On 11 October 2006 – Did expanding and condensing exercise. Felt as though it was possible to ‘lose all perspective’ on things, but not in a way of distorting what was seen and known. The by-standing knower separate from experience and events gradually disappeared.
12 October 2006 – Did expanding and condensing exercise. Lots of inquiry this time, about the focus and purpose of tsk and psychology, as well as the distinction between conventional or ordinary, and structural elements of experience. I got that psychology usually focuses on certain aspects (but not others, which are ‘taken for granted’) of what tsk calls first level. And it focuses on what is sometimes called fixations, rigid and dense or confused structures or ‘regions’ of experience. One of the most important skills of therapists is to look for, or be aware of fixed patterns as they sit and converse with their clients. TSK–another “Vehicle of Transformation” (p. 71, VOK)–also attends to, or even focuses on, these same fixations (and others)–see DOT, p. xvii: “The most important point is that we should not get stuck in any position-either for or against the capabilities of ordinary knowledge-that limits our ability to accommodate new possibilities, to broaden our base for appreciating space and time.” But TSK approaches fixations in a different way, attending to all levels and dynamics, not just first level patterns that take the self, mind, causation within linear time, and conventional space as givens.
What does tsk try to do? Open up all fixations and limitations to the free play of time, space, and knowledge. To do so, it is particularly interested in fixed frameworks of experience and events, inflexible structures of experience that work with and within certain limitations. It’s not concerned with purely conventional (or ‘ordinary’) communication or inquiry, e.g., “The tree is brown.” “I am Steve, not Fred.” “Today is Thursday.” “She went downtown yesterday.” “He was born in 1988.” Purely conventional monologues or dialogs use linguistic conventions which facilitate practical communication used to describe and discriminate, based only on agreement with what is meant. TSK is concerned with any framework or structures that are likely to accompany conventional communication. Why? It seems that focusing on the structure of experience is the most direct means of transformation, rather than wasting time on conventional issues. In LOK, Rinpoche says, “The full implications of the Time, Space, and Knowledge vision will reveal themselves most clearly through a focus on experience that calls the framework of experience into question.” (p. xxviii) It seems that too often, or even most of the time, we float along on the surface of experience, attending to the conventional monologue or dialogs, and at least relatively ignoring the potential for transformation available in the structurings of experience and phenomena. And this occurs with our ordinary (including psychological) questioning as well as thinking and sensing: “The questions we commonly ask are of little use in activating new knowledge, for they conform to the usual structures of the known. The answers they aim at serve as props for the pre-established, while the style of inquiry that they manifest proceeds along the surface of the known, as a traveler proceeds along the surface of the earth.” (p. 71, VOK)
Other relevant quotes from TSK:
VOK, p. 71:
We may have had glimpses of a higher destiny, but to shape our lives in accord with that vision, we must learn quite specifically how to activate an inquiry that can cut through the structures of our present knowing.
The questions we commonly ask are of little use in activating new knowledge, for they conform to the usual structures of the known.
VOK, p. 61:
Ordinarily we organize words into stories, definitions, explanations, and interpretations. Constructs give rise to structures that conceal the clear and open interplay of time and space with knowledge rather than revealing them. A TSK telling must operate differently. It must find a way for language to hold meaning that does not depend on structure or directly support structure.
DTS, p. 48-9
Within the zeroless, subject and object and the world that they inhabit can readily appear, and we can freely accept this appearance as ‘real’ in a way that gives adequate support to conventional understanding. Yet the order established in this way remains ‘non-dimensionalized’. Concepts such as distance and separation function as before, but they no longer have their usual ordering power. Since no positions can be maintained, we contact a wholeness more fundamental than the structures that the conventional order imposes [yet need not impose?].
DTS, p. 45:
Space in its zeroless appearing allows substance to dissolve. But substance does not dissolve in space as sugar dissolves in water, losing its [conventional] form; nor does it lose its density, like a stick of burning incense slowly transforming to ash. Zeroless space appearing allows substance to appear as the appearance of substance; it accommodates the history of substance [such as evolution?], its arising, and the fullness of its presence. All this is available to be documented and authenticated, to be investigated and given structure through the range of disciplines fostered by ordinary knowledge.
Zeroless space accommodates without difficulty or contradiction the whole of what appears. The transformation it makes possible functions at a different level [than the conventional?].
[Does the above passage provide a key to resolving the apparent conflict between those who believe only in creation by God and those who believe only in development via evolution?]
Could we say that conventional communication is primarily about qualities, forms, positions and relationships, character and characteristics, and (historical and mental) events discernible within focal settings or read-outs? And that this kind of communication (or monologue) is possible at any level?
Looking from this higher space, chains of events even within our ordinary space are seen to be nothing other than a kind of ‘space’ projecting ‘space’ into ‘space’. Yet . . . such an orientation . . . may seem to conflict with ordinary categories and distinctions unless we are sensitive to its purpose and range of application. (pp. 7-8, TSK)
Space projects Space into Space, in an exhibition that ripples outward. In itself, the exhibition is simple; in fact, since it has no identity, nothing could be simpler. . . . Space projects Space into Space. There are no fixed points and no fixed identity, but [conventional] quality and character remain. (p. 242, KTS)
Steve R
Steve, thanks for this. I found it helpful and timely for the type of inquiry I’ve been conducting lately. Interestingly, I was also just reading the VOK chapter from which you quoted, noting the special challenge TSK poses to ‘given’ structures of experience (including language).