I followed my usual practice of conducting my TSK inquiry while taking a walk on a break at work. I explored a number of things as I shifted from one sense field to another, but what stood out for me — in terms of the difference of the feel among fields — was their relationship to space and to my ‘subjective’ space. The first thing I noted was that vision established the world ahead of me, but hearing established the world all around me and there was more of a sense of immersion. For vision, I was occupying a ‘point’ at the bottom of a pyramid of vision and so somehow felt more apart from the visual field than I did when attending to the field of sonorous presences, which arose and thrummed on all sides. Listening gave me more of a sense of a 360-surround, and I felt in the midst of presences, instead of at a removed point in front of them. (At one point, I was disconcerted because some of the things I was seeing, including people, suddenly began to appear very unreal to me).
When I shifted to the feel of the sense of smell, I noticed that it seemed much more like a state of the body than an ‘object’ out in space; it was very close, not really located anywhere ‘out there.’ And the same was the case with taste and touch. They seemed more naively egocentric, and I could link them imaginatively to primitive states of predifferentiation. Seeing felt ‘agentic’ and me-centered in a more developed way. Attending to the agentic feel of the visual field, I noticed that it seemed tied to the (directed, sometimes purposeful) movement of my eyes, whereas my ears were more passive receptors — perhaps a more feminine than masculine mode of perception. (Though I imagined if I was a dog or cat and able to cock my ears purposefully in different directions, perhaps I would experience hearing a little differently…)
More later!
Bruce
There is a critical shortage of ionrfmaitve articles like this.
Hi Bruce,
I found a passage worth sharing here in the book Jack recommended last semester by Donnel B. Stern, “Unformulated Experience”. It dovetails with what Rinpoché was saying about Field Dynamics. We’ve been looking at the senses because they are basic fields that we can observe in the present moment, but we can see all our interpersonal relationships as fields that we co-enact. Stern primarily speaking about analyst and patient, but applies to any relationship, says:
“A fully interpersonal conception of treatment is a field theory. The psychoanalytic relationship, like any relationship, takes place in a field that is defined and ceaselessly redefined by its participants. It is not only the intrapsychic dynamics patient and analyst bring to their relationship that determine their experience with one another. The field is a unique creation, not a simple additive of individual dynamics; it is ultimately the field that determines which experiences the people who are in the process of cocreating that field can have in one another’s presence. It is the field that determines what will be disassociated and what will be articulated, when imagination will be possible and when the participants will be locked into stereotypic descriptions of their mutual experience. Each time one participant changes the nature of his or her involvement in the field, the possibilities for the other person’s experience change as well.” p.110
When I first read this the thought came to mind of someone with an addictive personality in a relationship with someone who acts as the enabler creating the field that structures their destructive experience together. But it also dawned on me in my life that even in a relationship where no one is addictive, we tend to fall into comfortable habits that we enact together, we ease into the roles we have assumed. Stern goes on to say:
“Meaning, then, is an interpersonal event. The meanings that can be explicitly realized, articulated, or reflected on at any particular moment depend upon which particular field(s) one is participating in at that moment, and upon the shape of that field at that time…Any relationship is made of multiple fields, with their corresponding multiple selves, so that at any one moment, it is possible to use language creatively about some things and not about others; and the distribution of those areas of light and darkness changes a moment later.” pp.110-11
Rinpoché says it’s important to inquire within to cultivate the zero point, the point of decision, an open awareness. Stern’s says we can, “stay as open as possible to whatever new meanings float within range, waiting until something makes it possible to tell more imaginative and convincing story of the events transpiring in the field.”
David
Hi Bruce,
Still working on this. Not sure when I said, “sensual mini me’s, the ‘lesser felts’, the ‘touched base’, is really prior to the jump to conceptual mini me’s. Don’t think that’s quite right. It’s that the conceptual process does seems to spread out over time, even though it can be quite quick, almost instantly it seems, but so do the so called ‘sensual mini me’s’. They seem to develop together, not necessarily the feeling first and then all the meaning making, but a continued back and forth referral between the ‘sensual feel’ and the ‘making meaning’ in an expanding lived experience.
If you’ve ever been angry about something and watched how the anger grows, it’s this same back and forth referral process going on between the feeling and the idea of how the self has been wronged. Each time the scenario is repeated in the mind, each retelling to the self, stirs the anger to new heights. The ‘contextual field’ of the angry situation includes the ‘sensual mini me’ and the ‘master mini me’ and the growing storm of circular referral.
Just saying. :-)
David
Hi Brother,
I’ve continued with this. I sense what you mean by the sensual mini me’s, the lesser felts, the touched base, for the jump to conceptual mini me’s. Perhaps that is the basis for the partial contextual conceptions of me, such as the felt anxiety blossoming into a fear of entering into a situation that I might want to avoid. It’s not the full knowing of “I am here”, it’s a kind of stunted acceptance of a self perhaps half remembered from childhood and carried over into now, triggered by the mini me of anxiousness.
I’m still watching. :-)
Best,
David
Hi Bruce,
I will watch for the Mini Me’s. Conceptually, I have a perception of them, but I want to feel into them. Or are you speaking more of different conceptual Little Me’s based on certain assumptions and prior experience that may be assumed and operating in what is happening in a current situation, a kind of judgmental, attitudinal and contextual Mini Me operating within the larger sense of “I am here”?
Best,
David
Hi, David, thank you for your comments. I’m glad my post was able to feed your inquiry; your latest one did the same for me, and I looked as I walked yesterday evening at how the “me” seems to arise at the intersection of these shifting fields. When I focus on one, there is a qualitative difference in subjectivity that I notice, depending on which field it is, but these are, it seems, Mini Me’s! Then there is the “Master Me” which arises at the ever-shifting intersection of these fields. I appreciated your point that some fields are ignored or filtered out, though; I found this to be the case, and that the “feel of the (subjective) field” shifts as I deliberately emphasize the typically ignored dimensions of my sense experience. Playing with this yesterday evening, and perhaps also influenced by Abram’s new book, I found myself savoring those overlooked dimensions and the “worlds” they opened, letting “myself” be determined (or “hatched”), to some extent, by these other forms of knowing.
Best wishes,
Bruce
Hi Brother,
I was looking at this locatedness in my experience and at how it felt, the feel of the coordinating field, if you will, that gives that sense of “I am here” kind of proof of existence. It’s a kind of moving centering. Perhaps that’s not expressed quire right, but it seems as though the different senses, feed into a feeling of moving coordinates that I normally accept as me, emphasizing some fields while de-emphasizing others as “I” move through time. For instance, you mention “occupying a ‘point’ at the bottom of a pyramid of vision”, and I notice as that point also moves, is never frozen, though I often try to focus on one area and freeze the focus, but I simply can’t do it for long before it’s gone or moves.
Thanks again for triggering the exploration.
David
Hi Bruce!
This was so good! It doesn’t just resonate it resounds. Pointing out how the sense fields situate, nestle or imbed providing a sense of locatedness had me looking at my own experience saying “Of course! How obvious! How did I just assume and overlook that without examining it? Your articulation allowed me not just to look at it as a description, but to feel into it with my own attention and focus.
Just great! Many thanks.
David