On 204, Rinpoche tells us that we will have to “transcend meanings, speculations, and visions—even those which are ‘timed-out’.†Does this reminder amount to a critique of the method we have been working with in the walkabout (which you should continue): viewing positions as ‘acts of positioning’? Are ‘acts of positioning’ the same as ‘timed-out meanings’?
In a way, yes, it appears he is challenging the ‘ultimacy’ of ‘acts of positioning’ (as timed-out meanings), but I do not read this as a challenge to the approach we are taking in class. Because it seems the approach we are taking in class is designed to help us better appreciate second-level time, and Rinpoche indicates that it is only by working through second-level insights that we can transcend them. So, I take the exercises for this week as invitations to do such exploration and possible working through. And isn’t to see a timed-out meaning as timed-out meaning already in some sense a transcendence of it?
Hi Bruce. That´s really encouraging to go on with our inquiry, isn´t it. Karin
Hi, Karin, thank you for your feedback. Perhaps this is akin to something Rinpoche said in this week’s readings — that we can do more than criticize lower knowledge, we can see it as ‘lower knowledge.’ Here, too, if seeing already an act of transcendence, there is a potential for this insight to act on us. Seeing lower knowledge as lower knowledge is already, in some sense, to begin to transcend lower knowledge … at least not to be unconsciously embedded in that way of knowing/being.
Hi Bruce,
your poste is helpful to appreciate the approach of our class. The sentence which you wrote your comment about was striking me too. It came to my mind, that the process of seeing might already be an act of trancending. Our wish and longing for knowledge as meanings and contents seems to be a trap – even as timed-out meanings or second levels insights – so may be most important for trancendence seems to be the act or process of inquiry and exploration.
Karin