TSK Online Course in Subject and Object: Week One.

Week One 

Reading: TSK pp. 31-34 (Start reading at the last full paragraph on p. 31) 

Practice: TSK Ex. 9A 

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to this program! 

In working with the theme of subject and object, we are going to a very basic level of our experience. The French philosopher Bergson once wrote, “The existence of which we are the most certain is unquestionably our own.” But our aim in these next nine weeks is to question that “most certain” existence. 

 

Why would we bother? That question has an answer at two levels. First, we want to question the subject-object structure because that structure causes us a lot of pain and unhappiness. This is a big topic, but to put it simply, a subject that is cut off from the world (the object) is by definition incomplete. Tt spends all its time trying to feel more complete. In practical terms, this means we are unhappy, dissatisfied, and frustrated, and we live our lives trying to fix this basic existential problem. Sex, love, food, excitement, power: all of these are goals for the single reason that the subject is cut off from its object; the self is cut off from its world.. 

So that’s one answer. But the question can be refined. Granted that the subject-object structure is problematic, why would we try to work with this problem using TSK? Why not take a Buddhist path, or some other approach? In other words, what is our motivation for investigating subject and object from a TSK perspective and through TSK exercises? 

 

Well, for most of us there is a certain level of trust involved, or at least openness. We have already learned a lot from studying TSK, or we have reason to think that we will. But I want to offer a more substantive answer or suggestion. 

The basis for the answer appears in the very first paragraph of the first reading for this week. Rinpoche writes on p. 31 of TSK: “Conventional views depend on the assumption that there is—as the prior basis for a person—conventional space and time and our familiar world.” That is where TSK ‘takes hold’ of the theme of subject and object. It looks where no one usually looks: at the structures that make up our reality and support our ordinary understanding. Often this means looking at space and time. The basic idea is that if we experienced space and time (and knowledge) differently there would no ‘room’ and no ‘occasion’ for subject and object to operate. And if we operated without subject and object, the world would be a more accommodating, more relaxed, more fulfilling place. 

 

But we need to go one step further. In addition to having a unique approach, TSK has the power to set something in motion that I will call a path of inquiry. We are about to start on a nine-week program. During these nine weeks, you can start on a path of inquiry that remains open and available for the rest of your life. If you are already on such a path, these nine weeks can help you deepen and expand it. Not only that, but the path stays open whether you are formally ‘practicing’ TSK or not. Once you start to question at the right level, the questions are with you always: What is going in experience? What structures have been put in play? How solid are they? What if it were different? Awakening this level of questioning in a completely open way is the magic of TSK. 

Let’s look at the first reading. The point made at the outset is that when we think of the self as a subject (in this reading, there is no real distinction between ‘self’ and ‘subject’), we are already presupposing all sorts of structures that we take for granted, such as the linear, historical view of time. But TSK, having acknowledged and pointed out these structures, offers a different model: an ‘open uncommittedness’ that consolidates or ‘freezes’ into subject and object. And when it freezes, the openness of space is lost. But at a deeper level, this openness is never actually lost. It remains available. That is a summary version of what this week’s reading has to say. 

 

At this point, let me remind you of something very important: a description like this in TSK is meant strictly as an invitation to inquiry.As you read, you can be asking: Is this a realistic alternative? What if I saw the world in this way? And having asked this question, don’t stop there. Give it a try. What happens when you see your immediate circumstances as open, with various consolidating tendencies swirling around. What does it feel like? Try it the next time you’re bored, or restless, or tired. What happens? 

What I am pointing to here is that reading about these ideas is itself an exercise, or rather, an invitation to turn your experience—any part of it—into an exercise. Doing that is actually more important than the specific assigned exercises. But the assigned exercises do matter, because we all need practice in loosening our usual structures. That’s what the exercises can do for us. 

 

The practice for this week is Exercise 9A. It would be really helpful to do it every day this week, for at least 15-20 minutes. Notice that to do the exercise, you have to do Ex. 7 first. So perhaps you could spend a few days on Exercise 7 and then add in Ex. 9. But you don’t have to do it that way. TSK is really open about structures, as you might expect. 

You also don’t actually have to set aside 15-20 minutes out of your day, because you’ll see from the instructions that this exercise is meant to be done in the middle of your daily activities. But I recommend that you do set aside time. Let the mind relax; if you have a regular meditation or movement practice you use to release tension and center in your experience, do that first. Then do the practice. Then, during the day, do the practice some more, whenever you think of it. 

 

I encourage you all to write posts and comments on the discussion page in the website Labyrinth. They can be on any theme you like, but my suggestion for this first week is that you all write at least one post, and that it be on the theme introduced above: What happens if you accept the invitation described above: to see the structures and patterns that support the subject-object world view as a tendency that in fact remains always open. 

I look forward to hearing from you in the discussion group, and I look forward to the next nine weeks. 

 

Jack