lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 21, 2010 18:29:23 GMT -5
a thought arises and is gone if it was not seen, noticed, or experienced, then what? noticing or seeing is experiencing only conciousness is required
|
|
|
Post by klaus on Jul 21, 2010 20:54:48 GMT -5
burt,
Since we're talking about "I" let's use it as an example.
"I" is an illusion inasmuch as it is a construct of the mind and has no reality outside of mind.
However, it is useful in presenting information about reality by letting it appear as if this information were "I's" knowledge but no such things as "I's" exist in the world.
It is a tool. Whenever the body/mind needs this tool to process information about reality,the body/mind activates this construct. In deep dreamless sleep this tool isn't needed and is turned off.
Thoughts are processed information about reality and are as much an illusion as "I".
Yes, you can experience an illusion.
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 22, 2010 9:30:11 GMT -5
I wonder where it all started that anything from the mind is called an illusion? Yes I have heard it all before and can agree to discuss under those terms. But from the view of just awareness thoughts are every bit as real as anything else experienced or perceived. They exist in their own dimension and have energy and their own sort of dynamics or laws. They can be experienced neutrally by awareness of them or viscerally through their emotional reactions. This is like the wind which is experienced as a physical sensation on the skin or a sound in the ears but is not normally seen without other visible particles riding on it.
The I, the identity, the sense of self, (all the same in this discussion) has a function. It would be very difficult to function as a human, a social animal, without it. The use of the mind and memory and imagination in technology and art is pretty important for human beings lives.
So no problem with any of that from here either. Personally I wouldn't call any of that illusion.
Believing that this identity is the self fits the definition of illusion as a misinterpretation of perceived input. Not sure of all the dynamics of it but once the belief is accepted that that identity is the self then all the suffering and trying to live through the idea of the world rather than directly experience what is happening now starts. And this is trying to live an illusion, or a dream, mostly going around trying to find satisfaction for the sense of self by interacting with the dream, thoughts interacting with thoughts.
When I experience entering this belief of self now, it is sometimes so subtle that it is only after the attention is captured that it is recognized as having happened. This is most likely a habitual belief or persistent underlying belief that makes it subtle and easy to miss. Other times it is almost sudden and more easily recognizable. But in any case it is eventually recognized by the byproducts of suffering, fear, or some reaction of the sense of self.
All that is mechanical and repeatable seeming to follow certain laws of belief or thought. All the components and dynamics of this is not clearly seen from here yet but attention plays an important role.
It is interesting to this mind that the recognition of the state of believing in the self is recognized by the mind. The mind has recognized its own creation as its own creation, or more basically it has recognized what it is believing while it is believing it.
Awareness just perceives. The human appreciates, or interprets. The mind finds things interesting.
The grasping of the attention by the identity is the key action but that is only going to happen when the belief in self as identity is in place and activated. That action is more subtle.
|
|
|
Post by zendancer on Jul 22, 2010 10:49:32 GMT -5
Burt: You wrote, "The I, the identity, the sense of self, (all the same in this discussion) has a function. It would be very difficult to function as a human, a social animal, without it. The use of the mind and memory and imagination in technology and art is pretty important for human beings lives."
Well, no and yes. No, it is not difficult to function as a human without a sense of self, even though it may not be common. The body/mind does everything other body/minds do, but it is done in a kind of infinite emptiness--what we might call "suchness." If our interaction with reality is so direct that ordinary reflection rarely occurs. The body/mind may use the word "I", but the word is used for the benefit of others and refers to suchness in action.
Yes, the use of mind, memory, and imagination is useful in most realms of human activity, but the value of imagination is usually over-emphasized because most people are not aware of what life can be like in the absence of imagination.
You also wrote, "But from the view of just awareness thoughts are every bit as real as anything else experienced or perceived." If we are simply looking at "what is," and not imagining, there is no separation, so there is no experience and no experiencer. It is only when we imagine what we're looking at that the universe gets imaginatively divided into separate states. If we look at "what is," at ____________________, without thinking or imagining, no things exist and no entity who sees things. If we look at ______________and think, "that's a tree," then "tree" and "not-tree" and "one who sees "trees" arises. If we do not imagine, then everything is empty. The same is true of thoughts. If a thought arises without our thinking ABOUT the thought, then everything remains empty. There is no thought as an object of thought and there is no thinker; there is only __________________. Consequently, if we interact with _____________directly, without reflection, there is only _______________.
_________________is the truth. All thoughts ABOUT ______________are products of imagination. ________________is the world of God. In that world all is one. Can we live in that world without reflection? Yes indeedy doo, and most teachers of non-duality highly recommend it.
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 22, 2010 21:20:36 GMT -5
zen, LOL, generally I assume you have good intentions, but wait, there is no you! so I must direct this to the mind, or body-mind, that wrote that post LOL (that little joke is an example of what I am going to try and make clear). It seems that you did misinterpret what I wrote. By the identity, I, or sense of self, I was indicating the function of nervous system and mind that develops to help one survive and live in the world. I tried to clearly separate this mental function from "believing" one is this mental function or "identity". That is a crutial point in my post. Did you miss that? That mental function I called "identity" functions all the time. If someone calls your name it is heard, recognized, and responded to in some appropriate way that is based on what that "identity" has learned over time to function and get its needs met. This can all happen without believing that this "identity" is you. This shows how robotic that identity is and how it can function on its own. And I will use the words you, me, i and so on without believing that that is who you really are or that there is a separate you because it is the same "identity" functioning and trying to make the language understandable and not too cumbersome. So if I use one of those words do not assume that i am believing in a separate you, or me. There is a body-mind based "identity" here typing but there is no essential me to hang that tag on. Is that clear? In the second part of your post you also made an assumption that was incorrect. It could be my poor writing skills, but let's clear that one up now too. This is what you wrote, "You also wrote, "But from the view of just awareness thoughts are every bit as real as anything else experienced or perceived." If we are simply looking at "what is," and not imagining, there is no separation, so there is no experience and no experiencer. " Here this is a language and meaning issue. The point I was trying to make is that perception of a thought is no different than any other perception. This is a point that klaus and I had been discussing. Would you agree on this point? Pulling that out of context and bringing out the no experience no experiencer statement is changing the subject. And I thought that there would be some bone-head that would try and pick on that just because of those words. Did it really have to be you? LOL I guess so ;D Now later on you also wrote; "The same is true of thoughts. If a thought arises without our thinking ABOUT the thought, then everything remains empty. There is no thought as an object of thought and there is no thinker; there is only __________________. " So you are saying a thought arises, but there is no thinking about it. No thinking about it so it is not an object of thought. But it would be an object in awareness. That is fine, but it must have been percieved, even though there is no one or thing as a perciever. Otherwise everything would be completely blank, unconcious, and that is obviously not the case. What would be the right way to describe a thought arising or a tree being seen or any other perception in conciousness? Would one say "it all just is" or something like that? well that will not help communicate the point I was trying to make. So this is a language usage issue here. Let me ask you this. Are you coming from the logical-language perspective that if there is an experience there must be an experiencer? If no experiencer, then that implies no experience? If that is your game then it is just word play to me. I don't think that adds understanding or clarity. So it seems you split hairs with my writing, and I may have done the same with yours. But this is not really any fun! I do put a pretty fair effort into trying to be clear, but it really is difficult to ge the point across sometimes. I'm pretty certain both the transmitter and receiver are usually not clear Here is a suggestion and a request zen. If you consider yourself a teacher of this stuff, then try to ask more questions and use normal language more. Missunderstanding what was written without asking for clarification really hurts communication and communication is essential in that role. I didn't realize that you were in this role. Just thought you were a guy who wrote some good and insightful posts who also claimed to be enlightened. Just in case you didn't get that, I am showing you the door as far as that role goes with me. But as a regular dude, it is all good. ok? hope so
|
|
|
Post by zendancer on Jul 23, 2010 1:04:20 GMT -5
Burt: Not knowing is most intimate, and that is what I was pointing to in my post. I was trying to convey how the flow of presence feels when not reflected upon. As such, the words were an invitation to lie down in Rumi's field and look at this thread from that vantagepoint. Cheers.
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jul 23, 2010 12:28:37 GMT -5
Hey Burt,
Zendancer is right on spot with this one. "Not knowing" may not seem like much, but it's the most mysterious and relaxing approach.
|
|
|
Post by klaus on Jul 23, 2010 14:52:53 GMT -5
I wonder where it all started that anything from the mind is called an illusion? Yes I have heard it all before and can agree to discuss under those terms. But from the view of just awareness thoughts are every bit as real as anything else experienced or perceived. They exist in their own dimension and have energy and their own sort of dynamics or laws. They can be experienced neutrally by awareness of them or viscerally through their emotional reactions. This is like the wind which is experienced as a physical sensation on the skin or a sound in the ears but is not normally seen without other visible particles riding on it. The I, the identity, the sense of self, (all the same in this discussion) has a function. It would be very difficult to function as a human, a social animal, without it. The use of the mind and memory and imagination in technology and art is pretty important for human beings lives. So no problem with any of that from here either. Personally I wouldn't call any of that illusion. Believing that this identity is the self fits the definition of illusion as a misinterpretation of perceived input. Not sure of all the dynamics of it but once the belief is accepted that that identity is the self then all the suffering and trying to live through the idea of the world rather than directly experience what is happening now starts. And this is trying to live an illusion, or a dream, mostly going around trying to find satisfaction for the sense of self by interacting with the dream, thoughts interacting with thoughts. When I experience entering this belief of self now, it is sometimes so subtle that it is only after the attention is captured that it is recognized as having happened. This is most likely a habitual belief or persistent underlying belief that makes it subtle and easy to miss. Other times it is almost sudden and more easily recognizable. But in any case it is eventually recognized by the byproducts of suffering, fear, or some reaction of the sense of self. All that is mechanical and repeatable seeming to follow certain laws of belief or thought. All the components and dynamics of this is not clearly seen from here yet but attention plays an important role. It is interesting to this mind that the recognition of the state of believing in the self is recognized by the mind. The mind has recognized its own creation as its own creation, or more basically it has recognized what it is believing while it is believing it. Awareness just perceives. The human appreciates, or interprets. The mind finds things interesting. The grasping of the attention by the identity is the key action but that is only going to happen when the belief in self as identity is in place and activated. That action is more subtle. burt, Perhaps distortion would be a more viable word than illusion. The I, identy, sense of self is a function of the body/mind and, I think, is the main impetus for social organization. "Believing that this identity is the self fits the definition of illusion as a misinterpretation of perceived input. I agree. What I'm interested in is the dynamics. Yes, the mind perpetuates this sense of self and yet at the same time the mind knows that it knows that it knows. Yes, awareness just perceives, but what does it perceive since we have in place a mind that distorts what awareness is perceiving? And if mind knows that it knows that it knows might not mind know how to reverse this dynamic?
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 25, 2010 18:43:40 GMT -5
Burt: Not knowing is most intimate, and that is what I was pointing to in my post. I was trying to convey how the flow of presence feels when not reflected upon. As such, the words were an invitation to lie down in Rumi's field and look at this thread from that vantagepoint. Cheers. zen, I can hear that in this post. The previous one didn't convey that to me. porto, and zen, are you guys using "not knowing" as a technique? To me, knot knowing is something that happens, not something you do. It is more of a by-product. However, something has come to mind. I am not so much into going towards experiences of the unconditioned these days. This has become rather frequent and not sought after or chased. What I am "working on" is the underbelly of life, if you will, i.e., all those things that pull yo back, the velcro thoughts. the beliefs that are mostly transparent..... Seems that work on this conditioned level is up. That is why the work towards recognition.
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 25, 2010 18:56:56 GMT -5
burt, Perhaps distortion would be a more viable word than illusion. The I, identy, sense of self is a function of the body/mind and, I think, is the main impetus for social organization. "Believing that this identity is the self fits the definition of illusion as a misinterpretation of perceived input. I agree. What I'm interested in is the dynamics. Yes, the mind perpetuates this sense of self and yet at the same time the mind knows that it knows that it knows. Yes, awareness just perceives, but what does it perceive since we have in place a mind that distorts what awareness is perceiving? And if mind knows that it knows that it knows might not mind know how to reverse this dynamic? klaus, wow, yes, but it gets hard for me to hold more than one trip around the loop in my mind LOL sometimes the mind seems to just drop it, but I can't say there is some mental recognition or uderstanding of what is going on...not now, not yet, not certain if it is possible... I have experienced recognition be effective in this. When something has been seen enough, gone through the loop enough times, or maybe just seen from the right perspective, then something is different in the conditioning and there isn't the same dynamic, or getting stuck. But I am still not certain how it works, just that it seems to happen in this way. But I can't say with certainty that this is the mind undoing what it did.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Jul 25, 2010 19:25:17 GMT -5
"Yes, the mind perpetuates this sense of self and yet at the same time the mind knows that it knows that it knows.
Yes, awareness just perceives, but what does it perceive since we have in place a mind that distorts what awareness is perceiving?
And if mind knows that it knows that it knows might not mind know how to reverse this dynamic?"
Hi Klaus Kinda interesting. I understand why we say the mind perpetuates the sense of self, and maybe the only time that idea gets in the way is when we start deriving conclusions from that idea. The idea is not ultimately true, and so the conclusions cannot be, and ultimately are paradoxical.
Mind is a process, and as such doesn't really perpetuate or know nuthin. As an analogy that might cause a little less trouble, maybe we could say that the world arises as a reflection of Beingness, and mind arises as a reflection of the world. (A reflection of a reflection) Awareness can attend to the mirror in which the world of sensory perception is reflected, which is actually quite alive, or awareness can attend to the mirror in which the that world is interpreted symbolically and conceptually, which is quite dry and dull.
Part of the conceptual symbolism of the 'mind mirror' involves the distinction of perceiver and perceived, and it's in this distinction that the sense of Self (as Awareness) is projected such that the conceptualized perceiver is reinforced and identified with. The 'mind mirror' didn't do that, it just looks that way when the mirror is gazed into. It's not too much different from staring into a TV screen and finding ourselves identifying to some extent with one of the movie characters. The screen isn't doing any identifying, it's the watcher of the screen who identifies.
Likewise, the mind mirror doesn't know anything, much less that it knows that it knows. That which is attending to the mirror neither knows nor doesn't know, since such notions only apply to what's seen in the mirror. As far as whether 'that which is attending' to the mirror can 'reverse the dynamics', such 'reversal' would amount to shifting attention away from the mirror. The 'difficulty', if we can call it that, is that attention of Awareness couldn't care less what it attends to from outside of that attending. It's completely innocent regarding what's happening in the mirror. That is, until attention lands on the mind mirror, there's simply no concept to support such a 'caring'. From within the mind mirror, there's no way out of it but to use the concepts found within the mirror, which can do nothing but conceptually reflect a reflection of that which is looking, and so it cannot point the way out.
An interesting question is, what needs to transpire in that mind mirror in order for attention to be turned away from the mirror?
I know that got complicated. Sorry bout that.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Jul 25, 2010 20:00:39 GMT -5
burt, Perhaps distortion would be a more viable word than illusion. The I, identy, sense of self is a function of the body/mind and, I think, is the main impetus for social organization. "Believing that this identity is the self fits the definition of illusion as a misinterpretation of perceived input. I agree. What I'm interested in is the dynamics. Yes, the mind perpetuates this sense of self and yet at the same time the mind knows that it knows that it knows. Yes, awareness just perceives, but what does it perceive since we have in place a mind that distorts what awareness is perceiving? And if mind knows that it knows that it knows might not mind know how to reverse this dynamic? klaus, wow, yes, but it gets hard for me to hold more than one trip around the loop in my mind LOL sometimes the mind seems to just drop it, but I can't say there is some mental recognition or uderstanding of what is going on...not now, not yet, not certain if it is possible... I have experienced recognition be effective in this. When something has been seen enough, gone through the loop enough times, or maybe just seen from the right perspective, then something is different in the conditioning and there isn't the same dynamic, or getting stuck. But I am still not certain how it works, just that it seems to happen in this way. But I can't say with certainty that this is the mind undoing what it did. Yeah, that DOES seem to be what happens, and I wouldn't assign the undoing to the mind at all. As I see it, mind really has no solid basis for what is believed, and it imagines it must have because, like, why would everybody believe it if it wasn't true?! Hehe. No two year old ever walked up to mom and dad and said, 'Hey guys, lets talk about this 'me' idea. Are you really sure about this?' Most of what is believed is never really questioned because the interest is in whether we can get something out of it, not whether it's actually true. For somebody to ask us to look and see if it's really true is a little like stopping a good movie in the middle and asking the people sitting on the couch if what they're enjoying is really any more than light patterns on a screen. Almost everybody will tell you to start the dang player and sit down and shut up, which is what folks on spiritual forums say to me all the time, in their own way. So, the point is that, since there really is no foundation for mind's conceptual reality to begin with, if there really is an interest in noticing this, it can be noticed. It's not mind, however, that notices anything.
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jul 25, 2010 21:23:44 GMT -5
Hi Burt,
You're right. "Not knowing" just happens. But it's quite obvious that certain "practices" may trigger it, such as meditation or direct interaction with the environment through our senses (what ZD recommends over and over again).
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 25, 2010 23:24:34 GMT -5
hi porto, ya that's pretty much what I do too sounded like you had a specific practice in mind called "not knowing"
|
|
lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
|
Post by lobo on Jul 25, 2010 23:42:24 GMT -5
Yeah, that DOES seem to be what happens, and I wouldn't assign the undoing to the mind at all. As I see it, mind really has no solid basis for what is believed, and it imagines it must have because, like, why would everybody believe it if it wasn't true?! Hehe. No two year old ever walked up to mom and dad and said, 'Hey guys, lets talk about this 'me' idea. Are you really sure about this?' Most of what is believed is never really questioned because the interest is in whether we can get something out of it, not whether it's actually true. For somebody to ask us to look and see if it's really true is a little like stopping a good movie in the middle and asking the people sitting on the couch if what they're enjoying is really any more than light patterns on a screen. Almost everybody will tell you to start the dang player and sit down and shut up, which is what folks on spiritual forums say to me all the time, in their own way. So, the point is that, since there really is no foundation for mind's conceptual reality to begin with, if there really is an interest in noticing this, it can be noticed. It's not mind, however, that notices anything. enigma, a couple of things here for clarity... when you say most things are not questioned because the interest is whether we can get anything out of it or not... the "we" you are referencing must be the "identity" or sense of self, correct? and that is its function, to promote self survival. Interesting that to believe in itself would be a benefit to promote the survival of the body that it is dependent on for its existance. When you say that if there really is an interest in noticing this, it can be noticed, you make it sound like there is a will in action, something that has interest, something capable of choosing to notice or be interested or not. Was this your intention? If so, what do you mean exactly? Sorry if this sounds like nit-picking but it is so easy to miss the meaning in the writing or reading of these posts
|
|