Sorry, these are class materials.
Sorry, these are class materials.Previous post: Sorry, these are class materials.
Next post: Sorry, these are class materials.
Sorry, these are class materials.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi David,
thanks for coming back! I have to admit that I missed the phone call on sunday and I just listened to the recording of it. Yeah, I would also think (now) that there is indeed a difference between more meditative experiences and the exercises we have been practising with the last couple of weeks. It was one of the issues I was kind of wrestling with and could not get a clear view on: where/what are ´the moments of X´ when one is meditating and calming the mind? I guess maybe in a way I was even trying to make a (direct…?) connection between the state of a ´meditative mind´ and ´moments of X´ … see what I mean? Anyhow I bet the ´open awareness´ occuring during long walks is a more suitable ´place´ to investigate these TSK exercises a bit further … I should stop here otherwise I´m gonna speculate intellectually instead of investigating directly :). Nice exchange of thoughts David, thanks!
Eric.
I was reading something that Bruce quoted on one of his websites:
It immediately occurred to me that this is what we’re doing in this course, “The Self In Question”. Inquiring into our thing (part) oriented experience to get a sense of the whole. I also saw this focus on the parts in the exercise The Point of Transition. I observed points A and A1 stand for a linear progression from the perspective of the self in my experience. I saw that perspective change as the position and identity of self relinquished to some degree, opening up X, letting X encompass more. If not the whole, at least more than the narrow perspective or focal point of a self-emphasized orientation.
It’s interesting, the more I explore The Point of Transition.
David
Hi David,
I liked reading your post in which you describe the state of ‘open awareness’ which occured during your walk. I partly recognized your description: when I go for long walks I also have this experience once in a while that suddenly there is this transition to ‘open awareness’ in which my whole experience gets more alive, vivid and less self-centered. I was confused though about the connection you made with X (I felt that if there is open ‘continuous’ awareness there are not really ’separate’ events anymore like A and A1 hence there are also no ‘moments’ of X …). Two things helped me further: reading the comment of Soudabeh, the following sentence was helpful for me: ‘that I continuously narrow the infinate possibilities to a fixed choice!’. Second the connection you are pointing at when you write: ‘waking in the morning before the self takes control by identifying where and who I am, or what I want to do next -before that self-control.’ I experimented a bit with the latter in the last few days (very useful!). It helps me to get a glimpse of the connection you make between ‘open awareness’ and ‘X’. Slowly moving on … :). Best, Eric.
Hi Eric,
So nice of you to have responded with your thoughts, much appreciated, because you invite me to continue exploring. I love the exploring, but then, the devil’s in the description. :-)
You said: “if there is open ‘continuous’ awareness there are not really ’separate’ events anymore like A and A1 hence there are also no ‘moments’ of X.”
I’ve had deep meditative experiences when arisings have ceased, and moments are no longer structured, for at that level the self has relaxed or released it’s controlling processes, but that’s not just what I was talking about. I used the diagram from Ex. 23 instead of Ex. 22 to indicate things were happening in awareness. Perhaps I should have said, ‘a more open awareness than I am normally accustomed to‘.
Jack said on the conference call, something to the affect, that in our TSK exploration when we’re in presence, rather than turning away from the movement of the self, we look into it. When we’re busy in the world, either we or the world is generating events, and the self has to make sense out of it. And we become tense, so in meditation we relax and become calm in the present, to nourish ourselves. But in TSK right now we’re asking what if we let the self be there, and also be more openly aware, along with the flow. Can we do that? What would that be like?
Could that experience be X? Could A and A1, even as they are in memory and passing, be their, but also can we see or be aware in a more allowing and open way?
I’m still thinking X is that glimpse, a wider focal setting on experience, where emphasis is not given to the self’s identity or position, where differences are still discerned, but even though emphasis is not placed on any one ‘thing‘, I can still be aware of identity and position.
I think TSK Ex. 26 Transcendence of Pointings, relates to this.
Boy! The devil is in the description. :-)
David
Hi David:
What a beautiful and expressive post! You have a great gift of conveying meaning …specially the kind of meaning that is hard to express… . I came up also with a similar experience, but from a different angle. I was “A” perceiving … and befor the next recognized moment or point “A1″ there were infinately many possibilities arising like “x” simultainiously …but as soon as I chosed one point to focus on, it became the A1, and so all the possibilities vanished and instead A1 was choosen!! But through the practice, or the exercise I glimpsed what you so well described… that I continuously narrow the infinate possibilities to a fixed choice! And there is that possibility that I could maintain that openness of not arriving at any particular fixed choice as much as possible and stay open and allow it all be available! I can not maintain that openness for too long yet, but am delighted to know that the possibility exists…
Soudabeh
Hi Soudabeh
You said: “I could maintain that openness of not arriving at any particular fixed choice as much as possible and stay open and allow it all be available.”
That’s what I was getting at, and I think Jack was too on the conference call, though I don’t know for sure.
From one student to another, thanks for your thoughts.
David
Hi David,
A couple of things catch my atttention in your post: one is that you really seem to be able to get into this difficult exercise we have been practicing; the other is that you start and end (in both of the experiences you report) by making “X” be the place from which the observer is observing. That would never have occurred to me. I may have experienced a little of that sense that there is no separation, that time simply is, and that both the ocean and the swimmer are equally time. But my starting point is that some observer is trying to contact something beween the identified objects that visit his field of vision. You seem to have leaped to a realm where the witness lies beneath and between everything she witnesses? It feels like a valuable insight–that the witness is more fundamental than anything she witnesses and that awareness is only manifest through her. — Michael
Hi Michael,
You said: “I may have experienced a little of that sense that there is no separation…” Yes, that seems like a glimpse of it. And that’s what I get – glimpses. Moments in experience when suddenly the distance ‘I‘ have been imputing dissolves, and there is sudden intimacy with all that appears, like sometimes waking in the morning before the self takes control by identifying where and who I am, or what I want to do next – before that self-control. Or suddenly a view in nature takes your breath away by its beauty, in a sense shocks the self into relinquishing it’s narratives, and structured moments, etc., and you glimpse the pristine experience, feel the dynamic vitality of being alive.
In my post, “What pulls you away from the ‘feel’ of the moment?“, I said what feels most ‘real‘ (full and vital) is the degree of intimacy felt with experience, what is direct, without my sense of self-identity and separateness interceding in between. I could be wrong, of course, but I think X is that glimpse.
Best,
David