Gaia: Time, Space, and Knowledge

Re: Knowledge of Time and Space...

http://tlcoriginals.gaia.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:34:25 GMT

The entire past six months have been a very magical time for me Bruce, and still...anytime I feel the pressure of linear time, all I have to do is read something from one of the books or from our blogs on our experiences, or just breathe myself out of that mindset...and I am there...lol...in the no-land of the magic of the real...I am so grateful for the vision, and the appreciation just opens TSK even more...much love and joy...*

Re: hooked...on tsk...lol

http://tlcoriginals.gaia.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:26:01 GMT

It is hard to believe that I have only been a student of TSK vision for about six months...LOL...it has felt like home to me, and so it feels like I have been a part of it forever! Clarity is a wonderful thing, but when the Joy of Being comes along for the ride, it is awesome! My journey is one of integration, and it is truly wondrous to be able to take this clarity and joy of being into my everyday life and transform my ordinary life into something very extraordinary, and bring healing to myself and those around me. I am still jazzed about TSK, and amazed at how freeing it continues to be, and how limitless that freedom and joy is. If you still have not taken the time to open to Time, Space, and Knowledge, there is no Time like the present...LOL...if you feel confined or pressured in anyway, by religion, your beliefs, or just life in general, if you are not able to tap into your own joy, and experience the clarity of awareness that leads to healing, I encourage you to join in this journey of awakening to the energies of Time, Space, and Knowledge, and experience your Joy of Being...always, star...

Re: Time-Space-Knowledge Interplay

http://tlcoriginals.gaia.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:03:26 GMT

Hey Bruce...I dunno what was keeping me from posting, but it seems to be fixed now...

My experience and understanding of the interplay of time, space, and knowledge in my life has been very satisfying. It is more of a discovery of sorts, of the pure joy of Being, and the awesome dance that experience can be when you ignite the tsk vision, and since it has no limits, there is no end to the advantages of practice. And while I may not understand the interplay as well as others, the experience is none-the-less awesome...

The vision is alive with energy, when there is complete presencing and awareness is openended...Time comes alive, and so does a sense of Being as well as all the senses. What is so extraordinary, is that this vision comes out of ordinary life, and is alive with beauty and brilliance. It is very powerful and life changing, and not in just an independant way, or individual way, it is catching and affects everyone you are interacting with. There is a knowing that comes in the moment of experience that can be used to help others in amazing ways. The knowing is clarity of the moment, in the truth of that moment and has nothing to do with analytical critique or intellectual theorizing.

I would love to see more conversations concerning it, and more interaction on the tsk board. While experiencing it does not involve the intellect necessarily, nor is it necessary for those that I am interacting with to KNOW what the vision is to experience the joy of their Being, however, I still enjoy discussing the intellectual aspects of it with those that have experienced the wonder of the vision--hint hint...lol...much love and joy, always, star...

Re: A Space Practice

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:57:16 GMT

Hi, Steve, nice to see you. I didn't find these exercises as problematic as you did, but I agree that her descriptions of space do stick generally to (TSK) first-level presuppositions -- where space is related to as a container, or a physical expanse.

In my experience, not only with these exercises but in general, the 'sense of self' often can be found to have a location in the body -- a particular area of identification, a subtle positioning, a point around which attention orients, etc. This doesn't mean the 'self' is real in any metaphysical sense, of course; only that we often have this sort of habitual positioning. As I read her exercises (which probably are better understood in the context of her book), she is working with this unconsciously 'given' sense of self, inviting clients first to experiment with moving it around, then expanding it and opening it up. Once we find that it is subject to being moved around and transformed, it no longer can really serve as the unconscious anchor for a pre-given self; we become aware of the self's constitution, its emergence in the moment. So, I do think this can be useful (in a TSK context), similar to the way that TSK invites you to notice the 'coming out' of a positioned observer after experiences of openness or unpositioned knowing.

Regarding your critique of the apparent "effort" involved, I don't see her use of the word, "bring," as any different from similar instructions in TSK to bring awareness to the throat center, or "trying to reverse" subject-object polarization. I'm not sure why you're finding a problem with this.

All the best,

B.

Re: A Space Practice

http://results.gaia.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:38:12 GMT

This may be a kind of space practice if we use the word 'space' VERY broadly. However, I don't find it close at all to exercises in the TSK books. In general, compared to those exercises, it more easily evokes a self trying and doing the exercise, sets up dualities such as inside-outside, self-other, and rigidifies ordinary things presumed to exist and occupy space. It makes a BIG difference how exercises are worded, prerequisites, and the audience for whom they're intended.
And some other short, indicative comments: References to inconsequential particulars: "in and out of your nostrils," References to effort: "Bring the breath," "bring the inhale" (strange 'word'), use your inhale to make deep inward contact with yourself -- does this presume that 'you' have some 'deep' insides? Or that 'you' are deep inside your body somewhere? The exhale is a release from deep inside your head. -- a 'release' from your head? What is this? feel that you are inside your feet -- like a tiny person inside a foot and ankle? "you inhabit [y]our feet" -- we inhabit planets, countries and towns, but feet? "Attune to the quality of your self inside your ankles and lower legs. " Is there ever ANY self inside? This suggests there usually is. "Feel that you are inside your hip sockets, with a very subtle mind." -- Do we need to think this is a 'mind' of some kind? " find the inside of both hip sockets at the same time." -- very likely this is confusing, only useful if you'd like the student to have the dualistic, inside-outside thinking exploded. Feel that you are inside your neck. -- instead of what? . . . Now get back behind that point so that you are seeing it from behind it, from deep inside your head. With practice, you may see a point or a sphere of light there. -- seems way too location-oriented. Now feel that you are inside both sides of your brain, all the way to the back of your brain, the bottom of your brain, and the top of your brain. Attune to the quality of your understanding inside your whole brain. -- is understanding inside the brain? Then isn't it very limited? Bring your breath through your head and let it pass through the quality of understanding inside your brain. The breath has to be very subtle to pass through your brain. -- why? Now feel you are inside your whole body all at once. If we say that the body is the temple, you are sitting inside the temple. -- then who am I? Attune to the quality of your self inside your whole body. Let yourself feel that you are one self inside your body. -- what about outside? Now open your eyes. Again feel that you are inside your whole body all at once. Attune to the quality of your self inside your body. -- of what use is the concept of 'self' in this exercise? Steve R

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://lesoleil.gaia.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:12:49 GMT

(I am glad you shared the Bali story, for it triggered memories of similar experiences, which in turn help us to reflect on when we have also felt we were paying attention, and therefore better identify when our sight might be limited so we can go beyond those limitations!)

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://lesoleil.gaia.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:47:46 GMT

Balder, I appreciate your story! Thinking about resetting a focal point resulting in the richness you and Tom describe, I wonder if there is a difference between reduction - and - condensing (with subsequent expansion of inquiry within the condensed field).

Would Galileo have been reducing or condensing, by starting with "an utterly unreasonable starting point", therefore clearing the noise and space of what was "reasonable" and expanding inquiry from a new starting (focal) point? Or can we use either word interchangeably here?

I think of TSK as straining out "conditioning" where we can start with a purer, clearer point of inquiry. Should I be on another thread at this point? :)

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:02:36 GMT

What might I be reducing to the extent I am missing essential and valuable information or perspectives? Which of my focal point settings are out of focus? Where am I limiting my inquiry?

Soleil (and Tom), this reminds me of a little incident, of no major consequence, really, but which nevertheless represented a sudden recognition of the narrowness of my focal setting -- and an opening for a shift in perspective. I was living on Bali at the time, staying in a little hut in the middle of a rice paddy at the edge of the jungle. One day, as I leaving the hut and getting ready to walk into town, I suddenly found myself attracted to a little pool of water, high grasses, and flowers near my porch. I walked by it every day, but this time I stopped and just sat with it. I suddenly recalled Annie Dillard's A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and I settled down and let my attention narrow in on this little forgotten (decorative) space, noticing suddenly all of the unseen life there -- many different types of bugs, water creatures, inconspicuous plants, and so on ... a vibrant world that I had passed by daily, usually noting only for its striking splash of color in the green field.

Living in Bali, so often my "focal setting" was on "being in Bali" -- a wide focus, intent on taking it all in. But I saw then what I was missing with that wide, and habitually rigidified, position, and I slowed down, and focused in, and began to appreciate new levels of richness and vibrancy that I had been missing. The external flash and exoticism of Bali is seductive, so it was easy to focus on the surfaces of things. But from that time forward, my sense of time and place shifted and I settled "in" to the place more, allowing my attention to linger in smaller spaces. A reduction that was also enriching.

This story (essentially, a "stop and smell the roses" story) is pretty unexceptional and I would feel embarrassed even to share it, except for one point: at the time, I really did think I was paying attention. I was enamored with my setting and intent on taking it in. So, finding the limitation of my enraptured, attentive gaze at that time was all the more striking for me.

Re: A Space Practice

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:55:51 GMT

Here's another of Blackstone's practices, this one to be practiced with a partner:

Exercise Six

Sit facing each other, with our eyes open. (Both partners follow the instructions at the same time.) Feel that you are inside your whole body at once. Find the space outside of you. Experience the space inside and outside your body is the same, continuous space. It pervades you.

Experience the space that pervades your body also pervades your partner. Remain in your own body as you experience this.

Let your breath pass through your own body, so that you are breathing your own location in space.

Relax your visual field so that it becomes one with nondual consciousness. Experience that the space sees both you and your partner (you do not have to make any effort to see). Let the space receive both you and your partner, just as you are.

Feel that you are inside your brain. Attune to the quality of understanding inside your brain. Attune to your own quality of understanding and your partner’s quality of understanding at the same time.

Feel that you are inside your neck. Attune to the quality of your voice, your potential to speak, inside your neck. Attune to your own quality of voice and your partner’s quality of voice at the same time.

Feel that you are inside your chest. Attune to the quality of love inside your chest. Attune to your own quality of love and your partner’s quality of love at the same time.

Feel that you are inside your midsection, between your ribs and your pelvis. Attune to the quality of power and personal strength inside your midsection. Attune to your own quality of power and your partner’s quality of power at the same time.

Feel that you are inside your pelvis. Attune to the quality of your gender inside your pelvis. Attune to your own quality of gender and your partner’s quality of gender at the same time.

Feel that you are inside of your whole body at once. Attune to the quality of your self in your whole body. Attune to your own quality of self and your partner’s quality of self at the same time.

Find the space outside of your body, the space in the room. Feel that the space inside and outside your body is the same continuous space. Feel that the space that pervades your body also pervades your partner.

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://lesoleil.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:10:52 GMT

Bruce: "It invites a playful, inquisitive open-endedness that is appealing to me."

I need to reread my TSK books and revisit how the value of playfulness is discussed. A sense playfulness seems intrinsic to the process of inquiry.

Tom, I appreciated: "In return for doing so, though, it gives what Feynman indicates, which is an added dimension of richness, much as a powerful magnifying glass does. People almost universally miss this aspect when speaking of scientific reductionism."

I remind myself to consider: What might I be reducing to the extent I am missing essential and valuable information or perspectives? Which of my focal point settings are out of focus? Where am I limiting my inquiry?

"And yet Galileo made that utterly unreasonable idea his starting point."

:)

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:19:52 GMT

Hi soleil, I likewise enjoy anything life brings, including science. Science, for purposes necessary to doing science, yes, reduces the complexity of that which it views. In return for doing so, though, it gives what Feynman indicates, which is an added dimension of richness, much as a powerful magnifying glass does. People almost universally miss this aspect when speaking of scientific reductionism.

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:05:55 GMT

Hi, soleil, I appreciate that metaphor as well. It invites a playful, inquisitive open-endedness that is appealing to me.

I had recently read your blog on Feynman (Ode on a Flower), and while I haven't had an opportunity to watch the video yet, I look forward to it. Feynman was clearly a very creative and innovative thinker...

Re: Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://lesoleil.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:56:19 GMT

I like the concept of "life as laboratory."

As a child, I was "conditioned" differently (Ode on a Flower) than many, though I didn't realize how differently until well into my adult life. It was not until I discovered TSK - through your entries and this group - that I joyfully discovered the number of others who practiced integrating spirituality with a life of S/O reversal and other inquiries, exploring happily "outside the box."

It is a pleasure to enjoy these evolving expansions of perceptions in a spiritual context, well beyond fairy tales (as playful and fun as they are)...limitless and timeless beyond our initial comprehension. What minds - such as Galileo!

We're all in this lab together :)

~ soleil

Piet Hut on Subject-Object Reversal

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:59:56 GMT

Subject-Object Reversal

Each moment a world of experience opens up for us. We are trained from a young age into one particular way of being in which we squint at this world through a peephole, but even catching a glimmer of the possibilities of some other modes of being is already a highly rewarding experience. And it can be the beginning of an exploration that can soar far beyond the ego-centered swamps and lowlands, to wide vistas from mountain peaks of seeing the world in a more detached way as freely arising, and on up into the skies of a view of full freedom from identification of any kind.

Conditioning

We have been conditioned to close our eyes and minds to the many possibilities that come with being human, having a human body and mind. Growing up in a society that values practical skills above contemplative skills, as no other society has ever done before, we have become more clever in reading and writing, cunning in reasoning and arguing, and apt at using abstract knowledge to manipulate the world around us. All these skills are marvelous gifts in themselves, if we would only know how to use them wisely.

Well before leaving elementary school, we have been trained to inhabit a very small corner of the world that experience offers to us, and before long we have lost all memory of alternatives. Art and music and nature walks and other aesthetic or sensual encounters may give us a heightened sense of being alive and free and open to the world and to others. But generally this does not amount to much more than stretching our arms and shoulders and wiggling around a bit without leaving the little corner we're in.

All this is not surprising, as long as we're not aware that there is anything else in the world that we could visit, apart from our little corner. We are like the proverbial big frog in a little pond. Perhaps we have heard about lakes and rivers and dazzling concepts like oceans, but we consider those as metaphors. The very thought of an ocean, when taken seriously, would make the frog faint, and when not taken seriously, would make the frog pontificate about its theoretical existence or non-existence, depending on whether the frog is an idealist or a realist with respect to the land barrier that so clearly surrounds the frog's pond.

The Canvas of Consciousness

Close your eyes, and the world disappears. All the vibrant colors and shapes that were there a moment ago, all that is gone, and only a memory. Open your eyes, and immediately the world of visual experience is there again, in its full glory. Whatever we can say about the independent existence of the world, the way it is built up out of atoms and molecules, and the way others can open and close their eyes at different moments, as far as our direct visual experience is concerned, the world we see is our creation.

We hallucinate a visual world, each moment of our waking and seeing life. The content of our hallucinations is not at all random. Under normal circumstances at least, it is sharply delineated by the information that our sense organs pick up from the world around us. But even so, what is delivered to us, arising in our experience, is ours, and we can do with it what we want. The blue of the sky, the green of the leaves and the brown of the bark on a tree, it is our mind that is painting those colors on the canvas of our consciousness.

We are all artists, creating a fresh visual scene, more than a dozen times a second. And with the flick of a finger we can change what we see. Apart from opening and closing our eyes, we can walk around and change what we see. Without walking, we can still turn our neck, and change the scene completely. Or even without turning our neck, we can move our eyes around, focusing on different spots. We have so many degrees of freedom already under under finger tips, so to speak, and we use them so habitually, that we rarely pause to ask ourselves whether there are others, ones we haven't even begun to explore.

Degrees of Freedom

Here is a very simple example, of a degree of freedom in perception that we are normally not aware of. Perhaps you have stumbled upon it by chance, at some point, or maybe you've always been familiar with it; chances are you've never tried it. We are not in the habit of talking about these things, and so we know little about person-to-person differences. I found this to my surprise when I started reading Husserl's descriptions of phenomenology, and decided to use his methods to embark on some new explorations for myself.

Look straight ahead of you, focusing at a fixed point on a wall, say, or any fixed object. Don't move your body, and in particular keep your head an eyes fixed. At first blush, this would suggest that you do not have any freedom left to concentrate on anything else except the point you are focused on, having frozen our ordinary means of exploring the world through body, neck, or eye movements. But don't give up so quickly. Can you try to redirect your attention, if not your focus, toward particular parts of your field of vision?

While keeping your gaze and focus straight ahead of you, see whether you can direct your attention to the left. Soon you will notice that you will actually see more of what is present in that direction. Then move your attention to the right. There, too, you will see that you can become aware of more of what is there, just by mentally directing your attention in that direction, without any physical movement in eye or any other body part.

Switch a few times from left to right to left to right. Same with up and down. Then try to describe a circle with your consciousness around the center of your vision, or spiral in or out. Isn't that fun? My own reaction, when I discovered that I could flex these unexpected mental muscles, was one of surprise and delight. Your reaction to this particular experiment may differ, depending on whether you've already stumbled upon this degree of freedom in perception, but even if you're already familiar with this particular freedom, you can probably think of other new ways to experiment with ordinary situations in new ways.

Going a Step Further

Undoubtedly cognitive psychology books will give you many hints as to other ways to explore perception in novel ways, although it may be more fun to come up with new ideas for yourself, before looking at such books. But these degrees of freedom are only the first step. They do not change the fact that we keep inhabiting only a tiny portion of our experience, in a highly repetitive and unimaginative way.

Typically we take up residence somewhere a few inches behind our eyes, in an ego fortification that has been carefully built up and equipped with many fine details over the course of our lives. Like a turtle we carry this burden with us wherever we go, and it does not even occur to us that we have an alternative -- many alternatives, in fact. Even catching a glimmer of the possibilities of other modes of being is already a highly rewarding experience.

Since my consciousness is constructing a whole world around me, visually as well as through all my other senses, why take up residence only between and slightly behind my eyes, and why identify the boundaries of my sense of self with the boundaries of my body? After all, when we drive a car, we know what it means to identify with the boundaries of the body of the car, and we have a visceral reaction when we are about to hit or even slightly scratch something.

How about taking a particular object, and handing our active subject role to that object? You can look at a stone or a tree or whatever object you choose. Instead of you looking at the object, just relax and let the object look at you.

Quick Results

One of the surprising, and frankly rather shocking, aspects of this maneuver is that it works! Unlike the philosophical frog pondering and pontificating, letting an object look at you is guaranteed to shift your world, to shift your way of being. You don't have to sit in a cave or on a cushion for days on end; this experiment generally works in a matter of minutes or sometimes even seconds. It works, that is, if you do it, if you actually let the object look at you, instead of analyzing the notion of what it would be like to let the object look at you.

Avoiding that last trap may be a bit tricky, especially for intellectually trained individuals, but my experience is that most people quickly `fall into' the reversal experience. Once you have experienced it a few times for yourself, you can ask others to do the same. And you don't have to ask them whether it `works', whether they experience a shift. You can tell from their eyes, or perhaps from their smile and other reactions. Whether they show a sense of delight or initial apprehension, it will be clear when something has started to shift.

Many people's first reaction will be: but that stone doesn't have eyes, how can it possibly look at me? In that case, you can say something like what I described above, that we don't have to give eyes to a rock; for starters at least, we can just explore our own consciousness differently, off the beaten track. We are free to let our experience of the stone look at our experience of our body. We can keep our felt location inside our body; all we need to do is to play a more passive role, like that of an object, while handing over the more active role of a subject to the stone.

Typically a little nudging will be enough to let someone make the shift from analyzing to experiencing what it is like to let an object look at you. Each one will then provide a report that differs in its details, but that is recognizable in its similarities. People may talk about a sense of the world expanding, feeling more openness and relaxation, or they may describe a sense of initial unease at being looked at, something that typically transforms and melts into more of a sense of intimacy, when the experiment is continued, or picked up again a little later.

Easy and Profound

There are all kinds of variations that we can apply, making this experiment more complex and inclusive, and shifting emphasis to different aspects. We will investigate some of those in greater detail in Part 1. But for now, isn't it nice to know that an entry into a richer world of experience is so easy, and so close at hand? You don't have to pay for entering a monastery or meditation retreat. And once you've become familiar with this type of shift, you can share it with others -- at a party, if you like, or when walking on a street with someone, or sitting in a cafe. If you can let someone be quietly absorbed in the initial try for a few minutes or more, so much the better.

Definitely, don't do this while driving a car or operating other dangerous equipment. And you probably shouldn't ask someone to do this experiment if you know that they have a tendency to mental instability. But apart from such common sense precautions, the experiment in itself seems pretty harmless, according to my experience and of that of other people I know who have worked with it.

With harmless in this context I mean that it is unlikely to let you freak out or cause accidents. But in another sense it may be harmful in the sense that it may affect your sense of being an isolated self, locked up in your very own ego-fortification. That sense of isolation may be harmed significantly. Bricks may fall out along the narrow slits through which you tended to look out and line up the arrows aimed at the world around you. The world may begin to open up more to you and you to the world.

The Galilean Vision

Children, artists, and fairy tale tellers are generally comfortable with subject-object reversal. After all, pots and pans and rocks and stones may talk and look at you in fairy tales, and young children have not yet learned to delineate and freeze their sense of self the way older children and adults have. But my aim here is not so much to explore the aesthetic or therapeutic aspects of these experiments, significant as they are.

My aim is to use this simple experiment as a first entry into what I indicate with the notion of `life as a laboratory.' Just as Galileo explored simple phenomena of falling objects in order to come to a deeper understanding of gravity, we can explore simple phenomena related to the subject-object structure of experience, in order to understand experience, and ultimately reality, better. In Part 1 we will go deeper into this, in a more systematic way.

What was special about Galileo was not that he let objects drop to the ground. Anyone before him could do that and had done that. What was remarkable about him is that he had a vision of the world as being understandable. It is impossible to overestimate the significance of this shift.

A New Vision

Imagine yourself to live in a time and place well before science took off. Look at leaves blowing in the wind and slowing falling down, scattering here and there. Look at waves splashing onto the shore, clouds forming and dissolving in the sky. Sure, there are general regularities that can be discerned, but the details seem highly chaotic and unpredictable.

Who could have seriously thought that human beings could ever penetrate into the secrets of the details of the behavior of the world around us? Even if we would restrict ourselves to the insentient world of leaves and waves and clouds, the project would seem ridiculous. Whether the world would be truly chaotic in its details, or whether a hypothetical supernatural mind could somehow have access to such detailed knowledge, for sure such knowledge would be out of the question for mere mortals.

And yet Galileo made that utterly unreasonable idea his starting point. His working hypothesis was that the world of objects was understandable. Using this as an act of faith, he dedicated his considerable talents and energy to the project of uncovering the knowledgeability that he had posited to be there to begin with. He did not live long enough to see how very far we have come, amazingly far, with the program he started. He did live long enough, however, to see the first significant results, which must have greatly encouraged him and strengthened his belief in his vision.

We can follow in Galileo's footsteps, by taking up a new vision, with the working hypothesis that reality is understandable in a more radical way. Instead of just positing that the world of objects may be understandable for a subject, we can posit that reality is understandable period. Sure, we can start with a subject understanding objects. But why stop there? Been there, done that. Yes, that clearly works, and we'll continue to find a lot more surprises and insights there. But why not go a step further? Could it be that reality is understandable by itself, beyond a polarization into subjects and objects? Part 1 will begin to explore that hypothesis, and part 2 and especially part 3 will follow that line of investigation where it will want to go.

From Piet Hut's "Life as a Lab" website

LeBron James' Experience of T-S-K

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:21:37 GMT

An interesting little clip from LeBron James. The TSK of "the Zone."

A Space Practice

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:03:57 GMT

The following is a "space" practice from Judith Blackstone's Realization Process (a nondual form of psychotherapy). I transcribed it from her book, The Empathic Ground: Intersubjectivity and Nonduality in the Psychotherapeutic Process.

~*~

Sit with your back straight, either on a chair or cross-legged on a pillow. Close your eyes. Begin by focusing on your breath. Watch how the breath comes in and out of your nostrils.

Bring the breath smoothly and evenly in and out of your nostrils. Now bring your inhale inward through your head (without strain) so that you use your inhale to make deep inward contact with yourself. The exhale is a release from deep inside your head.

Continuing this inward breath, bring your attention down to your feet and feel that you are inside your feet, that you inhabit our feet. Attune to the quality of your self (not an idea but a particular quality that feels like your self), inside your feet.

Feel that you are inside your ankles and your lower legs. Attune to the quality of your self inside your ankles and lower legs.

Feel that you are inside your knees. Balance your awareness of the space inside your knees, find both of these internal areas at the same time. Experience the stillness of the balanced mind.

Feel that you are inside your thighs. Attune to the quality of your self inside your thighs.

Feel that you are inside your hip sockets, with a very subtle mind. From the inside of your hip sockets, you can feel the internal space of your upper thighs and the internal space of your pelvis, at the same time. Balance your awareness of the space inside your hip sockets, find the inside of both hip sockets at the same time. Experience the stillness of your balanced mind and the movement of your breath at the same time. These are two different aspects of yourself: the mind is still and balanced; the breath is moving.

Feel that you are inside your pelvis. Attune to the quality of your gender inside your pelvis (not an idea, but a quality; what your gender feels like to you). Bring your breath down into your pelvis and let it pass through the quality of your gender, inside your pelvis.

Feel that you are inside your midsection, between your ribs and your pelvis, including the solar plexus area under the ribs. Attune to the quality of your power, your persona strength, inside your midsection. Bring your breath down into your midsection and let it pass through the quality of power inside your midsection.

Feel that you are inside your chest. Attune to the quality of your love inside your chest. Bring your breath down into your chest and let it pass through the quality of love inside your chest.

Feel that you are inside your shoulders. Attune to the quality of yourself inside your shoulders.

Feel that you are inside your shoulder socket, with a very subtle mind. From the inside of your shoulder sockets, you can feel the internal space of your upper arms and the internal space of your chest at the same time. You inhabit the transition between your arms and your chest. Balance your awareness of the space inside your shoulder sockets; find the inside of both shoulder sockets at the same time. Experience the absolute stillness of your balanced mind and the movement of your breath at the same time. The breath moves through the stillness of the balanced mind, without disturbing it.

Feel that you are inside your arms, wrists, and hands, all the way to the fingertips. Attune to the quality of your self inside your arms, wrists, and hands.

Feel that you are inside your neck. Attune to the quality of your voice, your potential to speak, inside your neck. Bring your breath down into your neck and let it pass through the quality of your voice inside your neck.

Feel that you are inside your head and behind your whole forehead, all the way around to the temples. Find a point in the center of your forehead (not between the brows, but a little above the brows, in the center of your forehead). Keep that point steady as you breathe. Now get back behind that point so that you are seeing it from behind it, from deep inside your head. With practice, you may see a point or a sphere of light there.

Feel that you are inside your eyes. Let your eyes soften so that they feel continuous with the rest of your face. Gently balance your awareness of the space inside both eyes. Feel that you are behind your cheekbones and inside your nose, all the way to the tip of your nose. Feel that you are inside your jaw, your mouth, your lips, and your chin. Feel that you are inside your ears.

Now feel that you are inside both sides of your brain, all the way to the back of your brain, the bottom of your brain, and the top of your brain. Attune to the quality of your understanding inside your whole brain. Bring your breath through your head and let it pass through the quality of understanding inside your brain. The breath has to be very subtle to pass through your brain. Now feel you are inside your whole body all at once. If we say that the body is the temple, you are sitting inside the temple. Attune to the quality of your self inside your whole body. Let yourself feel that you are one self inside your body.

Keeping your eyes closed, mentally find the space outside your body, the space in the room. Experience that the space inside your body and the space outside your body is the same, continuous space; it pervades you. You are still inside your body, but you are permeable -- your body is pervaded by space.

Now open your eyes. Again feel that you are inside your whole body all at once. Attune to the quality of your self inside your body. Mentally find the space outside your body. Feel that the space inside and outside of your body is the same, continuous space; it pervades you. Let your breath pass through space.

Experience that the space pervading your body also pervades the other people in the room. But you are still inside your whole body as you experience this. Do not project yourself through the other people. Attune to the space that seems to already be there, pervading you and the other people. Experience that the space pervading your body also pervades the walls of the room. Remain inside your body while you experience the space pervading you and the walls of the room.

David Levin on the Self, the Seer, and Time

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:50:52 GMT

The seer is, as Heidegger says, exceptional; and what makes the seer's gaze 'exceptional' is precisely the fact that it is neither instrumental nor detached, neither a gaze which sees things in terms of their Zuhandensein (readiness-to-hand), nor a gaze of 'pure seeing,' a seeing of things as Vorhandensein (presence-at-hand), which posits things...as 'sheer perceptual presence,' a 'simple sensory presence of the living present'...

In 'Hegel und die Griechen,' Heidegger argued that

Aletheia is that which, most worthy of thinking, is [still] unthought...For this reason, aletheia remains for us that which above all is to be thought -- to be thought as released from any metaphysically bequeathed reference to a notion of 'truth' in the sense of correctness and released from 'Being' in the sense of actuality [Wirklichkeit].

This means that we must also attempt to think aletheia free of the metaphysics of ego-subjects and their objects -- a metaphysics which installs them in the objectivity of a linear, serial time order, composed of a succession of self-contained, externally related 'nows.' The seer's vision is 'exceptional' in this regard, for the seer is one who has achieved a certain freedom from this way of thinking and seeing...

I agree with Heidegger [that] the 'essence' of our being is to exist as an 'ecstatic inherence in the truth of Being.' But what does this mean in terms of our vision? The sense of 'truth,' here, is of course aletheia. Aletheia is an experience with truth that is radially open to the presencing of the absent, the invisible: it is, in this sense, ecstatic. By contrast, correctness involves an experience with truth that sees it as a posited state; it is a vision of truth which denies shadows, adumbrations, the presencing of the invisible, and unconcealment. It recognizes only two modes of being: Zuhandensein and Vorhandensein -- in other words, it can only see totalized presence.

The seer's way of seeing is hermeneutical: hermeneutically circumspective. Instead of seeing things one-dimensionally, as most of us do today, in this age of reductionism, his gaze sees things in terms of a hermeneutical 'as.' Just as there are two modes of discourse -- the apophantic and the hermeneutical, the assertive and the disclosive, so there are two modes of vision, describable in similar terms. Here is Heidegger's discussion of the different discursive modes in Being and Time:

The 'as' gets pushed back into the uniform plane of that which is merely present-at-hand. It dwindles to the structure of just letting one see what is present-at-hand, and letting one see it in a definite way. This leveling of the primordial 'as' of circumspective interpretation to the 'as' with which the present-at-hand is given a definite character is the specialty of assertion. Only so does it obtain the possibility of exhibiting something in such a way that we just look at it.

We should note that Heidegger himself implies the homology between vision and discourse by giving an account of the discourse of the language of vision. Heidegger's analysis continues:

Thus, assertion cannot disown its ontological origin in an interpretation which understands. The primordial 'as' of an interpretation (hermeneia) which understands circumspectively we call the 'existential-hermeneutical "as"' in distinction from the 'apophantical "as"' of the assertion.

Likewise, the seer's way of seeing things is more primordial than our everyday way: its ecstatic openness, and its corresponding sense of things in the dimensionality of their wholeness, though not understood, and not consciously practiced, by more 'ordinary' mortals, in fact underlies all human perception, and not only that of the seer. This is what I think Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological explorations of perception and its temporality enable us to appreciate.

Since the seer's capacity for openness is crucial, here, for our understanding of aletheia as an experience with vision, we must briefly return to the fact that the seer's gaze is not ego-logical. That is to say, it is neither egocentric nor logocentric. As a spiritually developed being, the seer is a self, not an ego. The difference is important, so I will briefly define it. The ego is the self limited to its social identifications: its roles, practices, and socially adaptive routines. The ego is the active pole in a structure of subject and object. The self, however, is not identified with any one structure; structurally speaking, it is a process always open to further structuring. even when the self functions like an ego, it is not totally identified with it. The self is a sense of living in which all identifications are subject to deconstruction. Thus we may say that there is no self in the sense of a substance, a fixed identity, and a rigid closure to processes of change. Instead, there are only different styles, types, and dimensions of experiencing -- and different styles, types, and dimensions of integration, unity and coherence.

With the emergence of the ego, there is an inevitable agitation of mind: anxieties and tensions determine the shaping of our visual intentionalities; inveterate tendencies prevail, structuring the field of our vision in very rigid, narrow, and restricted ways. Ego-logical vision, an assertive mode of vision, always tends to follow the straight line of desire, the shortest, most direct distance between subject and object. For such a vision, a 'circumspective' experience with aletheia is not possible. Ego-logical vision is adaptively necessary, of course. Without its conformity to 'objective' truth, its relationship to correctness, we mortals could not survive. The ego-logical gaze constitutes the ground of our experience with truth -- truth, that is, as correspondence. But the seer has achieved a different vision, and he enjoys a different experience with truth. Without rejecting the ego-logical experience of vision and its corresponding truth, he has chosen to develop his visionary capacities beyond their ego-logical stage.

To see aletheically, i.e., to experience aletheia in vision, the seer must learn first of all to relax, to lessen the grip of normal anxieties and tensions. This relaxation will in turn alter the character of her visual intentionality, allowing new and very different tendencies to come into play, and restructuring the visual process, the formation of the visual Gestalt -- the figure/ground, center/periphery, focus/diffusion relationships. Without the control, the constant, obsessive monitoring of the ego, the seer's gaze is radically decentered, centered in a calm, more restful, more receptive relationship to the openness of the visual field as a whole. The openness, this visual clearing, is what makes the seer's gaze 'ecstatic' ...

As Heinz Kohut, American psychoanalyst, once observed, 'Joy relates to experiences of the total self': that is to say, it is both 'cause' and 'effect' of a process of self-development, and is related, in particular, to the self's journey towards an openness that would make it whole. The seer's vision, a vision of the 'essential richness of Being,' is rooted in a joyful experience of living in a 'forgetting' release of the past and an openness to the future. The seer is one who embraces whatever time has to offer. It is not that he knows the future, in a predictive or prophetic sense, although mystification often understands the visionary capacity in this way, but rather that he has developed a deep understanding of our protentional-retentional structuring of time -- the structural intertwining of temporal ecstasies -- and overcome the psychopathology of egologically centered time-experience. Living thus, the seer's vision is centered in a felt sense of the whole -- a felt gathering of time as a whole. The seer has 'already seen' what is yet to happen because she understands the ecstatic intertwining, is free of pathological relationships to time, and is open to whatever may come to pass in the dimensions of the visible.

~ Levin, The Opening of Vision, pp. 460-465 (excerpts)

Re: 2009 TSK Summer Retreat (and Fall Class)

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:31:37 GMT

Thanks!

Re: 2009 TSK Summer Retreat (and Fall Class)

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:25:09 GMT

Yes, I should have included that! The class will be led by Jack Petranker, who is the editor of most of the TSK books, as well as a long-time TSK teacher and writer.

Re: 2009 TSK Summer Retreat (and Fall Class)

http://serengeti.gaia.com — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:18:00 GMT

Bruce, who teaches the class?