Good Morning
What a pleasure to dip into such a lively discussion.
There are several ways to interpret the phrase “see through the story†In one manner the story contours and shapes our perception. We are trapped inside the story. Another way to interpret the phrase “see through the story†is to make it transparent by recognizing it as merely story.
In our recent cognitive psychologies we were taught to speak a new, more positive story, but as David points out, even a new story has its own set of assumptions and does not represent any absolute truth. What TSK offers is a vision that allows us to see through story so that its form does not obscure its essence as time, space and knowledge.
There has been much discussion among psychologists about the necessity of “egoâ€. They argue that if we destroyed the ego, as they charge Eastern traditions attempt, we would be psychotic. Here again TSK can shed some light. It is useful to delineate between “ego function†and “ego identityâ€. Ego function is a way of knowing, a way of ordering and organizing time and space. The realm of form and identity is a consequence of ego function and is culturally transmitted. It allows us to live by what Freud called the “reality principleâ€. TSK does not destroy ego function, it merely presents ordinary appearance as a way of knowing; a way of organizing space and time into form and identity
It is “ego identity†that TSK challenges. The belief and experience that we are a separate entity; separate from all we perceive. It is this “ego identity†that is a cause of suffering. To the question both David and Michael pose, “what triggers the need for a new way of seeing?†we might answer; it is our own personal sense of suffering that signals the need for seeing in a new way, a new paradigm if you will, in which space is always available and time is the active agent. This shift in paradigm decentralizes self and the self referencing interpretative tendencies that is the cause of much suffering.
Hayward
