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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 10:57:32 GMT -5
As one example, I talked to a woman who told me how irritated she became at her husband who always left his clothes lying around and would never pick them up. She did BK's "Work" and realized that she was the one bothered his action. IOW, it was her problem. She realized that she had the choice of whether to remain irritated or pick up the clothes herself. She decided tp pick them up. I suggested another alternative--that she could throw whatever clothes he left on the floor in the trash, and let him deal with the consequences. That's one way of dealing with a child who ignores certain rules. Sounds like a punishment approach. Might be useful at times, but Katie would never think in terms of giving people consequences |
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 11:00:53 GMT -5
Yes. That was her path and what she recommends. Many people have found her approach helpful. ATST I've met people who may spend the rest of their lives doing this without ever getting free. Yeah, at best it can free you from limiting beliefs, at worst it is just another form of mental kungfu that leads to spiritual bypassing. Here's from her website: What is the "you" that her four questions are directed at? What about realizing "your" true nature? Seeing thru the SVP? Does she address those issues?
If she doesn't address the SVP issue, then what she offers is just another form of self-help mixed in with a bit of non-duality lingo. Which would be the infamous context mix I mentioned earlier.
You can talk about self-help. No problem. You can talk about non-duality. No problem. But you cannot throw them together. They have to be discussed separately. Or else it's just identity poker, the false witness position. Which is the impression I got from her. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt though until I have actually read her book(s). We'll see.
She definitely addresses the question of the person, but it's more subtle in the practical books. "Thousand Names" and "A Mind At Home" go deeper, though the latter I've only picked at. |
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Post by Reefs on May 25, 2024 11:18:17 GMT -5
Thanks, Andrew!
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 11:20:11 GMT -5
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Post by laughter on May 25, 2024 11:23:57 GMT -5
As one example, I talked to a woman who told me how irritated she became at her husband who always left his clothes lying around and would never pick them up. She did BK's "Work" and realized that she was the one bothered his action. IOW, it was her problem. She realized that she had the choice of whether to remain irritated or pick up the clothes herself. She decided tp pick them up. I suggested another alternative--that she could throw whatever clothes he left on the floor in the trash, and let him deal with the consequences. That's one way of dealing with a child who ignores certain rules. Sounds like a punishment approach. Might be useful at times, but Katie would never think in terms of giving people consequences Yeah, I've always been a "forgive me my sloppy chaos, as I forgive the sloppy chaos of others", kinda' guy. And taking that to the max is to tolerate those who direct the punishment approach in my direction, as just another form of the chaos.  .. what happens happens, regardless of whether it be good or bad, which is the transcendence of the situation after all. You don't have to look forward to a flood or a thief or whatever, nor is it necessary to "welcome" it either .. suffering though, always optional ... |
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 11:35:27 GMT -5
Sounds like a punishment approach. Might be useful at times, but Katie would never think in terms of giving people consequences Yeah, I've always been a "forgive me my sloppy chaos, as I forgive the sloppy chaos of others", kinda' guy. And taking that to the max is to tolerate those who direct the punishment approach in my direction, as just another form of the chaos. .. what happens happens, regardless of whether it be good or bad, which is the transcendence of the situation after all. You don't have to look forward to a flood or a thief or whatever, nor is it necessary to "welcome" it either .. suffering though, always optional ... Yeah, personality varies, and different situations call for different responses. I would describe Katie as a borderline extremist lol but I feel it has something to offer. "Looking forward" was a striking choice of words. Her position is that there's always the potential for a questionable stressful thought to arise, and she might describe this as the very welcome potential to ever deepen into Truth. Though it seems obvious to me that that thought doesn't exist for her. She's 'untouchable'. But for her to close herself off to that potential would be incongruent. |
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Post by Reefs on May 25, 2024 12:26:36 GMT -5
Yeah, at best it can free you from limiting beliefs, at worst it is just another form of mental kungfu that leads to spiritual bypassing. Here's from her website: What is the "you" that her four questions are directed at? What about realizing "your" true nature? Seeing thru the SVP? Does she address those issues?
If she doesn't address the SVP issue, then what she offers is just another form of self-help mixed in with a bit of non-duality lingo. Which would be the infamous context mix I mentioned earlier.
You can talk about self-help. No problem. You can talk about non-duality. No problem. But you cannot throw them together. They have to be discussed separately. Or else it's just identity poker, the false witness position. Which is the impression I got from her. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt though until I have actually read her book(s). We'll see.
She definitely addresses the question of the person, but it's more subtle in the practical books. "Thousand Names" and "A Mind At Home" go deeper, though the latter I've only picked at. I took a quick look, and apparently, A Thousand Names for Joy is based on (or her interpretation of) the Daodejing and A Mind at Home with Itself is based on (or her interpretation of) the Diamond Sutra. So those books should show clearly how deep her understanding actually goes. Let's see. |
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 12:34:50 GMT -5
She definitely addresses the question of the person, but it's more subtle in the practical books. "Thousand Names" and "A Mind At Home" go deeper, though the latter I've only picked at. I took a quick look, and apparently, A Thousand Names for Joy is based on (or her interpretation of) the Daodejing and A Mind at Home with Itself is based on (or her interpretation of) the Diamond Sutra. So those books should show clearly how deep her understanding actually goes. Let's see. Yep, that's one reason I thought you might find 'Thousand Names' more interesting than the more practical books. |
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 12:40:00 GMT -5
BK
''
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
You can't express reality in words. You limit it that way. You squeeze it into nouns and verbs and adjectives, and the instant-by-instant flow is cut off. The tao that can be told isn't the eternal Tao, because trying to tell it brings it into time. It's stopped in time by the very attempt to name it. Once anything is named, it's no longer eternal. "Eternal" means free, without limit, without a position in time or space, lived without obstacle.
There's no name for what's sitting in this chair right now. I am the experience of the eternal. Even with the thought "God," it all stops and manifests in time, and as I create "God," I have created "not-God." You can substitute anything here--with the thought "tree," I create "tree" and "not-tree"; the mechanism is the same. Before you name anything, the world has no things in it, no meaning. There's nothing but peace in a wordless, questionless world. It's the space where everything is already answered, in joyful silence.
In this world before words, there is only the real--undivided, ungraspable, already present. Any apparently separate thing can't be real, since the mind has created it with its names. When we understand this, the unreal becomes beautiful, because there's nothing that can threaten the real. I don't ever see anything separate called "tree" or "you" or "I." These things are only imagination, believed or unbelieved.
Naming is the origin of all the particular things that make up the world of illusion, the dream world. To break off part of the everything and name it "tree" is the first dream. I call it "First-generation thinking." Then thought begets thought, and we have "tall tree, beautiful tree, tree that I want to sit under, tree that would make good furniture, tree that I need to save," and the dream goes on and on. It takes a child just a moment to fall into the dream world, the dream of a world, when she first connects word with thing. And it takes you just a moment to question it, to break the spell and be grateful for the Tao of everything--tree, no tree; world, no world.
When the mind believes what it thinks, it names what cannot be named and tries to make it real through a name. It believes that its names are real, that there's a world out there separate from itself. That's an illusion. The whole world is projected. When you're shut down and frightened, the world seems hostile; when you love what is, everything in the world becomes the beloved. Inside and outside always match--they're reflections of each other. The world is the mirror image of your mind.
Not believing your own thoughts, you're free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is. You realize the wordless, the unthinkable. You understand that any mystery is only what you yourself have created. In fact, there's no mystery. Everything is as clear as day. It's simple, because there really isn't anything. There's only the story appearing now. And not even that.
In the end, "mystery" is equal to "manifestations." You're just looking from a new perspective. The world is an optical illusion. It's just you, crazed and miserable, or you, delighted and at peace. In the end, "desire" is equal to "free from desire." Desire is a gift; it's about noticing. Everything happens for you, not to you.
I have questioned my thoughts, and I've seen that it's crazy to argue with what is. I don't ever want anything to happen except what's happening. For example, my ninety-year-old mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. I'm taking care of her, cooking and cleaning for her, sleeping beside her, living in her apartment twenty-three hours a day (my husband takes me out for a walk every morning). It has been a month now. It's as if her breath is the pulse of my life. I bathe her, I wash her in the most personal places, I medicate her, and I feel such a sense of gratitude. That's me over there, dying of cancer, spending my last few days sleeping and watching TV and talking, medicated with the most marvelous painkilling drugs. I am amazed at the beauty and intricacies of her body, my body. And the last day of her life, as I sit by her bedside, a shift takes place in her breathing, and I know: it's only a matter of minutes now. And then another shift takes place, and I know. Our eyes lock, and a few moments later she's gone. I look more deeply into the eyes that the mind has vacated, the mindless eyes, the eyes of the no-mind. I wait for a change to take place. I wait for the eyes to show me death, and nothing changes. She's as present as she ever was. I love my story about her. How else could she ever exist?
A man sticks a pistol into my stomach, pulls the hammer back, and says, "I'm going to kill you." I am shocked that he is taking his thoughts so seriously. To someone identified as an I, the thought of killing causes guilt that leads to a life of suffering, so I ask him, as kindly as I can, not to do it. I don't tell him that it's his suffering I'm thinking of. He says that he has to do it, and I understand; I remember believing that I had to do things in my old life. I thank him for doing the best he can, and I notice that I'm fascinated. Is this how she dies? Is this how the story ends? And as joy continues to fill me, I find it miraculous that the story is still going on. You can never know the ending, even as it ends. I am very moved at the sight of sky, clouds, and moonlit trees. I love that I don't miss one moment, one breath, of this amazing life. I wait. And wait. And in the end, he doesn't pull the trigger. He doesn't do that to himself.
What we call "bad" and what we call "good" both come from the same place. The Tao Te Ching says that the source of everything is called "darkness." What a beautiful name (if we must have a name)! Darkness is our source. In the end, it embraces everything. Its nature is love, and in our confusion we name it terror and ugliness, the unacceptable, the unbearable. All our stress results from what we imagine is in that darkness. We imagine darkness as separate from ourselves, and we project something terrible onto it. But in reality, the darkness is always benevolent.
What is the "darkness within darkness"? It's the mind that doesn't know a thing. This don't-know mind is the center of the universe--it is the universe--there's nothing outside it. The reason that darkness is the gateway to all understanding is that once the darkness is understood, you're clear that nothing is separate from you. No name, no thought, can possibly be true in an ultimate sense. It's all provisional; it's all changing. The dark, the nameless, the unthinkable--that is what you can absolutely trust. It doesn't change, and it's benevolent. When you realize this, you just have to laugh. There's nothing serious about life or death. ''
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Post by Reefs on May 25, 2024 13:07:01 GMT -5
BK [...] Not believing your own thoughts, you're free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is. You realize the wordless, the unthinkable. You understand that any mystery is only what you yourself have created. In fact, there's no mystery. Everything is as clear as day. It's simple, because there really isn't anything. There's only the story appearing now. And not even that. In the end, "mystery" is equal to "manifestations." You're just looking from a new perspective. The world is an optical illusion. It's just you, crazed and miserable, or you, delighted and at peace. In the end, "desire" is equal to "free from desire." Desire is a gift; it's about noticing. Everything happens for you, not to you. I have questioned my thoughts, and I've seen that it's crazy to argue with what is. I don't ever want anything to happen except what's happening. For example, my ninety-year-old mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. I'm taking care of her, cooking and cleaning for her, sleeping beside her, living in her apartment twenty-three hours a day (my husband takes me out for a walk every morning). It has been a month now. It's as if her breath is the pulse of my life. I bathe her, I wash her in the most personal places, I medicate her, and I feel such a sense of gratitude. That's me over there, dying of cancer, spending my last few days sleeping and watching TV and talking, medicated with the most marvelous painkilling drugs. I am amazed at the beauty and intricacies of her body, my body. And the last day of her life, as I sit by her bedside, a shift takes place in her breathing, and I know: it's only a matter of minutes now. And then another shift takes place, and I know. Our eyes lock, and a few moments later she's gone. I look more deeply into the eyes that the mind has vacated, the mindless eyes, the eyes of the no-mind. I wait for a change to take place. I wait for the eyes to show me death, and nothing changes. She's as present as she ever was. I love my story about her. How else could she ever exist? A man sticks a pistol into my stomach, pulls the hammer back, and says, "I'm going to kill you." I am shocked that he is taking his thoughts so seriously. To someone identified as an I, the thought of killing causes guilt that leads to a life of suffering, so I ask him, as kindly as I can, not to do it. I don't tell him that it's his suffering I'm thinking of. He says that he has to do it, and I understand; I remember believing that I had to do things in my old life. I thank him for doing the best he can, and I notice that I'm fascinated. Is this how she dies? Is this how the story ends? And as joy continues to fill me, I find it miraculous that the story is still going on. You can never know the ending, even as it ends. I am very moved at the sight of sky, clouds, and moonlit trees. I love that I don't miss one moment, one breath, of this amazing life. I wait. And wait. And in the end, he doesn't pull the trigger. He doesn't do that to himself. This is like reading Jeff Foster.  |
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Post by andrew on May 25, 2024 13:40:16 GMT -5
BK [...] Not believing your own thoughts, you're free from the primal desire: the thought that reality should be different than it is. You realize the wordless, the unthinkable. You understand that any mystery is only what you yourself have created. In fact, there's no mystery. Everything is as clear as day. It's simple, because there really isn't anything. There's only the story appearing now. And not even that. In the end, "mystery" is equal to "manifestations." You're just looking from a new perspective. The world is an optical illusion. It's just you, crazed and miserable, or you, delighted and at peace. In the end, "desire" is equal to "free from desire." Desire is a gift; it's about noticing. Everything happens for you, not to you. I have questioned my thoughts, and I've seen that it's crazy to argue with what is. I don't ever want anything to happen except what's happening. For example, my ninety-year-old mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. I'm taking care of her, cooking and cleaning for her, sleeping beside her, living in her apartment twenty-three hours a day (my husband takes me out for a walk every morning). It has been a month now. It's as if her breath is the pulse of my life. I bathe her, I wash her in the most personal places, I medicate her, and I feel such a sense of gratitude. That's me over there, dying of cancer, spending my last few days sleeping and watching TV and talking, medicated with the most marvelous painkilling drugs. I am amazed at the beauty and intricacies of her body, my body. And the last day of her life, as I sit by her bedside, a shift takes place in her breathing, and I know: it's only a matter of minutes now. And then another shift takes place, and I know. Our eyes lock, and a few moments later she's gone. I look more deeply into the eyes that the mind has vacated, the mindless eyes, the eyes of the no-mind. I wait for a change to take place. I wait for the eyes to show me death, and nothing changes. She's as present as she ever was. I love my story about her. How else could she ever exist? A man sticks a pistol into my stomach, pulls the hammer back, and says, "I'm going to kill you." I am shocked that he is taking his thoughts so seriously. To someone identified as an I, the thought of killing causes guilt that leads to a life of suffering, so I ask him, as kindly as I can, not to do it. I don't tell him that it's his suffering I'm thinking of. He says that he has to do it, and I understand; I remember believing that I had to do things in my old life. I thank him for doing the best he can, and I notice that I'm fascinated. Is this how she dies? Is this how the story ends? And as joy continues to fill me, I find it miraculous that the story is still going on. You can never know the ending, even as it ends. I am very moved at the sight of sky, clouds, and moonlit trees. I love that I don't miss one moment, one breath, of this amazing life. I wait. And wait. And in the end, he doesn't pull the trigger. He doesn't do that to himself. This is like reading Jeff Foster. I like it. But it's kind of extreme. I guess not many spiritual folks could have a gun pointed at them and experience that degree of surrender and gratitude. It's not a spirituality that could be wholly 'adopted' by many people...everyone's different...and yet many have found there's something to draw from in her work. There's a sentiment expressed that I find is very cool, a very deep and abiding acceptance of the unfolding. Doesn't leave much space for 'creativity' though.... I've never read Jeff's books, only seen his facebook posts. I like Jeff, but don't find much resemblance to Katie. |
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Post by zendancer on May 25, 2024 19:54:58 GMT -5
This is like reading Jeff Foster. I like it. But it's kind of extreme. I guess not many spiritual folks could have a gun pointed at them and experience that degree of surrender and gratitude. It's not a spirituality that could be wholly 'adopted' by many people...everyone's different...and yet many have found there's something to draw from in her work. There's a sentiment expressed that I find is very cool, a very deep and abiding acceptance of the unfolding. Doesn't leave much space for 'creativity' though.... I've never read Jeff's books, only seen his facebook posts. I like Jeff, but don't find much resemblance to Katie. Agreed. I went to hear one of her talks in Louisville many years ago and met her and her husband Stephen Mitchell, who is one of th best translators of spiritual literature put there.I found her to be quite effective in helping free people from the ideas to which they were attached. |
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Post by laughter on May 25, 2024 21:38:49 GMT -5
Yeah, I've always been a "forgive me my sloppy chaos, as I forgive the sloppy chaos of others", kinda' guy. And taking that to the max is to tolerate those who direct the punishment approach in my direction, as just another form of the chaos. .. what happens happens, regardless of whether it be good or bad, which is the transcendence of the situation after all. You don't have to look forward to a flood or a thief or whatever, nor is it necessary to "welcome" it either .. suffering though, always optional ... Yeah, personality varies, and different situations call for different responses. I would describe Katie as a borderline extremist lol but I feel it has something to offer. "Looking forward" was a striking choice of words. Her position is that there's always the potential for a questionable stressful thought to arise, and she might describe this as the very welcome potential to ever deepen into Truth. Though it seems obvious to me that that thought doesn't exist for her. She's 'untouchable'. But for her to close herself off to that potential would be incongruent. Yes, provocative. Similar to Mu!. Against a cultural grain. Jed-like. |
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Post by Reefs on May 25, 2024 22:29:33 GMT -5
This is like reading Jeff Foster. I like it. But it's kind of extreme. I guess not many spiritual folks could have a gun pointed at them and experience that degree of surrender and gratitude. It's not a spirituality that could be wholly 'adopted' by many people...everyone's different...and yet many have found there's something to draw from in her work. There's a sentiment expressed that I find is very cool, a very deep and abiding acceptance of the unfolding. Doesn't leave much space for 'creativity' though.... I've never read Jeff's books, only seen his facebook posts. I like Jeff, but don't find much resemblance to Katie. Jeff is what Laughter calls "emptiness poetry". Very nice to the ear, seemingly very profound statements, very rich non-dual vocabulary, but the non-dual grammar is faulty, the logic flawed, contextual boundaries are ignored, and so the emptiness poetry is devoid of any meaning, there's no actual "there" there. It's what usually gets associated with neo-advaita. That's why neo-advaita has such a bad rap, I guess.
And giving her the benefit of the doubt again, I could compare what she says to what Abe say about contrast, i.e. that from the non-physical perspective you are looking forward to experiencing contrast, because it creates new desires which draw life force thru you which give you that feeling of being fully alive and so there's no guardedness at all about it because the purpose of contrast is understood. However, imagining Abe saying something like you are looking forward to getting cancer or your family getting bombed is absurd. I also don't see how that could even slightly represent the vibration or energy of love. That's just nonsense. The energy of love and the energy of getting cancer or bombed are nowhere close. And I'm also pretty sure that Niz and Ramana weren't looking forward to getting cancer. In fact, Ramana went straight for surgery and Niz repeatedly kept mentioning its painfulness. So what Katie says makes no sense, neither in the deliberate creation context nor in the liberation context. She obviously conflates these two contexts. And the result then are such "extreme" statements that you've quoted. Which reminds me of the Mckenna books. This gun story, that's self trying to impersonate Self, hence the inevitable context mix.
However, deconstructing thoughts can be a very powerful tool. And I'm sure it has helped a lot of people. But, like purification, that's working on the SVP. So again, not adding up.
Also, compare the inquiry she suggests to the inquiry Ramana suggests.
In summary, I can see some value of what she teaches in the deliberate creation context, but I see no value in the liberation context.
Now, from the big picture perspective, what Katie offers is a bridge and actually serves a very important purpose. Similarly to Osho being a bridge to Niz. A lot of people couldn't follow Niz because what Niz taught was too far out for the average seeker. But they could hear what Osho taught, because that was closer to home. However, Osho's teaching wasn't pure, so after a while, those seekers noticed that although they got a bit further on the path that in the end Osho's path wouldn't lead them to where they were actually heading. That was the point when they suddenly were ready to hear Niz and some left the spiritual circus altogether. ETA: The way she described her awakening in the other book actually reminds me of Suzanne Segal. Very similar confusion about real everyday life. The main difference though is that both were stuck on opposite ends of the emotional scale, Katie stuck on joy, Suzanne stuck on fear. Very interesting. |
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Post by Reefs on May 25, 2024 22:42:56 GMT -5
Yeah, personality varies, and different situations call for different responses. I would describe Katie as a borderline extremist lol but I feel it has something to offer. "Looking forward" was a striking choice of words. Her position is that there's always the potential for a questionable stressful thought to arise, and she might describe this as the very welcome potential to ever deepen into Truth. Though it seems obvious to me that that thought doesn't exist for her. She's 'untouchable'. But for her to close herself off to that potential would be incongruent. Yes, provocative. Similar to Mu!. Against a cultural grain. Jed-like. my thought. But with Jed it's a shtick. |
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.. what happens happens, regardless of whether it be good or bad, which is the transcendence of the situation after all. You don't have to look forward to a flood or a thief or whatever, nor is it necessary to "welcome" it either .. suffering though, always optional ...