 'body', just sensations. That was the whole point of sdp's koan. 'What are you not experiencing the non-absence of'? You are not experiencing a body, even though you believe you are a body. Well.......no........that's not accurate. Partially, I wrote that it's not that you (anyone) never experience (the) ____ (body), but the shift from non-experiencing ____ (the body) to experiencing ____ (the body) is illusive. When you are not-experiencing the (non)absence of ____ (the body), you don't know that you are not experiencing it. I told mamza when he was working, there is another thread about absence, it is correct that one can never experience the absence of the self. But here is this which is always present that it's possible not to experience. sdp If you're not experiencing it, but it's still present, where does it go? |
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Post by mamza on May 21, 2014 17:59:19 GMT -5
Uhhh.... yes and no. For this dude right here (moi), attention sort of just goes wherever it goes. Thinking of it in terms of focusing attention on x, y, or z seems a little distracting to me. Originally that's how it worked, but eventually it shifted beyond that. Now it's more....fluid? To steal an idea from Bruce Lee, everything feels like water (not literally). The wind blows and the leaves rustle; person A asks and person B answers. When one thing pushes, something else pulls...that sort of thing. ATA, for me, is more along the lines of awareness (intentionally directed or not) of this fluid relationship between everything. I used to try and cut thoughts out, but now that seems hilarious. Thoughts, to me, are just another sort of relationship (i.e. - distracted by thought, the world we're aware of draws inward and shrinks). I don't like using words because they can very easily be misunderstood (which I'm sure you're aware of), but if I had to I'd say it's more like a visually impaired person putting on glasses. Nothing has changed in the world, but everything is suddenly very clear. Does that help any? "Where are you when you ata-mt? The body." I'm just asking you what you mean by that. It's silly to worry about using words on a discussion forum. Why not live dangerously? Take a ride on the wild side. Well, what I mean is that when you ATA, eventually there is a point where it seems as though what you are is this thing looking out through the body. If the question is where am I during ATA, the answer in words would make sense as "the body." Everything seems very centered in the body at that time. Seems. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:05:43 GMT -5
Well, me for one. You were hinting at it pretty hard there. My 2 cents are that it doesn't have much to do with ATA specifically, as it does with attention in general. You could be deep in thought and lose sense of the body, or focused on a conversation, or driving. "The body" itself is just an aggregation of sensations, along with ideas about it. Anyway, I didn't meant to sound hateful. I found this thread highly entertaining. " The body" didn't come to my mind because the body is an object within my field of perception. My response to "where are you?" Would be 'perceiving' as my "location" is more about what state exists than in what subregion of the perceptive field do I locate myself? But when you are awake, the body always has the possibility of being an object in the field of your perception, it is not always in your consciousness. That's the point I was making. sdp |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:11:00 GMT -5
I don't understand your comment. Everything you sense is a recreation in the brain, a representation. You don't experience the world directly. sdp Your statement here is material reductionism. Well...OK. I don't mean to discount mystical or extrasensory experience. I'm talking about ordinary experience. sdp |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:16:46 GMT -5
"The body" didn't come to my mind because the body is an object within my field of perception. My response to "where are you?" Would be 'perceiving' as my "location" is more about what state exists than in what subregion of the perceptive field do I locate myself? Yeah. I only guessed it because halfway through he started dropping no so subtle hints about body parts, not because I was able to follow the line of thinking. I still don't see how the answer (the body) fits into the original question "where are you." That's why I wrote: then there is ~ you~, as attending, in some sense. (in the OP) I was trying to indicate looking in a not-obvious direction. You get bonus points for seeing all the hints and seeing what they were pointing to. But I wanted you to experience the answer, not just conceptualize it. sdp |
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Post by topology on May 21, 2014 18:22:45 GMT -5
" The body" didn't come to my mind because the body is an object within my field of perception. My response to "where are you?" Would be 'perceiving' as my "location" is more about what state exists than in what subregion of the perceptive field do I locate myself? But when you are awake, the body always has the possibility of being an object in the field of your perception, it is not always in your consciousness. That's the point I was making. sdp Given that I can be conscious without an awareness of the body, and I can ATA without the body in awareness, so how is "the body" a good answer for where I am? If I go straight to my direct experience, I am Here, perceiving, whether or not the body is here with me. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:23:34 GMT -5
Thanks, but I actually was disagreeing with you. Even the simplest explanation is suspect if the evidence is based on rumors and hearsay. I failed Koans 101  . sdp |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:25:12 GMT -5
Well.......no........that's not accurate. Partially, I wrote that it's not that you (anyone) never experience (the) ____ (body), but the shift from non-experiencing ____ (the body) to experiencing ____ (the body) is illusive. When you are not-experiencing the (non)absence of ____ (the body), you don't know that you are not experiencing it. I told mamza when he was working, there is another thread about absence, it is correct that one can never experience the absence of the self. But here is this which is always present that it's possible not to experience. sdp If you're not experiencing it, but it's still present, where does it go? It doesn't go anywhere, but it leaves your consciousness. sdp |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:27:41 GMT -5
"Where are you when you ata-mt? The body." I'm just asking you what you mean by that. It's silly to worry about using words on a discussion forum. Why not live dangerously? Take a ride on the wild side. Well, what I mean is that when you ATA, eventually there is a point where it seems as though what you are is this thing looking out through the body. If the question is where am I during ATA, the answer in words would make sense as "the body." Everything seems very centered in the body at that time. Seems. enigma, give him the prize money . sdp |
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Post by teetown on May 21, 2014 18:29:16 GMT -5
Yeah. I only guessed it because halfway through he started dropping no so subtle hints about body parts, not because I was able to follow the line of thinking. I still don't see how the answer (the body) fits into the original question "where are you." That's why I wrote: then there is ~ you~, as attending, in some sense. (in the OP) I was trying to indicate looking in a not-obvious direction. You get bonus points for seeing all the hints and seeing what they were pointing to. But I wanted you to experience the answer, not just conceptualize it. sdp You can only ever experience the body conceptually. The body is a concept. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 21, 2014 18:39:13 GMT -5
But when you are awake, the body always has the possibility of being an object in the field of your perception, it is not always in your consciousness. That's the point I was making. sdp Given that I can be conscious without an awareness of the body, and I can ATA without the body in awareness, so how is "the body" a good answer for where I am? If I go straight to my direct experience, I am Here, perceiving, whether or not the body is here with me. On page 2, May 14, 8:28, because of rupa's post, the question became more specified to: There is something which you regularly do not experience the (non)absence of every day, a significant part of every day. Essentially, that became the (more specified, more clear, not a different question) question. Your post above would not apply. sdp |
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You were hinting at it pretty hard there. My 2 cents are that it doesn't have much to do with ATA specifically, as it does with attention in general. You could be deep in thought and lose sense of the body, or focused on a conversation, or driving. "The body" itself is just an aggregation of sensations, along with ideas about it. 
Even the simplest explanation is suspect if the evidence is based on rumors and hearsay. 
. 
.