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Post by klaus on Jul 11, 2010 18:07:05 GMT -5
I didn't say the point is about what is not being perceived. I said "what is perceived that is NOT there". There's a difference. What is not there is not being perceived. And what is" it" that is not there?
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Post by question on Jul 11, 2010 18:20:43 GMT -5
you seem to be remarkably argumentative with anyone who tries to explain how all of the answers to these questions can be found. It is exactly because I don't know and want to find out the truth that I'm so argumentative. If there's a weak point in nonduality teachings of course I'm going to jump on it and dissect it to its bones. I agree that a chair is not a chair. Prior to thought any perception is a complete mystery. "Thingness", "perception" etc are all concepts introduced by thought much later after the fact of perception. Thought is always too late, it can't touch reality. What is actually seen is never a chair, no matter how much thinking is going on. I don't agree that seeing what a chair IS can be prevented. That which right now can't see what a chair IS will never see it. That which can see what a chair is can't help but see it no matter what. Whose attention? As far as I can see, the only one to "have" attention is what you guys call mind. I don't have any control over attention, I'm always the last to come to the party. Whom does mind imprison if not itself? If it is its own prison, how can it get free? Haha. I KNEW you'd say that.
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Post by question on Jul 11, 2010 18:30:28 GMT -5
I see this..... ::::Walks up to chair, kicks it, and limps away::::: Ok you're playing a game now. You know exactly what I've asked and you still haven't answered my question. I'm not suggesting that you try to prevent these mental associations from happening, just that you notice them. How can they not change your experience of the chair? Thoughts and feelings don't change what is actually present, but they DO make up your entire experience of what is present. What does your experience of a chair consist of beyond your thoughts and feelings about it? When you walk away from the chair and recall your experience, is there something in that recollection besides thoughts and feelings? Is there actually a chair in that recalled experience? I'm suggesting that this process of recalling experiences happens for most even while the chair is being perceived, and so it is not really being perceived. If by "experience" you mean something that is divided into and recognized by mind as an "experience", then yes all my experience is mind-experience. But if you mean to say that even what the videorecorder (eye) and audiorecorder (ear) perceives is mind-experience, then I say no. Mind is too late, can't touch what is actually there. When I walk away from a chair and try to recall it, there is nothing in that recollection that even remotely resembles a chair. Such recollection might take place simultaneously to the perceiving of a chair, but it's not the same. Mind and perception run parallel to each other and don't interfere in the way you describe. Like I said, a thought-chair is nothing like a seen, touched, smelled, sat on or kicked chair. It's nothing like an image. Lol, this is crazy, I think you're pulling my leg. Can people conjure up thought-images that look exactly like the world seen while awake? (I don't think so, because then we would probably all be living in lala-land imagining ourselves to be in a harem.) So I assume it's some kind of a visually altered image? Could you please post an example of how such an image looks like?
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Post by runstill on Jul 11, 2010 19:41:01 GMT -5
This is a great thread. Cabin thank you for starting it.
But Question, the direction you took this cuts to core of what truth is.You said mind and perception run Parallel to each other and don't interfere as described by enigma/and or ZD.
Right there is where truth is.
Here's a little a story that caused a light to go off in me.
Van Gogh didn't say: "that's just an old chair" He looked, and looked, and looked. He sensed the beingness of the chair.Then he sat in front of the canvas and took up the brush.The chair it self was only worth a few dollars. The painting of the same chair today would fetch in excess of 25 million dollars!
Man that chair sure gets around LOL
t
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Post by zendancer on Jul 11, 2010 20:19:14 GMT -5
Magritte, one of the French surrealists, once painted a picture of a pipe. On the canvas underneath the image he wrote "this is not a pipe." Ten or fifteen years ago I bought a print of this famous painting and had it mounted. Then, I went to a pipe store and bought an identical pipe to the one in the painting. I mounted the pipe on a piece of hardboard in a frame and had a print shop print "This is also not a pipe" the words being glued on the hardboard under the pipe. I then had the frame covered with glass.
I took these artworks to several talks I gave to classes of honor students at a local university. All of the students, who were very bright, immediately "got" the meaning of the Magritte painting (the image is not the thing itself--ist nicht das ding an sich). Only one out of fifty ever "got" my constructionist "work of art." Most of them would say things like, "But that IS a pipe, isn't it?" LOL. Not one was ever able to give a 100% answer to the koan which they had been given. The power of the mind should never be underestimated.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 11, 2010 20:22:53 GMT -5
I didn't say the point is about what is not being perceived. I said "what is perceived that is NOT there". There's a difference. What is not there is not being perceived. And what is" it" that is not there? Klaus: Your question reminds me of the following koan: In the phrase "It is raining" what is "it?" It also reminds me of the last line in Wallace Steven's famous poem "A Mind of Snow" (I think that was the title). I'll have to look it up and post it.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 11, 2010 20:47:34 GMT -5
A chair is still a chair, even when there's no one sittin' there But a chair is not a house and a house is not a home When there's no one there to hold you tight And no one there you can kiss goodnight
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Post by klaus on Jul 11, 2010 21:12:41 GMT -5
What is not there is not being perceived. And what is" it" that is not there? Klaus: Your question reminds me of the following koan: In the phrase "It is raining" what is "it?" It also reminds me of the last line in Wallace Steven's famous poem "A Mind of Snow" (I think that was the title). I'll have to look it up and post it. Raining is. What is unimaginable?
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Post by enigma on Jul 11, 2010 22:59:05 GMT -5
I didn't say the point is about what is not being perceived. I said "what is perceived that is NOT there". There's a difference. What is not there is not being perceived. And what is" it" that is not there? Ohhh, all sorts of things that are not there can be perceived. This conversation is an excellent example.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 11, 2010 23:01:42 GMT -5
Klaus: Your question reminds me of the following koan: In the phrase "It is raining" what is "it?" It also reminds me of the last line in Wallace Steven's famous poem "A Mind of Snow" (I think that was the title). I'll have to look it up and post it. Raining is. What is unimaginable? As an answer, "raining is" is about 80%. A 100% answer requires a physical action, but that's for hard-core Zen junkies. LOL What is unimaginable? What you are. (smile)
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Post by charliegee on Jul 12, 2010 1:38:05 GMT -5
chance of rain 20% ....
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Post by charliegee on Jul 12, 2010 14:05:29 GMT -5
I too have been reading these books my whole life and haven't the foggiest idea what they're talking about. The language used gets in the way for me cause who the hell talks like that. I will say that I can agree with something in retrospect only after life has 'shown' me what it is I needed to learn. My 'education' began in the cancer ward in Calvary Hospital when my wife lay in her bed dying. I have always heard that we're all one but walking by those rooms where every patient was my wife, every relative of friend, my sister and brother. There the lesson was hammered home in a way no lecture, no book or teaching could ever hope to teach me. Shortly after Maryann passed, I prayed for deliverance from my drug problem which had plagued me for over fifty years. I was delivered and other habitual behaviors (read destructive thinking) ceased as well. My heart was broken open to let other people in, mainly people who suffered from addiction, who went through the cancer experience themselves or a loved one who witnessed it and those who grieve. If people talk in human term and not the seemingly robotic enlightenment-speak I'm all ears. Don't know if this resonates with anyone else but I hope it does.
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Post by klaus on Jul 12, 2010 14:43:26 GMT -5
zendancer, enigma,
What does it matter if my answer is 80% or 100% or if things that are not there can be perceived or whether I'm unimaginable. It doesn't. The whole conversation of yesterday doesn't matter. It (refering) to the above statement) just is. What is "it?" The statement.
There is no adding or subtracting or dividing the above statement.
This is true for the universe we live in-it just is,as it appears. The universe can be nothing but the universe.
There is nothing unimaginable, the statement, the universe all a straight forward manifestation. That is all there is.
There is nothing above, below, in front of or in back of this manifestation. They just are what they are no more or less. They cannot be anything else.
So after jumping through all the hoops we wind up where we started.
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Post by enigma on Jul 12, 2010 14:59:01 GMT -5
"My heart was broken open"
Yes, that's the way of it for me too. I have a poem that ends "Fall in love with truth, and let it break your heart." Several peeps have told me they just don't get that part. I'm guessing you do. (I'll post it on the poetry thread laterer)
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Post by enigma on Jul 12, 2010 15:16:37 GMT -5
zendancer, enigma, What does it matter if my answer is 80% or 100% or if things that are not there can be perceived or whether I'm unimaginable. It doesn't. The whole conversation of yesterday doesn't matter. It (refering) to the above statement) just is. What is "it?" The statement. There is no adding or subtracting or dividing the above statement. This is true for the universe we live in-it just is,as it appears. The universe can be nothing but the universe. There is nothing unimaginable, the statement, the universe all a straight forward manifestation. That is all there is. There is nothing above, below, in front of or in back of this manifestation. They just are what they are no more or less. They cannot be anything else. So after jumping through all the hoops we wind up where we started. I'm not where i was when the conversation started at all. Why are you? I've been traveling around the universe, comparing notes with Socrates, discussing the meaning of Shakespeare's latest play and enjoying a cup of tea in silence with Buddha. Only yesterday, i was crushed by a runaway thought that left shrapnel in my heart which quickly ignited and was burned completely. This happened, instead of my death, which was the other option. When i returned from my adventure, I somehow fell in love with my wife again, which seems to happen a lot. What happened to the Enigma of yesterday? Don't know, really, and don't care so much.
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