The 7th Fetter: Sample Dialogue
Inquiry into Perception
This is an edited version of an actual dialogue in which the illusion of having a subjective aspect to experience was ultimately dispelled. My comments are in plain font, and their responses are in bold. As with many dialogues, it took several exchanges for them to become attuned to what the dialogue was focused on, that thus to shift from a conceptual to an experiential perspective.
OK: to start, let's try a couple exercises, which are basically formless sphere practice:
1. Do some mindfulness practice to settle in.
2. With your eyes closed, pick a three-dimensional direction (say, straight ahead, to the left, up and to the right, etc.): straight ahead is probably the best to start out with.
3. Imaginally send a ray of awareness out that direction and see how far you can send it, thus how far out 'space' can theoretically be. Don't read too much into this: just mentally 'look' in that particular direction, and see if there is any limit as to how far away things could be, how far out you could possibly perceive. Don't insert objects, say by imagining a tree outside, then the church in the next town over, etc. This is more of, in theory, how far out in that direction are you able to imagine or perceive something being?
4. In that direction, where in experience are the limits that could be applied. For example, where is “three meters, three kilometers, three parsecs”, etc. Where in experience are the finite limits, the differentiations, that could be placed on “space”?
5. Now pick another direction, say off to the left or right, and repeat 3 and 4. Then pick another direction, and maybe a couple more. In any direction, is there any limit to 'space'? Even out to infinity, is there any difference in direct experience between the distance to a remote galaxy and the house next door? Or your left ankle?
Is space finite? When you look for 'space', do you actually get a finite answer, a certain length? Can you do such a thing?
Please let me know what you find - I look forward to hearing how this goes :-)
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I can imagine sending a light ray to the edge of the milky way, in experience no limits could be applied, but mind wants to think up the limits - create the markers of things like edge of house or town, then edge of land/sea, then across Europe to the next continent, then (ha - why does it want to go to the “edge of the earth” first ?? There is no edge! - there's just the imagined direction until my mind’s eye wouldn't “see” the land from this imagined direction), so once that is imagined it's happy to jump to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and go on from there into the other planets and space.
In direct experience there is no difference between the distances - it's just like there's this space anyway, and thoughts cleave to imagined objects to make “sense” of it. I muddled up my imagined directions anyway and went east twice, so thoughts were really keen on jumping off Russia rather than India this time. What nonsense!
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OK, let's assume you make up the notion of "space" :-)
How about consciousness? What is that? Particularly the 6 consciousnesses by which you become conscious of things in space?
Sight is generally the dominant sense, so let's try a simple experiment.
1. In a quiet area where you won't be disturbed, quiet the mind for a bit. Then, pick an object in the room, say a cup. Look at the cup for a little bit, noting its shape, color, height/size, etc. Yep, it's 'that' cup.
2. OK, now close your eyes. With your eyelids shut, mentally follow the information pathway from your eyes to experience where that information was coming into experience and where it was going.
3. In direct experience, do you find an eye somewhere in space? Can you find an eye consciousness or sight faculty? How about a data/information pathway that could convey the attributes of the cup?
4. Open your eyes and get a good look at the object again, and repeat Steps 2 and 3 one more time.
Then try it all over again with another object.
What did you find?
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I found no information pathway. Once the visual information stops with closing the eyes there can be thoughts/mental images of the cup (or the bag). I cannot find an eye somewhere in space. I can feel tactile sensations of my eyelids/eye muscles moving. There's no data pathway. Images seen before can recur as thought-images. There is no eye consciousness or sight faculty.
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OK, right answer :-)
Now, please look around, listen around, feel around... put all six senses to work, taking in sense objects like you always do.
As you take in a pair, say a sound and a sight from something making noise, where are the two sense bases that take that information in? In direct experience, can you see any difference between the two sensory receptors, channels or content?
Try this while mixing and matching any of the 6 sense bases with this thing or that.
Does consciousness, whether an individual one or all six, have any discernible limits?
And... what is consciousness? What thing are you conscious of? In direct experience, where is that thing?
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I tried with a few mixes of senses as suggested. I can't locate 'sense bases' taking the information in. It seems 'all of a piece'. So no, I can't see a difference between the two receptors, channels or content. In fact, it was impossible to see any receptors or channels, though I was aware of the content seemingly merged.
No: consciousness (of 1 or all 6) does not feel like it has any discernible limits. Wow, that's interesting - I suddenly became aware of limits in eyesight (visual content was blurry) or selective hearing, yet the basic awareness does not feel restricted in any way.
What is consciousness? I can't grasp or locate consciousness. It's just like everything is happening in this simultaneous 'field'- two or three sounds, all the sights, touch etc. It feels expansive and alive, and a little bit scary to stay with.
Where is that thing? Oh I don't know! Just shapes, colors, whooshing noises, buzz, cracklings etc. I keep thinking there must be this me with a sense based that is receiving it all, and that there's a thing to receive, but when observing it closely it's all just experience happening with no location.
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Ah, but it's a "good scary" hopefully? If you ever used what we call "training wheels" on your bicycle, the first time without them can be a “good scary” as well, but pretty soon you realize that you simply no longer need them :-)
Please allow the sense of "me" to persist, and look for the thing you have, call it perception, by which "things" are perceived. It's what most fundamentally detects individual things in awareness, after which consciousness can add some pretty colors, associate some memories with it, place it in space and time, etc. It's what takes in all of what's happening, whether it's from 6 or 600 sense bases, and concludes "oh, it's a (some)thing!".
Put another way, it's what you have that makes "thinging" possible, that makes the perception of “somethings” possible. If it weren't for this fundamental faculty, which receives and processes all of that information, distinctions couldn't be made between this or that.
Where is that processing center? If it seems like it's in the head, look everywhere in there. Or, look in the heart, stomach, etc. - where is the faculty of perception?
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Hi, yes it's a good kind of scary. When first looking for the faculty of perception just now I had tears running down my face but it's "moved" tears not sad. I see what you mean about how the faculty of perception works but cannot locate a "processing center". It's like knowledge of what is going on is in the experience itself.
When I assume it's in my head, I look, and it's just that the doorways are there- eyes, ears, maybe brain to put words on the experience. But then touch - my cold feet and warm back - the perception is just right there with the experience itself..and that is how it is even with the dominant visual sense. Got a sense of my whole body being like this sponge able to take it all in and work it all out if necessary but it's more than that too because of the constant responsiveness.
So where I'm at now is that perception is a receptive/responsive faculty that sort of 'uses' the senses and is one with them. I hope what I'm writing makes sense!
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It does!!
If you can't pin "perception" down to a particular location, but it instead seems like it is distributed over/associated with the entire body, there is still the assumption that "thingness" is being detected, and whatever the detector might be is simply detecting what is inherently available.
What I'd like you to do is to do what you did earlier (look for perception), and after a bit, with your eyes closed, look for "thingness", that aspect of experience which is being perceived. It's what makes a given set of sensory data a "something", or that which such data points to. It's the underlying structure or feature of experience that allows the recognition of this or that something not just possible, but necessary. For example, if a thought arises, or a sensation is noticed, where is the "thingness" of that thought or sensation, the substance that makes it a thought or sensation?
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When I start looking for either perception or the 'thing-ness' of thoughts/sensations I cannot find it. I find just 'space' or spaciousness…still find it disconcerting in a good way (can bring tears up - it feels heart-connected or intimate as well as spacious) and like sense experience of all that is 'happening', but in no particular location or with nothing I can pin down as either a point of perceiving or a point of experience.
There is recognition - I can hear about 3 distinct sounds now, and interpret what they are if necessary. Tuning into one of them I can't find any point of 'perception' to do with it or any substance - nor any essential 'thingness' of the noise. There is just noise, a faint buzz. Or, there's a stabbing pain in my sinus. Yet when attention or awareness goes there it's just sensations moving around, fast - nothing to catch as a 'thing'
A thought comes up "I don't know where any thing is". It reminds me of the undifferentiated awareness of being a baby (I have had a lot of what seem like memories on a body level of how experience was like as a baby since exploring fetter 6 and now 7).
So what's occurring to me now is what moves awareness or attention? Sorry to use the 'mysterious' word again but it does seem pretty unidentifiable - yet it obviously happens!
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Yes, sensory experience is happening, and the requisite level of interpretation is always possible, but is there a "something” involved? In particular, is there a faculty of "perception" which takes that information in and determines "ah, it's a something!"?
So yes, do you REALLY know where anything is? If, as you saw, space is not finite or limited, but is superimposed mentally on experience, how could you actually know "where" anything is? And yet, you can still interpret what is happening to get across the street, etc. - mental fabrications can be useful, even if they are seen to only be just that: a fabrication.
For sure - as babies we need to learn how to integrate sensory information and come up with the construct of "space", and "time" and "things" for that matter. The question is: do we have to believe that is REALLY what is happening, as opposed to accepting/realizing that it is just a (oh so useful) mental fabrication?
Perhaps we could say that awareness and attention, to the extent we label what is happening and our role in it, just happens. It might be comforting to assume that there is a particular faculty of 'perception' in play, which lends a degree of predictability to it all, but is such an assumption necessary?
Closing your eyes, please bring to mind what you had to drink earlier today. Let's say it's a cup of coffee or tea. As you bring to mind the "cup", where is the (some)thingness of that cup? Is there somethingness to it? If not, what in you seems to nevertheless want to reach out and detect/know this or any other thing, as if it were thwarted in its efforts? It's whatever it is in you that says "like hell there aren’t (some)things to perceive..."
Please try to get a direct, felt sense of what the urge is, and what would satisfy that urge. Where is that urge coming from?
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What I notice is that generally I feel pretty unmoored from things since fetter 6 and even more since beginning on 7 - though it's like you can zoom in on things as 'things' when you need to. But I tried your "like hell there aren’t things to perceive" by summoning up a memory of a cup of coffee I had first thing. I noticed something 'leap' in me to the colour of the liquid and the shape and colours of the cup, not about craving but more like an urge to recognise or define things..delighting in "knowing" that colour and that shape and being able to say "oh it's that”. Yes I saw it leaping in. How to look more at that, though? It didn't feel like a thing I "have" so much as a habitual way of relating to things …
It’s also a habitual way that is not so habitual any more...unless I am fooling myself of course, which is entirely possible :-)
Though it did also feel like I had to "make it up" (the leap to want to make it a thing). It’s as if looking quite hard for something - in this case an urge, maybe thwarted, to make something a thing - made it appear. I can fabricate an image easily in my mind and then celebrate the fabrication being a life-like one, a really vivid evocation...it's like painting something with the mind instead of a brush and saying "look at my lovely cup", but I still know it's made up...if that makes sense?
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Yes, it does.
Please try the looking away exercise, where the cup starts out as a non-thing blob in the periphery of awareness, then becomes a thing as you turn to face it.
Watch what happens: where (in you) do you recognize the "signs" of color and shape, such that you interpret and conclude "ah, that thing"??
It might be more immediate to look at something, and then simply close your eyes such that the thing is no longer seen or recognized. Then, open your eyes and look directly for what in you takes in what consciousness is now offering. Is what is seen a sign that there's something out there, and you're simply noticing that, or is it just "the seen" that has no inherent divisions?
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Head turning: There is not somewhere/something in here 'clocking' shape, colors etc. - they just appear. Same with the closing and opening of eyes - now seen, now not - seems very simple!
It is not as if there is a thing there, it is just "in the seen " and no division.
I suspect it's all so clear because I'm on the train (so superior to bedrooms and computers 😁)
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Super. Is there a tendency to want to differentiate what you see into things? If so, where is the 'detector' you have somewhere that allows this to happen?
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I think I caught this one out...but there is an emotional catch. There isn't much (if any) tendency to want to differentiate into things… it feels more like an 'as needed' or instinctual response to functioning in the world. So, if something fast is coming I'll notice a car (etc.). In fact, functioning in the world feels much smoother. However, in looking for the 'detector' as I looked out of the window at things passing on the train, I noticed some street lamps and caught out there isn't such a faculty 'detecting' - it's all just there - but noticed a sort of grief arise as if this is the last bit of 'me' going, but also like letting go of 'the world' at the same time. It's like I caught it out - wanting to 'me-make' the experience.
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Yes, fetters 4/5, then 6, then 7 are the "triple world" of the kama, rupa and arupa raga. 7 is the last tangible evidence or proof of "me" and the "world", so your sense of what is happening is correct :-)
Whereas in fetter 6 I suggest people try to "stay out there" with things, what I'd like you to do here is to either be on a moving vehicle, or simply cast your gaze around for a bit, such that most people would say that things are passing before your eyes. I'd like you to notice if, at any time, your attention "sticks" on something, as opposed to simply taking in the nest bit of visual information that passes before your eyes. By "sticking" I mean that a 'thing' sticks out as a thing, is identified as a thing, or otherwise is more that "just the seen".
If there are things which are "thinged", where in you does that recognition take place? What part of you is participating in, and even creating this perceptual situation?
Put another way, why can you NOT simply scan the room or look out from a train/bus and not simply let the visual information flow by? What somewhere in you says, at least now and again, that "hey, that's..." as a “something” is differentiated and discerned?
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I did have some space and clarity to look on the journey home from work at whatever (and whenever) makes attention "stick". It seemed to be a sticking which has to do with a desire to make meaning out of things. E.g. I notice a man on the platform because his body language expresses a mental state and emotions that are recognisable, a printed sign because I can decipher the words in both languages, smoke rising because of interest in where its source is. I could probably do with looking at the same thing again as I didn't have so much time today. I simply noticed the attachment to 'making meaning'.
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Ah, meaning. Do "things" seem like they need to be what they seem to be, as if a lamp has a certain "lampness" to it? That it is what it is, because of its very nature of being "that thing", and you're simply picking up on that fact?
Imagine you're in a movie theater, and quite “into” the movie such that it seems like you're there on the set, the characters are real, etc. Halfway through the movie, the house lights come on, and you snap out of the illusion that what you were seeing was real: it's just images and sounds coming from a screen. If they turn the house lights back down again, you will probably be able to re-engage with the movie after a bit.
Is everyday experience any different from this movie?
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No things don't seem like they need to be what they seem to be, or have a certain "lampness", something I'm picking up on. I see that I am adding in these aspects, adding in interpretations or significance and, since 'catching out' that thing-ing or meaning~making, what I see has felt very different. Not sure if I've broken it because, since seeing that, I notice more immediately whenever I do that. It is easier to do occasionally in relation to - say - a photo of a family member than a lamp...but I can see that story-making is going on, so I’m not feeling sold into the stories that start up. So they don't 'stick'.
"Is everyday experience any different from this movie?"
No it isn't! Using the movie analogy, I feel I can both engage with the movie as if the lights were dim and yet I don't feel swept up or sucked into the story of the movie, because I can also easily see it as if the lights were up...images and sounds. Not sure where I'm at with this!
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Does it seem like you have a body? A mind?
Does what is happening seem to happen in time and space?
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Does it seem like you have a body? A mind?
Wow - these questions bowled me over a bit as it hasn't occurred to me to look at these directly as to whether they're 'things' before. Now I look - no it doesn't seem like I have a body…Sensations come into awareness, parts come into visual awareness: it's like that movie you mentioned with lights and sound, only this time it's sensations and visuals when my eyes are open…different things arise. When I try to conjure it up deliberately: "I have a body" I assume it will click into an old familiar way of relating to it as in “The Body” (ha ha) "being absorbed in the movie" analogy of yesterday.. but it doesn't. It feels like a smorgasbord, and it is an unfamiliar thing to realise I can’t/don't 'thing' this very familiar 'thing' either.
Mind? No. I have a mind? I have not found it in all this time. All I find is thoughts and sensations happening pretty much all the time. I do not feel anchored anywhere (the word "unhinged" has come up a few times, which I know has negative connotations but do not feel mad or that I do not know what is going on) or that there is a me that could be anchored anywhere. 'I' feel plugged into the mains a lot of the time - just energies flowing more freely than ever before, no control, no 'place' where they come from, stay or go to. It's all different.
Does what is happening seem to happen in time and space?
Well I feel a bit in a parallel or altered sense of reality, but that's just an idea trying to explain a change. I don't know why but this question brings up emotion to do with letting go again. Despite the fact that I've struggled all my life with time and been in some ways a complete 'space cadet' I realise I want to hang onto something here about a world or structure to 'inhabit' even if it's just an idea - a completely non-pin-downable 'ethereal' 'thing'. In DE (direct experience): no, there is no time or space…
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Super: as it turns out, you're not going mad :-)
So… as you cast your eyes about the room, and this or that comes into view, do things seem Permanent? Impermanent? Both? Neither?
How about substantial? Insubstantial? Both? Neither?
And as you go from lamp to doorknob to book to clock, what in you is perceiving this and determining that you're looking at lamp, etc.? Is there something that you have somewhere that is making such distinctions and recognitions possible?
Put another way, is it possible to both perceive and not-perceive?
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Permanent /impermanent
Both/neither
It just seems to me that what I see is whatever is going on in that seeing (aha, Mr Bahiya, in the seen, only the seen). The word permanent doesn't describe it and neither does impermanent - same with substantial/insubstantial. Compared to before…things seem immediate, there, available and everything is simpler and quieter about that because I'm not 'messing' with it, distorting it or trying to make it different.
What in me is perceiving, determining, making distinctions possible - or is it possible to both perceive and not perceive?
I'm not sure I understand. When looking around the room at different things…Whatever goes on here doesn't feel like something 'in me' or 'I have' or that there's an 'I' here. so perception as in a faculty doesn't describe how it seems. It’s like the recognition or perception is simultaneous with the data received, like some sort of 'instant knowing', so it's not like there's 'not perceive' either.
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I like your answers :-)
Let's come back to time and space: if you didn't discern that there were "(some)things", could you have the notion of time and space? For example, without things needing "space" to be in, would there be
"space"
And if time is the interval between things happening (ticks of a clock, rising/setting of the sun, etc.), does time make any sense if there are no things discerned in the first place? What would time apply to??
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Well it was harder to focus on the first try with this today. Maybe it's just an off day or there's resistance/fear or doubt coming up (that I can see this) but for some reason though your pointers yesterday about perception/non-perception etc. were clear to me - and I could see it all very clearly!
Today I cannot find a way in with the space/time ones. It's like it's hiding in plain sight!
I see there are no things, but when it comes to why non-things would need space to inhabit the mind sort of springs back on it. I get instances of seeing that space is as much an invention as things.
Same with time - I get that if time is supposedly the interval between or marker of things, yet "things" aren't happening - what's time got to do with it, how can it apply? Oh as I write them down I half get there - it feels close. Can you suggest any other ways to look at the same - or shall I just keep looking, try again?
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Hmm... please try it the other way: see if there is space and time, and then if there are things.
Then, to the extent that no-thing-ness is stable, sit with that and see why you have to budge from there, a bit like sitting in the gap.
Why "thing"?
What in you is trying to make that happen, and in fact could make "things" happen if you allowed it?
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I've been mulling this weird block I've had about this and wonder now if it's just a clinging onto conceptualising itself. I say this because I don't 'thing' things, and in experience cannot find space or time. They're made up by mind - concepts - but I feel I "ought" to believe in them, because...because? Something about really accepting experience over concepts. I will look again - as you suggested - but just wanted to let you know my thoughts for now!
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Thanks for the update.
If you can sit with experience temporarily empty of things, what in you seems to decide that isn't OK, and wants to at least focus on something (for crying out loud...)?
To "get" to this perspective, anything that comes into your mind, look in direct experience for the "thingness" of it. It might feel like looking all the way through a thought or image until you're out the other side and realize "hey, there wasn't anything to that thing". It might take doing this to/with a few 'things' until your mind gets the hint... :-)
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I'll do this again later as it felt like a good exercise… I was first aware of 'thinging' sounds, though I could immediately also see there was no-thing to them (just attaching to other sensations and making something more substantial seeming because of life-long 'thing' of finding eating noises irritating). Finally settled into a no-thingness that felt stable - immediately very strong - from there, I noticed just a monkey-mind tendency really - like restlessness wanting to find things to play with or latch onto or make meaning out of but when I went into them they were not things - had no substance. Feeling of not being located in or on anything - nothing to hold to, which also felt free.
It’s hard to stay in the gap or find any real reason why the mind doesn't want to stay there, though I was aware it creates suffering, so that felt sad. To the extent that I could stay with that stable no-thingness, it was far more connected or content. Whenever any image or thought came up, I could see right through it as if transparent - it had no substance or reality of itself.
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Super - as you look through things, also step back and just behold the insubstantial image. Is anything more needed to get on with life than the insubstantial image?
If you're making a cup of tea, do you really have anything more to work with than an insubstantial image? And yet, do you need more than that to make a cup of tea? Sure, you could superimpose (some)thingness onto the cup and tea and spoon and table and... but do you have to?
Part of this is trusting that you already know what you need to know, without the augmentation of what thought brings to it all.
The "gap" here is holding off on doing anything with the images you have, and seeing whether there is something that COULD do anything with those images. Spend more time looking inside for that thing, as opposed to staying "out there" with either the image or the thinged-thing if you jump out of the gap.
Where is the faculty you have which perceives insubstantial images and turns them into things?
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Where is the faculty you have which perceives insubstantial images and turns them into things?
Ok. Sorry if I'm being particularly slow or thick in relation to this but have a sense of going round in circles. Most of the time when I look I think "I've got this already!", but then I am not sure and I do trust that from the guide’s perspective you're keeping me looking for something for a reason!
Going about everyday life there has been a change, in that I do trust that there's enough to know about the insubstantial images/sensations to not have to augment them with what thought has to offer...life feels far more spacious and simple as a result - on the whole.
So, the cup of tea example - I'm pretty sure I get that not re: making any more of what is happening.
Today there was a long, involved journey which involved a bus breaking down at one end and a punctured bike tyre problem at the other end - well everything is just dealt with without feeling I have to add stuff on or in, or even much thinking necessary. When I observe thoughts/internal images today, I only caught one that I 'thinged', which was a worry about a persistent pain I've had under my right rib cage. Even that (having reminded myself to go to the doctor) when looked at was just sensations plus thoughts.
I cannot find a faculty which perceives images and turns them into (some)things. Sensations and thoughts are happening - yes. However, particular things catch attention - today for example on the train my eye was 'caught' by a white object moving fast outside the train. So attention and thoughts zeroed in and identified a type of dwarf horse "like a Shetland" and "cute", compared it with the other more normal looking horses and their situation (a field) and made up a story that it must have been startled by the train and started galloping.
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OK. Is the sense of "thinging" more pronounced with your eyes open or closed?
With your eyes closed, please try to get a "hall of mirrors" effect going by trying to perceive perception with perception: let that be the only thing you're looking for. Let it be as disorienting as it will be: it will likely feel like you're bouncing back and forth between looking and the looked-for, since they are really one and the same. It should settle down eventually - the intent is to abide there, where you're looking for what is looking for what is looking.
Once you get the hang of it, and the reverberation effect lessens, try to disinterestedly look for the faculty of perception, without any reference to what might be happening in terms of "thinging" of thoughts or sensations. If you notice a thought or sensations, just note that you did so, and return to this subtle level of inquiry.
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Trying to perceive perception with perception - yes like an echo chamber.
I still don't feel I'm enough in the groove with focusing, but there was enough to start looking. The scary/exciting thing is I don't find it. What is going on is images/thoughts and sensations. Trying just to note them (or note 'thinging' but not focus on that, as you suggested) but - either saw something useful or was sidetracked (not sure which) by how some of what goes on is latched onto more or identified with as if it were a perceiving intelligence.
I saw this go on in relation to, for example, a 'fancier' thought mixed with image - yet when looking straight at it it's just a fleeting mind event. Or a particular emotion linked with a particular sensation can be 'meaning-ised' as if it's a perception of something…. but it was just sensation identified-with in some way. It feels like the motivation to make a faculty called perception is to make an 'essential me'. That was as far as I got with it so far today.
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Yes, it's just thoughts and sensations that we have to work with. Unless you enter "the cessation of thoughts and sensations" (nirodha-samapatti), that's what's happening, and that's all that is happening! :-)
Consider that "perception" is a way of interpreting thoughts and sensations, to a degree in excess of what is necessary to get across the street or fix dinner. As the Zen saying goes, in the end mountains will once again be mountains: just not the substantial "mountains" you once thought were there.
You've worked with turning your head, such that a blob becomes a thing (and then an object). Please try this:
1. Look at some-thing straight on. Then, turn your head away, but keep your eyes on the thing (i.e., allow your eyes to move in their sockets). Turn as far away as you can, until you reach the limit of being able to recognize that (for example) there is a lamp in front of you.
2. Turning your head a bit further, you can go on memory that there is a lamp or whatever there: it's just that you're not able to interpret as such. Really stay in DE to the extent you can, and get the sense of how you know there is a lamp there, but you're not able to fabricate one because you don't have the visual information necessary.
3. Holding that sense of "there is, but there isn't a lamp", turn toward it until it's straight-on in front of your eyes again. What in you is struggling to "thing" it? Try intoning the label "lamp" or whatever: what in DE does that word point or correspond to?
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I get the bit that's struggling to 'thing' it more when I'm turning away from it and losing the visual information - feels like a pull to a thing rather than just a memory of a thing. I can stay with "there is, but there isn't a clock"
When I turn back in DE, intoning the word "clock", the word corresponds to an idea - a thought, added on to the visual info. I can also switch back just to DE of seeing and there's just the visual information. It doesn't feel as if there's something in me "struggling" to make it a thing but I did get a sense of that mechanism in action of adding on another layer - feels like a habit of enjoying or relishing recognition.
Actually… Just did it again with a chair and the whole thing deconstructed as a 'chair' - it was flipping between deconstruction and construction and I saw how we make things up - wow. Ha ha -that is very funny! Is this the right arena? I'll keep looking...
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Yes, that's it :-)
It might feel like a "gap", when you're about to "thing" but not quite.
As the urge to "thing" builds, ask "why?", and look for the things in you that could make that "thing" happen. It’s much like desire and ill will.
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It’s been harder to focus again with a lot going on at home...but a few times I had a more spontaneous 'dissolving' of things going on. However, looking this evening I couldn't follow the instruction to stay in the gap and see why I had to 'thing' things or "what in me could make that happen" because it was not possible to un-thing things in the first place - oops! Well that's not quite true, because I'm aware it's an insubstantial image - and since that experience of everything being 'made up' it's subtly altered all experience - maybe I am just a bit stressed so will try again. Just wanted to check with you...do things need to look 'dissolved' before I can usefully look at how I create them? Hope that one makes sense.
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No, it doesn't dissolve: it's just whether or not it is thinged.
For example, if you were to walk by a Dutch still life in a museum, with the obligatory silver teapot and oranges, would you take that sensory information in and conclude that there really was a teapot and some oranges as "things" in front of you? I'm guessing not...
So, why does it have to be any different if you look around the kitchen right now and see a teapot and some oranges? It's not that what is seen dissolves... it's "just the seen", regardless if you are dreaming about teapots and oranges, seeing them in a painting, or seeing them on the kitchen table.
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Right: if it's about investing more belief in an object in a room than objects in a painting or in my mind, then that 'thinging' is about the same for all of them now, except I can differentiate which arena it's taking place in.
'Thinging' itself is feeling subtle for me, (which is partly why I asked before if what you were driving at was things literally being dissolved/deconstructed - but I get that that's not what you meant).
I have repeated the looking-away/at things exercise a few times today and looked for a gap when about to 'thing', or the urge to do so, or what in me could make that happen.
I do get some inkling of an attachment to 'thinging' things just on what you could call a gut or emotional level - but again feels subtle...like a quick sensation of 'upset' as if I want there to be something more meaningful there. Yet I can't find it, and I can't find anything in me that can 'make' it happen - it feels like being attached to a ghost. There isn't really a 'thing' or even desire to make it into one, just more like a free-floating but unfindable 'I'. I can't seem to see this any clearer than that...
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Please allow the free-floating sense of an "I" to be what it is, which if I read you correctly you are.
That's a good catching of the sense of wanting there to be something meaningful happening. Might another way of saying this is that you want there to be substance to what you are seeing, such that you know for sure what it is? For example, a doorknob is perceived because, well, there's a doorknob with "doorknob-ness" that is there to be perceived, and darn it I am perceiving it.
If you silently drop in "there is no such thing as meaning", what comes up? What is the response?
How about "there is no such thing as substance"?
"There is no such thing as knowing something"?
What do you REALLY want, such that a world of things gives it to you?
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I’ve been a bit slow to respond but trying to find a way into these questions and been a bit resistant to them - eek!
Might another way of saying this is that you want there to be substance to what you are seeing, such that you know for sure what it is? For example, a doorknob is perceived because, well, there's a doorknob with "doorknob-ness" that is there to be perceived, and darn it I am perceiving it.
It doesn't feel like I want there to be real substance to a thing, so much as wanting to add an extra meaningfulness mentally on top of the thing.
If you silently drop in "there is no such thing as meaning", what comes up? What is the response?
There's a sense like a worry about having lost something - like house keys - it's like I can see there’s no meaning, but there is an irrational hankering after it.
How about "there is no such thing as substance"?
This I seem to both see and accept - something about this dropped strongly with fetter 6.
"There is no such thing as knowing something"?
Similar to meaning - I can 'see' there's not knowing something as I look at things, or memory images, or thoughts, but there's still an 'attachment back' to an imaginary knowing - or something that can be known. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of the sea and can't go back to land but don't want to let go into this vast undefined space. Scared of something.
What do you REALLY want, such that a world of things gives it to you?
I just got a sense of grief that there isn't this available, this 'world of things', but I have spent so long creating and recreating this. I think I'm coming up against nihilism - a fear of nothingness - no thing-ness. I also get a sense of holding back from freedom here - like the illusion of a world of things is just like staying trying to keep everything in little boxes. Sorry if this is all a bit poetic, but I’m trying to feel my way into this. I can try once again the same questions tomorrow? I wasn't sure whether to stay looking at 'things' while dropping these questions in or just drop the questions in with eyes closed and see what comes up.
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For sure - try again tomorrow.
Consider that there may not be the world of things as you've always perceived them, but in the end mountains are still mountains. I am typing an email to you - that's as real as it's ever been. It's just recalibrating what "real" is, that's all. When I was working with the 7th fetter, it felt like I wanted to “take my toys and go home” at this point, so they could be "real": nihilism was simply the only other option that I knew of. As it turned out, "in the seen, there is just the seen", without meaning, substance or permanence was (and is) what's simply happening.
And please drop the questions in without looking at things - see if that is necessary even.
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I was in one of the worse states of mind I've been in for months today - feeling utterly poisoned by organizational stuff and averse, just sat for a while which allowed a little kindness/softening and then tears streaming down my face - brought each of of these questions to mind and felt like I just burned them up - nope no meaning, nope substance, nope - no knowing - very clear! - the only thing I could think of from a world of things is pleasure in a few things, but even then I was not convinced by that. In a mood not only to leave the organization but leave the world. I think there's a very hard destructive side to my mind that wants to just destroy...but doesn't feel unrelated to wanting to break through delusion too. Feels like a big reaction Kevin - been a while!
Grief/anger coming up - reminded of the feelings when my father was being verbally abusive - wanting to kill him - wanting to kill myself. I hasten to add I am not mentally ill and I am not about to do anything stupid - it's all just 'stuff' coming up to the surface - like poison from the bottom of a well. Well actually I don't know anything and don't know what's going on. Right: so, is this just an entirely unrelated 'blip' do you think or do people have reactions at this point? You mentioned wanting to take your toys and go home - nihilism ...?
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Yes, when faced with giving up what you thought was objective reality, and not offered a distinct alternative, nihilism and withdrawal are natural at this point. I just watched it, knowing what it was and also knowing I didn't have to do anything about it, and it faded away. It's like I had to go through it, since I had invested so much in material "existence". I was a born eternalist.
So, no worries! It's good that you know you're not actually going to do anything silly. I saw that having a family and job made this go much easier, since it was obvious that I wouldn't choose to alter things or pull away - just wasn't gonna happen :-)
As you watch this existential suffering, itself a reaction but not one that I would equate with desire/ill will reactions, you could drop in "there is no meaning", and also drop in "there is no non-meaning". See how they are mutually-defined opposites, concepts really, which mean nothing (pun intended) without the other.
Also, look at a tea cup. Is it visibly impermanent, or is that just something you superimpose with your mind?
Is it visibly permanent, or is that also something you superimpose with your mind?
As you look at it, is it inherently going to lead to suffering? Or the opposite, bliss?
Or, is it just a cup?
In the seen, just the seen. Neither being nor non-being is necessary to know it's a cup.
It's just a cup, the same as the Buddha would've seen a "sup" and taken a drink :-)
That's all you need to know, all the meaning needed!
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Thank you very much for such a quick - and reassuring - reply! Will recover a bit and carry on.
I can see how no meaning and no non-meaning are just add ons. Also, when looking at a train seat handle and a phone it's neither permanent or impermanent - neither inherently leading to suffering or bliss… saw through this strongly for a minute or so and just “in the seen” - first thought that came up afterwards was "I could just stop (breaking fetters) here - I could see through this maybe by going back to art and just looking" ha ha - so , resistance - still aware of a reaction not as extreme or emotional like yesterday but a strong upper body tension...like clenching/holding on. I have no idea what is so challenging about this as just feeling it on a body level now - as a "no" but I don't really want to heed this, so I was thinking just to find ways to soften /relax more again and will probably tip over this edge.
So beginning to get a sense of this experientially - beyond the laksanas.
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The lakshanas appear to be "the way things really are" for the longest time, but it is here at the 7th that you have to let go of them.
In a way, the predictability of "impermanence" and “conditioned coproduction” has likely been comforting, in that it provides a knowingness, and perhaps "meaning" to life. So, you're asking yourself to let go of a fundamental context for experience, where time and space mean something and where things mean something, and all of it ostensibly explained by "this being, that becomes".
As you drop in the fact that "no this, and no that" which can be perceived, known or have meaning, is there a part of you that resists this, as if to say "like hell there isn't!" If so, where is that part of you? Where is it in you that perception of "things" ostensibly happens?
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Well I wrote in my notebook while sitting in a square in town "I think the game is up" but whether it really is or not I don't know. I did as you suggested in your last email with eyes closed or open looking at things and again got that things don't have meaning, nor can be known, perceived, are permanent, impermanent etc. and then became aware of the resistance, - looking for the "like hell there's not" and where perception of things in me could be and it just couldn't be found. There's sensations - that's all I found. No part of me that perceives "things" - that's just something I've assumed all my life and therefore added a layer onto what's happening as if there is something that can be perceived (justifying that supposed thing doing the perceiving). So the filters of that have come off. It's the first time I saw that clearly. There's still tensing sensations as if unsure/frightened, but it does also have that unmistakable sense of freedom about it.
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Super. It's really no different than the 6th (and 1st, 4/5), where we refer to something that isn't there, even if sensations and/or thoughts could be interpreted as being "that thing".
As you look out onto what is in visual range, why isn't it OK that what you're presented with is simply insubstantial images? Isn't that enough? And if it's what has always been the case, don't you have evidence that it is in fact enough?
For example, thinking of your child, if what you have available to you is "Chris" as an insubstantial image, has that not always been enough? Can you not still engage and love them, without over-interpreting things? It is indeed a sense of freedom that allows you to do what is needed in life.
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It's as if something has disconnected from identifying but at the same time that brings up a need to engage in a different way - plus take care not to alienate from or reject experience along with that. For example as yesterday as I started turning over what you said about Chris and accepting the insubstantial image - that that's all that has ever been available - I realised that was the case and I knew what you meant and 'accepted' that straight away...have been aware that it applies not just to teacups and whatever I've been looking at visually but to everything and everyone (!!) of course including 'me' too - you can engage with and love - but this insubstantial image is all we have available.
I was kind of shocked at it yesterday in that I felt like because I accepted it - well it feels like such a withdrawal from life on one level and it was like I had also abandoned everyone I love ...like how can I do that to my own child - I was seriously wondering if I'd care if everyone I cared about died?! But also that's an idea, because whatever I thought was there (on top of what is) wasn't anyway... and what is there has always been the case anyway. Gosh this feels like rambling - it's hard to put into words. I do still love my child and partner etc...but well it feels like from another basis or no basis at all and was a bit concerned I just didn't care any more or they could all die and what would change?!
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Of course you still love them :-) My two loved ones are up and about, puttering about in the kitchen as we speak.
As the Zen saying goes, "in the end, mountains are still mountains". It's just that they're not the same mountains you once thought they were. Maybe you'll like the new versions better :-)
I'd be curious: to what degree do time and space describe experience right now? To what degree do these qualities describe the context in which experience is happening?
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:-). I liked what you said about still loving your family.
I'd be curious: to what degree do time and space describe experience right now? To what degree do these qualities describe the context in which experience is happening?
I wouldn't say they do 'describe' the context in which experience is happening at the moment. I feel like experience is arising more on its own - nakedly. It's more like everything shows up as it is - reminds me of the 2D thing that happens at the 6th fetter, but it's not just visual, but everything arising more simultaneously. So I don't feel I'm 'in space' or 'in time' or 'in' anything, but things just are, experience is happening, without any concern for location (except practical - like not tripping over a pavement slab) . Going for a walk today felt like more experience was available all at once (I think that's what I mean by 'simultaneous') because this thing has come down about fixing any of it or of fixating on any of it…so not just a spatial fixing, for example, but any kind. So everything appears more present and spontaneous.
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Yes, everything is happening "now". Or, it's always "now".
So, looking around the room, do there appear to be discrete things, which are being perceived?
If not, why did you used to "thing" experience?
And was there a point where there was an obvious shift in experience?
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It's always now :-)
That's a very succinct way of putting it :-)
So, looking around the room, do there appear to be discrete things, which are being perceived?
No, it's more like a symphony of experience/sensation going on with some sensations taking on more prominence as and when they do. Can still locate everyone's socks when needed/requested (on a lucky day ;-)).There's less to do without all that interpreting layer added on. I can still *do* 'thinging' but the belief/desire layer to that thinging isn't there, so it's different.
If not, why did you used to "thing" experience?
I used to "thing" experience due to a belief in there being both these substantial/meaningful/knowable things available to perceive and also a faculty -something in me - which is able to discern/understand/perceive - 'make' that meaning. These seem to be twin aspects to 'thinging' things.
And was there a point where there was an obvious shift in experience?
A couple of points - the penny seemed to have to drop again after a 'catch' point. The first point was on the train seeing that things were neither substantial nor insubstantial - permanent/impermanent - something about seeing those polarities were mental constructs and this allowed seeing past the constructing to "in the seen just the seen". Then experience seemed different immediately - the 'transparency' of things, experience was stripped of the conceptual layer I'd put onto it before so there was a feeling of falling through that barrier.
I again looked around at things /in my mind for those two sides of the same conceptual coin about meaning/non meaning, became aware of the resistance and looked for the "like hell there's not somewhere in me where perception can be found" - looked really well at all the sensations and found/saw that that's all there was (sensations). Actually I still feel some tears want to come up about that - as if I've stripped out some vital part. But aside from the emotional component I can see it's a fictional loss because I made up that 'apparatus' or faculty and made up that bit of meaning to life… and can experience still being alive and loving so there's nothing really-truly lost except another layer of mirage.
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I quite like your answers :-)
I have just a couple (OK, three) more questions...
1. Does experience seem like it is an interdependent web of causes and conditions? Does conditioned coproduction (as you’ve learned it) seem to apply?
2. Is there a difference between seeing and hearing, or otherwise among the six senses?
3. How do you feel about others? Do you feel more engaged with them, more at arm's length, or about the same? Why do you engage with them at all?
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Before I answer those I'd just like to say that more 'stuff' seems to be bubbling up; it's like free-floating self stuff…first was aware of craving for affirmation/love and then what has felt like free-floating anger. Today for example just anger popping up out of nowhere and directed at no-one. Haven't had these kinds of stronger emotional feelings for a while. It's like ghosts - or reminds me of my dog raising his hackles at imaginary objects in the dark - but it's strange.
1. Does experience seem like it is an interdependent web of causes and conditions? Does conditioned coproduction seem to apply?
No I don't see that in experience - or experience doesn't seem like that. I can't say how it seems!
2. Is there a difference between seeing and hearing, or otherwise among the six senses?
They don't seem separated or for one to have any prominence over the other.
3. How do you feel about others? Do you feel more engaged with them, more at arm's length, or about the same? Why do you engage with them at all?
I feel a weird mixture with this one of a lot more detached - also to 'myself' - and thoughts or anything I or others write or say or get into dramas about - and able to connect more spontaneously/with genuine affection. I have felt a level of disinterest that worried me initially (as I wrote to you before) when I wondered if I'd care if my nearest/dearest died! There does seem to still be love there though…
So why bother engage at all?
Hm. I have to admit I don't know! I don't have a reason but seem to just do it so the level of connection or care must be there! There's also a feeling of responsibility to and care for my partner and child in this shared project called 'family'. I'm less sure of any reason why to engage with people. There are friends I still want to engage with - you and others. It feels like this path has become a bit of a unifocus!
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OK, "no more questions". As far as I can tell, you've seen what I saw at this rather disorienting level of experience. Know that what you see is really all you've ever had available to you, and apparently that is enough!!! You still love those you love, though the flavor of that love might change if you're no longer objectifying them, or seeing them as inherently separate. And yet, you will love and be concerned about your family, even if they mess up the kitchen :-)
This shift may take a bit to integrate and settle, so no worries about timing for moving on. When you find you're accepting that "oh, this is simply all that is available, and all that has ever been available", that might be a sign that it's time to move on. Also, please be sensitive to, if you don't feel "done" and things don't yet add up, what is the flavor of that? What would it take for experience to be resolved, as it were?
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That's amazing :-). Thank you very much for all your help. Ok will see when this really is acceptable:
"this is simply all that is available, and all that has ever been available"
and will keep an eye/sensitivity on the flavour of "don't feel "done" and things don't yet add up" plus bear in mind that question about what would it take for experience to be resolved …
So I'll come back to you when that's clearer. I'm interested to see how this will settle. As it has been bumpy emotionally/physically it probably does need a bit of time, though I can already feel those things bubbling around with a motivation to just press on too. But this one was sobering… so have a healthy respect for not trying to override anything.
So much love and gratitude for your friendship :-) :-) :-)
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1. Do some mindfulness practice to settle in.
2. With your eyes closed, pick a three-dimensional direction (say, straight ahead, to the left, up and to the right, etc.): straight ahead is probably the best to start out with.
3. Imaginally send a ray of awareness out that direction and see how far you can send it, thus how far out 'space' can theoretically be. Don't read too much into this: just mentally 'look' in that particular direction, and see if there is any limit as to how far away things could be, how far out you could possibly perceive. Don't insert objects, say by imagining a tree outside, then the church in the next town over, etc. This is more of, in theory, how far out in that direction are you able to imagine or perceive something being?
4. In that direction, where in experience are the limits that could be applied. For example, where is “three meters, three kilometers, three parsecs”, etc. Where in experience are the finite limits, the differentiations, that could be placed on “space”?
5. Now pick another direction, say off to the left or right, and repeat 3 and 4. Then pick another direction, and maybe a couple more. In any direction, is there any limit to 'space'? Even out to infinity, is there any difference in direct experience between the distance to a remote galaxy and the house next door? Or your left ankle?
Is space finite? When you look for 'space', do you actually get a finite answer, a certain length? Can you do such a thing?
Please let me know what you find - I look forward to hearing how this goes :-)
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I can imagine sending a light ray to the edge of the milky way, in experience no limits could be applied, but mind wants to think up the limits - create the markers of things like edge of house or town, then edge of land/sea, then across Europe to the next continent, then (ha - why does it want to go to the “edge of the earth” first ?? There is no edge! - there's just the imagined direction until my mind’s eye wouldn't “see” the land from this imagined direction), so once that is imagined it's happy to jump to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and go on from there into the other planets and space.
In direct experience there is no difference between the distances - it's just like there's this space anyway, and thoughts cleave to imagined objects to make “sense” of it. I muddled up my imagined directions anyway and went east twice, so thoughts were really keen on jumping off Russia rather than India this time. What nonsense!
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OK, let's assume you make up the notion of "space" :-)
How about consciousness? What is that? Particularly the 6 consciousnesses by which you become conscious of things in space?
Sight is generally the dominant sense, so let's try a simple experiment.
1. In a quiet area where you won't be disturbed, quiet the mind for a bit. Then, pick an object in the room, say a cup. Look at the cup for a little bit, noting its shape, color, height/size, etc. Yep, it's 'that' cup.
2. OK, now close your eyes. With your eyelids shut, mentally follow the information pathway from your eyes to experience where that information was coming into experience and where it was going.
3. In direct experience, do you find an eye somewhere in space? Can you find an eye consciousness or sight faculty? How about a data/information pathway that could convey the attributes of the cup?
4. Open your eyes and get a good look at the object again, and repeat Steps 2 and 3 one more time.
Then try it all over again with another object.
What did you find?
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I found no information pathway. Once the visual information stops with closing the eyes there can be thoughts/mental images of the cup (or the bag). I cannot find an eye somewhere in space. I can feel tactile sensations of my eyelids/eye muscles moving. There's no data pathway. Images seen before can recur as thought-images. There is no eye consciousness or sight faculty.
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OK, right answer :-)
Now, please look around, listen around, feel around... put all six senses to work, taking in sense objects like you always do.
As you take in a pair, say a sound and a sight from something making noise, where are the two sense bases that take that information in? In direct experience, can you see any difference between the two sensory receptors, channels or content?
Try this while mixing and matching any of the 6 sense bases with this thing or that.
Does consciousness, whether an individual one or all six, have any discernible limits?
And... what is consciousness? What thing are you conscious of? In direct experience, where is that thing?
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I tried with a few mixes of senses as suggested. I can't locate 'sense bases' taking the information in. It seems 'all of a piece'. So no, I can't see a difference between the two receptors, channels or content. In fact, it was impossible to see any receptors or channels, though I was aware of the content seemingly merged.
No: consciousness (of 1 or all 6) does not feel like it has any discernible limits. Wow, that's interesting - I suddenly became aware of limits in eyesight (visual content was blurry) or selective hearing, yet the basic awareness does not feel restricted in any way.
What is consciousness? I can't grasp or locate consciousness. It's just like everything is happening in this simultaneous 'field'- two or three sounds, all the sights, touch etc. It feels expansive and alive, and a little bit scary to stay with.
Where is that thing? Oh I don't know! Just shapes, colors, whooshing noises, buzz, cracklings etc. I keep thinking there must be this me with a sense based that is receiving it all, and that there's a thing to receive, but when observing it closely it's all just experience happening with no location.
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Ah, but it's a "good scary" hopefully? If you ever used what we call "training wheels" on your bicycle, the first time without them can be a “good scary” as well, but pretty soon you realize that you simply no longer need them :-)
Please allow the sense of "me" to persist, and look for the thing you have, call it perception, by which "things" are perceived. It's what most fundamentally detects individual things in awareness, after which consciousness can add some pretty colors, associate some memories with it, place it in space and time, etc. It's what takes in all of what's happening, whether it's from 6 or 600 sense bases, and concludes "oh, it's a (some)thing!".
Put another way, it's what you have that makes "thinging" possible, that makes the perception of “somethings” possible. If it weren't for this fundamental faculty, which receives and processes all of that information, distinctions couldn't be made between this or that.
Where is that processing center? If it seems like it's in the head, look everywhere in there. Or, look in the heart, stomach, etc. - where is the faculty of perception?
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Hi, yes it's a good kind of scary. When first looking for the faculty of perception just now I had tears running down my face but it's "moved" tears not sad. I see what you mean about how the faculty of perception works but cannot locate a "processing center". It's like knowledge of what is going on is in the experience itself.
When I assume it's in my head, I look, and it's just that the doorways are there- eyes, ears, maybe brain to put words on the experience. But then touch - my cold feet and warm back - the perception is just right there with the experience itself..and that is how it is even with the dominant visual sense. Got a sense of my whole body being like this sponge able to take it all in and work it all out if necessary but it's more than that too because of the constant responsiveness.
So where I'm at now is that perception is a receptive/responsive faculty that sort of 'uses' the senses and is one with them. I hope what I'm writing makes sense!
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It does!!
If you can't pin "perception" down to a particular location, but it instead seems like it is distributed over/associated with the entire body, there is still the assumption that "thingness" is being detected, and whatever the detector might be is simply detecting what is inherently available.
What I'd like you to do is to do what you did earlier (look for perception), and after a bit, with your eyes closed, look for "thingness", that aspect of experience which is being perceived. It's what makes a given set of sensory data a "something", or that which such data points to. It's the underlying structure or feature of experience that allows the recognition of this or that something not just possible, but necessary. For example, if a thought arises, or a sensation is noticed, where is the "thingness" of that thought or sensation, the substance that makes it a thought or sensation?
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When I start looking for either perception or the 'thing-ness' of thoughts/sensations I cannot find it. I find just 'space' or spaciousness…still find it disconcerting in a good way (can bring tears up - it feels heart-connected or intimate as well as spacious) and like sense experience of all that is 'happening', but in no particular location or with nothing I can pin down as either a point of perceiving or a point of experience.
There is recognition - I can hear about 3 distinct sounds now, and interpret what they are if necessary. Tuning into one of them I can't find any point of 'perception' to do with it or any substance - nor any essential 'thingness' of the noise. There is just noise, a faint buzz. Or, there's a stabbing pain in my sinus. Yet when attention or awareness goes there it's just sensations moving around, fast - nothing to catch as a 'thing'
A thought comes up "I don't know where any thing is". It reminds me of the undifferentiated awareness of being a baby (I have had a lot of what seem like memories on a body level of how experience was like as a baby since exploring fetter 6 and now 7).
So what's occurring to me now is what moves awareness or attention? Sorry to use the 'mysterious' word again but it does seem pretty unidentifiable - yet it obviously happens!
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Yes, sensory experience is happening, and the requisite level of interpretation is always possible, but is there a "something” involved? In particular, is there a faculty of "perception" which takes that information in and determines "ah, it's a something!"?
So yes, do you REALLY know where anything is? If, as you saw, space is not finite or limited, but is superimposed mentally on experience, how could you actually know "where" anything is? And yet, you can still interpret what is happening to get across the street, etc. - mental fabrications can be useful, even if they are seen to only be just that: a fabrication.
For sure - as babies we need to learn how to integrate sensory information and come up with the construct of "space", and "time" and "things" for that matter. The question is: do we have to believe that is REALLY what is happening, as opposed to accepting/realizing that it is just a (oh so useful) mental fabrication?
Perhaps we could say that awareness and attention, to the extent we label what is happening and our role in it, just happens. It might be comforting to assume that there is a particular faculty of 'perception' in play, which lends a degree of predictability to it all, but is such an assumption necessary?
Closing your eyes, please bring to mind what you had to drink earlier today. Let's say it's a cup of coffee or tea. As you bring to mind the "cup", where is the (some)thingness of that cup? Is there somethingness to it? If not, what in you seems to nevertheless want to reach out and detect/know this or any other thing, as if it were thwarted in its efforts? It's whatever it is in you that says "like hell there aren’t (some)things to perceive..."
Please try to get a direct, felt sense of what the urge is, and what would satisfy that urge. Where is that urge coming from?
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What I notice is that generally I feel pretty unmoored from things since fetter 6 and even more since beginning on 7 - though it's like you can zoom in on things as 'things' when you need to. But I tried your "like hell there aren’t things to perceive" by summoning up a memory of a cup of coffee I had first thing. I noticed something 'leap' in me to the colour of the liquid and the shape and colours of the cup, not about craving but more like an urge to recognise or define things..delighting in "knowing" that colour and that shape and being able to say "oh it's that”. Yes I saw it leaping in. How to look more at that, though? It didn't feel like a thing I "have" so much as a habitual way of relating to things …
It’s also a habitual way that is not so habitual any more...unless I am fooling myself of course, which is entirely possible :-)
Though it did also feel like I had to "make it up" (the leap to want to make it a thing). It’s as if looking quite hard for something - in this case an urge, maybe thwarted, to make something a thing - made it appear. I can fabricate an image easily in my mind and then celebrate the fabrication being a life-like one, a really vivid evocation...it's like painting something with the mind instead of a brush and saying "look at my lovely cup", but I still know it's made up...if that makes sense?
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Yes, it does.
Please try the looking away exercise, where the cup starts out as a non-thing blob in the periphery of awareness, then becomes a thing as you turn to face it.
Watch what happens: where (in you) do you recognize the "signs" of color and shape, such that you interpret and conclude "ah, that thing"??
It might be more immediate to look at something, and then simply close your eyes such that the thing is no longer seen or recognized. Then, open your eyes and look directly for what in you takes in what consciousness is now offering. Is what is seen a sign that there's something out there, and you're simply noticing that, or is it just "the seen" that has no inherent divisions?
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Head turning: There is not somewhere/something in here 'clocking' shape, colors etc. - they just appear. Same with the closing and opening of eyes - now seen, now not - seems very simple!
It is not as if there is a thing there, it is just "in the seen " and no division.
I suspect it's all so clear because I'm on the train (so superior to bedrooms and computers 😁)
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Super. Is there a tendency to want to differentiate what you see into things? If so, where is the 'detector' you have somewhere that allows this to happen?
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I think I caught this one out...but there is an emotional catch. There isn't much (if any) tendency to want to differentiate into things… it feels more like an 'as needed' or instinctual response to functioning in the world. So, if something fast is coming I'll notice a car (etc.). In fact, functioning in the world feels much smoother. However, in looking for the 'detector' as I looked out of the window at things passing on the train, I noticed some street lamps and caught out there isn't such a faculty 'detecting' - it's all just there - but noticed a sort of grief arise as if this is the last bit of 'me' going, but also like letting go of 'the world' at the same time. It's like I caught it out - wanting to 'me-make' the experience.
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Yes, fetters 4/5, then 6, then 7 are the "triple world" of the kama, rupa and arupa raga. 7 is the last tangible evidence or proof of "me" and the "world", so your sense of what is happening is correct :-)
Whereas in fetter 6 I suggest people try to "stay out there" with things, what I'd like you to do here is to either be on a moving vehicle, or simply cast your gaze around for a bit, such that most people would say that things are passing before your eyes. I'd like you to notice if, at any time, your attention "sticks" on something, as opposed to simply taking in the nest bit of visual information that passes before your eyes. By "sticking" I mean that a 'thing' sticks out as a thing, is identified as a thing, or otherwise is more that "just the seen".
If there are things which are "thinged", where in you does that recognition take place? What part of you is participating in, and even creating this perceptual situation?
Put another way, why can you NOT simply scan the room or look out from a train/bus and not simply let the visual information flow by? What somewhere in you says, at least now and again, that "hey, that's..." as a “something” is differentiated and discerned?
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I did have some space and clarity to look on the journey home from work at whatever (and whenever) makes attention "stick". It seemed to be a sticking which has to do with a desire to make meaning out of things. E.g. I notice a man on the platform because his body language expresses a mental state and emotions that are recognisable, a printed sign because I can decipher the words in both languages, smoke rising because of interest in where its source is. I could probably do with looking at the same thing again as I didn't have so much time today. I simply noticed the attachment to 'making meaning'.
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Ah, meaning. Do "things" seem like they need to be what they seem to be, as if a lamp has a certain "lampness" to it? That it is what it is, because of its very nature of being "that thing", and you're simply picking up on that fact?
Imagine you're in a movie theater, and quite “into” the movie such that it seems like you're there on the set, the characters are real, etc. Halfway through the movie, the house lights come on, and you snap out of the illusion that what you were seeing was real: it's just images and sounds coming from a screen. If they turn the house lights back down again, you will probably be able to re-engage with the movie after a bit.
Is everyday experience any different from this movie?
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No things don't seem like they need to be what they seem to be, or have a certain "lampness", something I'm picking up on. I see that I am adding in these aspects, adding in interpretations or significance and, since 'catching out' that thing-ing or meaning~making, what I see has felt very different. Not sure if I've broken it because, since seeing that, I notice more immediately whenever I do that. It is easier to do occasionally in relation to - say - a photo of a family member than a lamp...but I can see that story-making is going on, so I’m not feeling sold into the stories that start up. So they don't 'stick'.
"Is everyday experience any different from this movie?"
No it isn't! Using the movie analogy, I feel I can both engage with the movie as if the lights were dim and yet I don't feel swept up or sucked into the story of the movie, because I can also easily see it as if the lights were up...images and sounds. Not sure where I'm at with this!
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Does it seem like you have a body? A mind?
Does what is happening seem to happen in time and space?
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Does it seem like you have a body? A mind?
Wow - these questions bowled me over a bit as it hasn't occurred to me to look at these directly as to whether they're 'things' before. Now I look - no it doesn't seem like I have a body…Sensations come into awareness, parts come into visual awareness: it's like that movie you mentioned with lights and sound, only this time it's sensations and visuals when my eyes are open…different things arise. When I try to conjure it up deliberately: "I have a body" I assume it will click into an old familiar way of relating to it as in “The Body” (ha ha) "being absorbed in the movie" analogy of yesterday.. but it doesn't. It feels like a smorgasbord, and it is an unfamiliar thing to realise I can’t/don't 'thing' this very familiar 'thing' either.
Mind? No. I have a mind? I have not found it in all this time. All I find is thoughts and sensations happening pretty much all the time. I do not feel anchored anywhere (the word "unhinged" has come up a few times, which I know has negative connotations but do not feel mad or that I do not know what is going on) or that there is a me that could be anchored anywhere. 'I' feel plugged into the mains a lot of the time - just energies flowing more freely than ever before, no control, no 'place' where they come from, stay or go to. It's all different.
Does what is happening seem to happen in time and space?
Well I feel a bit in a parallel or altered sense of reality, but that's just an idea trying to explain a change. I don't know why but this question brings up emotion to do with letting go again. Despite the fact that I've struggled all my life with time and been in some ways a complete 'space cadet' I realise I want to hang onto something here about a world or structure to 'inhabit' even if it's just an idea - a completely non-pin-downable 'ethereal' 'thing'. In DE (direct experience): no, there is no time or space…
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Super: as it turns out, you're not going mad :-)
So… as you cast your eyes about the room, and this or that comes into view, do things seem Permanent? Impermanent? Both? Neither?
How about substantial? Insubstantial? Both? Neither?
And as you go from lamp to doorknob to book to clock, what in you is perceiving this and determining that you're looking at lamp, etc.? Is there something that you have somewhere that is making such distinctions and recognitions possible?
Put another way, is it possible to both perceive and not-perceive?
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Permanent /impermanent
Both/neither
It just seems to me that what I see is whatever is going on in that seeing (aha, Mr Bahiya, in the seen, only the seen). The word permanent doesn't describe it and neither does impermanent - same with substantial/insubstantial. Compared to before…things seem immediate, there, available and everything is simpler and quieter about that because I'm not 'messing' with it, distorting it or trying to make it different.
What in me is perceiving, determining, making distinctions possible - or is it possible to both perceive and not perceive?
I'm not sure I understand. When looking around the room at different things…Whatever goes on here doesn't feel like something 'in me' or 'I have' or that there's an 'I' here. so perception as in a faculty doesn't describe how it seems. It’s like the recognition or perception is simultaneous with the data received, like some sort of 'instant knowing', so it's not like there's 'not perceive' either.
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I like your answers :-)
Let's come back to time and space: if you didn't discern that there were "(some)things", could you have the notion of time and space? For example, without things needing "space" to be in, would there be
"space"
And if time is the interval between things happening (ticks of a clock, rising/setting of the sun, etc.), does time make any sense if there are no things discerned in the first place? What would time apply to??
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Well it was harder to focus on the first try with this today. Maybe it's just an off day or there's resistance/fear or doubt coming up (that I can see this) but for some reason though your pointers yesterday about perception/non-perception etc. were clear to me - and I could see it all very clearly!
Today I cannot find a way in with the space/time ones. It's like it's hiding in plain sight!
I see there are no things, but when it comes to why non-things would need space to inhabit the mind sort of springs back on it. I get instances of seeing that space is as much an invention as things.
Same with time - I get that if time is supposedly the interval between or marker of things, yet "things" aren't happening - what's time got to do with it, how can it apply? Oh as I write them down I half get there - it feels close. Can you suggest any other ways to look at the same - or shall I just keep looking, try again?
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Hmm... please try it the other way: see if there is space and time, and then if there are things.
Then, to the extent that no-thing-ness is stable, sit with that and see why you have to budge from there, a bit like sitting in the gap.
Why "thing"?
What in you is trying to make that happen, and in fact could make "things" happen if you allowed it?
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I've been mulling this weird block I've had about this and wonder now if it's just a clinging onto conceptualising itself. I say this because I don't 'thing' things, and in experience cannot find space or time. They're made up by mind - concepts - but I feel I "ought" to believe in them, because...because? Something about really accepting experience over concepts. I will look again - as you suggested - but just wanted to let you know my thoughts for now!
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Thanks for the update.
If you can sit with experience temporarily empty of things, what in you seems to decide that isn't OK, and wants to at least focus on something (for crying out loud...)?
To "get" to this perspective, anything that comes into your mind, look in direct experience for the "thingness" of it. It might feel like looking all the way through a thought or image until you're out the other side and realize "hey, there wasn't anything to that thing". It might take doing this to/with a few 'things' until your mind gets the hint... :-)
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I'll do this again later as it felt like a good exercise… I was first aware of 'thinging' sounds, though I could immediately also see there was no-thing to them (just attaching to other sensations and making something more substantial seeming because of life-long 'thing' of finding eating noises irritating). Finally settled into a no-thingness that felt stable - immediately very strong - from there, I noticed just a monkey-mind tendency really - like restlessness wanting to find things to play with or latch onto or make meaning out of but when I went into them they were not things - had no substance. Feeling of not being located in or on anything - nothing to hold to, which also felt free.
It’s hard to stay in the gap or find any real reason why the mind doesn't want to stay there, though I was aware it creates suffering, so that felt sad. To the extent that I could stay with that stable no-thingness, it was far more connected or content. Whenever any image or thought came up, I could see right through it as if transparent - it had no substance or reality of itself.
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Super - as you look through things, also step back and just behold the insubstantial image. Is anything more needed to get on with life than the insubstantial image?
If you're making a cup of tea, do you really have anything more to work with than an insubstantial image? And yet, do you need more than that to make a cup of tea? Sure, you could superimpose (some)thingness onto the cup and tea and spoon and table and... but do you have to?
Part of this is trusting that you already know what you need to know, without the augmentation of what thought brings to it all.
The "gap" here is holding off on doing anything with the images you have, and seeing whether there is something that COULD do anything with those images. Spend more time looking inside for that thing, as opposed to staying "out there" with either the image or the thinged-thing if you jump out of the gap.
Where is the faculty you have which perceives insubstantial images and turns them into things?
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Where is the faculty you have which perceives insubstantial images and turns them into things?
Ok. Sorry if I'm being particularly slow or thick in relation to this but have a sense of going round in circles. Most of the time when I look I think "I've got this already!", but then I am not sure and I do trust that from the guide’s perspective you're keeping me looking for something for a reason!
Going about everyday life there has been a change, in that I do trust that there's enough to know about the insubstantial images/sensations to not have to augment them with what thought has to offer...life feels far more spacious and simple as a result - on the whole.
So, the cup of tea example - I'm pretty sure I get that not re: making any more of what is happening.
Today there was a long, involved journey which involved a bus breaking down at one end and a punctured bike tyre problem at the other end - well everything is just dealt with without feeling I have to add stuff on or in, or even much thinking necessary. When I observe thoughts/internal images today, I only caught one that I 'thinged', which was a worry about a persistent pain I've had under my right rib cage. Even that (having reminded myself to go to the doctor) when looked at was just sensations plus thoughts.
I cannot find a faculty which perceives images and turns them into (some)things. Sensations and thoughts are happening - yes. However, particular things catch attention - today for example on the train my eye was 'caught' by a white object moving fast outside the train. So attention and thoughts zeroed in and identified a type of dwarf horse "like a Shetland" and "cute", compared it with the other more normal looking horses and their situation (a field) and made up a story that it must have been startled by the train and started galloping.
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OK. Is the sense of "thinging" more pronounced with your eyes open or closed?
With your eyes closed, please try to get a "hall of mirrors" effect going by trying to perceive perception with perception: let that be the only thing you're looking for. Let it be as disorienting as it will be: it will likely feel like you're bouncing back and forth between looking and the looked-for, since they are really one and the same. It should settle down eventually - the intent is to abide there, where you're looking for what is looking for what is looking.
Once you get the hang of it, and the reverberation effect lessens, try to disinterestedly look for the faculty of perception, without any reference to what might be happening in terms of "thinging" of thoughts or sensations. If you notice a thought or sensations, just note that you did so, and return to this subtle level of inquiry.
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Trying to perceive perception with perception - yes like an echo chamber.
I still don't feel I'm enough in the groove with focusing, but there was enough to start looking. The scary/exciting thing is I don't find it. What is going on is images/thoughts and sensations. Trying just to note them (or note 'thinging' but not focus on that, as you suggested) but - either saw something useful or was sidetracked (not sure which) by how some of what goes on is latched onto more or identified with as if it were a perceiving intelligence.
I saw this go on in relation to, for example, a 'fancier' thought mixed with image - yet when looking straight at it it's just a fleeting mind event. Or a particular emotion linked with a particular sensation can be 'meaning-ised' as if it's a perception of something…. but it was just sensation identified-with in some way. It feels like the motivation to make a faculty called perception is to make an 'essential me'. That was as far as I got with it so far today.
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Yes, it's just thoughts and sensations that we have to work with. Unless you enter "the cessation of thoughts and sensations" (nirodha-samapatti), that's what's happening, and that's all that is happening! :-)
Consider that "perception" is a way of interpreting thoughts and sensations, to a degree in excess of what is necessary to get across the street or fix dinner. As the Zen saying goes, in the end mountains will once again be mountains: just not the substantial "mountains" you once thought were there.
You've worked with turning your head, such that a blob becomes a thing (and then an object). Please try this:
1. Look at some-thing straight on. Then, turn your head away, but keep your eyes on the thing (i.e., allow your eyes to move in their sockets). Turn as far away as you can, until you reach the limit of being able to recognize that (for example) there is a lamp in front of you.
2. Turning your head a bit further, you can go on memory that there is a lamp or whatever there: it's just that you're not able to interpret as such. Really stay in DE to the extent you can, and get the sense of how you know there is a lamp there, but you're not able to fabricate one because you don't have the visual information necessary.
3. Holding that sense of "there is, but there isn't a lamp", turn toward it until it's straight-on in front of your eyes again. What in you is struggling to "thing" it? Try intoning the label "lamp" or whatever: what in DE does that word point or correspond to?
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I get the bit that's struggling to 'thing' it more when I'm turning away from it and losing the visual information - feels like a pull to a thing rather than just a memory of a thing. I can stay with "there is, but there isn't a clock"
When I turn back in DE, intoning the word "clock", the word corresponds to an idea - a thought, added on to the visual info. I can also switch back just to DE of seeing and there's just the visual information. It doesn't feel as if there's something in me "struggling" to make it a thing but I did get a sense of that mechanism in action of adding on another layer - feels like a habit of enjoying or relishing recognition.
Actually… Just did it again with a chair and the whole thing deconstructed as a 'chair' - it was flipping between deconstruction and construction and I saw how we make things up - wow. Ha ha -that is very funny! Is this the right arena? I'll keep looking...
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Yes, that's it :-)
It might feel like a "gap", when you're about to "thing" but not quite.
As the urge to "thing" builds, ask "why?", and look for the things in you that could make that "thing" happen. It’s much like desire and ill will.
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It’s been harder to focus again with a lot going on at home...but a few times I had a more spontaneous 'dissolving' of things going on. However, looking this evening I couldn't follow the instruction to stay in the gap and see why I had to 'thing' things or "what in me could make that happen" because it was not possible to un-thing things in the first place - oops! Well that's not quite true, because I'm aware it's an insubstantial image - and since that experience of everything being 'made up' it's subtly altered all experience - maybe I am just a bit stressed so will try again. Just wanted to check with you...do things need to look 'dissolved' before I can usefully look at how I create them? Hope that one makes sense.
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No, it doesn't dissolve: it's just whether or not it is thinged.
For example, if you were to walk by a Dutch still life in a museum, with the obligatory silver teapot and oranges, would you take that sensory information in and conclude that there really was a teapot and some oranges as "things" in front of you? I'm guessing not...
So, why does it have to be any different if you look around the kitchen right now and see a teapot and some oranges? It's not that what is seen dissolves... it's "just the seen", regardless if you are dreaming about teapots and oranges, seeing them in a painting, or seeing them on the kitchen table.
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Right: if it's about investing more belief in an object in a room than objects in a painting or in my mind, then that 'thinging' is about the same for all of them now, except I can differentiate which arena it's taking place in.
'Thinging' itself is feeling subtle for me, (which is partly why I asked before if what you were driving at was things literally being dissolved/deconstructed - but I get that that's not what you meant).
I have repeated the looking-away/at things exercise a few times today and looked for a gap when about to 'thing', or the urge to do so, or what in me could make that happen.
I do get some inkling of an attachment to 'thinging' things just on what you could call a gut or emotional level - but again feels subtle...like a quick sensation of 'upset' as if I want there to be something more meaningful there. Yet I can't find it, and I can't find anything in me that can 'make' it happen - it feels like being attached to a ghost. There isn't really a 'thing' or even desire to make it into one, just more like a free-floating but unfindable 'I'. I can't seem to see this any clearer than that...
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Please allow the free-floating sense of an "I" to be what it is, which if I read you correctly you are.
That's a good catching of the sense of wanting there to be something meaningful happening. Might another way of saying this is that you want there to be substance to what you are seeing, such that you know for sure what it is? For example, a doorknob is perceived because, well, there's a doorknob with "doorknob-ness" that is there to be perceived, and darn it I am perceiving it.
If you silently drop in "there is no such thing as meaning", what comes up? What is the response?
How about "there is no such thing as substance"?
"There is no such thing as knowing something"?
What do you REALLY want, such that a world of things gives it to you?
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I’ve been a bit slow to respond but trying to find a way into these questions and been a bit resistant to them - eek!
Might another way of saying this is that you want there to be substance to what you are seeing, such that you know for sure what it is? For example, a doorknob is perceived because, well, there's a doorknob with "doorknob-ness" that is there to be perceived, and darn it I am perceiving it.
It doesn't feel like I want there to be real substance to a thing, so much as wanting to add an extra meaningfulness mentally on top of the thing.
If you silently drop in "there is no such thing as meaning", what comes up? What is the response?
There's a sense like a worry about having lost something - like house keys - it's like I can see there’s no meaning, but there is an irrational hankering after it.
How about "there is no such thing as substance"?
This I seem to both see and accept - something about this dropped strongly with fetter 6.
"There is no such thing as knowing something"?
Similar to meaning - I can 'see' there's not knowing something as I look at things, or memory images, or thoughts, but there's still an 'attachment back' to an imaginary knowing - or something that can be known. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of the sea and can't go back to land but don't want to let go into this vast undefined space. Scared of something.
What do you REALLY want, such that a world of things gives it to you?
I just got a sense of grief that there isn't this available, this 'world of things', but I have spent so long creating and recreating this. I think I'm coming up against nihilism - a fear of nothingness - no thing-ness. I also get a sense of holding back from freedom here - like the illusion of a world of things is just like staying trying to keep everything in little boxes. Sorry if this is all a bit poetic, but I’m trying to feel my way into this. I can try once again the same questions tomorrow? I wasn't sure whether to stay looking at 'things' while dropping these questions in or just drop the questions in with eyes closed and see what comes up.
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For sure - try again tomorrow.
Consider that there may not be the world of things as you've always perceived them, but in the end mountains are still mountains. I am typing an email to you - that's as real as it's ever been. It's just recalibrating what "real" is, that's all. When I was working with the 7th fetter, it felt like I wanted to “take my toys and go home” at this point, so they could be "real": nihilism was simply the only other option that I knew of. As it turned out, "in the seen, there is just the seen", without meaning, substance or permanence was (and is) what's simply happening.
And please drop the questions in without looking at things - see if that is necessary even.
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I was in one of the worse states of mind I've been in for months today - feeling utterly poisoned by organizational stuff and averse, just sat for a while which allowed a little kindness/softening and then tears streaming down my face - brought each of of these questions to mind and felt like I just burned them up - nope no meaning, nope substance, nope - no knowing - very clear! - the only thing I could think of from a world of things is pleasure in a few things, but even then I was not convinced by that. In a mood not only to leave the organization but leave the world. I think there's a very hard destructive side to my mind that wants to just destroy...but doesn't feel unrelated to wanting to break through delusion too. Feels like a big reaction Kevin - been a while!
Grief/anger coming up - reminded of the feelings when my father was being verbally abusive - wanting to kill him - wanting to kill myself. I hasten to add I am not mentally ill and I am not about to do anything stupid - it's all just 'stuff' coming up to the surface - like poison from the bottom of a well. Well actually I don't know anything and don't know what's going on. Right: so, is this just an entirely unrelated 'blip' do you think or do people have reactions at this point? You mentioned wanting to take your toys and go home - nihilism ...?
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Yes, when faced with giving up what you thought was objective reality, and not offered a distinct alternative, nihilism and withdrawal are natural at this point. I just watched it, knowing what it was and also knowing I didn't have to do anything about it, and it faded away. It's like I had to go through it, since I had invested so much in material "existence". I was a born eternalist.
So, no worries! It's good that you know you're not actually going to do anything silly. I saw that having a family and job made this go much easier, since it was obvious that I wouldn't choose to alter things or pull away - just wasn't gonna happen :-)
As you watch this existential suffering, itself a reaction but not one that I would equate with desire/ill will reactions, you could drop in "there is no meaning", and also drop in "there is no non-meaning". See how they are mutually-defined opposites, concepts really, which mean nothing (pun intended) without the other.
Also, look at a tea cup. Is it visibly impermanent, or is that just something you superimpose with your mind?
Is it visibly permanent, or is that also something you superimpose with your mind?
As you look at it, is it inherently going to lead to suffering? Or the opposite, bliss?
Or, is it just a cup?
In the seen, just the seen. Neither being nor non-being is necessary to know it's a cup.
It's just a cup, the same as the Buddha would've seen a "sup" and taken a drink :-)
That's all you need to know, all the meaning needed!
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Thank you very much for such a quick - and reassuring - reply! Will recover a bit and carry on.
I can see how no meaning and no non-meaning are just add ons. Also, when looking at a train seat handle and a phone it's neither permanent or impermanent - neither inherently leading to suffering or bliss… saw through this strongly for a minute or so and just “in the seen” - first thought that came up afterwards was "I could just stop (breaking fetters) here - I could see through this maybe by going back to art and just looking" ha ha - so , resistance - still aware of a reaction not as extreme or emotional like yesterday but a strong upper body tension...like clenching/holding on. I have no idea what is so challenging about this as just feeling it on a body level now - as a "no" but I don't really want to heed this, so I was thinking just to find ways to soften /relax more again and will probably tip over this edge.
So beginning to get a sense of this experientially - beyond the laksanas.
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The lakshanas appear to be "the way things really are" for the longest time, but it is here at the 7th that you have to let go of them.
In a way, the predictability of "impermanence" and “conditioned coproduction” has likely been comforting, in that it provides a knowingness, and perhaps "meaning" to life. So, you're asking yourself to let go of a fundamental context for experience, where time and space mean something and where things mean something, and all of it ostensibly explained by "this being, that becomes".
As you drop in the fact that "no this, and no that" which can be perceived, known or have meaning, is there a part of you that resists this, as if to say "like hell there isn't!" If so, where is that part of you? Where is it in you that perception of "things" ostensibly happens?
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Well I wrote in my notebook while sitting in a square in town "I think the game is up" but whether it really is or not I don't know. I did as you suggested in your last email with eyes closed or open looking at things and again got that things don't have meaning, nor can be known, perceived, are permanent, impermanent etc. and then became aware of the resistance, - looking for the "like hell there's not" and where perception of things in me could be and it just couldn't be found. There's sensations - that's all I found. No part of me that perceives "things" - that's just something I've assumed all my life and therefore added a layer onto what's happening as if there is something that can be perceived (justifying that supposed thing doing the perceiving). So the filters of that have come off. It's the first time I saw that clearly. There's still tensing sensations as if unsure/frightened, but it does also have that unmistakable sense of freedom about it.
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Super. It's really no different than the 6th (and 1st, 4/5), where we refer to something that isn't there, even if sensations and/or thoughts could be interpreted as being "that thing".
As you look out onto what is in visual range, why isn't it OK that what you're presented with is simply insubstantial images? Isn't that enough? And if it's what has always been the case, don't you have evidence that it is in fact enough?
For example, thinking of your child, if what you have available to you is "Chris" as an insubstantial image, has that not always been enough? Can you not still engage and love them, without over-interpreting things? It is indeed a sense of freedom that allows you to do what is needed in life.
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It's as if something has disconnected from identifying but at the same time that brings up a need to engage in a different way - plus take care not to alienate from or reject experience along with that. For example as yesterday as I started turning over what you said about Chris and accepting the insubstantial image - that that's all that has ever been available - I realised that was the case and I knew what you meant and 'accepted' that straight away...have been aware that it applies not just to teacups and whatever I've been looking at visually but to everything and everyone (!!) of course including 'me' too - you can engage with and love - but this insubstantial image is all we have available.
I was kind of shocked at it yesterday in that I felt like because I accepted it - well it feels like such a withdrawal from life on one level and it was like I had also abandoned everyone I love ...like how can I do that to my own child - I was seriously wondering if I'd care if everyone I cared about died?! But also that's an idea, because whatever I thought was there (on top of what is) wasn't anyway... and what is there has always been the case anyway. Gosh this feels like rambling - it's hard to put into words. I do still love my child and partner etc...but well it feels like from another basis or no basis at all and was a bit concerned I just didn't care any more or they could all die and what would change?!
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Of course you still love them :-) My two loved ones are up and about, puttering about in the kitchen as we speak.
As the Zen saying goes, "in the end, mountains are still mountains". It's just that they're not the same mountains you once thought they were. Maybe you'll like the new versions better :-)
I'd be curious: to what degree do time and space describe experience right now? To what degree do these qualities describe the context in which experience is happening?
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:-). I liked what you said about still loving your family.
I'd be curious: to what degree do time and space describe experience right now? To what degree do these qualities describe the context in which experience is happening?
I wouldn't say they do 'describe' the context in which experience is happening at the moment. I feel like experience is arising more on its own - nakedly. It's more like everything shows up as it is - reminds me of the 2D thing that happens at the 6th fetter, but it's not just visual, but everything arising more simultaneously. So I don't feel I'm 'in space' or 'in time' or 'in' anything, but things just are, experience is happening, without any concern for location (except practical - like not tripping over a pavement slab) . Going for a walk today felt like more experience was available all at once (I think that's what I mean by 'simultaneous') because this thing has come down about fixing any of it or of fixating on any of it…so not just a spatial fixing, for example, but any kind. So everything appears more present and spontaneous.
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Yes, everything is happening "now". Or, it's always "now".
So, looking around the room, do there appear to be discrete things, which are being perceived?
If not, why did you used to "thing" experience?
And was there a point where there was an obvious shift in experience?
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It's always now :-)
That's a very succinct way of putting it :-)
So, looking around the room, do there appear to be discrete things, which are being perceived?
No, it's more like a symphony of experience/sensation going on with some sensations taking on more prominence as and when they do. Can still locate everyone's socks when needed/requested (on a lucky day ;-)).There's less to do without all that interpreting layer added on. I can still *do* 'thinging' but the belief/desire layer to that thinging isn't there, so it's different.
If not, why did you used to "thing" experience?
I used to "thing" experience due to a belief in there being both these substantial/meaningful/knowable things available to perceive and also a faculty -something in me - which is able to discern/understand/perceive - 'make' that meaning. These seem to be twin aspects to 'thinging' things.
And was there a point where there was an obvious shift in experience?
A couple of points - the penny seemed to have to drop again after a 'catch' point. The first point was on the train seeing that things were neither substantial nor insubstantial - permanent/impermanent - something about seeing those polarities were mental constructs and this allowed seeing past the constructing to "in the seen just the seen". Then experience seemed different immediately - the 'transparency' of things, experience was stripped of the conceptual layer I'd put onto it before so there was a feeling of falling through that barrier.
I again looked around at things /in my mind for those two sides of the same conceptual coin about meaning/non meaning, became aware of the resistance and looked for the "like hell there's not somewhere in me where perception can be found" - looked really well at all the sensations and found/saw that that's all there was (sensations). Actually I still feel some tears want to come up about that - as if I've stripped out some vital part. But aside from the emotional component I can see it's a fictional loss because I made up that 'apparatus' or faculty and made up that bit of meaning to life… and can experience still being alive and loving so there's nothing really-truly lost except another layer of mirage.
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I quite like your answers :-)
I have just a couple (OK, three) more questions...
1. Does experience seem like it is an interdependent web of causes and conditions? Does conditioned coproduction (as you’ve learned it) seem to apply?
2. Is there a difference between seeing and hearing, or otherwise among the six senses?
3. How do you feel about others? Do you feel more engaged with them, more at arm's length, or about the same? Why do you engage with them at all?
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Before I answer those I'd just like to say that more 'stuff' seems to be bubbling up; it's like free-floating self stuff…first was aware of craving for affirmation/love and then what has felt like free-floating anger. Today for example just anger popping up out of nowhere and directed at no-one. Haven't had these kinds of stronger emotional feelings for a while. It's like ghosts - or reminds me of my dog raising his hackles at imaginary objects in the dark - but it's strange.
1. Does experience seem like it is an interdependent web of causes and conditions? Does conditioned coproduction seem to apply?
No I don't see that in experience - or experience doesn't seem like that. I can't say how it seems!
2. Is there a difference between seeing and hearing, or otherwise among the six senses?
They don't seem separated or for one to have any prominence over the other.
3. How do you feel about others? Do you feel more engaged with them, more at arm's length, or about the same? Why do you engage with them at all?
I feel a weird mixture with this one of a lot more detached - also to 'myself' - and thoughts or anything I or others write or say or get into dramas about - and able to connect more spontaneously/with genuine affection. I have felt a level of disinterest that worried me initially (as I wrote to you before) when I wondered if I'd care if my nearest/dearest died! There does seem to still be love there though…
So why bother engage at all?
Hm. I have to admit I don't know! I don't have a reason but seem to just do it so the level of connection or care must be there! There's also a feeling of responsibility to and care for my partner and child in this shared project called 'family'. I'm less sure of any reason why to engage with people. There are friends I still want to engage with - you and others. It feels like this path has become a bit of a unifocus!
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OK, "no more questions". As far as I can tell, you've seen what I saw at this rather disorienting level of experience. Know that what you see is really all you've ever had available to you, and apparently that is enough!!! You still love those you love, though the flavor of that love might change if you're no longer objectifying them, or seeing them as inherently separate. And yet, you will love and be concerned about your family, even if they mess up the kitchen :-)
This shift may take a bit to integrate and settle, so no worries about timing for moving on. When you find you're accepting that "oh, this is simply all that is available, and all that has ever been available", that might be a sign that it's time to move on. Also, please be sensitive to, if you don't feel "done" and things don't yet add up, what is the flavor of that? What would it take for experience to be resolved, as it were?
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That's amazing :-). Thank you very much for all your help. Ok will see when this really is acceptable:
"this is simply all that is available, and all that has ever been available"
and will keep an eye/sensitivity on the flavour of "don't feel "done" and things don't yet add up" plus bear in mind that question about what would it take for experience to be resolved …
So I'll come back to you when that's clearer. I'm interested to see how this will settle. As it has been bumpy emotionally/physically it probably does need a bit of time, though I can already feel those things bubbling around with a motivation to just press on too. But this one was sobering… so have a healthy respect for not trying to override anything.
So much love and gratitude for your friendship :-) :-) :-)
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