Our theme, of course, is subject and object. Chris finds himself question the ‘me-mind’ on the basis that it cuts itself off from its own experiences. I suppose the question here is this: if the subject is not its experiences, what is it? A good question to leave open. The experience of being literally ‘cut off’ that you describe is interesting. Was the ‘energy column’ located in the center of the body? You describe it as traumatic, but don’t describe the emotional tone. I don’t know that we’ll be able to get back to this point: even though our readings and practice schedule are relatively modest in this course, the weeks do roll by.
Ron is describing a different exercise. That is because (I think) I changed my mind about the list of readings and exercises I originally posted, and Ron seems to be following the old list. So I will let his comments speak for themselves.
I like the way Linda connects the positioning/involvement of the self with dark, as opposed to light. This seems right to me, although in saying this I am relying quite a bit on the accident (?) that in English the word “light” is also the opposite of heavy.
Linda, my sense is that in TSK the self is especially connected to time, even more than physical objects. Of course, there is a sense in which physical objects don’t exist in time at all, but only in the constructs we impose (the table is a collection of atoms that we find to cohere). I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say that a a phsycail sensation is “almost always” the precursor of a thought. Can you say more?
David, your response to Ron about suffering led my thoughts in a different direction: if you (we) are more open when subject and object are not separate, I would think that applies to people as well. And more openness seems almost certain to lead to less suffering.
I have been thinking more about what I wrote in an earlier post about two levels of self-as-observer. It seems to me more evident when I am sitting and focusing on the exercise, and less evident when I am otherwise engaged (for instance, right now as I write, which is one of my favorite places to do certain kinds of TSK exercises.) Then the two seem to merge together.
Jack
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Hi Linda,
I don’t know if I’m allowed to comment to a question directed to Jack, but Jack did encourage discussion so I will give it a try. Someone please tell me if I overstepped.
I found the following quote helpful regarding what ‘I think’ I know, including ‘my’ dog. How the moment to moment oscillating back and forth between subject and object seems to spin or maintain a limited sphere in operation, which is in a sense self-limiting.
Linda considers, “…does the dog keep appearing every moment because the dog has it’s own self construction that hold it together or because I have mind patterns that keep seeing it as a dog?”
It’s a great question and got me thinking. It seems to me that there is a creature in the physical environment that in mental space I summarize as dog, but the meaning of that dog to me involves subject-object dichotomies alternating through time.
“The self or subject is really an object timed out by ‘time’. The known object is equally given by ‘time’. The original message of subject-object unity – insofar as these are seen as ‘time’ – undergoes a partial simplification and rephrasing when ‘time’ is lost to sight… For example, the self then knows the object, but the object is the measure of the subject’s capac¬ity to know. The self knows about itself (thus becoming a kind of object) through the object.” TSK p.170
I know my dog because I have a history of affection and an emotional identification as a provider of nurturing care. I have to ask myself, “Is what I know about my dog all there is to know, or all I ever will know?” What I know regarding the limited world of my current relationship is in a sense ‘a measure’ of that limited knowing. What I know (my limited knowledge) about my dog is, in part, guiding my relationship with my dog. Regarding that relationship, if I thought of my dog as ‘thing’, (because there is ‘something’ there) is there a sense that doing so strips away most of my knowing? In a sense, don’t I know myself the way I think I do, in part because of the way I know my dog. (My ‘self’ becomes a kind of object through the object, and by extension many objects.)
David
Follow up to Jack’s comment to elaborate on physical sensation almost always being the precursor to thought. As I sit allowing boundaries to disolve, as we all note, awareness becomes more open and light, which t is as opposed to dark and not opposed to heavy. Lost in thought seems to me to be a darkness of mind.
Anyway as subject tends to disolve thoughs recede and openness becomes more of the status of mental experience. However this relaxation becomes interrupted with a physical sensation, like tension in lower back. THough that could also go by as would a distant sound it triggers a reaction where it seems to me like rather than open up, mind turns away from the sensation, or actully what is behind the sensation. In turning away from the allowing of sensation and what is behind sensation, presumably an unwanted emotion, (unwanted by who I know you may ask), the mind turns toward a thought. This is a gross example, but this seems to happen in suble levels as well. My experience of embodiment in this exercise is that attentiveness to body truely does help bring awareness to a stable and more open place , as others have mentioned, but body sensation is the communcator of emotion, or self historical record, or subtle associations that feel like the subtle building blocks of the subject, which takes a position in self defense against the unwanted. THis position quickly turns into some set of thoughts which I believe are a distraction mechanism.
I’m also very interested in your comment about table being a collection of atomes that we find to cohere. It is my question about the dog. I can sense my own dissolution, but does the dog keep appearing every moment because the dog has it’s own self construction that hold it together or because I have mind patterns that keep seeing it as a dog?