I’m looking for a snow day from this school. The reading presents atomistic “polar Knowledge”, which begs for something broader to provide cohesion, continuity, and the weaving of a tapestry in which we can find a place to live. Temporal/Descriptive Knowledge provides for that admirably. But then the rest of the chapter points out the cost–in terms of limitation, confinement, and isolation–of this kind of self-centering form of knowing. Observing the self doesn’t feel much better. So the urge to play hooky arises. Should I try doing the TSK exercise “Marriage of Sound and Breath” from the original TSK book. In the past, that has given me wonderful feelings of moving beyond the sense that everything perceived is separate and set up in a frozen world. Or do I have to really recognize how painful my present forms of knowing are before I will be willing to make the effort to change. David seems to have found a natural way of rising beyond the imprisonment of the self, through a poetic appreciation of experience. Thieu and Tina also both seem to be at home in the flow of experience. I feel most comfortable when my mind is making sense of things, constructing narratives that provide a harmonious place for whatever seems significant. This must be an activity of the self, since it is essentially a looking back over a range of experiences. Since I don’t seem remotely close to moving beyond this tendency to construct these ways of comprehending experience, I find myself wondering if the self that is at the heart of these activities can be an open-minded friend rather than a frightened dictator. Hayward observed awhile ago that people who don’t have a developed ego are unable to be compassionate towards others–as if you have to be able to stand on you own two feet before you can extend a helping hand to others. I wonder if something similar may be the case with Temporal Knowledge: the self needs this form of knowledge in order to feel at home in some kind of world, and only then can an impulse to share arise and a willingness to question limits be born. This probably marks me as someone on a slow path of attrition, as opposed to any sudden illumination of understanding. While other caterpillars transform into butterflies, I guess I’m trying to construct a set of wings I can strap to my current body. Behold the flying caterpillar! –Michael
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Hi Michael, Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
To me temporal knowledge is a tool to express myself in the world. It is the kind of knowledge that makes it possible to communicate with other people, but I also feel the tremendous limitation of it. When the self rules (I have been there more intensely than is good for me) it is almost as if a train is running on a track without much control (is this your notion of the frightened dictator?). It feels like bouncing by the circumstances struggling to stay alive (or on track if you like). The “Marriage of Sound and Breath†exercise you mentioned is also of great help to me to stay centered within the polarities.
I had to let go of the notion that there is meaning to temporal knowledge; Temporal knowledge to me has very little stability. It changes all the time depending on the circumstances, sometimes 180 degrees.
Reaching out to a more fundamental kind of knowledge gives me more harmony and feels more stable .
Experimenting with perspectives of the self may be conceptual as well, but it creates some space for experiment and some great new openings to what Tina calls the zillion places to be free.
Thanks for you text, it helped me to anchor some new insights.
Michael…I loved reading this…so open and honest…for me the self can be all of the things you mentioned and more…it has infinite possibilities…if it did not, I’d be in big trouble I think…lol…now instead of having one place to get stuck, I have a zillion…but that also means I have a zillion places to be free…
TSK rocks!!!
~tlc
Hi Michael,
You said: “I feel most comfortable when my mind is making sense of things, constructing narratives that provide a harmonious place for whatever seems significant. This must be an activity of the self, since it is essentially a looking back over a range of experiences.”
I don’t see anything wrong with this. It seems to be part of our nature, this urge to know. I ask myself, in keeping with this urge, why can’t we observe the self-process as part of knowing, and perhaps directly sense this knowing doesn’t begin with the self-process, but incorporates it at some point as we proceed with knowing?
If we can look at it that way, then what’s the need for asking if the self need be an “open-minded friend” or “a frightened dictator”? The self-activities are then just observed while “constructing narratives that provide a harmonious place for whatever seems significant”. The perspective has been expanded to include self and direct awareness.
Of course, I’m not claiming any expertise, only inquiring along with you.
Best wishes,
David