Awareness as a Reflective Surface – TSK Ex 29

Posted on August 21, 2014 by David Filippone

Photo courtesy of: ‘Layers’ by makamuki0 – Pixabay
https://tinyurl.com/y7th946b

To some friends, I described a night out and showed some pictures of us enjoying wine and cigars. A seemingly harmless, night out, some fun, etc.

So later, I was looking back on this evening, a little like savoring certain lingering tastes after a good and satisfying meal. I was drawn again to the cigar-bar remembering some of my thoughts and observations as I savored the cigar — between the ‘reflective surface’ of the smiles and laughter. I do not smoke anymore, occasionally a cigar, as a pleasant, pondering activity. I remember thinking, “the type of ‘knowing’ we employ determines the quality of what we know and live with”…a TSK quote which warns of seemingly harmless distractions. Distractions from what? From being aware of Space and Time, distractions that, “keep us ‘tuned in’ in a constant and limiting way”, that keep us from a more fundamental vitality that is inherent in the awareness of a more open perspective. On page 244 of “Time, Space, Knowledge”, Rinpoche says:

No fixed limits on either enjoyment or suffering exist; none are enforced by any inherent limits of the world as a whole or of our being in the world.

Space and Time will support an infinity of ‘playing’ in either direction. So they must be related to properly and consciously if their infinite accommodation is not to prove disastrous to us. For if the positive and joyous possibilities implied by the ‘play’ of Space and Time are ignored, it then may indeed take on an ominous significance for the world.

It may sound as if I’m being hard on myself for having a good time, but I don’t think that is really the case. It was just an attempt to open a myopic activity to a greater understanding, to widen the mental space in which the experience arose, to expand the aperture on merely a ‘good time’ into ‘greater time’, to touch and appreciate that fundamental vitality of being alive in space and time — Now. And to open the narrow fiction of ‘I was just having a good time’, when that was really just a surface reflection. Clearly, there was more depth to the experience than originally narrated to my self.

About David Filippone

David Filippone has been a student of Tarthang Tulku’s Time, Space, Knowledge (TSK) vision for over twenty-five years. For the past fourteen years, he has studied TSK and Full Presence Mindfulness with Jack Petranker, director of the Center for Creative Inquiry (CCI). He also participated in programs offered by Carolyn Pasternak of the Odiyan Center. David curated the CCI Facebook page for five years, which is often TSK-focused, and he currently serves on the CCI Board of Directors. The CCI Facebook page can be found at the following link... https://www.facebook.com/CenterforCreativeInquiry/
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3 Responses to Awareness as a Reflective Surface – TSK Ex 29

  1. Stu Arsht says:
    July 9, 2017 at 11:42 pm

    A few times, usually by accident, I have experienced what feels like having more time in a usual given amount of time. Scientifically, it seems like relaxation opens the door to these states. But, could there be more to it? Is there something else? Something like a non material plane besides the space time plane? Anyone feel free to contribute to this discussion.

    Reply
    • David Filippone says:
      July 16, 2017 at 9:31 am

      Hi Stu,
      Thanks for the response. You inquire:

      “Is there something else? Something like a non material plane besides the space time plane?”

      Perhaps we could pose the ‘knowing capacity’ as one such plane, or a dimension with a non-material component.

      Exercise 29 Awareness as a Reflective Surface

      …work more generally with all the objects of perception and cognition that constitute your ordinary experience. Instead of manipulating your ‘mind’ or knowing capacity so as to seize upon objects and thereby know them, simply allow all objects to ‘be known’.

      At first, this amounts to adopting a more passive role than usual, conceding the active role to the perceived objects . . . they present themselves to your awareness. It is as though you, the subject, have become a neutral, reflective medium, like a mirror or the surface of a lake. Every-thing that draws near is accepted and reflected without your awareness itself ‘doing’ anything, or changing in any way as a result of its responsiveness.

      After practicing in this way, de-emphasize the ‘presenting to’ picture, as well as the assumption that the capacity to know is yours, that is, restricted to your side of the subject-object encounter.

      Commentary from the book:
      The [exercise helps] de-emphasize the notion of a knowing self… to show ‘knowing’ as coming from a different level, which (unlike our ordinary model of ‘knowing’) does not impose so many limits on what and how things can be known…
      TSK p.257

      Reply
  2. John Brossard says:
    August 22, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    Hi David,

    This is very well said above. Especially, ‘to expand merely a ‘good time’ into a ‘greater time’. Talk about a double-entendre. I like the awareness that conventional good times are still surface experiences of space and time. It’s amazing how often I see myself ‘feeding’ on positive experiences in my mind after they occur. There is some vitality there, but it turns out to fade quickly and be only on the surface. It’s not sustaining vitality at all. We rarely feel the motivation to seek the depth and directness of space and time when we’re having a good time, yet when it’s foggy in the morning and we didn’t get enough sleep and we’re not feeling a ton of vitality, we naturally seek ways to transcend that. All plays and moves of the self.

    Reply

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