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- everything we can experience, is an object
everything we can experience, is an object
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DreamWalker wrote:
The visual upgrade that comes with this is quite evident, though the strange thing is that I never ever hear anyone talking about this shift. So I scratch my head and wonder if no one has this shift or no one talks about it. I used to assume that people experienced the same things as me but just didn't mention it....I no longer assume this.
So my question to anyone, have they experienced what I am talking about? Is this just me? Or is this some kind of secret?
Shargrol wrote:
I often wonder the same thing. Ultimately, I think that there are probably a lot of different ways to "see" this edge/center,frame-picture kind of distinction... it doesn't have to be by vision, it could be sound, like you said, touch, maybe even taste and thought? Probably lots of different ways to see how a limited sense of self is created by taking one piece of experience and contrasting it against another piece.
Yes to both of you. I think this change in our perception of the various senses is more common than we might initially assume. For me it came in a certain order, with touch first, then hearing, then vision. I think it's an extension, or a maybe even part of, vipassana practice, and comes about because of its investigatory nature. There are parts of my online meditation diary where this comes up but I used different language to describe it. This vastly expanded, more inclusive and more universal view, to me, is a needed realization because we see that how we perceive has a lot of plasticity, and that plasticity is not something that comes naturally to the vast majority of us. It's also a new window on how the mind constructs our deeply held concepts of space and time, and our sense of "where" and "when" we are in the universe. Which, of course, can eventually lead to the realization that "where" and "when" we perceive ourselves to be are also subject to the same plasticity. They are not absolute.
shargrol wrote: adding on to the sentiment... the "further" exploration doesn't even have to be into new domains of making distinctions, etc., further exploration can also be going back to the basics and looking at what aspects of basic psyche might have been missed or under-investigated the first time through.
Forgive me if this is a grossly newbie question, but is that kind of the idea of what happens on each Path? As in, you cycle up, hit fruition, and then start again from the beginning to see what you missed last time?
- DreamWalker
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Yes, but you can not see what you missed; when you delete one constraint upon awareness it allows you to see the next more subtle level under that.Benjie OK wrote:
shargrol wrote: adding on to the sentiment... the "further" exploration doesn't even have to be into new domains of making distinctions, etc., further exploration can also be going back to the basics and looking at what aspects of basic psyche might have been missed or under-investigated the first time through.
Forgive me if this is a grossly newbie question, but is that kind of the idea of what happens on each Path? As in, you cycle up, hit fruition, and then start again from the beginning to see what you missed last time?
My attempt to explain this is here - A Framework of Awakening
Good luck,
~D
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Kate Gowen wrote: I never regarded either rigpa or dao as some sort of absolute equivalent to (True) Self, God, Jesus, or whatever-- but as pointers to the possibility of just STAWPING with the reification, already.
Nice. Love it.
I say this as someone who has done his share of reification.
Just STAWP already.
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Not yet, but I have applied the brakes...Chris Marti wrote: Has anyone STAWPED yet?
Where to begin...
I practice has a lot to do with taking intuitions as object. And by intuitions, I mean taking certain perceptions or ideas as simply given, because it just seems that way. Much of what we take for granted as true and obvious is anything but. And we discover this by intentionally changing the structure of our perception, through practice.
Now, there are a lot of different ways to play with perception in order to discredit ignorance. That's why there are so many different skillful means. And I think what we tend to do as practitioners is experience the illusion directly, which leads to less perceptual fabrication in some sense (and therefore, and increase in freedom of awareness). The thing is, we had to use a certain set of perceptions (e.g. fabrications) to undue our belief in the others, and then we find ourselves clinging to the new view.
Further practice continues the process of observing our perceptions, and playing with them, or dropping them, or intensifying them, etc... to see just how malleable and flimsy they are. And when we do this, we again lose our fascination with the set of more refined perceptions that have now let us down. Round and round we go.
Like many other long-term practitioners on this site, I think it best not to even flirt with being "done," nor to cling too tightly to the idea that I'll never be "done." Both can be either helpful or harmful, just like "turn right!" or "turn left!" can be helpful or harmful depending on your reference point.
At this point, I'd say one of the most helpful intuitions to dismantle (through direct experience) is the one that leads me to think that I could somewhat rest (or merge) my personality with that which cannot change. As I've heard it said before, emptiness is empty, too. As I right this, I can imagine using, "This won't save me, either," as a useful perception to apply to sticky intuitions.