Chris, I notice you’ve been posting in “general comments” rather than in the “tsk online course.” Ron has been posting in both. The problem with this is that people may not see your posts. I edited them to put them in the category for this course. So other people might want to go back and take a look at them: there is some interesting material there.
I like your description of how you woke up and then woke up again (my phrasing) into being a self. A question: is that first waking-up a waking up into being the polar subject, or is it more basic than that? Is the polar subject a precondition for the self, or a subset of the self?
Jack
I’ve done it again. I tried to get today’s post (on further exporations on the glow) to come up in the online program section, but it’s turned up in the general comments again. I’m at a loss how to operate the system.
I’m exploring the possibility, too, that it was a ‘regression’ momentarily into a baby’s consciousness.
Dear Jack, Thanks for your guidance on both counts. I’ve been confused with the site – things turn up where I didn’t intend them. I think it has something to do with where I post them from.
On the other issue… I honestly don’t know. I simply have nothing to compare it to, and at the time there was no comparing mind working, the mind was incredibly luminous. I’ve wondered many times what that was about.
It was the simplest, totally empty being (in the most common early Buddhist sense: empty of grasping), so it might well have been a glimpse of true freedom. I think it is fair to say that there was no comparison happening in the state.
(In case anyone is wondering, how a non-separating space could be remembered, I also don’t have a good answer – only that when Ananda asked that question of the Buddha, he said an “abstract impression” remains. That fits.)
However, what made me (at that time) think there might have been some ‘polarity’ there was that there was a faint touch of curiosity present, but nowadays I’m open to the possibility that curiosity is an inherent trait of a free intelligence functioning. Thanks for asking.
Christopher.