Witnessing the Witness

Hello everyone,

Question:  How often in your daily walk in the world are you aware of your witness? 

For example, I am sitting in my office having an average conversation with a coworker and suddenly… pop…. my witness is there showing me, who I am, in that moment. 

I was just wondering the various levels of witness 'conciousness' there is out there.


Witnessing this,

Gina

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Gina,

My sense of the witness is that it is that which watches every level and every perspective, hence there is only one witness.
We can of course go deeper and deeper into the witness, but I feel that it is more of a horizontal thing as opposed to vertically adding perspectives and levels.

My 2 cents,

peace
pelle

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Pelle,

Thanks for the clarification on the deeper vs # of witnesses… I guess I was more asking about the consistency of the witness in the day to day activities in people's lives.

Being aware of the witness….. when you are….. fill in the blank.  Mediation seems to be a starting point and then the awareness of the witness state(?) moves into everyday breathing in and out.  Sort of like mediation can be washing the dishes or typing this post so can being in awareness of the witness.

Is this just me?? or does everybody walk around with their witness in full presence?

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Gina,

“Being aware of the witness….. when you are….. fill in the blank.”

What we call “the witness” is just another word for awareness or consciousness. So “the witness” can never be an object in our awareness, you see? Why? Because the so-called witness is That which sees (or is conscious of) everything. If you have made “a witness” the object of your awareness, you have momentarily created a mind-construct and are using the infinite witnessing consciousness to observe it.   

“Mediation seems to be a starting point and then the awareness of the witness state(?) moves into everyday breathing in and out.  Sort of like mediation can be washing the dishes or typing this post so can being in awareness of the witness.”

Again, we can't be aware of “the witness” as an object any more than the seeing eye can see itself. Witnessing is a euphemism for pure seeing. What most people call meditations are really concentration practices. Concentration means focusing on *some thing*, however subtle that thing might be. Real meditation is not focusing on anything, it is having the aperture of the seeing eye lens completely open, so that “things” can come and go, objects can arise and dissolve in awareness, unimpeded - without any interference by a separate “I” apart from pure witnessing.

“Is this just me?? or does everybody walk around with their witness in full presence?”

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Would you rephrase that after this exchange?


I really hope this is not adding to the confusion :-p

M

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I like Ken’s statement - “the witness is the last hold of the ego”.

Just to confuse things a little bit more…

Frans

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Mmmmmmm it's always there, but my awareness isn't.
How to describe…..

OK last week I was in a conversation with someone and suddenly got the feeling they were about to tell me something I didn't really want to hear. Awareness……..first of the sinking feeling, then the constriction…………….then setting that aside for later and choosing to really hear what was happening. Aware of making a conscious choice to deal with whatever was being given with good grace. Then aware of the relief I had misunderstood and anticipated wrongly and aware of letting go of all the “strategy for dealing with it and pretending to be calm”.

Do I functiion like that all the time? Absolutely not. But it is linked to how regularly I meditate, that's where it gets established and grows from. IT's always there, I am often somewhere else, getting caught up in the drama of it all and reacting all over the place!

Liz

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Hi Mascha: I find this to be a nice clarification you are making here…I am currently working with an integral advaita teacher, so am attempting to walk this path…the languaging can be tricky, eh?…

Cheers,

Durwin

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Great explanation in 'real life' terms Liz. Thanks.

Thanks for asking the question Gina.

It's easy to make assumptions and scary to ask the question “What is this?”

Juliee

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Hi Mascha,

…If you have made “a witness” the object of your awareness, you have momentarily created a mind-construct and are using the infinite witnessing consciousness to observe it.   

I understand the witness as infinite consciousness and in that place there is no separation which then leads to the mind-construct.  If it not then the witness per say… what do I call it?


What most people call meditations are really concentration practices. Concentration means focusing on *some thing*, however subtle that thing might be. Real meditation is not focusing on anything, it is having the aperture of the seeing eye lens completely open, so that “things” can come and go, objects can arise and dissolve in awareness, unimpeded - without any interference by a separate “I” apart from pure witnessing.

I understand both concentration and not focusing on any one thing (my first experiences with mediations were to see thoughts a clouds and just watch them float by)
The pure witness is in the non-thought in the totality of all.  OK…… so then what is the 'popping' in?  Higher level Ego awareness?  An Angel on my shoulder?  ; )

I really hope this is not adding to the confusion :-p

Actually, this is helping quite a bit…… thank you.

G

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Mascha…If you have made “a witness” the object of your awareness, you have momentarily created a mind-construct and are using the infinite witnessing consciousness to observe it.   

Gina:
I understand the witness as infinite consciousness and in that place there is no separation which then leads to the mind-construct.  If it not then the witness per say… what do I call it?


It may be helpful to keep the witness separate from the infinite consciousness aspect at this juncture. The witness can be seen to be the imputed “I Am” sense onto the empty subject which sees infinite/finite constructs. The problem we have is with the infinite consciousness of mind, it constricts and finite objects 'appear'.



M:
What most people call meditations are really concentration practices. Concentration means focusing on *some thing*, however subtle that thing might be. Real meditation is not focusing on anything, it is having the aperture of the seeing eye lens completely open, so that “things” can come and go, objects can arise and dissolve in awareness, unimpeded - without any interference by a separate “I” apart from pure witnessing.

G:
I understand both concentration and not focusing on any one thing (my first experiences with mediations were to see thoughts a clouds and just watch them float by)
The pure witness is in the non-thought in the totality of all.  OK…… so then what is the 'popping' in?  Higher level Ego awareness?  An Angel on my shoulder?  ; )


It is just constriction of consciousness. Along with this constriction of awareness into finite objects, ” I Am” co-arises.


PS Mascha, crystal clear!! I would not say that meditation is just concentration practices though. Within that concentration practice, awareness or the ability to witness is gaining momentum. Like Liz said, we lose that momentum when we dont meditate. What you call 'real meditation' is the result of meditation.

p&l,

e

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e:

“What you call ‘real meditation’ is the result of meditation.”

Yes - just like we need a teacher to teach us the last thing we need is a teacher - I wrote that somewhere before; seemed appropriate here too.

F

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Hello e, I was wondering when you would chime in :-). Very nice to see you drill a deeper aperture here.

You said:  “It may be helpful to keep the witness separate from the infinite consciousness aspect at this juncture.”

Yes, it may. Whatever works is the truth, right? Our wording depends on who we're talking to. It's hard to know sometimes online… Incidentally, with you and some others here ( Frans for example), I had no trouble gaging where you're coming from pretty much from the first one or two posts. After that it's all just more confirmation of the initial, “Aha, a gnower, alright!”



e: “The witness can be seen to be the imputed “I Am” sense onto the empty subject which sees infinite/finite constructs. The problem we have is with the infinite consciousness of mind, it constricts and finite objects 'appear'.”

I would love to hear Gina and others' comments on that. Does it work for you?


e: “I would not say that meditation is just concentration practices though.”

Me neither. And I didn't.


e: “Within that concentration practice, awareness or the ability to witness is gaining momentum. Like Liz said, we lose that momentum when we dont meditate.”

It depends on the concentration practice whether the ability to witness can gain momentum. Big topic… It's also not clear to me what Liz exactly means by “meditating”. She'd have to answer this one herself.

e: “What you call 'real meditation' is the result of meditation.”

Yes, very astute. And now for a little refinement (or nitpicking, if you will):  What I'm calling meditation is that relaxed alertness where the result coincides with the practice. Or in other words, where outcome and being present are not two.  This is how my teachers try to make the distinction between concentration and meditation useful to listeners, and the discernment between the two did work very well for me. Probably saved me years, even decades, of mistakenly putting effort into unnecessary focusing on some object such as “a Witness”, lol.

And I wish Ken would stop using the noun, as if “the Witness” were an entity with an identity that needs to be attained at some point in the future. Gotta tell him that mama says to use *witnessing* only from now on, or else, Kennybabe! Too many have already been mislead by just that one word :-P

M

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It is so fascinating to me how I am both drawn to and repelled by the exacting nature of the wording of this thread.  I recognize I asked, yet somehow am already mourning the loss of my mystery….. ahh… such is my luscious exisitence.

e: “The witness can be seen to be the imputed “I Am” sense onto the empty subject which sees infinite/finite constructs. The problem we have is with the infinite consciousness of mind, it constricts and finite objects 'appear'.”

mascha: I would love to hear Gina and others' comments on that. Does it work for you?

e, by imputed are you meaning assigning an I AMness to the witness?  Are we not creating contructs right now?  And how else are we to gain connection to what we are experiencing if not by putting some sort of assignment to it (here I go with humanity again)  We are both infinite in being and constricted by the words to describe it.

I think I am going to go back once again and re-read the posts here….. I have gotten lost in what is apparenlty a novice mistake and misnomer in my vocabulary.

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Hi Liz

Mmmmmmm it's always there, but my awareness isn't.

That is the exact point of my question…. I get that the witness is a constant it is my awarness (consciousness) that isn't always …. connected?…. open?….
And……. can we function like that all the time?   Do we walk in a dream state?

My mediations have lead to an increase of overall awarness of…. well everything I guess.  Self, others, thoughts, feelings, spirit……   This inquiry is about the awareness of the awarness of the, well you get it I think.

Thank you ….

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E, Pelle, and Mascha are right about what they said. I'd like to add that it also depends on what kind of meditation one is talking about. If it is the classic Buddhist insight, breath awareness meditation, then yes, there is no object that is supposed to be brought to the mind from volition. However, compassion meditation requires one to visualize, and many others.
I think the best one to get to the heart of what we're talking about with the witness is the Ch'an method called Wato.
It is only for advanced meditators who can still the mind easily. To me it feels like water that becomes completely calm. Just still water with no movement. That's the only metaphor I have. Then you either think or say “what,” or “what is this,” or something like. At this level of concentration, you can feel the thought before it happens and as you feel it arise, you trap it with your mind. An apt metaphor would be that you grab it when it is only half way arisen from the surface of the water. You grab it and hold and and follow it back where it came from.
I've only been able to produce the thought and grab it, it is beyond my level of comprehension to know what following it back even means, or how to do it.
It is supposed to be the most powerful Ch'an technique for understanding the witness or this awareness that is.
Gina, when you can make your mind still like still water, try it.

Gina: “And……. can we function like that all the time?   Do we walk in a dream state?”

If your not careful yes. As you gain the ability to control your mind, strange things happen. Sometimes, often actually, I feel as though I have taken a narcotic, and time seems to loose it's grip and I just feel high. All suffering seems to fall away, but all direct awareness of the moment also does. I know this is just a hinderance, because of the lost of immediate awareness to what I'm supposed to doing. There are stories about monks that start to feel this way and they enter into blissfull concentrated states and need a kick in the ass to progress further. It can be addictive.
E, can you shine some light as to what's going on?

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 “I think I am going to go back once again and re-read the posts here….. I have gotten lost in what is apparenlty a novice mistake and misnomer in my vocabulary.”

Gina, if this conversation has come across as a put-down and offended you, please let me know so I can learn from it. Like Durwin said, language here is tricky; first, because we all have to agree on at least roughly the same definitions or our threads get stranded in the deserts of desiccated semantics. Secondly, language is linear - and when we're describing our inner depth-experiences, we want to convey entire spheres of meanings all at once, but cannot do so without using paradoxes, which means contradictions, and that also gets tedious after a while. Anyway, if some of what we say here doesn't resonate or produce immediate insights, something else will come along and do the trick. Language is our humble servant; it can't be allowed to dominate us.

Holden: “I think the best one to get to the heart of what we're talking about with the witness is the Ch'an method called Wato.  …. At this level of concentration, you can feel the thought before it happens and as you feel it arise, you trap it with your mind. An apt metaphor would be that you grab it when it is only half way arisen from the surface of the water. You grab it and hold and and follow it back where it came from. I've only been able to produce the thought and grab it, it is beyond my level of comprehension to know what following it back even means, or how to do it.”

Interesting. I just did what you describe above and have to say, that's quite a bit of mental activity, this grabbing and holding one thought after another. Also, I too was unable to follow the thought back to whence it came because as soon as you look at a thought, it's gone. And this is one of the simplest methods I know: as you're witnessing thoughts come and go, briefly concentrate on one thought. Look at it directly with the inner eye. And…

Where is it? See…?

You can't see the thought. It's not there! No one ever has seen a thought in its full frontal nudity. Thoughts can only exist when one isn't looking squarely, with complete directness at the little phantoms. They appear and proliferate in a twilight zone of half-conscious, sideways glancing unawareness. Same goes for feelings. But powerful feelings are made up of millions & millions of thoughts, and it takes a fearless, unmoving resolve to face them directly, without jumping into identification with them as they come in, wave after wave… For me, sometimes a mere ripple of emotion can result in a temporary loss of 90% (statistically proven  :-)) of my consciousness and energy. But that's okay, we all have to deal with different strengths and handicaps. Each one of us so utterly unique and same.

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The unfettered mind, comes to mind.

According to the Buddha (correct me if I'm mistaken please) we can only hold one thing at a time in our awareness. The reason we feel that we can contain many things at once is only because of the hyper speed the mind goes back and forth between objects.

This leads to the incredible wonderous capacity our mind is. We direct our attention toward something, and bang, there we are. Something catches our intention and wosh, there we are.

We sit in rapt meditation, attention to breath, outside stirring, thought, open awareness. How free isn't our mind. It flies in an instant to our desired object. Open or narrow, nothing constricts its working. Super sharp or wide open. See that we guide it, lock it, or free it.

Develop a mind that rests on no thing whatsoever, said a famous monk. This free flight of mind is the secret of an unfettered life, an uncluttered mind, an unmade being.

Left alone this mind of ours seeks out known grounds, familiar sights, comfort zones. We can allow it this rest, this intermission, this “smoking” break. Back in the driving seat we head back out on the highway, the stairway to heaven. We choose intellegently where to direct it and our lives.

This mind of ours is a fantastic tool for our absolute self, like Krisna driving the battle wagon of Arjuna in the Bagavad Gita.

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I took a look a the book Bjorn linked and hit the “surprise me” button on the Search Inside the Book feature and found this (it may be just the part Bjorn was remembering):

If there is some thought within the mind, though you listen to the words spoken by another, you will not really be able to hear him. This is because your mind has stopped with your own thoughts.

If your mind leans in the directions of these thoughts, though you listen, you will not hear; and though you look, you will not see. This is because there is something in your mind. What is there is thought. If you are able to remove this thing that is there, your mind will become No-Mind, it will function when needed, and it will be appropriate to its use.

The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied.. If one willl not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.

If one always approaches the mind in this way, at a later date it will suddenly come to this condition by itself. If one tries to achieve this suddenly, it will never get there.

An old poem says,

To think, “I will not think”–
This too is something in one's thoughts
Simply do not think
About not thinking at all


Mascha, I love your first post on this thread especially.

Also, a friend of mine lent me a cool book called Gesture of Awareness, by Charles Genoud. Listen to this:

In order to explore this
we may have to stop following
our tendency to be an observer

our tendency to observe
our experiences, our thoughts

If we set ourselves up as an observer
of our thoughts we could locate them
with respect to the observer

If we are just thoughts–if we are
the arising thoughts–where could we
locate them, and with respect to what?

Finally, Ken often offers the practice of “resting as I Amness.” Isn't that confusing, because “I” is also just a thought?

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Well, I believe Ken is just making light conversation. Why practice something that is inherent in you anyway. I do not need to recall my name in order to remember that I exist. When you call my name I immediately respond, without any prior practice. Who is this I? What is this unfettered mind? What is this wonderful freedom?

Isn't that what Avolokitesvara, or Kuan Yin, Cannon, the bodhisattva of compassion with its ten thousand arms express? Infinte movement of freedom, unfettered response to the matters at hand? Buddhas skillful means is a modest way of saying it. It's enormous! It's freedom in action.

Remember Dogen:
To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

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I really appreciate what you put down there, Bjorn. That's quite helpful; I especially like the Dogen. But Ken is serious about offering resting as I-amness as a practice; in fact he offers it as a “perfect practice (click on the first result from the search you will see, and then find “Fast, Furious, and Moving at the Speed of Thought. Part 3. The Perfect Practice”–the specific pages at I-I wouldn't link for some reason).

I think it's worth noting also, as e and Mascha pointed out, that it usually takes some practice before a person can stop practicing. For example, each of us has to learn his or her name before we can answer to it; it takes practice before it becomes habitual. Similarly, people first have to learn just to be still for a little while–this is difficult in the beginning. Another thing that takes practice is letting one's awareness go to areas of pain and discomfort and stay there for as long as it likes; the ego will often want to disassociate from it or distract itself from it. (Is this what Adi Da is pointing towards with “Avoiding relationship?”) There are probably some other prerequisites like this before one can really embody this consciousness.

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David,

It only takes insight while practicing to be able to stop practicing; only you don’t stop practicing - you simply see that everything you do is practice. So, the nature of practice changes from an exercise to being.

The ego loves the exercise, which is all about confirming itself - that’s why so many get stuck in meditation as an exercise or a discipline…

Frans

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Frans, right on!

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I'm enjoying this discussion! Just wanted to chime in to say that I second Frans' comment:
So, the nature of practice changes from an exercise to being.
That has been my experience, too. While I still try to make a disciplined effort at seated meditation, most of my day I am resting in Being and playing with awareness. It's a wonderful space to experience.

And Mascha, in this paragraph (amongst others), you have once again shown our twin-nature (bolds mine - emphasis, too, on “statistically proven”):
You can't see the thought. It's not there! No one ever has seen a thought in its full frontal nudity. Thoughts can only exist when one isn't looking squarely, with complete directness at the little phantoms. They appear and proliferate in a twilight zone of half-conscious, sideways glancing unawareness. Same goes for feelings. But powerful feelings are made up of millions & millions of thoughts, and it takes a fearless, unmoving resolve to face them directly, without jumping into identification with them as they come in, wave after wave… For me, sometimes a mere ripple of emotion can result in a temporary loss of 90% (statistically proven  :-)) of my consciousness and energy. But that's okay, we all have to deal with different strengths and handicaps. Each one of us so utterly unique and same.

Woman, you crack me up and make me smile with your references that riff on waves arising in my mind, too.

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Frans makes a good point, but I think David is correct also in saying, “I think it's worth noting also, as e and Mascha pointed out, that it usually takes some practice before a person can stop practicing.”
Its like being able to do something effortlessly, that was actually hard to learn. Like riding a bike. It seems so easy and natural, but at one time it was crazy hard. Calming the mind and entering the jhanas is like this.
This is why a person must start with simple breath counting and only after a great deal of practice does one gain the ability to even try something like Wato, that I earlier described. I spend most of my meditative time simply beholding my mind and being aware of my breath until all form merges and definitions and utility ceases. I don't know if that makes sense.
Every now and again do I even try the Wato practice.

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Rick,

Yes, you are right.

The amount of exercise/practice required differs greatly from individual to individual.

One of the main reasons I don’t get into discussing the exercise part too much is that it is so easy for the exerciser to identify with the exercise…

The feeling I get from your entries is that you have a highly disciplined mind, and have avoided to a large extend the trap of identifying with that mind - no small feat!

When you say that you don’t know if you’re making sense - that’s the Real You…

Frans

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No, that is having a really good teacher, who slaps down any attempt to think that “progress” or “attainment” is being made. Every time I would have some mystical experience while meditating and would run to tell my teacher, we would just look at me, like a parent looks at a kid that wants them to watch every little cool thing they can do, and said, “ok, that's nice, keep practicing.” Or, “ummm… ok, what you should do now is [fill in the blank]”
He once told me the path is like a physical journey. If, he said, I was to drive from Texas to Seattle and stopped at the Grand Canyon along the way, and saw it at just the right time of day, as all the colors and light were just right and was moved by the beauty; just so is the path as we move to greater understanding. And, just as we cannot simply decide to stay there watching the Grand Canyon for the rest of our lives, but get back in our car and continue our journey, so too, we cannot become fixated on the various experiences we have along the way.

That being said, it is really hard to resist the feelings and thoughts of, “the right way of practice.” I move a lot, and everytime I join a new Sangha, I think to myself automatically, “Yeah, these people have some strange practices,” or, “they should do it more like [a former group].” These feelings aren't like they used to be, and I'm much more open to new practices, but they are still there, like a child whinning in the back of my mind.

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Without a doubt, it takes countless years of practice and inquiry to come to a reasonable understanding of oneself and of life. It takes dedication and perserverance. But most of all, it takes one pointed-ness towards pursuing the truth of all there is. Seeking anything but the absolute truth will inherently take you off course.

But the wonderful thing is that once we begin to come to agreement with the way truth works we see that it is readily available to all, even without serious practice background. Why? Humility is the key. If we're ready to deny ourselves the truth of our non-seperateness will shine in our interactions and we will know love and care to be the fundamental glue that hold us all together.

Bankei, another wonderful Japanese Zen master, once described it like this;
If I, climbing the mountain, found myself thirsty and went down to the river, the water I'd bring back would quence each and everyones thirst that chose to share it with me. They would not have to struggle as I had in order to reach the river side. Now, my struggling benefitted them, but we all equally quenced our thirst.

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Hey everyone,

I'm also enjoying the way people are offering variations on a theme here. Thanks, all. And it hasn't become a narrow debate about terminology yet - amazing, considering the territory. Though, earlier today, Gina withdrew a post that I just happened to catch before it disappeared. Now I hesitate to say more, because this seems to be another case of “too many teachers, not enough willing students”. Hmm, zaadz is full of that, and, as Leonard Cohen sings, Everybody Knows – but there's nary a question in sight, so all that knowledge just goes… um… poof phhhht?

I frequently ask myself, are we all mostly just show-boating, fishing for ego-strokes around here?

 No. I know there's a lot more than that going on. In her post, Gina asked for practical examples of witnessing in day-to-day life when we're not meditating. So, this is what I'm aware of right now (well, typing that put me smack in the middle of the moment, back into alert presence) …but just before that, I registered a whole bunch of mixed feelings about taking it upon myself to correct you, Gina, and fix your language regarding 'witnessing the witness', thus making myself perhaps sound like yet another smartass shmuck on a one-upmanship binge. But back to those mixed feelings, they look like a grayish iridescent blob in my heart space, a writhing goo of… what could become a nasty, oppressive shame game with an undertow of depression if i don't watch out. But I'm watching that pain blob - and, of course, if I look at it directly, it disappears at once - ashamed of its insubstantial little ooziness, no doubt :-)


M

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Mascha,

You’re not cynical, are you - even a little bit?

Is Gina okay with you asking her question? If she is, I’d be happy to be “yet another smartass shmuck on a one-upmanship binge”…(hehe)

Frans

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Wow Mascha,

Calling me OUT on this one…. thanks.  My reactions and retractions to this have been all over the frikin place.  I love being here (in the Pod) and lately seem to be quiet and in lurker mode more than participant.  What seem to come up for me in the moments this was all happening was feelings of being misunderstood (waa waaa common theme for me) and to shy away from speaking out in case I might be 'wrong'.  I am SO much better at relating in person and so the whole typing/blogging/posting thing stretches my capcity.

Liz did a wonderful job of using her own personal language and experience to explain her relationship to what I had posted.  Thank you Liz.

Mascha,  I do love that you came and posted and played and stayed (and even called me out)  My love for this whole thread has been because you have been here holding my hand, thank you.  Holden, e, thank you also for holding to the general focus of what I was hoping to see unfold …. more personal experience perhaps?

I love reading most of the posts….. I LOVE posting to threads that are about the everyday walking in the world. 

My quest for understanding has not changed, and thats a good thing.  Now back to my questions :)

Gina

Oh and Mascha I have a real soft spot for smartass shmucks 

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Gina: “I have a real soft spot for smartass shmucks”


Oh, good. I wish I could say the same… Have to put that smartass subpersonality of mine in a chair in front of the inner eye and let him talk to me (yes, it's a him), see if we can strike up a friendship after all. Hmm, it's not easy being so smart and at the same time such a shmuck… (sigh).

Frans?

You evidently see something cynical in my post. Okay. I don't try not to be. Cynicism is part of my overall repertoire, definitely. And why would I need to ask Gina's permission to repeat her request for real-life witnessing examples if I'm also interested in hearing other's stories about that? Beats me.

M

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Mascha,

I wasn’t criticizing, just a little surprised - I guess I thought I knew you better than I do - shows you how much of a smartass I can be…

Frans

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As far as cynicism goes - I don’t go beyond sadness.

F

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Gina,
In regards to everyday normal witnessing. For me it is more of a view I can recall at will at any time. Sometimes I find myself all wound up, and if I have a moment I just kind of fall back into myself, finding that spot inside, where rest and peace resides. This is a very easy place from where I witness life, but also participate from. From this place, inside, I become fascinated with the world, with sights, sounds, emotions. Colors take on a luminous quality, form becomes imbued with feeling, my self comes alive. With this starting point, once I engage with another, I can loose myself in the other. So relaxed attentive I savor every move, respond and blend with the matter at hand. Eye to eye we can meet in our inherent oneness, see no differences, and understand what love is. If I mess up, I say sorry. No big deal, just move on. Eyes wide open I can learn (if I wish), no fear of not knowing.

This “witnessing” is not always in the forefront of my awareness and it doesn't have to be. Most of the time I'm just lost in whatever I'm doing. No problem. When I run into difficulties, I can always return, recall, pay attention, to what is already there, always the underlying objective view, regardless of feelings. In my free time, I can selfishly retreat into myself and try to drown into this depth of vision.

This common ground is more of a habitat that we live in, than a vision that needs to be upheld continuously.

Bjorn

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Bjorn,

you've found a way of describing a lot of what I would have wanted to say if I'd taken that angle of looking at life in general. Amazing to read. What a treat.


Very familiar,

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

“I frequently ask myself, are we all mostly just show-boating, fishing for ego-strokes around here?

 No. I know there's a lot more than that going on.”

You really think so? Really….? And you were doing so well with the honesty, then it was gone.
If you want to see us at our finest show boating, check out the Indigo Buddhism thread.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Now I hesitate to say more, because this seems to be another case of “too many teachers, not enough willing students”. Hmm, zaadz is full of that,

Mascha and (by inference I think) Gina

You have taken the thoughts right out of my head. Over the last couple of weeks I too have lurked, watching the exchanges. To begin with I felt inferior, not good enough to contribute but I have to say  I'm beginning to get annoyed and ask the question Mascha asked (my paraphrasing) that this isn't just some sort of huge 'show-boating' exercise.

Everyone

I want to learn, I want to understand but I'm finding the heavy reliance on what sounds to me like academic-speak, points scoring getting in the way of what IS. Now perhaps that's my own shadow, hang-up or whatever (if you see that please let me know) but I would like to make a plea for plain English and everyday examples, unless of course this is intended to be a forum for those who already know, in which case I'll shut up and carry on lurking rather than participating.

Juliee
x

Re: Witnessing the Witness

“If you want to see us at our finest show boating, check out the Indigo Buddhism thread.”

Yes, I’ve thought so a few times, reading that thread. I’m not sure if that’s completely fair, though, to the people participating on that thread. I know you are calling yourself out more than anyone else, Rick - but maybe you’re too harsh on yourself.

We are what we are, we are comfortable where we are. If that is at a highly theoretical level - so be it. Obviously we need more theorizing before we can get beyond that point. For those of us who get frustrated to the the point of cynicism, reading all the theorizing and feeling unable or unwilling to participate, I can only suggest that maybe that is your ego kicking in…

I have tried to insert small contributions of more direct experience and less theorizing into some of these threads, and when these are ignored for whatever reason, as they mostly have been, I still persist - I know this is fertile ground and something will sprout at some point. Who am I to decide when is the time?

I have also started a thread, specifically for more direct experience (3rd tier experiences), but very few people participated on that thread - even after me asking some of you directly to contribute…

I guess what I wanted to say is that theorizing is fine, take it for what it is. If you get annoyed by those who take themselves very seriously, it just means you’re right there with them (otherwise why feel annoyed?) - so open your arms and give them a hug!

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Frans
If you get annoyed by those who take themselves very seriously, it just means you're right there with them (otherwise why feel annoyed?) - so open your arms and give them a hug!

Ouch :-)))).
The vague thought had crossed my mind but not in such specific terms. Thanks.

Okay I'll try hugging for a while!
 But a bit of hugging back would be nice ;-D

I mulled over my post on my way to work and wondered whether there is a place for a non-theoretical board, sort of the opposite to Chapel Perspicacious or a 'Baby explorers' board (thinking out loud here) but then perhaps the response to 'third tier experiences' is a reflection of what the majority want.

For what its worth, I ignored that particular thread for a while because I thought “I'm so not there, what could I contribute” so maybe its the heading, who knows?

I'm conscious that this is wandering off topic. Does this need to be a separate debate?

Juliee

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Juliee,

I’ll hug you (or anyone) whenever you feel like it!

The tilte of this thread is Witnessing the witness - we’re doing lots of witnessing here, so I don’t think we’re off-topic at all.

A non-theoretical board is a nice idea, but there aren’t many takers…and, the counterbalance we’re offering on the other threads is much needed, in my opinion.

As for questioning what you can contribute here - I can only speak for myself - but I highly regard anyone who participates; say what you feel is important, don’t second guess yourself, and most of all: don’t identify with the outcome!

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Juliee,

All of your (third) eye witness reports (desperately trying to stay on topic here) are much appreciated. There may be too much masculine-style conversations going on here at the moment, but instead of seeing less of that I'd like to see more feminine to balance things out.

Start typing, girls.

Big hugs,
Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I think it's great to bring up our motivation for posting. That's one of the things we're trying to develop, isn't it? We try to become more humble, more fair, more helpful, etc. But at the same time we have to share what we know. So on a thread like this I always appreciate people like Bjorn and e and Mascha saying what they know and experience because it's helpful. It would horrible if people didn't say what they knew out of fear of showboating. It's only showboating if noone wants to hear it or if noone would benefit by it or if it's delivered in a way that hurts someone. I get the feeling everyone's trying to improve in this way.

There's one more kind of witnessing worth mentioning. It's the sort where one is witnessing what one is doing throughout the day. One might have a sense of not doing or not being the doer of one's actions, though you can go too far with that and cease to take responsibility for your actions, as some people do. Bjorn and e and Mascha have been describing a state or a state plateau, to use Ken's terminology. The kind of witnessing I've mentioned here is more of a stage. It's really good if everyone can learn Ken's terminology because then we can be so much more clear. Maybe a glossary would be a good idea for this pod.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I agree with Frans and David here, and would like to add that it's pretty amazing to me that people would object to theorizing in the Indigo Buddhism thread, since it is in the Chapel Perspicacious board, which is described as follows:

This board is for theoretical discussions of all things integral/AQAL - of whatever level of complexity or depth.  Bless the cerebral cortex and all who sail in her!  (Chapel: a place of worship.  Perspicacious: acutely insightful and wise; clear-eyed: mentally acute or penetratingly discerning.)

Especially since this thread is about being aware. The irony kills me :)

I just happen to like to dive into these theoretical discussions every now and then, although I notice that I'm less and less inclined to do so at the moment. Actually, your attempts are starting to pay off, Frans! One of the things I like so much about this pod that I can have different kinds of discussions witht the same people. I try to respect the type of the thread when I'm posting nowadays. I think it helps the co-creative (oops, can I use that word?) process.

It may help people to understand that “theorizing” is mainly a game which the masculine enjoys to play.

I'm fully aware that the feminine expresses itself differently (more personal, for instance, and indeed prefers real-life examples over abstraction) which I enjoy reading a lot as well. Maybe this should be the topic of a separate thread, but some women actually like expressing the masculine itself the way it does, without feeling the need to do the same or feeling intimidated.

In short, I think there's room for all these styles, but that indeed people should be conscious of what they're posting, and where. I know I have messed that up a few times, and probably will mess up a few times more.

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Peter……. I was with you on your post until you said to be careful where things get placed… is this not the right place for this post in your opinion?  I did think about and posted in an area where I thought it was most appropriate.  (I used to only posted in the Water Cooler)

David.  I have to say I jumped a bit when you suggested we use Ken's terminology.  Maybe that is because I like to be able to take these perspectives and bring it back out to people who don't know the language (and if I had wanted to talk Wilberspeak I would have asked the question in that manner)  But also because it has been weaved in oh so subtlety

Bjorn:  Thank you, that was beautiful.  I resonated with much of what you wrote and was soothed by having words for things I don't always have words for… fantastic. 
Eye to eye we can meet in our inherent oneness, see no differences, and understand what love is. 

Hey Juliee… we have had this converstation on masc/fem (as you know) and at this point is is up to us (imo) to interject our voice in the way we prefer….I guess we have to stand together and speak up as Peter suggested.  (oh and if you want a HUG I suggeste the Amma thread)

g

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Gina:
Peter……. I was with you on your post until you said to be careful where things get placed… is this not the right place for this post in your opinion?  I did think about and posted in an area where I thought it was most appropriate.  (I used to only posted in the Water Cooler)

Not at all, Gina, I think this thread is just fine where it is. I was talking about individual posts, not about threads, by the way. I'm not that religious about it, but what I meant was that it might help if people don't ruin the flow of certain threads  by posting in a style that is out of place for that particular thread. I think I'm suggesting that people might try to be aware of the different characters of individual threads. In some threads a mixture of styles might be okay, so there's no recipe. We'd have to feel into it, I guess, which could be a nice practice in itself. Conscious Posting…

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Peter,

I think I'm suggesting that people might try to be aware of the different characters of individual threads. In some threads a mixture of styles might be okay, so there's no recipe. We'd have to feel into it, I guess, which could be a nice practice in itself. Conscious Posting…

Of course we should post consciously, but I wonder if it might not just squelch the participation of some if they felt they couldn't join a thread because they can't use the right style. For example, I really like the way that Frans brings in the practical - by this rubric, are you discouraging that sort of post in a theoretical thread?

Rather, I think it's great to have as many styles, colours, and personalities people choose to bring, consciously, to a topic.

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I think Frans shouldn't be allowed to post at all, Nicole :)

Like I said, there is no recipe, and I think Frans has shown to be aware of what he is posting, and where. Bringing in practicle examples in a theoretical thread can be great if the flow of the thread benefits from it.

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

So nice to hear you, Gina.

Among others, this statement leaped out at me: “Hey Juliee… we have had this converstation on masc/fem (as you know) and at this point is is up to us (imo) to interject our voice in the way we prefer….I guess we have to stand together and speak up as Peter suggested.”

A few months ago, David linked to this article  Where are the Women?  by Elizabeth Debold. Debold's account was an eye-opener for me as she describes how women who came of age in the sixties and seventies celebrated sisterhood, empowered each other across the western hemispheres, began to publicly take leadership positions - and then, look at what happened according to Debold:

Excerpt from page 2:
   
 
“Yet this updraft of spirit, this collective move toward liberating the consciousness of woman, didn't last. So much was happening at once that it is hard to pinpoint an exact cause. One factor surely had to do with the vociferousness of men's response. To the women's utter surprise and shock, their demand for “personhood and dignity” was met by “violence and hatred” from their husbands, lovers, colleagues, and peers, “men who,” as Dana Densmore recounts, “until then appeared normal.” Densmore, one of the founders of an early feminist journal called No More Fun & Games, says, “We felt we were girding for an apocalypse in male-female relations.” For some, this threat proved to be too much. Another factor had to do with women themselves. The promise of sisterhood proved to be elusive. Black women wanted to fight for racial equality beside their brothers—not for gender equality beside white women with whom they shared no positive history and whom they had little reason to trust. Radical lesbians charged that true liberation meant freedom from heterosexuality. Differences along the lines of race, class, and sexuality began to rip the movement apart. And something more sinister began to happen. Conflicts erupted that rarely came to any positive resolution. Groups splintered, often shunning each other. And those women who were seen as leaders—the highest-achieving, most competent, and most outspoken—were “trashed” and purged from the movement. “Sisterhood is powerful,” Ti-Grace Atkinson is credited with saying. “It kills sisters.” The movement ate its leaders. In eliminating those women who were pushing the edge, the upward surge of woman rising slowed almost to a halt. This dark unsisterhood has little to do with helping or caring for others—at least not other women. Differences are tolerated as long as they make no difference—in other words, as long as they do not reveal differences in power, ability, or status. And power operates covertly: unacknowledged rather than unused.”


Well worth reading, I think.

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Gina, Mascha, Peter, David,

You bring up a great point about the role of women and liberating the consciousness of women. I have to ask if this can ever be succesful - no matter how much the role of women gets enhanced, no matter how much the consciousness of women gets liberated - if this happens in the context of “women as a group” (sisterhood, gender whatever name you’d like). In doing so, you’ve already acknowledged a seperate identity, a division, conflict…

In my experience we need people - women and men - to fully embrace masculinity and femininity. We all have full acces to both, I have no doubt whatsoever about that. This alone will lead to gender equality, if we all are both - regardless of the exterior. The only person I refer to as my teacher told me on the day she “set me loose” that I was more in touch with my femininity than most women, while I am definitely a man. Not to beat my own drum, but doesn’t that ring more true than women versus men..?

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Frans: “In my experience we need people - women and men - to fully embrace masculinity and femininity. We all have full acces to both….”

I wholeheartedly agree. Yes. More often than not, I see the conflict between a head-centered existence and a heart-centered way of being in our interactions, rather than framing it as masculine versus feminine. And the aspiration is to have the full range of both, head and heart, plus guts and balls and all the rest, readily available to us. Having the full range at our disposal is the beginning of freedom.

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Yes, absolutely, Frans. In my mind I never equated feminity with women, I read too much of Deida to do that! But indeed, in discussions the two usually end up being equated.

Balancing feminine and masculine energies within ourselves is certainly important, but not the ultimate in my view. Think of Deida's three stages, in which this is just the second. In that second stage, we would be asking what is fair, how can we make sure the masculine and feminine get their fair share here. This then usely results in remarks about the feminine voices (meaning women) being repressed, which to me is strange, since the feminine is not exactly powerless, certainly in dialogue! I don't really understand the underlying dynamics yet, but I still have to check out the article that Mascha pointed to.

The third stage to me is more interesting, and there the focus is no longer on equality. The question then becomes: how is love best served. We can help each other to open, and to take each other higher than each of us could go on their own. But that requires trust, plus we have to get stage 2 right in order to get to stage 3.

Some men default to a feminine way of communicating, which is fine. And theorizing is not the only masculine mode we have available.
 
Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

There is much I would like to respond to here. David and Holden - I'd love to see responses to your inquiries. (edit: I see that Juliee just responded to David.)
Right now, I'll throw out some thoughts on what kessels brought up .

Peter said  (my underline):

“Balancing feminine and masculine energies within ourselves is certainly important, but not the ultimate in my view. Think of Deida's three stages, in which this is just the second. In that second stage, we would be asking what is fair, how can we make sure the masculine and feminine get their fair share here. This then usely results in remarks about the feminine voices (meaning women) being repressed, which to me is strange, since the feminine is not exactly powerless, certainly in dialogue! I don't really understand the underlying dynamics yet.….”

One part of the dynamics you mention is related to the payoff women get for remaining powerless. For thousands of years women have lived with oppression/repression. Why havent' they collectively staged a full-out, no-holds-barred revolt? Well, there are advantages to being weak, helpless, subservient. We can live a parasitic existence in exchange for the promise of being taken care of.  In essence it's like semi-consciously saying, let men go out and do all that risky, dangerous, agentic, organizational, structure-building stuff. Let them be the bread-winners and fight (we'll humor them and stroke their fragile, little male egos when they come back with the bacon), while we stay safe, small and provincial, bitching about those guys' brutality, their heartlessness, insensitivity. But secretly, we'll feel superior even as we're collectively ignoring that pesky issue of being parasites to some extent or another.

I see it even here in our threads, and I see it in myself.

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Now that's what i call a group hug!!

I'm witnessing myself learning from this exchange:

Frans: Don't identify with the outcome
 
Peter: Provide more feminine balance rather than outlaw the masculine

Gina: Speak up and let my voice be heard

Thank you each of you

I do see some people making conscious efforts to stay with the spirit of the thread but not all, so as Peter says if we each make a conscious effort to post appropriately with patience for differnt styles then things can only keep on improving.

David re: your suggestion for a glossary (on the suggestions board) speaking for myself, I don't have a problem with esoteric language on this pod - just certain threads, there's a time and place for everything (well almost everything).

In the spirit of the original question; my experience of witnessing (but I didn't call it that until Gina raised the question) is a stepping back and thinking and often changing what I'm about to do/say in light of the stepping back. I also find myself watching the watching. In addition I now watch others (even more than I used to) and see patterns I didn't see before. The consequence of this is a sense of disembodiement or disconnectedness. I'm now waiting for that (mythical?) moment where disconnection becomes reconnection to all living things (living in hope!).

Juliee

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Frans: “Yes, I’ve thought so a few times, reading that thread. I’m not sure if that’s completely fair, though, to the people participating on that thread. I know you are calling yourself out more than anyone else, Rick - but maybe you’re too harsh on yourself.”

I wasn't just being hard on myself, I was kidding mostly, but the fact that people think that this is just now being brought up means that you don't read my posts. I've been saying this kind of thing for a while now. I'll quote from me from the Indigo Buddhism thread:

“It is just funny to me that people sit around musing about the future nature of consciousness, or the nature of a consciousness and understanding that is so far beyond them currently. I think that KW is brilliant, but his words about the quality of various consciousnesses that are so far beyond any of us at the present moment is far from gospel. His more traditional 3 third-tier stages make sense, because they exist in certain individuals, now and in the past. The rest sounds like theoretical physicists poking at the exact nature of string theory.”

Then I wrote:

“What's crazy about KW's theory is that it explains that we can literally not understand the next higher stage of consciousness until out consciousness unfolds to incorporate more of the Whole. The theory itself states the futility of even trying to theorize about these states or imagining what they are like, and tells us that the only way we will know is to know directly.
I am in full agreement with KW on this, yet the people that follow what he says the most seem to completely ignore his main points.
If I hold a pebble in one hand and ask you to choose which one it is in, you will never be certain until I just open my hands and then you will know. Before that happens, the futility of debate and conjecture over what hand the pebble is in seems like a waste of energy.”

Both of these statements were ignored, if even read. I often find myself having to made the same point 2 or 3 times. But, you have to ask yourself if the life and interactions you have out side of this forum are much different.
Again from that thread:
“I had the experience today of visiting with a former Baptist minister, who is now a geologist and Zen practitioner. He brings the same zeal of his former bible study to his Zen practice and it was hard to keep up with all the sutra names and lists he was throwing out. I've noticed that when two or more lay Buddhist practitioners get together, there is often a subtle pretext of testing each other's knowledge of the Dharma in the back ground. Its like a secret handshake to know who's in the club.”

Then, Gina, there's the fact that I answered one of your questions, and have made a few statements on this thread coming from direct expereince, with no jargon to speak of, and I don't know if you even read it. It was when you asked about “walking around in a dream state all the time.” Answered it directly and the other thing you asked.

e's posts have been as clear and concise as any I've ever read.

The thing is, that when you talk from direct experience about higher states and stages, they cross into the transrational. Many of us are trying to make as much sense as possible, but it is an impossible task; hence the metaphors.

But no one's wrong that this forum has a lot of showing off. That and it is hard to know the level of understanding of a person you've never met before, and you don't want to talk over their heads, but what's worse, is that you don't want to talk down to them either. So there is a lot of testing going on to know the best advice, or thing to give and say.
I admit that I really have no idea about the more detailed aspects of AQAL and don't even try to keep up with David or Pelle on those things. But, if you ask them what they mean, they will explain themselves or point you towards a reference.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick,

I did see those replies, but I’m not surprised few others did - if you look at the sheer volume of text and the difficulty of the language on the Indigo Buddhism thread it seems quite understandable that most don’t bother reading any of it. I think a lot of the text is good, but the real gems - like your entries, and Bjorns direct accounts - get lost in the sheer volume.

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I'm with Frans on this one. I read the first few, decided it was not the type of dialogue I need currently and went no further.

Juliee

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I was quite intimidated by the length of this thread at first, but getting into it, I found it manageable.We don't all have the time to keep up with the dialogue as it unfolds, and trying to catch up after a day or two can be difficult if not impossible.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

 Gina said:  “I have to say I jumped a bit when you suggested we use Ken's terminology.”

Juliee said: “ I don't have a problem with esoteric language on this pod - just certain threads, there's a time and place for everything (well almost everything).”


Let's meet somewhere in the middle, okay? I want to converse with people who don't understand Ken's terminology and also discuss and learn a language that works for them, but this is, after all, the I-I (Integral Institute, founded by Ken Wilber) pod, and Operating Principles “has an emphasis on AQAL and other integral approaches,” so I don't understand the resistance to using Ken's terminology. Better than try to suppress the use of Ken's terminology, why not ask for it to be put in other language or ask for it to be explained and maybe also try to learn it? Ken has developed this system so that people can talk about these things in a clear and coherent manner. Without it, the conversation gets to be quite a jumble. It's a very common thing on this pod, for example, for people to be talking about states and other people to be talking about stages, but everyone thinking they're talking about the same thing. This leads to confusion, needless disagreement, misunderstanding. The only way to straighten that out is to use Ken's terminology.

We need to integrate the masculine and feminine, all together and at once preferably, rather than try to supress one or divide it up on different threads. Ideally, this is what would happen. So those with a masculine tendency need to learn the feminine and speak in such a way that the feminine can be receptive to it, and those with a feminine tendency need to get with the masculine way of discussing things a little more. Both at the same time, meeting in the middle, so that we're all manifesting both. Juliee, Gina, please spell it out just how you would like to see the subject of witnessing discussed, and I will try to accommdate that as much as I can, but, I will also point out, if necessary, where that approach falls short and where we need to integrate a little of the masculine in the form of Ken's work.

We need to be really careful not to value the female value sphere over the masculine sphere or vica versa. In American culture (and as far as I know it's been somewhat similar in Europe) we went from valuing the masculine value sphere more to, in many cases, valuing the feminine value sphere more. Both sides have often subtly or not so subtly denigrated the other. We need to come to a balance and integration of the two. By the way, the next issue of What Is Enlightenment? is all about women.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Are we now saying that the “feminine sphere” [can someone please define what that is exactly] is the part of us that is unable to grasp technical jargon? Since women are more closely associated with this “feminine” per definition, are we then to infer that this level of complexity is simply beyond a woman's ability, and that we should “dumb it down” for the ladies in the house? Or acquiesce in a debate to spare another's feelings, because a woman can't deal with the heat?

Perhaps we are ignoring the fact that men and women can feeling equally about this, depending on their individual personalities, but that men, on a whole, are not going to bring up their feelings about the subject, because we've been socialized that to do so is to be weak and to invite attack.
This is more cutlural than any kind of inherent “masculine” or “feminine” thing. Men in the West are taught not to be honest abou their feelings, how they feel or what they want. There are many cultures, like Japan, where men are much more honest about their feelings. And the typical reaction by American men is that the Japanese are somewhat more “childish” in nature.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

so I don't understand the resistance to using Ken's terminology. Better than try to suppress the use of Ken's terminology, why not ask for it to be put in other language or ask for it to be explained and maybe also try to learn it?

Isn't that what we're saying here? Please use plain English and real life examples?

I am happy to use Ken's (or any other 'theorist's') terminology (and often do) where I have a clear understanding from my perspective. I am interested in comparing what that terminology 'looks like' for others in real life, not in stopping all use of terminology. Where I don't have a clear understanding of how a theory translates in the real world, 'real life' examples alonside the theory make the learning easier for me - as you say each of us making the effort to honour both masculine and feminine. I believe that if I were to ask for an explanation at every juncture of a theoretical discussion where I don't understand I would pretty soon p**s off a lot of people.

I think the middle ground is balancing both theory and practical application.

Juliee

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Okay, there are two real-life examples for witnessing that have been offerred: 1) The ability to stop what you are doing for a moment and go into the witness, as Bjorn and Mascha described, and 2) to bring witnessing into the action itself, to witness the action, to witness yourself going for a walk, for example, without knowing where you are going, just witnessing it happen.

One reason the distinction is important is because the people who are interested in getting into the second type will talk about positive, evolutionary action, for the sake of the whole, etc. because positive action is a requirement for this sort of witnessing. You can't just do anything and expect it to happen. The action has to be evolutionary (in the broadest sense; I don't mean to reduce it all to the masculine value sphere).

The people who are just into the former type of witnessing sometimes throw up at their arms at this. “No!” they cry. “That's not necessary! My, the circles people run around trying to rest as the witness! How complicated they make it! How lost in samsara! I've been doing it for years without any of that stuff. See.” And then they sit back, close their eyes, and rest in the witness. And they're right if they're not interested in integrating the witness with the rest of their life, in witnessing their actions. Even a genocidal maniac, as Ken has said, can rest as the witness. He can simply put down his genocide for a moment and have a little break from it, go into a deep state. But if he wants to bring that witnessing into his life, his actions, into time, to reach a witnessing stage, then he's going to have to change his life, to align his life with the evolutionary impulse.

(The term witness can lead to funny behavior if you take it to mean “personal witnessing,” that is David witnessing this and then that and now the other thing. People who have done too much vipassana or the like will sometimes try to “witness” everything and create a duality. You'll see them jerking their head back a little trying to witness everything. I know, I've been there. :) )

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hey Mascha,

In Schultz's voice from Hogan's Heroes, “I know nothing!!”

Seriously, you are too kind. Like everyone else here I am only inquiring and sharing.

e: “What you call 'real meditation' is the result of meditation.”

M: Yes, very astute. And now for a little refinement (or nitpicking, if you will):  What I'm calling meditation is that relaxed alertness where the result coincides with the practice. Or in other words, where outcome and being present are not two.  This is how my teachers try to make the distinction between concentration and meditation useful to listeners, and the discernment between the two did work very well for me. Probably saved me years, even decades, of mistakenly putting effort into unnecessary focusing on some object such as “a Witness”, lol.

Yes this is why IMHO Buddhism is more clear i.e. all things are not-self.
There is no way to reify that into a thingy.

Your noun/verb transition is excellent advice in regards to the witness/ing!!

e: “The witness can be seen to be the imputed “I Am” sense onto the empty subject which sees infinite/finite constructs. The problem we have is with the infinite consciousness of mind, it constricts and finite objects 'appear'.”

mascha: I would love to hear Gina and others' comments on that. Does it work for you?

Gina: e, by imputed are you meaning assigning an I AMness to the witness? 

Yes

G:Are we not creating contructs right now? 

Yes, are we aware of the constructs construing awareness?

G: And how else are we to gain connection to what we are experiencing if not by putting some sort of assignment to it (here I go with humanity

again)  We are both infinite in being and constricted by the words to describe it.

See thru the layers of adjectives that you think to be a personal pronoun of this verb ‘being'. Realize ‘I Am' is imputed onto witnessing and need not be.

Holden : E, can you shine some light as to what's going on?

Does this happen with eyes opened or closed? If closed, open your eyes. How do you lose sight of the object, suddenly or slowly and unknowingly i.e. awareness ‘slid' into this state? It could be a state of torpor. So you are right to be a bit leery of it. The key thing in this regard is clarity. If there is no clarity then it is not usually considered a wholesome state. Even the jhanas have clarity of entrance, exit, etc.

Frans : Yes - just like we need a teacher to teach us the last thing we need is a teacher

Hey Frans, you be careful lest that little one walks in one day and says the same thing about dad!! :-)


love


e

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e - when she does I’ll refer her to you.

Nice witnessing - very close to my heart.

Frans

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(Apologies for the length…it was a long witnessing :-)  )

He has no name on his cage. The ones that are not up for adoption are not given names. His food guarding issues won't get him a name. His only hope is to go to Sheppard Rescue but they are full right now and so he waits…in limbo. Approaching his cage… he is tense and agitated…his body unstiffens, his tail comes down and his ears fall a bit…he remembers me from the last three weekends. He sees the leash around my neck and knows he is going out for a walk. There is a dark yellow stain where he pees. He is a marker. If he ever gets adopted, a vet will neuter him and the marking will stop. Right now, he is a complete 90lb full grown German Sheppard in the prime of his life. He allows me to collar and leash him without much fuss. He trusts me. Walking past the gauntlet of other caged dogs, he does not flinch or offer a glance as they growl and bark at him. He is an alpha male. Pausing briefly to pass thru a door, he wants to mark. A quick tug on the leash and a stern ‘no' halts the impulse. Outside he is free to mark at will. Every tree approached gets his attention. Walking towards the open clearing he excitedly starts to turn and look at me. He knows this is the area I will place a 30 foot leash on him and throw a tennis ball. It is a joy to see him run. He is only 2 years old and so the hip dysplasia that affects older German Sheppards is a long way off. He is as big as a wolf and could bring down any man. And so it is easy to see why our ancestors domesticated these wild animals and called them their best friend. We make our way to the other edge of the field. I throw the tennis ball in a high arc towards the 20 foot embankment. He follows it but looses site of it in the sun. He knows about where it will hit on the embankment and…bounce…it lands a few feet in front of him and is now bouncing over his head and back towards me. He launches up and backwards, twists in mid air, grabs the ball in his mouth and lands on all 4's. Because of the embankment it looks like he did this acrobatic feat from 8 feet high …awesome!!! He knows it too. He circles me at the full length of the leash, trotting and biting on the ball. He comes to me in his own time and as he approaches I squat down, put my hands out and he drops the ball into them. I give him a big hug around the neck and tell him, ‘good boy'! Ten more times of this and he is panting. We go and sit under the shade of a tree. The 17 year cicadas are out. Their sound is almost deafening. They compete with the jet overhead that just took off from the airport 20 miles away and they just about drown out the air conditioning units of the hospital 2 blocks away. My friend is rolling around on his back chewing on his toy. I close my eyes and the sound roils in waves in the trees surrounding the field. I am dissolving into the sound…there is no inside or outside to be found…this ancient ephemeral sound…I am brought out of my meditation by a slobbery tennis ball dropped into my lap. My friend is not quite done exercising. A few more tosses and we head back to the shelter. He walks right by my side without pulling on the leash. He has accepted me as a peer. I bring him into the director's office, she loves big dogs. Dropping the leash he goes to her. She shows him lots of affection and we talk about his fate. She assures me he is going to rescue this week. I bring him into a room in back to calm down. Dogs left in a kennel environment develop a nervous shallow accelerated breathing because of the stress. 10 minutes go by, he stops panting, lays down, takes a deep breath and fully relaxes…there…this is the state I am waiting for. This is his respite from the frenetic and loud kennel, this all too brief return to his natural calm state. He chills for 5 minutes and gets up. We go back to his cage but he is changed from the time I had taken him out. He is completely calm and relaxed. There is food and water waiting for him. In his cage I uncollar him and he goes straight for the water. This is the last time I will see my unnamed friend.


love


e

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Your witnessing tale is so beautiful…

e: “This is the last time I will see my unnamed friend.”

That made me cry because I became that dog. You tamed me there, e – for a while.

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Simply: WOW!

e, that was fantastic. Thank you.

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e - correct me if I’m wrong but it seems that your tale is giving us a direction for witnessing, i.e. connecting in a selfless manner with an animal.

It is my experience, gathered over many years of working with people and animals, that their presence can be a great access point to the witness. Dogs don’t have the consciousness we have, but they have direct access to the witness. They can show us how easy it is, if we don’t clutter it up…in fact, they do show us all the time - we’re just not noticing.

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One interesting distinction we can make about witnessing is that we can witness or be aware of objects in the gross realm, and we can witness or be aware of consciousness itself. When we are witnessing consciousness itself, aware of or meditating on consciousness itself, as consciousness itself, is when we would get feelings of peace and bliss and so forth.

Also, there has surely been a lot of oppression of women over the ages, but Ken often makes the point that it's not quite right to define the past as oppression and subjugation. He says that the evidence is that women, for the most part, were willing participants in all this. That is, they preferred to stay home with their children rather to go fight in battle and wanted to contribute in that way. And they worked hard too; it wasn't a parasitic relationship for most of them. Women in Mesoamerica had to make tortillas literally all day long.  Now, when the men returned home there was surely oppression and such, and women developed ways to counter this oppression as well.

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e: “Does this happen with eyes opened or closed? If closed, open your eyes. How do you lose sight of the object, suddenly or slowly and unknowingly i.e. awareness ‘slid' into this state? It could be a state of torpor. So you are right to be a bit leery of it. The key thing in this regard is clarity. If there is no clarity then it is not usually considered a wholesome state. Even the jhanas have clarity of entrance, exit, etc.”

No you misunderstand. This isn't when I'm meditating, but when I'm just walking around. The feeling is literally like a took a pretty strong narcotic pain killer. My mind doesn't chatter very much and when it does I notice it. Its actually great, but I don't like the fact that my focus isn't what it should be. I've heard stories of monks that get to a point where they enter into a blissful state and they stagnate in their practice.
A few weeks ago, while meditating I got to a hightened state of concentration and awareness and I started to feel like I just took some E. If I had never taken those drugs, I wouldn't know this, but I have. I'm thinking that I'm triggering certain areas in my brain that release dopemene and seratonin maybe.
Ever since I move to San Antone I can't just go see my teacher. I think I'll call him and ask.
So nothing like that's happened to you huh? Strangeness.

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I am not interested in having another discussion (at least on this thread) about mas/fem.  Mascha, I have read much of the Elixabeth Debold on the WEI site (at David's direction)  I would love to start another conversation about the somewhere else.

e,  Thank you for your account of being fully present as you walked in the world with your animal friend.  I love hearing/reading experiences like these and they (imo) help to ground who we are….    …. who are we?

holden,  I did read your posts.  I even commented as such above thank you for your contributions.  Perhaps my desire to hear about how this 'witnessing' is developed in a non mediation practice kept me from commenting more about what you had to say. 
Gina, when you can make your mind still like still water, try it.   I also read where you said a teach talked of the Grand Canyon.  I have stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and decided it was a vast place it would take a lifetime to explore and so I returned to my car.

There have been days when the trees spoke their whispers to me and the light in people's eyes were blinding.  The moments of awarness that pop at me… that is new for me.   Sort of like friend standing next to me whispering “hey, hear that……. see that……. are you here with me?”  To which I can smile and say, yes, yes I am

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When I first read the title “Witnessing the Witness” I was going to post a response about the “i” and the “I” but was way too tired from long work hours and couldn't formulate my thoughts.  I'd read what I'd typed and go “huh?”, then hit the delete key.  
The next day when I came back to the thread (and actually read the many responses) it seemed to have gone in a different direction - it was still interesting but some of the debates seemed to lend themselves to “Witnessing the Shadow”  *grin*.  Then along the way - and quite intentionally  - some of you brought it right back around again … and it's been a great process to observe - both in what you've all written, following the process/interactions and witnessing what it brings up in me.  Being sleepless though can lend itself to some “bam” moments of seeing who I really am - emotions are raw and the container is fragile …

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Gina: “Perhaps my desire to hear about how this 'witnessing' is developed in a non mediation practice kept me from commenting more about what you had to say. ”

You don't have to comment on what I write, it just seems that e, myself, and others are talking about these things, and not with so much jargon, and your saying we aren't.
Like when you say 'witnessing' it is just another way of saying awareness. How do you become aware of the ever present that you find yourself forever in? To quote Kung-fu, you much crawl before you can walk grasshopper.
That is what sitting, breath counting meditation is for. There is no actual purpose for meditation. It doesn't actually do anything. The whole of meditative practice is to get you to become aware of the present moment and to not become attached to you monkey mind, running around tossing shit everywhere. When you cease feeding energy into the process, the monkey gets bored and takes a nap. The more you do this the more you stay this way. Its just like working out.
Also, you need to incorporate walking meditation with sitting meditation. Walking meditation is some schools is very slow, and in some Ch'an schools, it is fast power walking.
Then when your living your life or driving your car, just like with sitting and walking meditation, you bring yourself back to the present; over and over.
Then after years of this, you will actually feel and see the world differently. As your walking you'll actually notice the wind hit you and it feels amazing.

I have a dog story to about this also, but its not a happy story.
A few years ago, to get by, I was living in one of those cheap used car lots that sell to people with no credit and living below the poverty line in the ghetto, in Houston's 5th ward. Anyway, the owner needed a guy to sleep in a shack on the lot, because people were always braking in a stealing tools or cars. I got a place to live for free and he got a night guard.
He also had two dogs that wondered in and he nursed them back to health and they were great alarms at night. One night, I went to close the gate and one of the dogs ran out into the road and a speeding car clipped him and he spun around hard. His back was broken and he started to pull himself back into the lot with his front legs, dragging his back two.
He was in a lot of pain and resisted me picking him up, but I did and I protected him from the other dogs that wanted to play.
I called the owner and he told me what I already knew, that no body could help the dog and reminded me that there was a loaded .357 magnum in the office. Now I have put other animals out of their miseries in my youth, and I didn't like the feeling. So I called an uncle and he came over. We talked it over and we carried the dog in the back, and my uncle shot him in the head.
I felt bad that my uncle did it, because it was my responsibility and I brought him into it. In Buddhism, this present awareness, brings us into the reality of what is going on, and makes us responsible for our actions. Even when we have to do something horrible, we do it with eyes open, with full compassion, and taking full responsibility for the consequences.
Later on, I told my teacher about this incident, and he told me that it is moments like that which is what all the practice is for. Meditation is useless, it does nothing. When things are easy, suffering isn't such an issue. All this practice and 'witnessing' if for situations like that, and none of us goes through life without them.

That is what it means to walk with full awareness.

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David,
Witnessing has to include ones actions, but not merely as a spectator watching our moves, but as a living expression of something extraordinary. It points to a miraculous freedom of expression that is highlighted in the representation of Cannon, the bodhisattva with ten-thousand arms. This brings it around to a total participation and part of an evolutionary understanding. I hope I'm able to convey it clearly. So I never advocate that mere passive witnessing that some speak of. Even diving inside, includes the world, in fact it highlights it.

Bjorn

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Rick:

“How do you become aware of the ever present that you find yourself forever in? To quote Kung-fu, you much crawl before you can walk grasshopper.
That is what sitting, breath counting meditation is for.”

I get that this is/was your path, and the traditional path of the lineage, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only path - in fact in the end you will have to leave this path, because it runs around in circles, like every path…

All you need is to recognize - as you call it very appropriately - the present, without any clutter. There is no need for this to take years - unless you expect it to - it can happen this very moment (this present moment). Then you will feel the wind when you walk, you’ll smell the scent coming from the pebbles, you’ll recognize the pattern of life in the water when you flush your toilet. Initially this may be a state experience, but again - only if you expect it to be. It is in every one of us to awaken right now, because of the very fact that we already are - all we need is recognize it. Then you will be able to act rightly, without identifying with the outcome (I am bad because I kill the dog, I am bad because I don’t kill the dog…) because as Mascha says - thought is action is thought is action is nothing else than what is.

Frans

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e, Gina, Holden (and others at other points in the thread)

Thank you for sharing your experiences. They allow me to see how ordinary/extraordinary this witnessing is and recognise the witnessing in myself.

Juliee

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Bjorn,

I get your drift. A sentence I've contemplated with good results at certain times comes to mind:

When the witnessing is perfect, the acting is total.

This is a state of continous, natural presence in which being and seeing are one, and from this unbounded seeing vastness, action arises, spontaneous action – thoughts, feelings, everything is allowed to come and go unbroken from nowhere now here. And from here it is obvious that I'm acting all the time, it is all an act, but this acting is not pretending, it is pure innocence and uncontrived beauty itself.

What I am describing is an inner landscape wherein we subtly walk our talk.

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I like that very much Mascha, and I would contribute this; spontaneous action yes but also directed conscious intent. For example, I lift my arm. I will it. No thought sustains the instantaneous action that is the expression of liberated understanding.

I lift my arm, and, in like manner, the Universe is created. I will it in to being. This blows my mind every time.

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You threw out some juicy morsels, Bjorn. I know you don't mind a little back and forth, so here's a classic, old-fashioned response to your assertions.


Bjorn: “…..spontaneous action yes but also directed conscious intent. For example, I lift my arm. I will it. No thought sustains the instantaneous action that is the expression of liberated understanding.”

A “but” after a yes means no. So, you said yes to spontaneous action, but… isn't what you call “directed conscious intent” also arising spontaneously out of now-here?  Where else is intent coming from? Does it not also arise spontaneously, unbidden? The same goes for what you call your “will”.

Whose will is it - really?

The ability to say no, the ability to direct any intention, the ability  to will anything whatsoever, is  the spontaneous, unhindered arising and dissolving of the totality.



Bjorn: “I lift my arm, and, in like manner, the Universe is created. I will it in to being. This blows my mind every time.”

Who wills the Universe into being? I would say, it is the Universe itself who does all this willing, and “your will” is granted and taken away at That One's discretion.

Same theme here:

e said:  “Yes this is why IMHO Buddhism is more clear i.e. all things are not-self.
There is no way to reify that into a thingy.”

Again -  what is it that can assert that “all things are not-self”? The capacity to deny existence to “any thingy” must be given by something which must exist before negations of any kind can even be conceived. So the final word is always a Yes. “No” is secondary, derivative, just a temporary denial of That which allows its own negation.

The Hindus were right!!! :-) Buddhists, with their (very useful but reactive) no-self doctrine, keep PROVING the pre-existence of the Great Self, even as they utter their denials of it.

M

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Yes yes :)

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Frans: “I get that this is/was your path, and the traditional path of the lineage, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only path - in fact in the end you will have to leave this path, because it runs around in circles, like every path…All you need is to recognize - as you call it very appropriately - the present, without any clutter”

That's like saying a smoker or other drug addict only needs to recognize that they need to quit and then do it. The reality of the matter is that it is not so simple or easy. I have yet to meet anyone who could sustain ever present awareness at all times. There's no way to judge this, but I seriously doubt it.
We have a lifetime of conditioning to overcome, and we must also overcome our evolutionary history and cultural/social conditioning over millions of year for the former and thousands for the latter. As KW says, “if you think your enlightened, wait till Thanksgiving dinner with you family.”
The fact is that just as a drug addict, even after years clean, still has traces of addiction in their minds. I, for example, have no need to do any drug, but part of my strategy is to keep myself out of those circumstances. If I was to be around a group of people getting high or wired, it would be very hard, even 8 years later.
As a married man, I have finally resigned myself to being with only one woman, and that took a few years. If, however, a really hot, young chick was to come on to me hard, with no strings sex…. that would be a test that I keep myself out of. I have learned that I can't trust myself, so I just avoid placing myself in those situations.
Like this, the quest for the ever present realization is never done, until it a certain point, and that takes a while. If your a monk, in a remote monastary with no women, and no tempting circumstances, then I'm sure the process is much easier, but not out here with the rest of us.
The dog story of my last post's point, was that it is easy when things are easy, but it's still hard when things are hard.
The truth is, and I know this from experience, once you understand the truth of what's going on, that's when the work begins. That's when the reconditioning process starts.
I wonder how my monk friends, who are always calm and at peace, would act if they had my life of a wife nagging them to have a kid and financial insecurity.
KW is absolutely right that one cannot just jump stages. One can race through them if the conditions are right, but the truth, I'm finding, is so utterly beyond the ordinary mind, that a great deal of reconditioning must happen before you can really comprehend it.
It is both very easy to see the truth and very hard.

Your a new dad, and I hear that becoming a father brings with it a new and deeper sense of compassion and patience. What do you think?

Bjorn, thanx for bringing in Cannon or Kuan Yin Bodhittsattva into the conversation. I think this is also very appropriate for the David's call for evolutionary englightenment in the Indigo Buddhism thread.  The ten thousand arms representing the skillful means brought to every situaiton seems to me an example of evolutionary enlightenment.

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Rick,

If the drug addict (or sex addict for that matter) can see things simply as they are, without hanging on the the accompanying emotions, feelings and thoughts - then yes, the addiction will be done, finished , immediately. It is only because of the excess of thoughts that this hardly ever happens. I agree with you completely and 100% that “the job” is never done, that there will always be temptations, and I agree with KW that family is our perfect testing ground - but again, once you’ve been there it becomes easier and easier to return and stay there for longer periods of time.

I have been told by neurologists and psychologists that my brain functions in a different way from most people - I had a skull fracture and spent 2 weeks in a coma when I was 13 (the funeral arrangements were under way when I woke up) and my brain would have had to repair itself in ways that make it function differently; maybe that’s why it’s relatively easy for me to go and stay in the present??? I actually enjoy the challenges - they make life incredibly rich and every single one experience makes life seem more simple at the same time (another paradox).

You can’t jump stages - no disagreement there - I ‘ve worked hard to get where I am, but you can be present/enlightened/there where ever you are - and being there makes the movement through the stages much easier, because less and less of your energy is taken up by clutter.

As for the new life in our house - it’s just another addition, one very special addition because of the potential it provides.

Frans

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Friends, thanks for all the kind words!!

Frans: correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that your tale is giving us a direction for witnessing, i.e. connecting in a selfless manner with an animal.

Gina wanted everyday experience. I simply recalled an experience from about 2 weeks ago that was very lucid for me. It was my attempt at describing witnessing in action.
Re: “connecting in a selfless manner with an animal.” My sense is the more ‘I Am' is absent the more “what is” is present fully sans the judge/jury/commentator. There then is nothing really to connect to as the feeling is not one of separation to overcome. There is a deeper intuition that this is the way it ‘really' is. But at times I fear that is only grasping at certainty. Also, my nameless friend was considered my friend first, he just happened to be an “animal”. Maybe I should have put animal in quotes to make that more explicit.

F: It is my experience, gathered over many years of working with people and animals, that their presence can be a great access point to the witness. Dogs don't have the consciousness we have, but they have direct access to the witness. They can show us how easy it is, if we don't clutter it up…in fact, they do show us all the time - we're just not noticing.

I don't see how we can really know, we are not dogs. :-) It appears that dogs are witnessing but is it because they are not so caught in thought/symbolism? Their consciousness is tied more to the sensate and they seem to act from instinct quickly. In Zen they like frogs but I always felt they used that imagery more as metaphor to poetically show witnessing.

—–

Holden : A few weeks ago, while meditating I got to a hightened state of concentration and awareness and I started to feel like I just took some E. If I had never taken those drugs, I wouldn't know this, but I have. I'm thinking that I'm triggering certain areas in my brain that release dopemene and seratonin maybe.

Our minds work by association. In the desire to know (grasp), we will label the new and unknown with what we have known. In that sense your past drug use will not serve you well on the path. I know we are just chatting here but we really need to divorce the deluded attempts at fun, growth, self medication, whatever, from our spiritual aspirations.

Everyone, it seems we may struggle with what is of utmost concern or confusion to us at any one time i.e. masculine or feminine. From previous threads, this seems to be a very charged issue here. I don't know if grinding away at the corners is ever going to smooth this out for us. I suggest that we drop that context and shift to a more gender neutral language where we all can feel comfortable with our own and others expression. Recently I found a definition for Philosophy. Instead of love of wisdom, it was translated as love & wisdom. We can render the terms Love (feminine) & Wisdom (masculine) or vice versa if you don't like that or neither if you feel you are above those distinctions. Shifting our language in this manner it is then easy to see that no matter the gender, we all need to develop and integrate our Love & Wisdom. We then don't need to get hung up on what is being expressed or if that expression is colored outside of the lines of a particular discussion grouping. We know from our own personal journeys that at various points in time we have gravitated to Love or Wisdom and so we can easily grant that same latitude to all of our friends here supporting each other effortlessly.

Love

e

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e, I don't think it is my association with past drug use that is the problem, it is just what helps me to understand that there is a biochemical reality to the process as well. The UL aspect of the corresponding UR.
Yesterday, I realized that this feeling isn't always like what I was describing, but depended upon certain conditions. I remembered the, “…string is to loose it will not play, too tight and it wil break,”  story, and I realized that nothing is automatic in the process. I can't relax my mind too much, or I'll just have the blissful feelings without the actual focus and what happens is that I'm knocked out of it with the first negative condition that happens. There is still too much conditioning to over come.

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e:

” I don’t see how we can really know, we are not dogs. :-) It appears that dogs are witnessing but is it because they are not so caught in thought/symbolism? Their consciousness is tied more to the sensate and they seem to act from instinct quickly. In Zen they like frogs but I always felt they used that imagery more as metaphor to poetically show witnessing.”

Woof!

Yes, it is because they aren’t caught in our trappings, I’m sure of that. I base that on working with them for many years and observing them intimately. I did a fair bit of work with the Rocky Mountain wolf project too and have had the opportunity to observe them quite up close too, which only reinforces my opinions.

They haven’t reached our levels of consciousness, which keeps them much closer connected to the present. Of course, they lack the opportunity to transcend and thus make this connection at a conscious level - that’s why we are here, I think.

Just because it’s poetic doesn’t make it less true.

Frans

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Frans”If the drug addict (or sex addict for that matter) can see things simply as they are,”

That's the biggest “If” I've ever seen in my life. It's also an if that's not based in anyone's experience that has probably ever lived.

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Rick:

“That’s the biggest “If” I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s also an if that’s not based in anyone’s experience that has probably ever lived.”

That’s why I work with people around animals - it offers the opportunity to a new experience. And it’s very effective that way; it works for autistic children, down-syndrom patients, addicts (yes I have) and “regular” people like you and me…if you don’t believe me - try it. That’s an open invitation, by the way

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

“A “but” after a yes means no.”
 
hahahahahaha!

You proved your brilliance with that post, Mascha (though I also appreciate the brilliance of posts by Bjorn, Holden, e, etc.).

Here's a description of witnessing from Ramana Maharshi:

“The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like a radio; there is no one inside as a doer… . Any amount of action can be performed by the jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.”

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Mascha: “Again -  what is it that can assert that “all things are not-self”? The capacity to deny existence to “any thingy” must be given by something which must exist before negations of any kind can even be conceived. So the final word is always a Yes. “No” is secondary, derivative, just a temporary denial of That which allows its own negation.”

No, this also is a misunderstanding of the ungraspable. As KW says, to admit that one doesn't know what this Chaos or Spirit-in-action is, is not to posit a positive and inherent anything. It is simply not to know and Buddhism demands that we must all become comfortable with this not knowing. Or, as Roger Penrose the physicist says, “We used to think that things were simple and that one and one equal two. We know know that we have a lot to learn about and.”

While there is something, there is existence, and there is this present moment. There is this awareness and there is this Karma, what this is exactly know one knows.
Also, your paradox is not a real paradox, but is based upon a faulty premise. If matter is antecedent to mind, then your right. But if matter is antecedent to mind, then matter makes up mind and something must make up matter, and we have infinite regress and hundreds of new paradoxes, not the least of which is a refutation of the whole of quantum mechanics, which is still the most successful branch of science there is.

What you are posing is that while all things are empty of a self, and this is always the situation, then this: arising, persisting, and ceasing is the basis for all things, that this must be inherent and without cause, but these 3 don't exist without that which arises, persists and ceases. There are two that are not two.
So Bjorn could not will to move his arm if he had no arm, nor nerve, nor evolutionary history. It is Bjorn's hard Karma, along with this ungraspable awareness that makes these things possible, but are no where to actually be found in space or time.
To quote the master of this deconstruction of the reification of action, Nagarjuna:

Neither from itself nor from another,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

The first view is that all causation is really self-causation. The argument is for a cause to be the cause of an effect, that effect must exist potentially in that cause. If it did not, then the cause might exist without the effect, in which case the cause would fail to necessitate the effect, in which case it wouldn't be a genuine cause. This is not to say that effects exist in full actuality in their causes, but that they have a genuine potential existence when their causes exist. In this case, since the effect is present in the cause, it already has a kind of existence prior to its appearance. And it is the fact of this prior potential existence that accounts for the causal character of the cause. So we can say, in this view, that a thing's prior potential existence is what gives rise to its later actual existence. So effects are in this sense self-caused. For example, the seed being the potential for the later actual of a plant.
This is to say that causes and effects are genuinely distinct phenomenon is what you are saying. And that one has the power to bring about the other, such as Bjorn's will and the movement of his arm.
Another view is that effects are brought about by both this potential and various other conditions. That is, a seed does not sprout on its own, but requires soil, water, etc….
Another view is that things just spontaneously arise from no particular causes, that there are no links between events.
These are beliefs that are based in the concept that only if there were either some identity dependency between phenomena, one would be forced to the nihilistic conclusion that things arise ceaselessly.

Nagarjuna:
There are four conditions: efficient condition;
Percept-object condition; immediate condition;
Dominant condition, just so.
There is no fifth condition.

Here it is of paramount importance to understand the relation of conditions to the conditioned involves ascribing neither inherent existence nor causal power to the conditions.
Efficient condition are those salient events that explain the occurrence of subsequent events: striking a match is the efficient condition for its lighting.
The percept-object condition is in its primary sense the object in the environment that is the condition for the a mind's perception of it. So when you see a tree, the physical tree in the environment is the percept-object condition of your perceptual state. But, also conceptual states, imaginings, reasonings all have percept-object conditions. From the standpoint of Buddhist epistemology and psychology, intentional activity generally is the natural kind comprised by “perception.” To the point is that the intentional existence of the golden mountain is a percept-object condition of my being able to doubt that there is such a thing.
The dominant condition is the purpose or end for which an action is undertaken. So, my hoped for understanding of Madhyamika might be the dominant condition for my reading Nagarjuna's text, its presence before my eyes the percept-object condition, and the reflected light striking my eyes the efficient condition.
The immediate conditions are the countless intermediary phenomena that emerge upon the analysis of a causal chain, in this case, the photons striking my retina, the excitation of photoreceptor cells, etc…
A nonpsychological example: Suppose you ask, “Why are the lights on?” I might say, “Because I flicked the switch on.” = efficient condition.
“Because the wires are in god working order, the bulbs haven't burned out, and there is electricity flowing.”= supporting conditions
“the light is the emission of photons each of which is emitted in response to the bombardment of of an atom by an election, etc….” = immediate condition.
“So we can see.”= the dominant condition.
You must note, however, that none of them makes reference to any causal powers or necessitation.

N:
The essence of entities
Is not present in the condition, etc…
If there is no essence,
There can be no otherness-essence.

This is pretty straight-forward.
Example: For a table to have otherness-essence, according to a proponent of essential characteristic the property of depending for its existence on some pieces of wood, a carpenter, and so forth. I would be congenial to argue that the table has no essence of its own, but has the essential property of depending on its parts, causes, and so forth. But each of these would follow the same order and infinite regress follows.
What we re typically confronted with in nature is a vast network of interdependent and continuous processes, and carving out particular phenomena for explanation or for use in explanations depends more on our explanatory interests and language than on joints nature presents to us. There is a concealed relation between praxis and reality.

I'm tired so I'm just gonna post Nagarjuna:

Power to act does not have conditions.
There is no power to act without conditions.
There are no conditions without power to act.
Nor do any have the power to act.

These give rise to those,
So these are called conditions.
As long as those do not come from these,
Why are these not nonconditions?
(The first two lines here is the opponent, and the next two are his reply)

For neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing
Is a condition appropriate.
If a thing is nonexistent, how could it have a condition?
If a thing is already existent, what would a condition do?
(Here he destroys you argument that there is something that inherently exists that is Bjorn's will and moves his arm)

When neither existents nor
Nonexistents nor existent nonexistents are established,
How could on propose a “productive cause?”
If there were one, it would be pointless.

An existent entity (mental episode)
Has no object.
Since a mental episode is without an object,
How could there be an percept-condition?

Since things are not arisen,
Cessation is not acceptable.
Therefore, an immediate condition is not reasonable,
If something has ceased, how could it be a condition?
(Here the thing that is not arisen, is the concept of an inherent thing with actual
characteristics, and not just the effect of infinite causes, who themselves also have
infinite causes. Because of this nothing can be said to actually exist beyond a relative
nature with all other things that are arising, persisting, and ceasing.)

If things did not exist
Without essence,
The phrase, “When this exists so this will be,”
Would not be acceptable.

There is more back and forth between Nagarjuna and other views of existence, but they are more abstract and terse. My point is to note that Buddhist philosophers aren't just saying that nothing exists; something clearly exists. They are also not just saying that there is no self to be found in anything to be seen, felt, heard, etc… out of some kind of vague belief system, but are coming to an understanding of direct experience. It is all well thought out and explain in a very rational way.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hello Rick,

I have to admit, my eyes glazed over after the first 2 paragraphs of your “refutation”, and I trust that reaction, so I began to skim over the rest.

Countless books and innumerable commentaries have been written about the Self versus the no-self views for thousands of years. The observation I made (the one you quoted) is an expression of my direct experience, and if it resonates, if it produces an insight or puts someone hearing it into the state that the words are pointing to - then great. As the Buddha said: the truth is what works. I make no claim to be able to grasp the ungraspable or to escape the infinite regress produced by thinking in ever narrowing circles, chasing our own non-existent tails, devouring our own mental fabrications. I can live happily with the paradox of “not one” and “not two” and neither and both etc. etc. etc.

So, by this standard, saying that words about the ultimate nature of reality should produce at least a little Aha-experience, a glimpse of the beyond - how are you doing for yourself?

Clear or cluttered, I love it when the clouds of infinite denial as well as infinite affirmations part, and here it is          now.

Love

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

David: “Here's a description of witnessing from Ramana Maharshi:

“The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like a radio; there is no one inside as a doer… . Any amount of action can be performed by the jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.””

This is a faulty dualism. It as I've already wrote about in the last post posits that there is an inherent power that is separate from the body.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick said: “It is simply not to know and Buddhism demands that we must all become comfortable with this not knowing.”
 
That sounds good. Do you what the three tenets of Roshi Bernie Glassman's Zen Peacemakers are?

1) Not knowing

2) Bearing witness

3) Loving action

Cool, huh?

 

David: “The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like a radio; there is no one inside as a doer… . Any amount of action can be performed by the jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.”

Rick: “This is a faulty dualism. It as I've already wrote about in the last post posits that there is an inherent power that is separate from the body.”

You're giving the ultimate truth. There's a relative truth there that's interesting, though. He's saying that there's an impersonal energy or will there rather than the personal will or energy most people are familiar with.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Time is motion so when we align our conscious willed actions with a larger flow it “feels” like there is something bigger coming through. But it's really just us being more true to what is. We stop separating ourselves and stop operating from a narrow, small and personal perspective. In Aikido this becomes very evident, by not trying to force an event solely from ones own agenda but feel and respond to the other coming at you. When we tighten up in relationship or in conversation are we holding on (even for a brief instant) to our point of view? or do we blend and move along?

This present moment Now is not a static event, it's a motion. Once we enter the stream we let go with both our arms. The wonderful thing is, once in the stream we can, thanks to our own free will, our volition, decide to swim and direct an outcome but always in harmony with the rivers general direction (towards goodness, higher unity etc in regards to the true Dharma).

So there is a bigger flow outside of our control, and we have our own little will. All have conditions, don't they? But that's not really a problem because it never hinders our ten-thousands arms to respond to matters at hand in a most spontaneous perfect way.

Isn't this what evolutionary enlightenment is all about? The joining forces with the Absolute and becoming co-creators of this expanding Universe (even if our own input measures very little in the big scheme of things)?

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Great thread growing here. I have been reading but every time I get back to post the whole thing has moved on a stage:-)

Thanks Gina and Juliee for your kind words, Guess I did feel a bit exposed hanging out there without a theory in sight, so it's good to know someone actually “got it”.

Mascha, as always your wit and insight knoock me for 6! :-)

Bjorn

This present moment Now is not a static event, it's a motion. Once we enter the stream we let go with both our arms. The wonderful thing is, once in the stream we can, thanks to our own free will, our volition, decide to swim and direct an outcome but always in harmony with the rivers general direction (towards goodness, higher unity etc in regards to the true Dharma).

I love this. It captures perfectly the tension of being in the moment, knowing you are going with the flow, yet manages to do that while absolutely retaining full responsibility for one's own actions. No escape clauses, no excuses. Beautifully put!


I do think the comments about women's sporituality and development were important here too. And, no, it's not good enough to suggest women freely traded freedom for secirity. I think that may be something individually we need to look at in our own lives and relationships, but to suggest women had an equal hand in creating the social structures which oppressed them is a bit like blaming the Africans for getting caught and carried off on slave ships. I don't care if ken says it, it's nonsense!

Liz  

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn said: “Isn't this what evolutionary enlightenment is all about? The joining forces with the Absolute and becoming co-creators of this expanding Universe (even if our own input measures very little in the big scheme of things)?”

That's a good way to put it, but I prefer putting it more along the lines of a total offering of oneself to the Self Absolute and the Evolutionary Impulse, sacrificing oneself at the altar of evolutionary love to the point of dissapearing totally and becoming nothing but that.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Mascha: “The observation I made (the one you quoted) is an expression of my direct experience, and if it resonates, if it produces an insight or puts someone hearing it into the state that the words are pointing to - then great. As the Buddha said: the truth is what works.”

Buddha never said that. He just understood that a greater understanding of reality is better than a lesser one in a relative sense, but that until Truth is understood clearly there is still anger, greed and delusion and therefore suffering. Like I said before in another thread, it is better to be only up to your knees in shit than your chin, but it is far from ideal.
The fact is that you statement doesn't come from direct experience, because via direct experience it is obvious that you are aware of the present moment directly, before any will or volition to move or discriminate takes place. The volition isn't primary, it is secondary to this every present awareness. Because it is so primary and absolute, we tend to ignore it because it's always there. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about the air that we breathe, and are much less aware of our own awareness.
All kinds of insights and concepts resonate with people, that doesn't mean anything. The idea of eugenics for the elimination of gays and certain ethnic groups resonate with a lot of people.
The majority of the concepts that I've resonated in my life have proven to be bullshit. This is why I've stopped relying on what I merely think.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn: “This present moment Now is not a static event, it's a motion.”

There is no motion in the present moment. Motion doesn't exist beyond a mover. There is not enough time in the present moment for a thing to either begin to move, to be moving or to cease movement. If it was beginning to move, it would not be moving yet; if it were moving it would happen over time and time only exists in a realitive way, because time doen't actually exists independent of motion (Theory of Relativity), and if it has ceased to move, then it isn't moving and there is no motion to be found. Motion doesn't exist independent of a mover, therefore the present moment contains no motion.
Think of it like movie film moving at 35 frames per second. When we watch the movie we see motion, but when we look at the film all we see are still pictures.
As Einstein said, “Time is an illusion–albeit a very persistent one.”

I'm starting to feel like an asshole here; so contrary. I hope my motivation is rightlly placed.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Frans : They haven't reached our levels of consciousness, which keeps them much closer connected to the present. Of course, they lack the opportunity to transcend and thus make this connection at a conscious level - that's why we are here, I think.

I am just saying that I don't know. I think it is a little presumptuous to attribute our interior qualities to others by a solely behavioristic investigation (UR quadrant). Without the ability to truly dialogue, it seems to me to be guesswork. There is some wicked cool stuff happening with primates i.e. teaching them about 1000 words and having a conversation. So, it is not solely the dog's language ‘limitation', etc. (see my post in the autism thread).  I just don't speak dog.

F: Just because it's poetic doesn't make it less true.

No, no, I was not implying that. Just that the use of frog imagery was a poetic reference and not a description of the frogs interior awareness. Frogs “look like” they are in deep samadhi as they sit motionless, etc.

e said:  “Yes this is why IMHO Buddhism is more clear i.e. all things are not-self.
There is no way to reify that into a thingy.”

Mascha, said:  Again -  what is it that can assert that “all things are not-self”? The capacity to deny existence to “any thingy” must be given by something which must exist before negations of any kind can even be conceived. So the final word is always a Yes. “No” is secondary, derivative, just a temporary denial of That which allows its own negation.

Exists,

not exists,

both exists and not exists,

neither exists nor not exists,

tetra arise.

These are only the logical outcomes of thought. These are the only views of any ‘thing' that arises in the causal nexus. No Great Being made this nexus nor the illusory things we think exist, this is just the way it is in the thought matrix. We are utterly alone.

M: The Hindus were right!!! :-) Buddhists, with their (very useful but reactive) no-self doctrine, keep PROVING the pre-existence of the Great Self, even as they utter their denials of it.

My dear Mascha, are you claiming that truth can be encapsulated into words? I was not talking about truth or right vs. wrong, just what was more efficacious and leading towards clarity. In the end all teachings are merely provisional, yes? Buddhist doctrine is properly soteriological, not metaphysical, not epistemological & not ontological. Buddhists don't deny the *existence* of the Great Self, they just call it by it by a different name, the Great Delusion. :-)

My wife and I went to her new yoga studio 2 blocks away from our house last night. They showed a video, The Ultimate Freedom by Iyengar, made when he was 58. An hour long of him talking and doing the most incredible asanas I have ever seen…one, after another, after another non-stop…amazing!! Even one the main yoga teacher said that she has never seen anyone else do.  And then Iyengar said it…”In the Self there is no pain or pleasure”… and I knew he had experienced emptiness.

But IMHO until one realizes this emptiness, to talk about the Great Self, One Mind, Ground of Being, yada, yada, yada, is just egoic projection all blown up in capitol letters. This is why I said that Buddhism is *more clear* as you cannot reify into thought, “all things are not self”. You can misinterpret this nihilistically but you cannot reify it as emptiness is a self solvent.

Love

e

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e,

how cool, like the arctic breeze Ken talked about in No Boundaries… YES YES, I can see your perspective and everything you said makes perfect sense to me.

And NO to this: “My dear Mascha, are you claiming that truth can be encapsulated into words?”

Far be it from me, O arctically fresh and cool e  :-) Nay, nay it cannot be encapsulated, no way.

So I have no trouble grokking your perspective but I'm not so sure you can take the one I offered, limited as it may be, just as easily.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rick, oh boisterous, brazen, ballbearing one,

I loved this: ”The Buddha never said that.”

Hee! That's great that you know that and can claim it with such authority. A pronouncement like that (among others) would silence just about anyone in polite society, but not me. I like flamboyant, over the top and yes, especially absurdly pompous stuff, I recognize the same streak in me, and it can be thrilling to have those bubbles popped so we can laugh at ourselves affectionately.

As for your latest “refutations”, I can't comment on arguments that – as far as I can see with the best intentions motivating me – have little or nothing to do with the perspective I've described in the quote you make objections to. I'm sorry, but you seem to be shadow-boxing with strawmen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liz, I went, yay when your face showed up on the board. We are in dire need of more down-to-earth, Highland-flavored Scottish lass perspectives around here, as you can see.

Re: your appreciation of me - I had to google that.

- knock someone for six (British & Australian, informal)
- to surprise and upset someone a lot. “It really knocked me for six when my ex-boyfriend announced he was getting married.”

I know your humor is drier than most anyone's, so thank you, I think. It means a lot to me.

High fives (5),

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

“Hee! That's great that you know that and can claim it with such authority. A pronouncement like that (among others) would silence just about anyone in polite society, but not me.”

That's actually good. You shouldn't take anything I say at face value. I'm just asking you to look at your own statements the way you are looking at mine. And, yes I am trying to understand you conception of this will to deny that happens before this awareness. I look for it constantly. I haven't found it, but I have rested with this awareness before the will happens. If you pay very close attention you can feel your will, thoughts and feelings emerging, that is the conditions to bring them about, coming together before they actually arise. This is linked to everything you've ever thought, done or seen.

As far as what the Buddha said or didn't say, your right, I can't claim to know it. I can't know what he taught, if a historical Buddha ever actually existed, as we have no solid proof. But, as I can know that a building was designed by an architect and built by builders, so to the Dharma, even if I didn't actually see it.
Within Buddhism, anyone who understands the nature of reality, and knows their own mind is a Buddha and can speak with the same authority. Now, I'm not there, but I think I understand enough to say that a philosophy of absolute relativism in belief isn't something that points one toward the end of suffering.
If the belief  that anyone's belief “worked” for them, and this is just fine, then we would live in a very different world. Everyone is fine with their own beliefs, and they resonate with others that share their beleifs, and they create artificial borders and camps separating themselves from people that have other beleifs, and so on. We can see that this way only leads to more of the same, to an endless shuffling of furniture in a room. From this, I can say that the Buddha didn't say that.

That's all I was responding to. As for my response to your previous comment to Bjorn, your right you didn't posit a volition before awareness, but you did later. That is what I was responding to with my other post and not some strawman. You say that Buddhists prove a self with the denial of a self, and the long Nagarjuna post was in response to that. Buddhists do not deny a relative self or thing. If you did not have a mind you couldn't read what mine just wrote. But, in an analysis of totality, Buddhists say that a inherent self or other with inherent characteristics can't be found. There are two truths, the absolute and the relative. When Buddhists say that there is no self, they aren't speaking relatively, because that's rediculous, they are speaking absolutly.

You can think to yourself that I can't know your mind, but that is to think that our minds aren't the same. The passive aggresive name calling isn't unique to you.

Or, you could just be fucking with us and seeing how we respond. Who knows.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

“The passive aggresive name calling isn't unique to you.

Or, you could just be fucking with us and seeing how we respond. Who knows.”

Ouch… It was not my intention to insult you, Rick. Since I have, I apologize for misjudging your tolerance for this kind of banter in a serious discussion.

Rick: “You shouldn't take anything I say at face value.”

Okay. I won't.

Peace, my Buddhist bro, yes?

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

No I'm cool. I just hit me before checking back back here to PM you, that I may have completely misunderstood everything you've been saying, because some of it was out of context with other things you've said.
That, “Hindus were right that…” was a skillful means to get Bjorn to look at his own beliefs more closely, no? And the comment, “whatever works right?” was confirming this, no?
The name calling was just to show us that we are taking ourselves too seriously and pointing to the earlier discussion about 'too many teachers and not enough students' huh?
 
If this is the case, give us a heads up. We're just stupid men here, and subtlety isn't our thing.

I don't take this seriously, and it was only out of the motivation to clear up what I thought was a misunderstanding.

Rick: “You shouldn't take anything I say at face value.”
[locked in italics can't be helped]
What did you dig this out of the ghosts of posts past. That's no fair to use my own words against me! That's cheating! I'm telling!

Of course, if that wasn't you intention then my previous post stands, but it isn't written with any anger.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Molto coolio, Rick. Kudos for abandoning positions, ready to meet the Beloved everywhere. Yes! Sir!

Oops, dualistic nattering alert. Okay, okay, I'm gay – no, I mean, easy – no, I mean, incorrigible, alas… much to my chagrin  :-(   Forgive me, for I have sinned. Sorry, rapping aginn. GRIN.


You know, this is how my bf and all our close friends, including my mother, talk  – whoever comes up with the most absurdly twisted self-observations and insults wins by cracking the others up and reducing them to hapless heaps. I must remember when I get to the keyboard that most people don't consider turning holons into heaps their main mission in life.

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

No wonder you thrived in the Grotto of Abuse!  :-D

You helped make that place shine …

No, I mean swelter and blister and flare….

Re: Witnessing the Witness

 
    

It's true. You're right. I was a professional in a hovel full of amateurs, except for Liz -Tamgoddess. We took unfair advantage of you. I'll always be proud of that – and moved by the memory.

Remember La Lurka!!

Re: Witnessing the Witness

If feeling you had the upper hand, lil' one, helps your flighty, faerie-infested mind feel stable and secure, I'll be happy to indulge you from my position of inherent superiority.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

You are too kind, master, as usual.

As you know, I revel in maschosistic feelings of ultimate inferiority as part of my ILP but haven't been disciplined enough lately to keep to a regular schedule.

Humbly grovels at your fragrantly pickled pork's feet:

M

Re: Witnessing the Witness

With all your girly crying, are you trying to salt my piggy toes?

No matter, I've just slipped off this wet pedastal and fallen face-first on the grotto floor.

Kenotic agape,

B.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

You two crack me up: the serious lurker watching the tennis volley (before your recent comments) has been rendered giggling mush w/o a care in the matter.

Beauty reigns on this slow Friday workday.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e said: “No Great Being made this nexus nor the illusory things we think exist, this is just the way it is in the thought matrix. We are utterly alone.”

Isn't all that in the thought matrix too?

e said: “Buddhists don't deny the *existence* of the Great Self, they just call it by it by a different name, the Great Delusion. :-)”

Okay, so how does the universe evolve? Seems to me you are left either with saying that “the illusory things” don't exist, ignoring Buddhism's Two Truth's Doctrine as we slap away at our keyboards, or with Neodarwinism (random chance and mutation). But as Ken points out here (see “Evolutionary Biology,” 5/8/2006), “It's strange how we went from atoms to Shakespeare… . That is some frisky dirt. And why dirt got up and started writing poetry is kind of hard to explain with random chance and mutation… . There is an aspect of the universe that is pushing against chance, and that is a very interesting aspect.”

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Actually, David, the Zen priest Steve Hagen goes into this in detail in his book, “How things can be the way they are.”  I'm tired of the long posts right now, but suffice to say there is a complex interaction between the relative aspects of reality. He first goes into detail about the force of spin that Newton studied, but could never get to the bottom of. Spin is the force that seems to tell the water in a bucket that is spinning to depress in the middle and rise to the sides. Since Newton, we have found that this force of spin is created with a relationship between the water and the rest of the universe. After all, if there was nothing else, then the earth could no be said to spin.
Again, not to go into detail, the complex spin created by parts to their Whole. The Universe as a whole doesn't age, because aging in relation to time is only relevant to local processes in relation to others, with the addition of consciousness to discriminate the illusion of a flow of time. After all time is relative to motion, and the objects moving at different speeds age at different rates. So if you were traveling at the speed of light, time would stop and you would cease aging. Sine the Universe is supposed to be finite yet boundless, there is nothing for it as a whole to age in any relative way, i.e., there is no motion present in the Universe. And since evolution is change + time the Universe cannot be said to evolve, just relative parts of it.
Anyway there is a true opposite of this spinning of relative and dualistic from which a creative force springs forth, i.e., Chaos Theory.

It's the book that made me interested in reading all of those physicists that I like to quote.

While we know this to be true objectively, we don't actually see our world this way, because it is contrary to the way we normally conceive of things.
Hagen uses a thought experiment to give an example. Suppose you have a two dimensional being in a 3 dimensional world who is watching two T.V.s.  Each TV is broadcasting a live feed from one of two cameras that are projecting an image of a fish in a fish tank, but at perpendicular angles. So the a single fish is shown on each TV but at right angles so that if it is facing one TV its side profile is showing on the other and the movement of the fish becomes coordinated.
While we as 3 dimensional beings would almost immediately realize that we are watching the same fish at two angles, the 2 dimensional being wouldn't. He might notice the coordinated movements after a while and have a feeling that there is something strange going on, but since he can't conceive of things having more than 2 dimensions he would most likely miss the obvious truth that it is the same fish.
This is our situation. We conceive the world to be one way, yet direct perception and countless scientific experiments show that the world is not that way. Yet, since we, like the 2 dimensional being, find it impossible to conceive of that universe we ignore what we directly perceive for what we can conceive. Like a drunk who looks for his dropped keys under the lamp post and not where he dropped them, because the lights better.
So while we don't conceive of the universe having a non-local, but random base upon which all reality is built upon, it does. We've known this since the 60's. So what you do now, or what you choose to measure via your consciousness changes it immediately and also the molecular structure of distant stars in a way that is random, but different than if you had done something else.
This it seems is the creative force, that is not inherent, but equally dependent upon awareness, from which evolution springs.
This of course only makes sense if awareness or consciousness is antecedent to form (matter).
So while we conceive of the universe as somehow producing awareness, the universe in fact is produced by awareness. Fucking strange, but the two are mutually dependent upon each other and there can be no beginning to either if we are to avoid paradox.

So KW is seems is right, but his over all theory can add the detail of the process I've just discussed. Just as a deaf person is aware of hearing and aware they are deaf, even if they have been aware their entire lives, this awareness while antecedent to form, requires the interation with form for production of relative consciousness. The part of us that concieves and not just percieves.
Before the “evolution” of the Neo-cortex, awareness was still there and unchanged, but the Neo-Cortex is like the nexus of conceptual thought absent in other animals without a neo-cortex.
As my Zen teacher says, “Now you can see into that other room. If I were to close the door you could not say the other room has disapeared, but has been closed off from you conscious mind. It is the same for people with brain injuries. Their consciousness can't be said to disapear, as consciousness isn't present in matter, but the bundle of complex nerves required, like an open door is required, is no longer present.” [paraphrased]

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn: “This present moment Now is not a static event, it's a motion.”

Holden: There is no motion in the present moment. Motion doesn't exist beyond a mover. There is not enough time in the present moment for a thing to either begin to move, to be moving or to cease movement. If it was beginning to move, it would not be moving yet; if it were moving it would happen over time and time only exists in a realitive way, because time doen't actually exists independent of motion (Theory of Relativity),

I think I did not clarify it properly. Since all that exist, exists in time; you ,me, the world, the Universe, and Time itself is part and parcel of the make up of this ever expanding manifest Universe. Time is not merely “dependant” on motion, it is motion. Time and Space are two sides to the same coin. Due to the Big Bang explsion 14 billion years ago, time/space came into being, and continues to expand to this very moment. It came out of that primodial ground, out of our fundamental nature. This ground of being is the always the background, the never-changing unmanifest reality on which the display of creation is projected. Since time is part of creation, to speak of present moment (moment being a moment in time) as out of time does not do it justice. When I speak of the present moment I do not refer to our absolute ground of being, but to our choiceless prescence in time, as individuals, always moving forward with time. This in no way inhibits our appreciation of the ever present “time-less” ground of being. Yes, that is always there, in the present moment and for the rest of eternity. But the Time is Real, when we realize that this manifest Universe, this form, that very much includes Time/Space, or to be more precise; Time/Space is the arena in which the Dharma is revealed. Time/space is the “form” in the Gatha; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Once we grasp the incredible unity of time and space we will truly aprreciate that this manifest Universe that we find ourselves in, to be no other than the mysterious vehicle the Buddhas ride in. Ken Wilber likened time to a lazer beam shooting through the Universe, and we riding the front of it as it careers forward in time. But note, time does not move in space, it is space expanding. But since every nano second is new, the “old” space has been overlaid with new space, that is, this ever new present moment in time. So in fact, there is no old space to found, as this ever new moment in one way erases what has come before. So in this sense we can speak of there is no time. But we can come to a revelation where we see our very own roots stem back to the beginning of the Universe, and know that we exist on the front tip of evolution or time, without ever loosing touch with our timeless nature. This baffles the mind but nevetheless serves to make us understand our part in the ever forward moving sceme of things. This is important because it totally devastates the Absolutists stand on Advaita; their rigidly held views and convictions of Absolute over Relative.

This present moment Now is not a static event, it's a motion. Since “Now” is term for this moment in time, to put it simply.

Time=Space=Motion, No time=no space=no motion.

I hope I'm making sense and not just simply rambling?

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick, Bjorn,

You can't use physics to touch on the present moment. It's a mystical insight, and mysticism is as far removed from physics as you can get. Some of the greatest physicists were mystics, and they made this point very clear.

The present moment has no beginning and no end, and is therefore eternal. So everything that happened, happens or will happen, is in the present moment. Nothing to do with time, you see?

Living in the Now does not mean that you're just aware of the present, and not of the past and the future. Not being aware of the past and future is a limited kind of awareness; most animals can pull that off!  Living in the Now means being fully aware of the play of time, stepping into it, but not being attached to anything in particular. And embracing all of it instead. Compassionate disattachment. Isn't that what witnessing is about?

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Peter,
I understand what you are saying. But I am trying to point to a slightly different angle. When time is seen as an expression of the eternal, timeless self. That's why we call Creation creation, out of time into time. You and I live in both worlds, and as long as we view them as separate we will continue to draw conclusions that keeps time and no-time apart. When we realize, allow for, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, this divisive mind set has to go. And this creation, its history, present and its future will shine brightly as that immaculate expression of the Absolute in all its perfection. Please read my earlier post and try to see that I do not contend with the eternal ever-present source of all things, the timeless present moment, the dreamlike expression of all things manifest; things, time and space alike.
Mystical insight is this very seeing before our very own eyes right now, ever present, eternally, throughout history, since the Big Bang. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, it is written. Eternal, but there throughout the passing of time, which is nothing but our living Universe in motion. Which in fact is you and me, outside of which we would not be able to have this dialog.

We just need to see when we speak of apples and when we speak of pears.

There is a rapture inside that wants to take place. It has nothing to do with personal feelings towards others. It's a rapture of recognition of the truth of non-abidance, of non-existence.
Emptiness doesn't wait for anyone. Emptiness will not justify itself. It moves on. It is like a current that moves across anything that is standing still. No blame. It's a force that doesn't acknowledge any arguments. Blessed is he who lets go. If he succeeds his life will be a river.

Mu rises from the wall of space and goes back into it. The wall being void with unlimited potentiality. Always full, never lacking never exhausted. The void wherein all things are contained is inexhaustible. It is always full. It contains all things, manifest and unmanifest. It is unlimited potentiality.
It is pure. It is still. It is reality.
Only that is REAL.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn:
We just need to see when we speak of apples and when we speak of pears.

Exactly, and that is why I posted what I posted. We don't always have to drag in the pears when we're talking about apples. It's called getting off topic. This thread is about witnessing, in a board oriented at praxis, so why does that have to evolve into a rather abstract discussion of space, time and evolution? Again?

The thread starter was interested in how people apply witnessing in day to day life. You know I'm not against abstract discussions, but I'd like to promote conscious posting once more. Especially when talking about awareness a lot, we might want to demonstrate our awareness in our day to day pod participation as well.

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Peter:

” This thread is about witnessing, in a board oriented at praxis, so why does that have to evolve into a rather abstract discussion of space, time and evolution? Again?”

Amen to that!

One of the problems is that people take the now, the present, to exist in time, probably because of the limitations of language. The now is timeless - without thought. But that doesn’t mean we don’t use thought (past/future), it just means we realize it doesn’t have a hold over us - and that I think is the problem a lot of participants on this thread have - thought is what they identify with most of all…

To give a real-life example - i will be going out to teach a class in a few minutes; the people/dogs i work with today have a pattern established which could easily repeat itself. However, since we’ll be working in the now anything is possible - the people and the dogs are not the same as they were on Tuesday and have the potential of shifting completely. The dogs will do so quite easily - one day to the next they will truly be completely different, at least at a behaviour level. When the people see this, it sometimes opens them up to what is actually possible for them as well - that’s the every-day, practical difference between thought and no thougt, the now and time.

It’s only because we’re sooo afraid to go away from what we know that we protect oursleves with endless theorizing, because then we can do that and don’t have to go into the unknown - as Krishnamurti said: we’re all cowards…

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Frans

It's only because we're sooo afraid to go away from what we know that we protect oursleves with endless theorizing, because then we can do that and don't have to go into the unknown - as Krishnamurti said: we're all cowards…

I raised a similar point with a friend of mine after last week's fracas that ended up back on the masc/fem trail. I backed off from my own need to 'win' (after some gentle pointers from you -thanks) but did wonder whether falling back on theories is a mask for lack of experiences and falling back on experiences is a mask for lack of theories?
For myself I understand (most) theories as I read them but often struggle to then articulate my experiences in anything other than everyday language - perhaps because my job as a trainer is to translate theory into practical ideas and action for 'everyday folk'.

Maybe if we each try to 'do' one 'thing' that is the opposite of our natural inclination each day/week we'd come a bit closer. As I often say to my kids - try and put yourself in their shoes.


She's sitting and wrestling with a torrent of emotions, anger, indignation and need for reprisal. Then a small quiet voice (how she imagines Frans to sound) asks the question “Is this not just your ego? Do you have to win? Wouldn't it be easier to just let it go?” She lets go a deep breath and rests in the moment.



Love
Juliee

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Juliee:

“but did wonder whether falling back on theories is a mask for lack of experiences and falling back on experiences is a mask for lack of theories?”

Maybe falling back on theories is a fear of going fully into the exerience, while falling back on experience is drowning in the experience?

I am very much like you, I need to use everyday language in describing, but I find that allowing the experience to happen is the only thing that ever holds. When I’m totally present that seems to be the best support I can give.

“The dog kept on working, intent on finding the scent through the group of people. One person bumped the dog in passing, but nothing at this point was going to break the focus - the animal was fully present in what it was doing. I looked at N and saw her face strangely contorted. Later we discussed what has happened and how this related to her everyday life with her mother…”

A few weeks before, the dog in question was one day away from being euthanized because of agression towards people; N didn’t even know he was just helping her look at her own dysfunction in her life.

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick said: “This it seems is the creative force, that is not inherent, but equally dependent upon awareness, from which evolution springs.
This of course only makes sense if awareness or consciousness is antecedent to form (matter).
So while we conceive of the universe as somehow producing awareness, the universe in fact is produced by awareness.”
 
So it seems we're on the same page here. When some people discuss the no-self doctrine, it sounds nihilistic or materialistic or some such thing. But we're just talking about an absence of self-identity as they discuss it here, right?

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Peter,
I believe you did not understand what I was pointing towards. I did not manage to make it clear this time. I do understand your point, and it's all fine, but I tend to view it slightly differently that has (at least to me) a very practical and immediate effect, not at all abstract or theoretical. Maybe it has to be discussed in a different thread, but I thought it was proper in regards to Witnessing as that involves everything at hand right now. And to move from a simple Advaita absolutist witnessing where we only passively remain in a dormant state watching the world go by, to come to a point in witnessing where we see no difference between no action and action, willed or not, is to come to terms with an ultimate union between samsara and Nirvana. This is not high flying theories but down to earth real life.

Maybe I'm not that good at explaining myself, and that I will try to correct, but maybe you don't understand what it is I'm trying to convey. If that would be the case then asking would be a more suitable response to my post, rather then merely negating it. No disrespect intended.

sincerely,
Bjorn

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi Bjorn,

Maybe I'm reacting the way I do because I used to post in abstract language a lot myself, and a few people (Liz, Frans) woke me up to this recently. Compare it to ex-smokers objecting to smoking most fiercely. I have no trouble following you, and agree with most of it, but that's not the point. In reacting to the contents of some of your latest posts (and those of a number of others) I would have to resort to abstractions myself, which I believe is not the intention of the thread starter.

Come on, Bjorn, discussing the relation between space and time is theoretical stuff and has little to do with everyday experiences related to witnessing. I'm sure you can agree that that looks highly abstract to many people? It's an interesting topic, but maybe for another thread in another board. I have no idea why, but not everbody likes theory :)

Generally speaking, I mean abstract/theoretical as opposed to personal accounts and experiences, if that makes things more clear.

This is going to be my last intervention in this thread; I'm starting to feel like the abstraction police, and I'm neither a mod nor the thread starter. People like you and Rick are very prolific lately (which is great, keep it coming!) but that's all the more reason to monitor your own effect on pod dynamics.

Have a great weekend,
Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Come on, Bjorn, discussing the relation between space and time is theoretical stuff and has little to do with everyday experiences related to witnessing. I'm sure you can agree that that looks highly abstract to many people? It's an interesting topic, but maybe for another thread in another board. I have no idea why, but not everbody likes theory :)

Yes it can look abstract but maybe , just maybe it will be seen as immediate and highly relevant to our investigation of Witnessing. Bear with me.

If we venture to see, to understand, this very moment of time and space as one unit then we might be able to relate it to our own experience, always in the present moment. They are not separate. As I sit here and communicate with you, I express this witness in time and space. How is this abstract? It is our own experience all the time. But it comes from viewing time and space as one unit, not as time happening in space. This can be a insight of various degrees but it doesn't hurt to think about it. We might find some relevance to our experience. It sure does to me, all the time.

have a great weekend!

cheers,

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Mascha : So I have no trouble grokking your perspective but I'm not so sure you can take the one I offered, limited as it may be, just as easily.

Dearest Mascha, you welcomed me with open arms to this pod and I am eternally grateful to anyone that offers hospitality to a weary traveler. I have no problem eating any vegetarian meal you offer. I will even eat the smooth egg you so relish. But I fear I will leave you with only the broken shells and I am not want to make my good host pout.

—-

e said: “No Great Being made this nexus nor the illusory things we think exist, this is just the way it is in the thought matrix. We are utterly alone.”

David said: Isn't all that in the thought matrix too?

yep

e: “Buddhists don't deny the *existence* of the Great Self, they just call it by it by a different name, the Great Delusion. :-)”

D: Okay, so how does the universe evolve?

Let's go back to the fundamental nondual aspects of mind.

Emptiness+Infinity.

The way we misapprehend this is
 
Subject<  >object
or
I<  >Not I

Within that dualistic split (or tetra arising)
Is contained *all* of the manifest's potential
arisings. Do you see? The objective aspect
(world of form) Is already infinite.  Evolution
is already “contained” within the fundamental
dualistic split. The objects and their evolution
are illusory because of infinity. So it *seems like*
there are new things being learned, etc. etc. but
from infinity, this is simply illusory. Development
& evolution is not really happening because it
has already happened. Do you understand?
There is nothing happening. There is no place
to go. So at first blush this sounds nihilistic. But
that is because we have not apprehended the
empty subject. Once that is apprehended, then
we can come back to form and play along with
an easy smile. So lets chit chat, dance, evolve
or witness or… but lets not take any of this too
seriously.

Mad props to my friend JP & Bokar Rinpoche's
Chenrezig: Lord of Love for helping me see this!!

—-

Bjorn: Time/space is the “form” in the Gatha; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Just a clarification, here form is the first aggregate and not time/space. Form would
be considered the earth, air, fire & water properties and not the space & mind properties.

—–

Frans : It's only because we're sooo afraid to go away from what we know that we protect oursleves with endless theorizing, because then we can do that and don't have to go into the unknown - as Krishnamurti said: we're all cowards…

Here in the Western Hemisphere, before there was Zen, before there was any talk of non-duality, etc., there was Krishnamurti. Anyone interested in witnessing should pick up his Commentary on Living series. K called it choiceless awareness.  KW said he cut his teeth on K. That is how I found KW years ago. In a book store I saw he referenced K in one of his books. I felt that anyone that does that has to be OK so I bought the book.


peace & love,


e

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Peter: “Living in the Now does not mean that you're just aware of the present, and not of the past and the future. Not being aware of the past and future is a limited kind of awareness; most animals can pull that off!  Living in the Now means being fully aware of the play of time, stepping into it, but not being attached to anything in particular. And embracing all of it instead. Compassionate dis-attachment. Isn't that what witnessing is about?”

No, the point of the quantum facts that I was bringing into the discussion is to point towards the fact that there is no past or future. These are concepts. They don't actually exist, and therefore we are “aware” as you say of illusions and not actually things that we can do anything with. The past is no where to be found and the future never happens. When our concept of the future happens it is the present, it is NOW.
This is a pre/trans fallacy. Any animal as you say is not aware of a conceptual past or future, and your probably right, although they have memory. You are saying that to be awake and fully human is to be aware of the past and future, but to just not be attached to them.
How is this possible? It would be like me putting an elephant in your living room and telling you to just ignore it, to become unattached to it. This is ridiculous.
As long as you reify the past or the future as actual things that exist, then you will not be able to detached from them. It is in seeing that my concept of a past and future are conceptual mistakes and not actually existent that we are able to get beyond them.
The Buddha Gautama said:
“Just as a man shudders with horror when he thinks he has trodden on a serpent, but laughs when he stoops and sees that it is only a rope, so I discovered one day that what I was calling “I” is not apparent, and all fear and anxiety vanished with my mistake.”

Gautama didn't say that he became unattached to the concept of “I” or learned to live in a way not paying attention to it, while it was in the back ground. He said directly that he realized that there was literally no such thing. You are no longer afraid of monsters in the dark, not because you grew up and are stronger now, but because you realized that there was nothing there. That feeling is utterly complete. You aren't aware of monsters and just not afraid.

This is so hard to do, and so far from any normal, conceptual reality that I feel that it helps that the most successful scientific experiments bear out that this is so. That time is an illusion, and that it only exists conceptually and is created by a conscious mind.
You can only directly experience this truth directly, and not in conceptual science, but when the conceptual science bares this out, the step is much easier to make.
The universe does not come into being, it just is. Now in this moment. It literally exists nowhere else.
So it isn't to become dis-attached to mind made concepts, it is to know that they are mind made concepts and once you know that you don't need to dis-attach to them. Do you have to become unattached to dragons or pink elephants? The mental trick to deny what you truly believe is real is just deeper delusion. I don't want to be deluded, I want to rest in Truth, whatever it is.

In e's last post above this one, you can see him explain the exact same thing I did in my post, but as always e did it better and in a more… I don't want to say mystical, but in a more non-scientific jargon way.
This is fine as we are all the same yet not the same. So to me, I feel that it helps to know that there are scientific explanations for this, it helps me to not feel crazy at time in a world that is built upon conceptualizing a world so differently than I see it.
If you prefer e's way of say this, and I actually do, that is fine, but they are two ways of saying the same thing. To some, having that bare out in our orange science is also comforting and allows us to take that leap of faith that is initially required. Skillful means. As Mascha said, whatever it takes or whatever works.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn: Time/space is the “form” in the Gatha; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

e: Just a clarification, here form is the first aggregate and not time/space. Form would
be considered the earth, air, fire & water properties and not the space & mind properties.

e's right on this point. Time is like a centrifugal force, and what physicists call a bogus force. It isn't bogus in the sense that you don't feel it as you take a tight turn in a car or when spinning around at the amusment park, but in the sense that it isn't a real force in a universal constant. It only happens when Newtons first law of motion comes together with a mover that is constantly changing trajectories. When the change of the trajectory stops the force disapears, and it does so because it was never actually there as a thing.

Time is like this. Only when the ever present awareness culminates with form, in this case a neo-cortex, does the bogus force that is concept of time come into being. While form is dependent arising, there is something, there is form in one way or another. This isn't so of time. Time requires a conscious mind to be aware of many moments being strung together. So time/space cannot be the foundation for anything.

 Of course, I'm not sure that you are denying this, and making some other point. Can you clarify, once more. I know you've done it a few times, but I don't want to misunderstand what you are actually trying to say Bjorn. I already did it once with Mascha here.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick:
No, the point of the quantum facts that I was bringing into the discussion is to point towards the fact that there is no past or future. These are concepts. They don't actually exist, and therefore we are “aware” as you say of illusions and not actually things that we can do anything with. The past is no where to be found and the future never happens. When our concept of the future happens it is the present, it is NOW.

I think you were actually trying to use relativity theory to do that, which is very different from quantum mechanics. Both of these theories relate past events to future events, and are only relevant to the physiosphere. Even in classical physics, time is used conceptually, and is also a mental construct. If you want to explore this further then I'd be happy to, and I'd suggest opening a new thread.

There's also your point of existence, where you say that time does not exist, which is not entirely correct from an integral perspective. Time has a kosmic address. I guess what you're meaning to say, is that ultimately time is found to be an illusion, a construct of the mind, and I agree with that. But this conclusion is a transmental one, and is not found or supported by physics, since physics is a mental examination of a pre-mental realm.

You are saying that to be awake and fully human is to be aware of the past and future, but to just not be attached to them. How is this possible? It would be like me putting an elephant in your living room and telling you to just ignore it, to become unattached to it. This is ridiculous.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. If you'd put an elephant in my living room, I'd be very much aware of it, I'd also be aware of you telling me to ignore it, and I would not follow up on your instructions. Ignoring an elephant is very different from being unattached to the elephant. My point was exactly the opposite: my (ultimate) goal would be to be aware of everything that's going on; witnessing it. But if I attach to only some of the objects in my awareness, I exclude the others. To become one with everything that arises in my awareness, I cannot exclude part of it.

So I can be aware of the future (which does exist, in a sense, just look up it's kosmic address), but not be attached to any particular outcome. I'm not promoting complete disattachment; quite to the opposite, I'm promoting identification with everything instead of partial identification. As ultimate goal, of course, as this proceeds stage by stage.

As long as you reify the past or the future as actual things that exist, then you will not be able to detached from them. It is in seeing that my concept of a past and future are conceptual mistakes and not actually existent that we are able to get beyond them.

I think we agree here, except that conceptually (mental constructs, as in noosphere) past and future are not mistakes at all, but useful concepts. But indeed, it is only by going beyond the noosphere (transmental) that they are seen to be mental constructs.
 
So to me, I feel that it helps to know that there are scientific explanations for this, it helps me to not feel crazy at time in a world that is built upon conceptualizing a world so differently than I see it

Could you elaborate on this? Because I don't see any scientific explanations for transrational insights, but I also don't want to take something away that's important for you. I'd like to explore this further, in a separate thread. For me, it has actually been AQAL theory which has enabled me to bridge the gap between physics and mysticism.

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

For the most part the thread hasn't ever left the subject of witnessing; it's just tried to get a deeper understanding of it. In order to do that, you do have to consider time, space, and evolution. Bjorn was right when he said,  

e said: “Within that dualistic split (or tetra arising)
Is contained *all* of the manifest's potential
arisings. Do you see? The objective aspect
(world of form) Is already infinite.  Evolution
is already “contained” within the fundamental
dualistic split. The objects and their evolution
are illusory because of infinity. So it *seems like*
there are new things being learned, etc. etc. but
from infinity, this is simply illusory. Development
& evolution is not really happening because it
has already happened. Do you understand?
There is nothing happening. There is no place
to go.”

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Bjorn: “And to move from a simple Advaita absolutist witnessing where we only passively remain in a dormant state watching the world go by, to come to a point in witnessing where we see no difference between no action and action, willed or not, is to come to terms with an ultimate union between samsara and Nirvana.”

David: Do you see that Bjorn's position on witnessing is more inclusive, more integrative, more nondual because it includes every aspect of life and non-life? Please have a look at this dialogue; I bolded an important point at the end.

Bjorn is right in his statement here, but we cannot posit any actual motion, time or action apart from what which is moving, conceptualizing the existence of time or acting.
It seems that you want to bring these concepts beyond the conceptual realm and reify them and so e is right in his absolute insistence that one cannot do that and avoid paradox.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Just a short clarification of what I meant to comprise “form”. I group all 5 aggregates into  one. Form, I mean, all manifest things, subtle and not so subtle. I divide life into two sides of a coin; the eternal, timeless, changeless nature and, the manifest manifold Universe with all its layers.

To me, in my experience, time/space is manifest creation, not part of our fundamental nature, out ground of being. Even space and time are “things”, subtle and changing but constant in the sense of ever present, ever there. Now, when we see it like this, we no longer divide up our experience but see the whole visible and invisible Universe to be an integral make up of our own being.

To realize what Einstein proved, that space and time is one unit, helps us to appreciate evolution. And this gives us an insight into the Big Bang theory and its unfolding since 14 billion years. I will try to find some relevant article from Andrew Cohen to be able to elucidate this point better than I can.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick said: “It seems that you want to bring these concepts beyond the conceptual realm and reify them and so e is right in his absolute insistence that one cannot do that and avoid paradox.”

We want to embrace paradox, not avoid it. These newer interpretations require that.

Hey, look at this link. Ken, for the “Integral Zen Seminar Q & A,” talks about why evolution is “a BIG piece of the picture.” Among other things he says, “If you are not hip to the fact that we live in a world that develops, you are going to have a partial enlightenment; and if you have a partial enlightenment, you are going to be a crappy bodhisattva [the bolds are his].”

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hi y'all

It's not my intention to interrupt the fascinating discussion taking place on this thread just now …. but I did want to respond to Gina's opening post, and the only safe way to do that at this stage without it getting swallowed up somewhere mid-thread is to hit the “reply to thread” option. So please excuse this little eddy.

——————————————————————————————————————————–
Gina

In response to your thread-opener, I'm cross-posting part of a response I posted just now to Bruce's “The Geography of Person-Perspectives” thread. It also gives me an opportunity to edit part of it :)

I don't relate so much to “The Witness”, or even “witnessing” …. but do relate to being “in the presence of awareness” where my 'I', or different aspects of my self, can be of the myriad co-emergent arisings relating to the six sense consciousnesses …. until suddenly I'm no longer in the presence of awareness, am back in dualism …. me sitting on the loo or washing the dishes suddenly thinking about something from earlier in the day …. hopefully before too long I catch onto this and “re-discover” presence of awareness …. and in that the thoughts can somehow continue without me losing presence of awareness …. until one does distract me …. and life goes on.

All best,

Lol

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Lol,

Thanks for your response.  I'm no longer in the presence of awareness, am back in dualism
I can relate to this… some moments are seemingly easier to stay in awareness while others are less so and require adjusting.  Driving is a great opportunity to stay present for me as I tend to get lost in my thoughts (future and past)  Someone once gave me a meditiaion to practice that required me to see a chalk board in my mind and then draw the number 1, then 2 and so on until I got to 10 and if at any moment I wandered off I had to start back at 1.  I do that with driving sometimes.  I practice with staying with all the cars, myself holding the wheel, and the minute I wander off, I start over again (sometimes makes for a LONG drive home ;)

___________


Peter: I'm starting to feel like the abstraction police

Does that come with a badge??  :)

No worries, about the thread, I have long since let go of what I thought it was going to be and started enjoying what is has become.  I may not be interested in participating (or completely reading) all of what is being posted it and I understand the need to stimulate myself  that way some times, but then I go dance, sit on the beach or look into the eyes of those around me and the need eases.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

David: “So it seems we're on the same page here. When some people discuss the no-self doctrine, it sounds nihilistic or materialistic or some such thing. But we're just talking about an absence of self-identity as they discuss it here, right?”

Yes. Wikipedia is suprisingly good for various Buddhist doctrines.
I'm going to eventually respond to you last Indigo Buddhism post to me, but I'm detaching a little. I feel that all this contrariness of mine making my mind fixate and become tight. It is counter productive to do this so much. Next week when I go back to work, I'll be a ghost again.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Gina: “Someone once gave me a meditiaion to practice that required me to see a chalk board in my mind and then draw the number 1, then 2 and so on until I got to 10 and if at any moment I wandered off I had to start back at 1.”

This is the universal start of all Buddhist mediation called breath counting. I've never heard the chalkboard reference, but it's good. Here's another good step. Once you can go from one to ten easily, you should count from 1 starting with your in breath and ending the counting with your out breath. There's no final number, just whatever's left at the end of the breath. Then when that is easy, you visualize the numbers without actually counting in your mind. When that is easy you just move to paying attention to your breath itself and move out from there.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

To Gina, Marigpa and others. One important thing we also need to remember in all this talk of the “witness” is the very subtle way the mind works.
One of the reasons that people can have non-dual or “higher stage” experiences at earlier stages, but not stay in that state or automatically jump up, is that way the mind works.
These higher state experiences are the sudden resting when one sees the spin created between binary, mirror opposites. Each of these contain the other at the present moment and this creates spin between them. We usually identify with these concepts or objects and thus our mind spins with them. At the axis (metaphor) of these spinning mirror opposites there is a 3rd aspect or their True opposite. So for example, between a first aspect of good, it's mirror opposite is evil. These two are found in each other. We can see this in the fact that we see our selves as good, even though we often do the same things as those we label as evil: building weapons, defending ourselves, etc… Or killing is seen as evil only when the “other” does it. Abortion is evil, and the restriction of a woman's right to choose is evil. Both are good, both are evil and both are just mind made concepts producing spin.
The 3rd aspect is to have no view between these two, but to rest outside of the spin and remain open to the true complexity of moral and ethical issues that we and others face moment to moment.
The resting in this 3rd aspect is this higher stage experience and is not permanent. It is not permanent because the mind almost instantly labels this absolute or 3rd aspect of Reality as self or I. This new experience or way of seeing becomes tied to the same egoic tendencies of whatever stage one is currently on. And at each stage we have this experience and this is the illusion of progress, heightened intellect or becoming more “spiritual.”
Yet, as long as we identify with this 3rd aspect or the Absolute, we are still locking into  more of the same. Stage progression is real in a conventional or relative sense, but it is an illusion in an absolute sense. That is the Two Truth Doctrine in Buddhism. Just because something is an illusion, doesn't mean it disapears once we know it is an illusion. A good example of this is an optical illusion. Once you know that what your seeing isn't the way the picture is really situated, you feel like you've learned something. You feel that you have a higher understanding, or more direct grasp of what's going on. Yet, you still see the picture the way you did before.
That is why Zen masters say that true enlightenment happens in an instant, even though it takes a while in relative progression.

This is very important when discussing anything one would label as ”the Witness.”
If you think the Witness is you, or that you rest in the Witness, then this is still conventional truth. This Awareness, in the end, is ungraspable.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hello fellow travelers,

 just some musings on all of this. There is this affection filling me right now and it's going out through my fingers to all who wouldn't mind to be cherished tonight.

And to make this a little more risky for me, I'll post this thing unedited, straight from the… whatever.



All perspectives are mine

to have and to hold momentarily.

I have all colors, all names, all characteristics.

I am nameless, colorless, forever undefiled by any characteristics.

I am the Self of all selves.

I am devoid of any notions of self or other.

I am

No

that's too much

I cannot bear the slightest weight, I am so light.

I am darkness

Everything rests in me

It's all mine

to have and to hold and to cherish

Oh, I'm so in love with myself,

I have to either puke or

get over myself

and under and in between again a.s.a.p.

How full of themselves can anyone be?!

Oh, right, yeah, that's me.


Tenderly

Re: Witnessing the Witness

I just wanted to chime in with a few comments on the discussion about time and space, tying that in to the witness.  First, while “time” and “space” are generally conceived and related to in a rather abstract way, I do not believe that all discussions of them are necessarily abstract and “removed from personal experience.”  In fact, I think that a deep consideration of them can take you closer to personal experience.  To a deepened sense of intimacy and communion with all that arises.  Two, I think that a careful consideration of time and space can help in establishing a profound View which can serve as transrational support to nondual experience … in other words, can serve an evolutionary purpose.  Three, I think that even when engaged in a somewhat abstract manner, if you explore them in depth and open them or deconstruct them, in a sense, they can be “gateways” to nondual experience and understanding (as Madhyamika deconstruction also achieves).  Four, as relates to the witness, I think if you explore these things, you may find that the “witness” itself emerges from or is an expression of particular ways of relating to time and space.  The witness is a sort of “bystander” in the field of experience – a temporal and spatial positioning.  It IS possible to witness the witness when you become aware of the ongoing “positioning” that establishes the witness in its “place,” apparently outside of time and space.  Exploring this positioning as another function of time/space/knowledge interaction can “open up” or deconstruct the final contraction which places the monolithic Observer in its supposedly privileged position beyond or “outside of” everything else.  Five, because time and space can point both towards evolution and the nondual, while at the same time also having the potential to enliven and bring you in more intimate contact with experience, I think they are quite relevant in an exploration of personal experience in the context of evolutionary nondual enlightenment.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hey Bruce,

Sure, I'm not arguing with the TSK vision! I initially had two concerns about what was going on in this thread, and one of them was that I felt it was getting off-topic. But since (almost) nobody seems to mind, I have no trouble letting that go. The second concern was that at some point physics was brought in as if it confirmed mystical insights, which it categorically does not.

I think that in TSK, the physical notions of time and space are seen as the least interesting ones, or maybe I should say the crudest. When using the cave analogy, where the light (representing reality) from the cave entrance casts shadows on the cave wall, physics is exclusively dealing with shadows. It is actually that insight that separates modern physics (relativity theory, quantum theory, etc) from classical physics: the realization that physics deals with mathematical concepts, and not with reality! And that was a mystical insight, which is why it was no coincidence that the great pioneers of modern science were mystics.

So while TSK aims to take you ever closer to the cave opening, studying physics takes you only deeper into the cave. This is not to say that we shouldn't do physics, as shining or own little flashlights into the depths of the cave has it's own rewards. But of all human endeavors, it has least to do with investigating the spiritual realm, which is closest to the cave opening. That was my point: move away from physics if you want to go towards the light.

Having said that, I agree with Tarthang Tulku that studying quantum mechanics can be an exercise in letting go of 'conventional' notions of space and time. That may help you later in moving faster towards the exit, or it might get you going in case you're stuck in a conventional mindset. But while studying quantum mechanics, you'll be staring at nothing but shadows. 

Peter

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Peter: “The second concern was that at some point physics was brought in as if it confirmed mystical insights, which it categorically does not.”

I'll make the point one more time, cause perhaps you missed my reply to your post. I brought in physics to show that it confirms that reality operates in a way that is utterly different than our normal, common sense notions of the way it works.
A “mystical” insight is nothing more than seeing this directly, seeing the way Reality really is, which is confirmed via scientific experiments. The experiment and conceptual knowledge isn't the direct perception of what's going on, but evidence that the universe does operate on a non-local and random way. There's the idea that the quantum world operates one way and the macro world operates another, but this is a fallacy.
Please go up and see my reply to your first post about this and let me know if you have further comments about this.
KW says that the great scientists of the 20th century were not mystics because of their scientific knowledge, but that they were mystics and he's right. But the same kind of mental twisting and letting go of common sense notions that are required to understand quantum systems are also required to understand mystical systems.

Deep concentration meditation isn't going to make you understand the non-dual nature of Reality, but it is a requirement.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Rick, Peter,

I’ve often wonderd - and you may be able to clarify this for me - what physics and science really are…we’ve only had both for a few hundred years, so all we can say for sure is that the laws of physics have been working in a certain way for a limited period of time. Maybe tomorrow we get caught in an inhalation of spirit, and everything changes completely beyond the understanding of physics and science…

Mahayana Buddhism, in the Avatamsaka Sutra, offers the possibility that our entire universe is only an atom in a different universe (holonics all the way), while all the atoms in our universe are universes in their own right - what if a butterfly one level up flaps it’s wing “tomorrow”? What if I sneeze tonight?

Frans

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Thanks, Peter.  That's clear.  I agree with that.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

holden: ”One of the reasons that people can have non-dual or “higher stage” experiences at earlier stages, but not stay in that state or automatically jump up, is that way the mind works.”

and

”The 3rd aspect is to have no view between these two, but to rest outside of the spin and remain open to the true complexity of moral and ethical issues that we and others face moment to moment.
The resting in this 3rd aspect is this higher stage experience and is not permanent. It is not permanent because the mind almost instantly labels this absolute or 3rd aspect of Reality as self or I. This new experience or way of seeing becomes tied to the same egoic tendencies of whatever stage one is currently on. And at each stage we have this experience and this is the illusion of progress, heightened intellect or becoming more “spiritual.””

Rick, I appreciate what you're saying in the post I've quoted from here, but I beg to differ with what I've underlined, at least from the point of view of Dzogchen teaching and practice. Is this how it's understood within Zen? My teacher clearly distinguishes between Zen and Dzogchen, even though they both have an appreciation of non-duality …. no ranking here, simply distinguishing between their respective Views and  methods.

When I talked in my earlier post of being “in the presence of awareness”, this descriptive of my experience is akin to the surface “film” of a body of water that is infinitely deep: my “presence” at the surface is not the same as it would be if I were more deeply immersed. However it is expressed very clearly in the Dzogchen teaching that if one is in the knowledge of ones primordial state, in “instant presence” no matter to what degree, one is in that moment (so to speak) in non-dual awareness, and there is no consideration given to the notion of the ordinary mind imputing self or “I” onto this “instant presence”.

Even if it were to do so it wouldn't matter because if this arose as a concept it would naturally self-liberate just as any other thought or concept. If it were more subtle than a concept it still wouldn't make any difference, because if one looks at the analogy of the mirror as a symbol for the primordial state, as it's given in the teaching, the mirror isn't in any way stained or conditioned by the reflection.

As a general aside, I want to say I'm wary of the use of “The Witness” as a blanket term, as if non-dual state training as it's referred to has somehow become all the same thing at integral. I don't think it is all the same, as has been demonstrated in this post in the Indigo Buddhism thread.

All best,

Lol

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e said: “Within that dualistic split (or tetra arising)
Is contained *all* of the manifest's potential
arisings. Do you see? The objective aspect
(world of form) Is already infinite.  Evolution
is already “contained” within the fundamental
dualistic split. The objects and their evolution
are illusory because of infinity. So it *seems like*
there are new things being learned, etc. etc. but
from infinity, this is simply illusory. Development
& evolution is not really happening because it
has already happened. Do you understand?
There is nothing happening. There is no place
to go.”


David : I said that your position left you either with ignoring the Two Truths Doctrine or materialism, and you chose the first.


I am sorry I was not more explicit David. The relative truth is contained within the infinite aspect of mind. See if that helps clarify what I said. If not, please don't hesitate to ask.

love

e

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e:  “There is nothing happening. There is no place to go.


 The relative truth is contained within the infinite aspect of mind.”


Yes, this is clearly revealed at a certain altitude . And one might call it “the ultimate truth”.

But do you see that this is also a perspective?

And who or what is this perspective occurring to? Who or what is it that can “have” and express this perspective?


That one remains mysterious, ungraspable, beyond knowing; That is called the Self by some, and no-self by others, and by an infinitude of different names. It is what we are - forever elusive yet present. Agreed?

;-)

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Hello dear M. (m for mystic musings)

Have been missing you.

e:  “There is nothing happening. There is no place to go.

The relative truth is contained within the infinite aspect of mind.”

M: ”Yes, this is clearly revealed at a certain altitude . And one might call it “the ultimate truth”.

But do you see that this is also a perspective?”

That's an interesting perspective you have there : ) Are you so certain that it is a “certain altitude” …. and not beyond any altitude?

If we accept the notion that Spirit involves into matter, then begins evolving outward and through stages …. towards (what?) rediscovering the fullness of Itself? ….

Is this fullness/completion (if it indeed happens this way) itself a perspective, or is there poetically being alluded to here something infinite, containing the potential for each and every possible perspective …. and thus, as e mentioned elsewhere, “sans perspective” …. in other words, beyond being a perspective itself?

L.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

Wonderful, Lol :-). Thank you for representing the so-called other side.  (hugs)

My honest-to-God answer is,  I prefer both.

Re: Witnessing the Witness

e said: “The relative truth is contained within the infinite aspect of mind.”
 
The important thing at the end of the day is whether the important relative truths are being honored and integrated in the person's life. So, the necessity of eating is a relative truth–is that relative truth being honored and integrated? If not, the person dies; if yes, the person lives a little longer. Paying one's electrical bill is a relative truth–is it being honored and integrated? If yes, the electricity stays on; if not, the person lives in darkness after the sun goes down. That the universe evolves is another relative truth–is it being honored and integrated? To the extent that it is not, the person will be working against life itself, not with it. So if a person with a pre-rational stage development realizes the Absolute and doesn't evolve in a relative way, he won't progress to rational–everything that Buddha said would continue to be pre-rational. And if that Buddha had a son,  that son might not progress to rational either. At any rate, he wouldn't do it with the help of his Buddha father. The Absolute, or infinite aspect of mind, doesn't contain higher stages unless that person has already realized them. And again, an understanding of evolution impacts one's moral compass. Without it, one might, for example, indulge in idiot compassion that resulted in the stagnation of the person or people on the receiving end of it.