Self as Construct
Being in the moment with just the senses
Limitations of that, however rich
Knowing where you’re going or what you’re doing
Requires a self
Self plots actions and constructs story on map of time and space
Self is woven into that ability – it’s fundamentally woven.
Variation of self-as-construct lightens the tensions of the story
But reveals the complexity of the weave of self to earthlife spacetime
Yet allows more knowledge to come through – the backdrop of superlight knowledge
Easy, strange, unfamiliar, familiar non self-like knowing
Allows all other people to be points of light knowledge with no relational tension with me
But together
Self as construct
Allowing something greater to know the self
Allows self to have more connection
Boundaries becoming more transparent
What is this knowing that could know my self?
Taking me out of the center; putting a different center into ‘me’
Me as a focus of consciousness in a sea of connections
Lighter, not solid, fluid, accessible
Totally different context
Outrageous potential
Can it sustain?
Hi John,
I’m sorry I didn’t look before I leaped. :-) I posted my previous comment here in error. It was meant to go in the topic “Self as a Developmental Stage”. But reading your poem above, which I enjoyed very much, it seems to be appropriate here too. Well done!
David
Hi Eliana and Hayward,
Agree with both your statements. When Rinpoche says in your quote: “The self is guided not by awareness, but by the need to gain power over its circumstances so that it can obtain what it wants…” The assumption need not be that the self, acting in its myopic or self-centered way is acting to enhance or enlarge itself. When for example, Rinpoche, or even Mother Theresa for that matter, marshaled all available resources to accomplish particular projects they labored tirelessly to complete for the good of many, while the goal was perhaps a selfless act, the work, the coordination, the structuring of thought, the planning, the engaging with others, and so on, required an agent. From a TSK perspective, would that personal agency not be their higher and perhaps best self in action?
David
Hi,
Having dissolved the boundaries over time and becoming a drop in the ocean, with wo separation at all is an inpiring goal for me.
“Lighter, not solid, fluid, accessible
Totally different context
Outrageous potential
Can it sustain?”
It depends only on us . Because we are free to conduct our lives the way we choose to, and we can choose to be guided by an inspiring vision, one that brings meaning to our heart.
Hi John,
Yo-Yo Ma is still playing on my computer speakers from David’s post. I goes well with your poem also. You raise a perspective that I have felt myself and which I do not think TSK contradicts. We can be grateful for the self because it has brought us to the point of wanting to look beyond it’s boundaries. You put that nicely in several ways, including “me as a focus of consciouness in a sea of connections”.
Watching my kids grappling with a fragile sense of identity, I would never wish them to have less. It’s as if the humam path needs to be grounded first as a someone. Without that we would never take a step. With the passage of years, our journey may well bring us to a branch in the path and we feel beckoned to be an instrument in a greater orchestra, a smaller fish in a greater sea. –Michael