Kinds of Space

Following up on a statement in Jack’s orientation notes:

“It makes sense to say that every ‘thing’ that appears has it own kind of space.”

This raises an interesting question. Can the possibility of different kinds of space coexist with the idea that space itself is unaffected by whatever arises within it: eternally unstained, infinitely accommodating and open, without bias, predisposition, or qualities of any kind?

And straying even further: if psychological space is different in some way from the space in which objects appear, are there also different flavors of psychological space?  For instance, in relationships, when one person wants to get closer, and the other wants more freedom (more space), could we say that the psychological spaces in which these psychological needs play out are different in that they invite different kinds of experience?   One psyche dreams of intimacy, connection, and seeks to nest in the local vicinity of their local system.  The other dreams of breaking orbit, and launching out into the outer reaches of its known home base.

I am drawn to the idea that space itself is influenced by the moods and outlooks of what arises within it.  Even if Great Space is eternally available for everything precisely because it is uninfluenced by anything actual, it is a congenial idea that space also notices us, leaves a place for us and whatever we hope to realize.   Could it be that Great Space sends out different kinds of spaces wherever they are called for, and that these different spaces straddle the two realms of eternity and embodiment?  — Michael

 

About Michael Gray

I first started studying TSK in the mid 1980's and have since attended a number of retreats and workshops at the Nyingma Institute, in both TSK and Buddhist themes. I participated in the life-changing Human Development Training Program in 1991, and upon returning to Albuquerque co-founded an organization, Friends in Time (with a friend who has Lou Gehrig's Disease), which continues to serve people with similiar disabilities. I contributed an essay to "A New Way of Being"--the last one in the book--in which I describe how learning to honor who I have been has broadened and deepened my openness to present experience. I live in New Mexico with my wife and two sons.
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5 Responses to Kinds of Space

  1. michaelg says:

    Caroline, thanks for your entry into the discussion, like a french horn lifting her voice above the cheerful soughing of the string section. The idea that loneliness is the fate of anyone who doesn’t match the prevailing frequency in the society around him has me feeling empathy for the sadness and loneliness of all who don’t feel at home in the world. I wonder which is more common: a lack of respect for the values of those around us and the consequent inability to engage with the conversations that are thereby viewed as superficial; or an inability to feel at ease around others because our thoughts and feelings just don’t vibrate in unison with theirs.
    Hayward, I am always astonished with the simple and certain way that you put time and space and knowledge at the center. I frequently have to stop and think: Ah, so that’s what it’s like to be deeply infiltrated by the TSK vision.

  2. csherwood says:

    Hello Michael and Hayward – I’m loving your dialogue and Hayward’s last sentence ‘Communication between people is improved if they share the same space and begin to match frequency’ brings to mind the wonderful book by Thinley Norbu: ‘Magic Dance’ in which (talking of the fire element, if I remember correctly) he discusses loneliness in terms of being out of synch with the elemental patternings of those around.
    Caroline

  3. Hayward says:

    Evening Michael,
    Not like “wave, particle ways of viewing light”, more like the time-space view of appearance. It seems all appearances are appearances of time and space. We can think of vibrational frequencies as time. Perhaps when space vibrates at particular frequencies light appears, at other frequencies, sound appears. Music maybe time made audible. Music is pitch, meter, tempo, volume; all frequencies of time pulsating space. At still other (slower frequencies of time) matter may appears. Perhaps mental and emotional appearances/experience are reflections of time’s presence and movement. It is said throughout the vision that time gives shape and form to space. Since there are no edges or boundaries to space, it seems to follow that time would give contour to the “inner space” of thought and emotions.
    To your last question: it seems that all appearances are appearances of the whole of space and time..

  4. michaelg says:

    Hi Hayward,
    I appreciate your comment, which provides a lot to ponder. Vibrations in space? Is that like the wave aspect of the “wave & particle” ways of viewing light in physics?

    There was a father of cybernetics, Warren McCullough,who in the 1940’s analyzed the brain’s operation as involving a pulsing net of brainwaves that moved across the cortex; when other electrical activity arose, such as thoughts and perceptions, they would influence the regular pulsing waves in ways that could be identified at the end of their journey across the brain. (That’s a paraphrase of a book I looked at thirty years ago.) But I have thought of it since in the context of TSK concepts, such as the field communique, and the idea that psychological space could involve an interaction of vibrational frequencies brings it to mind again.

    Meanwhile I have the feeling that vibrations, waves, particles, or any other intermediating agency leaves open the question: does it make sense to speak of individual spaces that are connected with particular activities and engagements; and if so are these individual spaces more like the whole of space or like the manifesting phenomena they make possible?

    I’m not out of space, but I’m out of time, and badly overdrawn on my knowledge checking account. –Michael

  5. Hayward says:

    Morning Michael
    Regarding psychological space: It seems we are born awareness and a genetic linage, which is time and knowledge,carries temperament and experience , space into space, expressing as way of knowing, that becomes further contoured by the place, time and culture into which it appears.
    Psychological space is a matter of vibrational frequency. certainly it is easy to recognize both the space and frequency of emotions. Every frequency with its own characteristic way of knowing. It is often difficult to know what the other frequency is perceiving and therefore difficult at time to communicate. Communication between people is improved if they share the same space and begin to match frequency.
    Hayward

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