The idea that “knowledge is not what the knower knows” is intriguing and compelling for me. A number of years ago, while living and working at a Krishnamurti school in India, where I had been taking walks on a daily basis and paying attention to the arising and dissolution of thought and image and inquiring into the nature of the observer, I came to the insight that the observer actually does not see or know anything. What I had been identifying with and calling the observer was part of the overall field of experience, an object among other objects. I wasn’t very familiar with TSK at the time, but in TSK terms, I would say that I discovered that knowingness was inseparable from the whole field, and that the observer or bystander self is a type of knowledge at work, not a knower.
I felt a sense of expansion and freedom with this insight, an opening and lightening up with an accompanying relaxing of the body, but at the time I wasn’t able to fully digest the import of this insight. TSK has provided me new ways to understand it and to go more deeply into it — which is one reason why I’m here in this class.
I’ve been working for the past few days with LOK Ex. 5. I have been practicing it during sitting meditation before work, and also on walks during breaks at work. Interestingly, I’ve had a hard time locating anything in my experience that stands out believably as the self or the observer. By this, I do not mean that I no longer operate from a self-centered orientation (I still do this), but I am seeing the points of contraction and identification in my body and thought differently, and they have not been so convincingly standing out as “me” in these inquiries.
As I shift perspectives, I note a tendency to “stand outside” of the current “vista,” but that positioning is noticed fairly quickly. This may set in motion a series of “moves” in which the sense of being positioned keeps shifting, until this shows up as a “whole” which is experienced as layered currents of water circling around each other and dissolving as soon as they do. Seeing this, there is a momentary clearing or opening, a sense of not being anchored anywhere.
I’ve been curious what Rinpoche means when he talks about touching the energy of time with this exercise. I believe he may be pointing at this circulating quality, which seems to be a mutual enacting of subject and object poles in experience. On several occasions, being a positioned observer or director and having a perspective seemed to stand out clearly as a single movement, rather than an alternating one, and in this mutual enacting there is a feeling of fluidity. Really, it’s hard to describe what it feels like, beyond the sense that it is dynamic and open at the same time.
At other times during my meditative walks or sittings, however, I do not see these things so clearly. Then, thought just goes on by itself, carrying on my usual narratives with a subtle but definite sense of being the director and observer. When I become aware of occupying the stream of internal dialogue in this way, I habitually “stand back” to look at it. This has a tendency to introduce mental and physical tension as I try to maintain this position, until I notice this dynamic and it opens up into the process I described above.
Best wishes,
Bruce
Bruce,
Your statement:” I discovered that knowingness was inseparable from the whole field, and that the observer or bystander self is a type of knowledge at work, not a knower.” — this sentence really has a lot of power. I want to keep this sentence of yours in mind for a while. It seems like a key or catalyst or portal to second level Space, Time and Knowledge. A Type of Knowledge at Work, Not A Knower…it suddenly de-centers everything I take as me.
Ron
Hi Bruce,
I love how you say this:
“As I shift perspectives, I note a tendency to ‘stand outside’ of the current ‘vista,’ but that positioning is noticed fairly quickly. This may set in motion a series of ‘moves’ in which the sense of being positioned keeps shifting, until this shows up as a ‘whole’ which is experienced as layered currents of water circling around each other and dissolving as soon as they do. Seeing this, there is a momentary clearing or opening, a sense of not being anchored anywhere.”
That is so clear and it resonates. I know that fluid feel; from the streaming of thoughts and the ebb and flow of emotions, to the varying depths of perspective, to the continuous movement of the oncoming flow of incoming sensual data. But at some point in a new moment there often seems to be an obvious touching, or connecting prior to representations, and the possibility to be aware of this prior-ness, like when a drop merges with a pool, what is missing from the drop is its surface tension. It seems the limited contextual self-sense, has not carried forward its surface tension for that interval, and the deep feeling and experience of expansiveness is the result.
Best wishes, David
Nice way of putting these thoughts and experiences, Bruce. I do recognize the process you describe and it helps me opening up right now :)