XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen
From: invalid@invalid.invalid
noname wrote:
> brian mitchell wrote:
>> "Kitty P" wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "brian mitchell" wrote in message
>>> news:rgvc2cp8busdrng14sng534clu6ph6c0h6@4ax.com...
>>>
>>> noname wrote:
>>>
>>>> brian mitchell wrote:
>>>>> noname wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> brian mitchell wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ..., so much as the total incapacity of
>>>>>>> thought to approach that which begins where thought ends.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thought can eliminate the places it isn't...
>>>>>
>>>>> Sounds contradictory. Can you elaborate?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What good will it do for me to speak of that about which too much is
>>>> already spoken to no effect?
>>>>
>>>> If you want to go to the place where there thought transcends itself, you
>>>> can start by eliminating all the places where it doesn't transcend
>>>> itself...
>>>
>>> It's not real to me that thought can transcend itself, so perhaps you
>>> have a different notion of what thought is than I do. Can you say what
>>> thought is --without going into the various things it does? How does
>>> it transcend itself?
>>> ______________________________
>>>
>>> The only time I can stop thought is when meditating. My ex husband was
great
>>> at it with alcohol. I would love to know how to magically transcend it by
>>> what? More thought? Really am interested in knowing..
>>
>> It's often stated that by observing thought one comes to perceive the
>> silence between thoughts but I've not (yet?) had that experience. What
>> I've found is that even when the chatter dies down there is still an
>> ever-present consciousness of self, which is simply a wordless
>> thought.
>>
>> What is interesting, though, and I think worth pursuing, is that
>> there's no essential difference between thought and perception. It's
>> the same mind that perceives thought inwardly or objects outwardly. A
>> thought is, after all, only an inward object. The bigger problem, I
>> come to think, is not that we have thoughts which need to be stopped,
>> but that our thinking so comprehensively monopolises attention. I
>> suppose it is inevitable that it would because it is a) the very
>> nearest object, and b) *my* object. So whether attention is captivated
>> inwardly or outwardly, we are the prisoners of objects.
You may be, I am not; I see objects as straw-dogs. Life is not about
straw-dogs molding in the fog before sunrise. Life without events is dead.
Objects sitting in place do nothing. When the teacher-world speaks to its
student that is an event and it is shaped as an event. When the student
replies, the reply must fit the words first spoken, the language of events.
Students seldom know when they are spoken to, thus they reply to an object
as though it had spoken, when what spoke was a face of the world. They
cannot hear the world speak, they have been taught that such hearing is
madness.
>>
>> What I now wonder is whether one can de-couple the mind from its
>> automatic grasping of objects. Jean Klein, a figure in the modern
>> Western advaita movement, advocates this. He suggests that we should
>> take the heard back to hearing, the seen back to seeing, etc. The
>> direction of this is inward and towards letting attention come to rest
>> on the singleness and homogeneity of consciousness. This may not be
>> anything more than a description of the meditation we all do, except
>> that I think the notion of de-coupling from objects is something that
>> can be carried off the cushion in a practical way.
>>
>> Sensation, perception, feeling, thought... it's all one thing.
>>
>
I don't think so. All *part* of one thing, but not that which defines one
thing I ever ran into.
--
email: noname.1234567.abcdef@gmail.com
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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