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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 31, 2020 11:59:20 GMT -5
I presume most here have at least tried ATA-T. We have experienced attention otherwise throughout our whole lives. In attention otherwise our attention goes-into the object of attention, and disappears in-to the object. And then with attention otherwise your attention can jump around from object to object, to whatever it-is-attracted-to. Now, there are occasions when we have to restrict this jumping, for example, on the job when we get paid to restrict the jumping, and stay focused on the problem that needs to be solved. Or in school, when we pay money to take classes to learn and end up with a diploma or a degree, with the aim usually of being able to choose a favorable way to earn dollars to make-our-way-in-life. In ATA-T, we can freely choose the object of attention, and the reason for attending.
But my question is, do you understand the distinction between the two? Can you experience the distinction between the two? If not then ~you~ are merely a dog-wagging-tail. If not then ~you~ are merely the LOA occurring subconsciously and haphazardly, and in fact it is asserted there-is-no-you, anyway. Now, I know some have no problem in this latter, it's kind of ND 101, and in fact some here long-for this realization. But that makes no sense to me. But I pose the question to give an alternative.
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 11, 2020 5:42:20 GMT -5
In attention otherwise our attention goes-into the object of attention, and disappears in-to the object. And then with attention otherwise your attention can jump around from object to object, to whatever it-is-attracted-to. In ATA-T, we can freely choose the object of attention, and the reason for attending.
This is going to sound like a "cop-out" a bit, but I think these sorts of distinctions miss the point, almost by necessity in the sense that a linguistic attempt to discuss something like ATA-t or Nonduality in general is always going to fail. That being said, I feel like in ATA-t there isn't a "freely chosen" object of attention, nor is there necessarily even a conscious reason for attending it. A thought might arise, and then subsequently there might be a thought, "I should really get back to this ATA stuff so I can make some progress," and then it might happen that all of this is seen as the machinations of mind and there is a dropping into silence. Certainly something chooses to do this or that, but that totality or intelligence or whatever you want to call it is definitely not asking for permissions from a "me", which is simply a linguistic convention to begin with. I do wholeheartedly agree that a distinction need to be made between ATA-t and other "forms" (for lack of a better word) of attention, but I think it's as simple as having the general intention to drop thought when it's presence is noted. Nobody can make that intention be there 24/7 or forcefully hold it there, but in time there seems to be a preference for presence without thought as opposed to the typical mental narration that goes on in most peoples' heads. I apologize if at any point I misunderstood you or mischaracterized you here! 🙏
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Post by zendancer on Aug 11, 2020 7:02:47 GMT -5
In attention otherwise our attention goes-into the object of attention, and disappears in-to the object. And then with attention otherwise your attention can jump around from object to object, to whatever it-is-attracted-to. In ATA-T, we can freely choose the object of attention, and the reason for attending.
This is going to sound like a "cop-out" a bit, but I think these sorts of distinctions miss the point, almost by necessity in the sense that a linguistic attempt to discuss something like ATA-t or Nonduality in general is always going to fail. That being said, I feel like in ATA-t there isn't a "freely chosen" object of attention, nor is there necessarily even a conscious reason for attending it. A thought might arise, and then subsequently there might be a thought, "I should really get back to this ATA stuff so I can make some progress," and then it might happen that all of this is seen as the machinations of mind and there is a dropping into silence. Certainly something chooses to do this or that, but that totality or intelligence or whatever you want to call it is definitely not asking for permissions from a "me", which is simply a linguistic convention to begin with. I do wholeheartedly agree that a distinction need to be made between ATA-t and other "forms" (for lack of a better word) of attention, but I think it's as simple as having the general intention to drop thought when it's presence is noted. Nobody can make that intention be there 24/7 or forcefully hold it there, but in time there seems to be a preference for presence without thought as opposed to the typical mental narration that goes on in most peoples' heads. I apologize if at any point I misunderstood you or mischaracterized you here! 🙏 I agree with most of this. My only disagreement would be that sometimes there is a conscious reason for doing ATA-T because of what is intuited about the possible effectiveness of that activity. I initially started doing ATA-T because I wondered if it was possible for an adult to look at the world like a small child--without naming or commenting upon what was seen. IOW, I wondered, "Can the world be looked at in silence?" Almost as soon as I started trying to do that (while walking down a country road in the afternoon after work), memories from childhood returned. I remembered smells that I hadn't smelled in many years (honeysuckle, new-mown grass, etc). Within a day or so I saw birds and squirrels, and was surprised because I hadn't seen them in years and sort of assumed that they had all been killed by hunters. These experiences made me realize that I had been living in my head for a long time and hadn't consciously looked at the natural world. I had been spending all of my time attending thoughts about finance, construction problems, customers, employees, etc. At that time I also realized that there was a big difference between interacting with the world directly, through sensory perception and physical activity like small children, and interacting with the world indirectly through thoughts, like adults. This increased my curiosity and motivation to spend more time formerly meditating using a breath awareness practice. I hadn't yet realized that ATA-T is a major aspect of many forms of meditation. Later, I realized that breath awareness meditation is another form of ATA-T (one is shifting attention away from thoughts to watching the breathing process). It took about 7 or 8 years of experimenting with many forms of meditation before I fully realized the value of informally doing ATA-T during everyday life. Until that time my focus was still primarily upon formal sitting meditation, but after I saw the value of shifting attention away from thoughts while driving my truck, and during other activities throughout the day, that increased the amount of time spent in that form of meditation. I also began going on solo mountain hiking/climbing retreats during which I purposely did ATA-T virtually around the clock. The effect of doing this was noticeable because it led to significantly more internal silence and longer and longer periods of time during which there was no thinking at all. Of course, after the illusion of selfhood collapsed (after the "little guy in the head" vanished), and I finally realized what we all are and what's going on, there was no longer any need to do ATA-T or any other kind of meditation. It became obvious that THIS sometimes thinks and THIS sometimes is silent via human organisms, and the only value in becoming silent is to escape from the incessant thoughts that obscure the underlying truth. Ironically, by the time all of this was realized, mind talk had become minimal compared with earlier in life, and the character was able to interact with the world with very little reflective thinking. In short, I think that mind talk is the biggest single obstacle to realizations that would inform mind about what's going on (because that activity keeps the mind focused on abstractions rather than what is actual), and I feel just like Eckhart Tolle who once said, "one of the greatest attainments in life is attaining freedom from the compulsion of incessant thought."
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 11, 2020 7:39:34 GMT -5
This is going to sound like a "cop-out" a bit, but I think these sorts of distinctions miss the point, almost by necessity in the sense that a linguistic attempt to discuss something like ATA-t or Nonduality in general is always going to fail. That being said, I feel like in ATA-t there isn't a "freely chosen" object of attention, nor is there necessarily even a conscious reason for attending it. A thought might arise, and then subsequently there might be a thought, "I should really get back to this ATA stuff so I can make some progress," and then it might happen that all of this is seen as the machinations of mind and there is a dropping into silence. Certainly something chooses to do this or that, but that totality or intelligence or whatever you want to call it is definitely not asking for permissions from a "me", which is simply a linguistic convention to begin with. I do wholeheartedly agree that a distinction need to be made between ATA-t and other "forms" (for lack of a better word) of attention, but I think it's as simple as having the general intention to drop thought when it's presence is noted. Nobody can make that intention be there 24/7 or forcefully hold it there, but in time there seems to be a preference for presence without thought as opposed to the typical mental narration that goes on in most peoples' heads. I apologize if at any point I misunderstood you or mischaracterized you here! 🙏 I agree with most of this. My only disagreement would be that sometimes there is a conscious reason for doing ATA-T because of what is intuited about the possible effectiveness of that activity. I initially started doing ATA-T because I wondered if it was possible for an adult to look at the world like a small child--without naming or commenting upon what was seen. IOW, I wondered, "Can the world be looked at in silence?" Almost as soon as I started trying to do that (while walking down a country road in the afternoon after work), memories from childhood returned. I remembered smells that I hadn't smelled in many years (honeysuckle, new-mown grass, etc). Within a day or so I saw birds and squirrels, and was surprised because I hadn't seen them in years and sort of assumed that they had all been killed by hunters. These experiences made me realize that I had been living in my head for a long time and hadn't consciously looked at the natural world. I had been spending all of my time attending thoughts about finance, construction problems, customers, employees, etc. At that time I also realized that there was a big difference between interacting with the world directly, through sensory perception and physical activity like small children, and interacting with the world indirectly through thoughts, like adults. This increased my curiosity and motivation to spend more time formerly meditating using a breath awareness practice. I hadn't yet realized that ATA-T is a major aspect of many forms of meditation. Later, I realized that breath awareness meditation is another form of ATA-T (one is shifting attention away from thoughts to watching the breathing process). It took about 7 or 8 years of experimenting with many forms of meditation before I fully realized the value of informally doing ATA-T during everyday life. Until that time my focus was still primarily upon formal sitting meditation, but after I saw the value of shifting attention away from thoughts while driving my truck, and during other activities throughout the day, that increased the amount of time spent in that form of meditation. I also began going on solo mountain hiking/climbing retreats during which I purposely did ATA-T virtually around the clock. The effect of doing this was noticeable because it led to significantly more internal silence and longer and longer periods of time during which there was no thinking at all. Of course, after the illusion of selfhood collapsed (after the "little guy in the head" vanished), and I finally realized what we all are and what's going on, there was no longer any need to do ATA-T or any other kind of meditation. It became obvious that THIS sometimes thinks and THIS sometimes is silent via human organisms, and the only value in becoming silent is to escape from the incessant thoughts that obscure the underlying truth. Ironically, by the time all of this was realized, mind talk had become minimal compared with earlier in life, and the character was able to interact with the world with very little reflective thinking. In short, I think that mind talk is the biggest single obstacle to realizations that would inform mind about what's going on (because that activity keeps the mind focused on abstractions rather than what is actual), and I feel just like Eckhart Tolle who once said, "one of the greatest attainments in life is attaining freedom from the compulsion of incessant thought." A lovely Tolle quote there at the end! My only comment on the bolded part (which may shed light on what I was getting at before) is that you didn't choose to wonder about whether or not it was possible to look at the world primarily free of thought. That thought arose (seemingly out of nowhere), and the subsequent action (based on your genes/conditioning/etc.) was to begin exploring that path. I suppose I took issue with the original post's language assuming a volitional actor who could "freely choose the object of attention and the reason for attending". As I just wrote in the other post you commented on however, I think it's mostly a semantic issue and if we drop it all and get back to ATA-t these problems don't arise. 🙏
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Post by zazeniac on Aug 11, 2020 9:19:53 GMT -5
Curious for comments about distinction in thinking between say solving a complex physics problem and unsolicited thinking driven by conditioning or mental tendencies, vasanas. There is a difference in flavor here. The latter to me can be fraught with emotion, positive and negative.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 11, 2020 9:36:52 GMT -5
I agree with most of this. My only disagreement would be that sometimes there is a conscious reason for doing ATA-T because of what is intuited about the possible effectiveness of that activity. I initially started doing ATA-T because I wondered if it was possible for an adult to look at the world like a small child--without naming or commenting upon what was seen. IOW, I wondered, "Can the world be looked at in silence?" Almost as soon as I started trying to do that (while walking down a country road in the afternoon after work), memories from childhood returned. I remembered smells that I hadn't smelled in many years (honeysuckle, new-mown grass, etc). Within a day or so I saw birds and squirrels, and was surprised because I hadn't seen them in years and sort of assumed that they had all been killed by hunters. These experiences made me realize that I had been living in my head for a long time and hadn't consciously looked at the natural world. I had been spending all of my time attending thoughts about finance, construction problems, customers, employees, etc. At that time I also realized that there was a big difference between interacting with the world directly, through sensory perception and physical activity like small children, and interacting with the world indirectly through thoughts, like adults. This increased my curiosity and motivation to spend more time formerly meditating using a breath awareness practice. I hadn't yet realized that ATA-T is a major aspect of many forms of meditation. Later, I realized that breath awareness meditation is another form of ATA-T (one is shifting attention away from thoughts to watching the breathing process). It took about 7 or 8 years of experimenting with many forms of meditation before I fully realized the value of informally doing ATA-T during everyday life. Until that time my focus was still primarily upon formal sitting meditation, but after I saw the value of shifting attention away from thoughts while driving my truck, and during other activities throughout the day, that increased the amount of time spent in that form of meditation. I also began going on solo mountain hiking/climbing retreats during which I purposely did ATA-T virtually around the clock. The effect of doing this was noticeable because it led to significantly more internal silence and longer and longer periods of time during which there was no thinking at all. Of course, after the illusion of selfhood collapsed (after the "little guy in the head" vanished), and I finally realized what we all are and what's going on, there was no longer any need to do ATA-T or any other kind of meditation. It became obvious that THIS sometimes thinks and THIS sometimes is silent via human organisms, and the only value in becoming silent is to escape from the incessant thoughts that obscure the underlying truth. Ironically, by the time all of this was realized, mind talk had become minimal compared with earlier in life, and the character was able to interact with the world with very little reflective thinking. In short, I think that mind talk is the biggest single obstacle to realizations that would inform mind about what's going on (because that activity keeps the mind focused on abstractions rather than what is actual), and I feel just like Eckhart Tolle who once said, "one of the greatest attainments in life is attaining freedom from the compulsion of incessant thought." A lovely Tolle quote there at the end! My only comment on the bolded part (which may shed light on what I was getting at before) is that you didn't choose to wonder about whether or not it was possible to look at the world primarily free of thought. That thought arose (seemingly out of nowhere), and the subsequent action (based on your genes/conditioning/etc.) was to begin exploring that path. I suppose I took issue with the original post's language assuming a volitional actor who could "freely choose the object of attention and the reason for attending". As I just wrote in the other post you commented on however, I think it's mostly a semantic issue and if we drop it all and get back to ATA-t these problems don't arise. 🙏 Totally agree.
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 11, 2020 9:39:06 GMT -5
Curious for comments about distinction in thinking between say solving a complex physics problem and unsolicited thinking driven by conditioning or mental tendencies, vasanas. There is a difference in flavor here. The latter to me can be fraught with emotion, positive and negative. Ramesh Balsekar (and by extension some students of his like Roger Castillo) have used the terms "working mind" and "thinking mind" to differentiate this exact issue, with the working mind being the one that continues after personal doership is seen through. Ramesh was quick to suggest that if meditation wasn't efficient in terms of giving the working mind something to do (in the sense that some traditions give tasks like counting the breath and whatnot) then seekers should take up other interests like music or anything that would occupy the working mind. His idea was that if the working mind wasn't occupied with something then for most people the thinking mind would then jump in and create all of these issues we speak of here. Of course this is only one aspect of his teaching but I think it's worth sharing.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 11, 2020 9:52:04 GMT -5
Curious for comments about distinction in thinking between say solving a complex physics problem and unsolicited thinking driven by conditioning or mental tendencies, vasanas. There is a difference in flavor here. The latter to me can be fraught with emotion, positive and negative. That's a good point! The former kind of thinking is simply intelligent and functional, and utilizes the intellect much like an impersonal computer and/or graphics generator for solving problems or, in my case, for example, envisioning possible house plans and solutions to construction-related issues. The latter kind of thinking seems to arise from emotional issues and is self-referential and often negative in nature, or self-referential and acquisitive in nature (I need a new car to be happy). Some people have experienced trauma that remains psychically unresolved, and that leads to specific kinds of thinking, and other people get into what I call "tape loops" where the mind just recycles the same old thought patterns again and again. When we talk about the difference between mind as master and mind as servant, this is what we're pointing to. In one case, the organism is jerked around (usually negatively) by its repetitive self-referential thoughts, and in the other case it simply functions as a problem solver.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 11, 2020 10:31:13 GMT -5
In the OP, emphasis was on the second paragraph. From subsequent discussion, further probing. Now, zd has said from time to time ~he~ still just does ATA-T, even though ~he~ has seen there is no SVP (IOW, nobody, is doing ATA-T). So this shows ATA-T can be done apart from any goals or motivations or doing by a small s self. So this negates xiao's objections, and shows ATA-T can be done without a doer, in fact can only be done without a doer (in the sense of a small s self) and that is the very meaning of the doing.
Also maintained, this would be so, for any effective spiritual practice, for example zazen/shikantaza. For eleven years here I have always maintained, conscious effort (CE) means outside the perimeter of the small s self. Psychologically, there is a self. But if there is no psychology, there is no-self, yet the body remains. In the sense the body remains, there is individuation. In the sense conditioning (as neural connections) remains, then in some sense a small s self remains. Whether or not one is identified with the conditioning, is the pivotal point. IOW, where is one's center of gravity? All this is the meaning of the (OP) second paragraph.
What were ~you~ born with/as? A body (B) + attention (A) + awareness (A) (or attention/awareness). Attention/awareness experiences the world, collects data which is stored in neural links in the brain (and mind-body, as the body learns to crawl then walk, and talk, for example). We could show this by A/A + W(orld) results in copy-of-the-world in the neural structure, as memory. Eventually, we don't experience the world directly but we experience our own copy of the world. Our attention/awareness is in a very real sense captured and held in and by the copies-as-memory. This is the meaning of lost, or asleep in the consensus trance (ASCT). A/A becomes lost in CW (copies of the world as memory in neural structure = CWNS). This is the distinction pointed to in the second paragraph of the OP. Spiritual practice (the use of attention and awareness) is about separating out attention and/or awareness from trappedness in CW (copies of the world, which actually form the basis of the small s self). Reversing the process is what spiritual practice is about (which zd has pointed out). This is actually not so easy to do (as anyone who has tried to meditate can attest to). ASCT = A/A trapped-in CWNS. ATA-T (CE) = B + A + A (what-we-were previous to the forming of the psychological small s self). This is the distinction in the second paragraph OP.
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Post by zazeniac on Aug 11, 2020 12:41:09 GMT -5
Curious for comments about distinction in thinking between say solving a complex physics problem and unsolicited thinking driven by conditioning or mental tendencies, vasanas. There is a difference in flavor here. The latter to me can be fraught with emotion, positive and negative. Ramesh Balsekar (and by extension some students of his like Roger Castillo) have used the terms "working mind" and "thinking mind" to differentiate this exact issue, with the working mind being the one that continues after personal doership is seen through. Ramesh was quick to suggest that if meditation wasn't efficient in terms of giving the working mind something to do (in the sense that some traditions give tasks like counting the breath and whatnot) then seekers should take up other interests like music or anything that would occupy the working mind. His idea was that if the working mind wasn't occupied with something then for most people the thinking mind would then jump in and create all of these issues we speak of here. Of course this is only one aspect of his teaching but I think it's worth sharing. Appreciate the response and the references. More interesting reading to do.
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Post by zazeniac on Aug 11, 2020 13:44:43 GMT -5
In the OP, emphasis was on the second paragraph. From subsequent discussion, further probing. Now, zd has said from time to time ~he~ still just does ATA-T, even though ~he~ has seen there is no SVP (IOW, nobody, is doing ATA-T). So this shows ATA-T can be done apart from any goals or motivations or doing by a small s self. So this negates xiao's objections, and shows ATA-T can be done without a doer, in fact can only be done without a doer (in the sense of a small s self) and that is the very meaning of the doing. Also maintained, this would be so, for any effective spiritual practice, for example zazen/shikantaza. For eleven years here I have always maintained, conscious effort means outside the perimeter of the small s self. Psychologically, there is a self. But if there is no psychology, there is no-self, yet the body remains. In the sense the body remains, there is individuation. In the sense conditioning (as neural connections) remains, then in some sense a small s self remains. Whether or not one is identified with the conditioning, is the pivotal point. IOW, where is one's center of gravity? All this is the meaning of the (OP) second paragraph. What were ~you~ born with/as? A body + attention + awareness (or attention/awareness). Attention/awareness experiences the world, collects data which is stored in neural links in the brain (and mind-body, as the body learns to crawl then walk, and talk, for example). We could show this by A/A + W(orld) results in copy-of-the-world in the neural structure, as memory. Eventually, we don't experience the world directly but we experience our own copy of the world. Our attention/awareness is in a very real sense captured and held in and by the copies-as-memory. This is the meaning of lost, or asleep in the consensus trance. A/A becomes lost in CW (copies of the world as memory). This is the distinction pointed to in the second paragraph of the OP. Spiritual practice (the use of attention and awareness) is about separating out attention and/or awareness from trappedness in CW (copies of the world, which actually form the basis of the small s self). Reversing the process is what spiritual practice is about (which zd has pointed out). This is actually not so easy to do (as anyone who has tried to meditate can attest to). From my belief system, awareness (God), the absolute, what have you, is what I am. Awareness begets mind which begets objects including this body. So from that perspective birth occurs every morning when minds rises and the world appears. But to be honest in mushin these considerations seem remote, almost meaningless.
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Post by laughter on Aug 11, 2020 21:04:57 GMT -5
Curious for comments about distinction in thinking between say solving a complex physics problem and unsolicited thinking driven by conditioning or mental tendencies, vasanas. There is a difference in flavor here. The latter to me can be fraught with emotion, positive and negative. The difference relative to the distinction is that in one case the intellect is being used as a tool, while in the other, the mind - as a whole - is wagging the dog. The question of what uses the intellect as a tool, or, any question as to the nature of the dog, is self-inquiry.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 21:10:45 GMT -5
I presume most here have at least tried ATA-T. We have experienced attention otherwise throughout our whole lives. In attention otherwise our attention goes-into the object of attention, and disappears in-to the object. And then with attention otherwise your attention can jump around from object to object, to whatever it-is-attracted-to. Now, there are occasions when we have to restrict this jumping, for example, on the job when we get paid to restrict the jumping, and stay focused on the problem that needs to be solved. Or in school, when we pay money to take classes to learn and end up with a diploma or a degree, with the aim usually of being able to choose a favorable way to earn dollars to make-our-way-in-life. In ATA-T, we can freely choose the object of attention, and the reason for attending. But my question is, do you understand the distinction between the two? Can you experience the distinction between the two? If not then ~you~ are merely a dog-wagging-tail. If not then ~you~ are merely the LOA occurring subconsciously and haphazardly, and in fact it is asserted there-is-no- you, anyway. Now, I know some have no problem in this latter, it's kind of ND 101, and in fact some here long-for this realization. But that makes no sense to me. But I pose the question to give an alternative. This ATA-T mainly suggested for clear seeing which means chance of clear seeing is high when one does ATA-T. But the truth is, it is true that when the focus of attention is not in the question after the deep contemplation yields the truth is true but the problem is, ATA-T directs the focus of attention away from the question or the problem "consciously" will not allow the answer to occur.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 24, 2020 16:04:22 GMT -5
FWIW, Eckhart Tolle has a new internet video out, dated today, August 24, titled "Life Practices--Non-Labeling and Small Moments" that precisely describes ATA-T. In the video he makes the same point that I've often made; it's an activity that can be pursued informally throughout the day and it has a cumulative effect.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 24, 2020 20:39:27 GMT -5
FWIW, Eckhart Tolle has a new internet video out, dated today, August 24, titled "Life Practices--Non-Labeling and Small Moments" that precisely describes ATA-T. In the video he makes the same point that I've often made; it's an activity that can be pursued informally throughout the day and it has a cumulative effect. Yes, most excellent. (But he adds something significant which I don't recall you ever discussing, and which the OP is trying to point to, as well as the conscious versus conscious thread).
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