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Post by andrew on Feb 22, 2018 5:26:36 GMT -5
The difference between a consciousness of lack/conditionality and abundance/unconditionality.....is basically the same difference as what others refer to as unconsciousness and consciousness, or asleep and awake. I used the words I did because I think they more accurately describe what's going on at the level of understanding. For example, babies are born and raised with the belief that what is most important is what is outside of them, and that what is outside of them is unstable and temporary (they're correct about the last bit). The result of that belief is the seeking, striving, controlling, manipulating of the world around them, and only ever temporarily experiencing the stability, love and connection that they desire. This is what I mean by a consciousness of lack/conditionality. As our understandings change, and realizations happen (we are what we seek etc), our consciousness shifts to abundance/conditionality. We discover that what is most important to us is not unstable, but is also not 'outside' of us. I basically liked you last paragraph. So, in your POV, babies are born with a pre-existing conditioning of ignorance and suffering. But, to clarify, we can become stable and abide in Truth, yes? Darn, I just lost my reply I wrote. Okay, I think babies are being conditioned by 'ignorance' of the world from day one, probably in the womb even. It may even be in the genes as the likes of David Lipton is exploring. And yes, but I don't think being stable in Truth means being free from conditioning that can trigger us emotionally, although being stable will probably mean changing the way we respond to those triggers/emotions.
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Post by andrew on Feb 22, 2018 5:28:47 GMT -5
They don't have a highly developed self-awareness, but there is still a basis for self-awareness...a basic ego. A toy robot bunny can't evolve into a bunny that can know itself in a mirror, but a real bunny potentially could. What you're calling a basic ego develops around a sense of self rather than as a consequence of self awareness. No self awareness, no stories about a 'me', no suffering. Well the word 'story' is crucial here. Does an animal and baby have a 'story'? Well not in an obvious form, but I would say there is a basic non-conceptual story still. Life is still being lived meaningfully, albeit very spontaneously. And with that basic rudimentary story comes the capacity to suffer. The moment we can feel, we can suffer.
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Post by andrew on Feb 22, 2018 5:29:55 GMT -5
The sense of thirst is felt though, and feeling is not mechanical. I didn't mean to say anything about mechanical or not. I'm saying bodily needs can be taken care of without the 'me' story that we usually call ego. again, same thing I just said applies here. 'Taking care of bodily needs' isn't robotic or mechanical, there is a sentience to it. With that sentience, comes the capacity to feel and suffer.
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Post by andrew on Feb 22, 2018 5:30:36 GMT -5
Well that depends if you believe that a bunny can be physically tortured and still not suffer. To me it's not common sense to say that. The abstract 'me' concept leads to suffering. It has nothing to do with bunnies. yeah as above, I won't say it a third time hehe.
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Post by andrew on Feb 22, 2018 5:31:48 GMT -5
There's a difference between a sense of self, and mind/body identification. A sense of self comes with being conscious, and the body functions superbly with only that. Mind/body identification is an imagined overlay of illusory belief that results in suffering (as you say). A conscious bunny that knows the difference between carrots and sand, lettuce and water will do so because they have an identified structure in place . All this structure is built around / upon how it identifies with itself otherwise it would not be able to distinguish / differentiate one thing from another . The mirror experiment that you speak of is about reflections of self awareness .. The same applies to a bunny perceiving in reflection of itself in life experience . yes, the bunny's self awareness just isn't quite as sophisticated, but it is still relating.
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Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2018 7:15:59 GMT -5
Ok, I think see how you get from point A to point B. It seems to me you're extrapolating "suffering is always optional" -- which is a misparaphrasing to begin with. Do I have that right? My intended meaning was far more narrow, far more contextually limited than that. My point is that for some folks suffering doesn't play much of a role at all in the spiritual path. The loss of existential meaning doesn't have to coincide with a suicidal crisis the way it did for Tolle. My position is similar to Tolle's in that a person can reach a point where they suddenly realize they don't have to suffer anymore. It is different in that I disagree with his implication that the story of deep suffering leading up to that point is necessarily universal. None of this has anything to do with babies. Thanks for clarifying. (Regarding the babies, I'll move you into the equivocal column then for the time being ). Could I not infer that if suffering is optional, then by extension babies can't suffer, due to limited options? ... I'll assume that's an artefact of the misparaphrase. My counterpoint to Tolle is quite concrete and practical. The baby/animal suffering debate, isn't. Does a person seeking existential truth have to suffer? I say: they will suffer for as long as they're seeking, but they don't have to suffer in order to seek, and the suffering might not always lead to greater relative clarity in the seeking. Will blundering through life unconsciously result in intense suffering that will wake them up? I say, maybe, but awakening because of intense suffering isn't a foregone conclusion. Cohen had his followers make sacrifices that were bound to create and intensify their suffering, and that's not the only example I could give of people acting on the misconceived notion that suffering is somehow worthy or noble or that deliberately enduring hardship is a sort of spiritual practice ever worth anyone's effort and time. What does any of that have to do with babies? "Can babies or animals suffer?" isn't a practical question, and isn't directly pertinent to my interest here in how pain and suffering are related to awakening and self-realization. It's general, vague, open-ended and philosophical. I've written that suffering can't be defined in relative terms, and that the distinction between pain and suffering can be valid and informative, but that the distinction between pain and suffering loses it's efficacy at the extremes. I refrained from claiming the elephants in your scenario weren't suffering, and went into some detail to explain why. I've acknowledged the flip side to the coin on the distinction between pain and suffering -- how they interrelate and give rise to one another, and wrote about how the end of the false sense of identity underlying suffering is acausal, as in, not within the personal control of the person suffering. There's no way to reduce my position to "suffering is optional" without ignoring most of what I've written and taking it out of context. Anyway, I really enjoyed the video, in it, Tolle was expressing something similar to one he did where he was talking about the evolution of ego, which I've posted before. But I hadn't seen your one, so I appreciate that. In the broadest sense, I sometimes consider what we generally think of as '[the turning of] the world' as being merely the path the process of waking up (in its entirety) takes, and I think Tolle may be expressing something similar. So not dissimilar to the notion of God coming to know Himself, I suppose, and Tolle talks about tangential egoic overdevelopment, essentially in the context of becoming lost in the dream in that other vid I mentioned. All a bit different from the narrow context you said you were talking in there, but perhaps not entirely unconnected. Carl Sagan stated the common secular humanist answer to "why are we here?" in one of the first episodes of "Cosmos", and it's one that I resonated with quite deeply: "so that the Universe may come to know itself". I still find that to be a profound and beautiful perspective. But what I came to find decades later is that it's a relative answer to a question of absolutes. It's a conceptual answer to one particular form of the existential question. In this, it's a deceptive and false resting place for the mind. So if anyone asked my opinion about it, I'd say, well, that's a good start, but don't settle for it.
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Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2018 7:25:39 GMT -5
Tolle is always a source of insight, and I like his interpretation of the prodigal son .. but wow .. .. telling Andrew Cohen that the purpose of the world is so that peeps can suffer enough to wake up ?? .. Suffering is an undeniable part of many folks path stories. But. It's really, always, quite optional. Suffering is optional...unless it isn't. Perhaps if someone took the time and trouble to explain context then noone would ever quote back that 2nd sentence to me without taking into account some reference to the first. I agree that falling into self delusion brings suffering such that an appreciation for freedom comes about, a la the prodigal son, and the world ultimately brings about this outcome as a consequence of seeking to escape the suffering, but I would not say the purpose of the world is to suffer enough to wake up. The issue I have is not that that scenario doesn't play out, but rather with the idea of purpose. Nobody has set up the world with that purpose. Yes, of course. There are as many ways for that seeking to play out as there have been, are and will be people. From what I've learned of history and from what I read of the present it seems to me that most of those stories remain limited to a lifelong relative flight from pain and toward pleasure.
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Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2018 19:44:30 GMT -5
There's a difference between a sense of self, and mind/body identification. A sense of self comes with being conscious, and the body functions superbly with only that. Mind/body identification is an imagined overlay of illusory belief that results in suffering (as you say). A conscious bunny that knows the difference between carrots and sand, lettuce and water will do so because they have an identified structure in place . All this structure is built around / upon how it identifies with itself otherwise it would not be able to distinguish / differentiate one thing from another . The mirror experiment that you speak of is about reflections of self awareness .. The same applies to a bunny perceiving in reflection of itself in life experience . I don't know what reflections of self awareness are. The experiment is about self awareness. Bunny fails the mirror test. In a way it's good news because it means he can't suffer.
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Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2018 19:56:27 GMT -5
What you're calling a basic ego develops around a sense of self rather than as a consequence of self awareness. No self awareness, no stories about a 'me', no suffering. Well the word 'story' is crucial here. Does an animal and baby have a 'story'? Well not in an obvious form, but I would say there is a basic non-conceptual story still. Life is still being lived meaningfully, albeit very spontaneously. And with that basic rudimentary story comes the capacity to suffer. The moment we can feel, we can suffer. It might be useful to contemplate the difference between an animal that can function in the world without a mind/body identification, and an animal that is biologically self aware. (Or do you see a difference?)
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Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2018 19:59:02 GMT -5
I didn't mean to say anything about mechanical or not. I'm saying bodily needs can be taken care of without the 'me' story that we usually call ego. again, same thing I just said applies here. 'Taking care of bodily needs' isn't robotic or mechanical, there is a sentience to it. With that sentience, comes the capacity to feel and suffer. Yes, we are talking about sentient creatures. I thought that was understood.
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Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2018 20:19:33 GMT -5
A conscious bunny that knows the difference between carrots and sand, lettuce and water will do so because they have an identified structure in place . All this structure is built around / upon how it identifies with itself otherwise it would not be able to distinguish / differentiate one thing from another . The mirror experiment that you speak of is about reflections of self awareness .. The same applies to a bunny perceiving in reflection of itself in life experience . yes, the bunny's self awareness just isn't quite as sophisticated, but it is still relating. That sophistication makes all the difference. It's an excellent exploration as it has the potential to clarify the point of suffering, which isn't as universal as you think it is.
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Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2018 20:31:45 GMT -5
Suffering is optional...unless it isn't. [/quote ]Perhaps if someone took the time and trouble to explain context then noone would ever quote back that 2nd sentence to me without taking into account some reference to the first. I agree that falling into self delusion brings suffering such that an appreciation for freedom comes about, a la the prodigal son, and the world ultimately brings about this outcome as a consequence of seeking to escape the suffering, but I would not say the purpose of the world is to suffer enough to wake up. The issue I have is not that that scenario doesn't play out, but rather with the idea of purpose. Nobody has set up the world with that purpose. Yes, of course. There are as many ways for that seeking to play out as there have been, are and will be people. From what I've learned of history and from what I read of the present it seems to me that most of those stories remain limited to a lifelong relative flight from pain and toward pleasure. Okay, suffering happens to many, but it's always optional. Not from the perspective of the one suffering. I guess what you mean is that even though it seems inevitable, it's really not.
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Post by andrew on Feb 23, 2018 3:39:45 GMT -5
Well the word 'story' is crucial here. Does an animal and baby have a 'story'? Well not in an obvious form, but I would say there is a basic non-conceptual story still. Life is still being lived meaningfully, albeit very spontaneously. And with that basic rudimentary story comes the capacity to suffer. The moment we can feel, we can suffer. It might be useful to contemplate the difference between an animal that can function in the world without a mind/body identification, and an animal that is biologically self aware. (Or do you see a difference?) yes the difference is in the complexity and abstraction of the story. A human existentially suffers and most animals do not (probably). Humans can set goals and consciously give themselves purpose in a way that animals do not, and this can cause a lot of suffering if mishandled. And whereas animals can experience resistance, humans may also resist the resistance, which can be uncomfortable. There may be a few other examples I could offer.
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Post by andrew on Feb 23, 2018 3:43:21 GMT -5
yes, the bunny's self awareness just isn't quite as sophisticated, but it is still relating. That sophistication makes all the difference. It's an excellent exploration as it has the potential to clarify the point of suffering, which isn't as universal as you think it is. Torture a dog and the dog will suffer, but it won't resist its own resistance, it won't tell sophisticated stories. It's suffering is pure, in the moment, and innocent. And it will come to fear the torturer. I would invite you to notice that you are over-ruling your intuition and instinct.
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Post by lolly on Feb 23, 2018 6:16:14 GMT -5
A conscious bunny that knows the difference between carrots and sand, lettuce and water will do so because they have an identified structure in place . All this structure is built around / upon how it identifies with itself otherwise it would not be able to distinguish / differentiate one thing from another . The mirror experiment that you speak of is about reflections of self awareness .. The same applies to a bunny perceiving in reflection of itself in life experience . yes, the bunny's self awareness just isn't quite as sophisticated, but it is still relating. I guess it's a question of, does it matter if we torture the bunnies, and if so, why?
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