TSK and the Public Self

I've been blogging recently on group inquiry, intersubjectivity, and collective awakening (along with several other Zaadzters interested in the subject), and I just posted an entry in which I explored one way TSK might approach this issue.  My blog series is entitled, Nondual Community: The Flowering of Intersubjectivity, of which this piece is the second part.

I thought I'd also post the essay here, in case it is of interest to any members of this pod. 

The Public Self

The Time-Space-Knowledge vision (TSK) does not focus specifically on the topic of intersubjectivity.  Instead, it explores the creative interplay of knowledge in time and space that gives rise to distinctions such as “self” and “other.”  Mining underneath these categories of thought, however, TSK undermines the absoluteness they assume in our self-understanding and thereby transforms our being-together, calling our selves out of their privileged (though ultimately impoverished) positions of privacy and isolation.

According to TSK, when we take the conventional self to be the “knower,” the possessor of knowledge, we enact a story of alienation: the self stands apart from not-self, removed from the world both temporally and spatially, separate even from knowledge (which it must collect from “outside” and horde “inside,” as its possession, if not its very identity).  Claiming to be an occupant of a particular point in space and time (here and now), the self is experienced as fundamentally different from both. When it does not take them for granted, as the unacknowledged background of its concerns, the bystander self tends to exist in an oppositional relationship to them, as either their owner or victim.

Discussing the temporal impact of the model that establishes the self as the owner of experience, Tarthang Tulku explains,

For this basic structure to work, the self must adopt a specific position that puts it outside of experience. Thus, while experience is inseparable from the flow of time, and is in fact the way that the flow presents itself, the self is an `outsider' with respect to the temporal dynamic.

As an `outsider,' the self occupies the specific role of bystander, unaffected by the passing of time. The objects and forms that it identifies and defines are also `outsiders,' but in a different sense: Like rocks in a stream, they are in time, carried or carved by its flow, yet separate from the flow itself.

`Outsiders' form the self's `world,' and self and world together comprise the whole of existence. Past, present, and future, considered as static structures, are among the `outsiders' available to be known; time as an active dynamic medium cannot be grasped directly, and so is largely overlooked. (Knowledge of Time and Space, pp. 24-25)

This condition of estrangement is the characteristic mark of the private self.  Modern liberal democracies are founded on the primacy of the private self.  As Steve McCarl, a TSK practitioner and political theorist points out, the result of this form of social organization is that the public becomes an arena in which individuals contract to pursue and protect their personal rights with the “most minimal sense of 'we' possible.”  It is a functional “we” designed to serve the interests of private selves.  There are, of course, advantages to our modern self-centered “public sphere,” allowing for freedoms which were not possible in the mythic membership societies of the past, but these freedoms come at a cost.  The self, in winning and maintaining its independence, is cut off from the whole in fundamental ways which are frequently difficult to identify.

Drawing on the ideas of Hannah Arendt, TSK teacher Jack Petranker argues that the self can emerge from its condition of isolation and become a truly public self.  However, in contrast to Arendt's model, in which the self finds its authenticity by acting in public (in a self-aggrandizing manner), TSK suggests that the self may “move into the open” in a different way:  by relinquishing the claim to be the owner of knowledge.  When the self's relationship to time, space, and knowledge - to the ongoing presentation of experience - is opened and thawed, when the self is seen not as the owner of knowledge but the unique occasion of a boundless knowingness which has no position, the self “joins” the world in dynamic co-emergence, moment by moment.  In TSK, this shift is described as moving time-space-knowledge to the center.

“Now a shift becomes possible. Time itself can become the conductor, presenting the ongoing embodiment of knowledge in space….We can discover the magical, magnificent mechanism of time's conducting, in which knowledge is inherent in all arising and each act of taking form. We stand at the gateway of inward knowledge….Turning inward, we see that the presentations of objective time and its subjective witness are themselves ways in which time conducts knowledge into being. Thus, the witness is free to continue with its testimony. Each claim it makes expresses a knowledge that does not depend on the witness in any way. Seen as claims, without regard to their content, the proclamations of the witness are manifestations of knowledge. They do not need to be rejected, for they stand revealed with a new `lightness': as richly creative and wholly lucent expressions of a timing inseparable from knowledgeability. (pp. 113-114)”

The public self, Petranker argues, is a self that is always beginning anew.  Instead of defending the pre-established, it is willing to call its own positions into question.  The “positions” of the self amount to an appropriation of that which has no owner: the effulgence of knowledge.  The movement of the self into the public is a move into undefendedness, into intimacy.  “In each moment,” Tarthang Tulku writes, “we can choose and cherish knowledge in all appearance.  We can awaken our sensitivity and react newly to what arises; can cut each instant rejection of knowledgeability and inhabit what is happening.”

The TSK tradition has a number of exercises for effecting this sort of transformation - too many to cover here.  An important, “informal” practice that is common to several of the approaches I've been discussing recently, is simply moving from thought to thinking - what TSK describes as “thinking the whole.”  It is a move from identification with content to sensitive, full-bodied attunement to the process of thinking.  Thoughts are “thawed” to reveal an unrecognized, and untapped, lucency.

The first exercise, Letting Go, is a simple one that works a subtle change.  If practiced in a group setting, it can invite deeper listening, openness, and playful intimacy.

Let the flow of thoughts and experience arise naturally, looking for the sense, the implicit claim, that what you are experiencing or thinking about ‘exists.'  Whether you experience this directly or not, after a while begin to relate to what arises instead in terms more natural to time, space, and knowledge.  As experience emerges, merge with its emerging.  As space appears, greet it in boundless wonderment.  As stories are told, read out the knowledge their telling proclaims.  Relax all efforts to make progress, to possess or control, to succeed, or to understand.  Enjoy the unbounded energy of time and the silent clarity of inquiry.

The second exercise I want to share is “part B” of a several-part practice called, Choosing the Unknown.  It is another rather subtle practice, but one which is important from a TSK perspective, as it puts us more intimately in touch with the creativity of time and allows us to “dance the finity of time's presentation.”  Which includes the positionings of the (formerly) private self.

Bring to mind the future, allowing it to be completely indeterminate.  Instead of thinking about this or that coming event, see if you can let the unknownness of the future come to the foreground.  As a gateway into this indeterminacy, you could reflect on the ongoing transformations through which living being evolves.

Within the steady flow of linear time, there are movements we would consider favorable and others that are unfavorable.  Yet if you welcome the future without regard to specifics, you may become aware of a dynamic that unfolds naturally toward improvement.

The more you relax any preoccupations or concerns, the more you may notice this evolutionary thrust in your own experience.  For instance, you may go toward being more precise and accurate in your thinking and planning, or toward more stability, richer experience, or moral clarity.  Welcome and cherish these tendencies.  Gradually you may sense that conventional time itself can evolve toward a different, more satisfying presentation.

The third practice, Appearance Only, could be practiced during group dialogue, or in natural or arranged sessions of silence between periods of discussion.

A.  As experience arises, let yourself sink ‘beneath' the content of the mind, turning toward the sense of illumination within which that content appears.  As you contact thoughts and feelings at this deeper level, cultivate a clarity that lets you see how you take up each new position.

B.  As each position emerges, enter into it, growing intimate with its byways.  Look for a sense of illumination within experience, truly unknown, filled with lucent awareness.

C.  Instead of abiding within this illumination, set forth again.  Open and embody all that you encounter, letting light be your guide.  Eventually, there may be a shift in which you become light, and the usual voices fall silent.