Conventional views often accord a special primacy to the “here†or the position of the observing self. But according to TSK vision, such primacy is attached neither to the “here†or observing self, nor to the “there†of an independent or “objective“ world order. TSK 83
When the “self†or “here†are in the base of a focal setting, they are in a way excluded from the knowing process, and their influence is not considered on what is being observed.
The TSK vision helps to make a shift from the conventional views to a more inclusive one.
A basic principle of TSK vision is that anything involved in our being here in the world is directly knowable, not out of reach. And, it can always be traced back to “spaceâ€. TSK 41
Space and the freedom it offers are available at the center of the present experience, just as it is. If we do not discover the space in our experience it is because this space availability has been covered over. DTS 51
“Here†and “there†involve us in an endless stream of things and positions. It is possible to shift from “here†to our “presenceâ€, to being fully aware. Aware even of the â€self†and its stories and positions and focal settings.
With presence it is possible to see the positions of the self and be free to choose not to follow them. The self is included in the field of awareness that opens space to see self´s influence in what is going on. For example, seeing our prejudice and not following it, seeing our resistance to be open to receive kindness from other people and breaking it, being jealous and drop it to rejoice with the accomplishments of other people.
As we open the focal setting, it is possible to break the tendency toward freezing what is actually a completely open dimension, including other people and other ideas.
The more you open things up – including even your ideas … the more you experience yourself as Great Space, which has no place, no position TSK 45
Hi Michael and Eliana,
Really enjoying this exchange, like a diamond with many facets, depending on the angle of view each perspective sparkles. I like how Eliana points out when the self is included in the awareness of a whole…
And I like how Michael ‘extends’ Rinpoche’s focal setting metaphor…
These points resonate with my experience. I can NOT look at myself looking at my ‘self’, but I CAN feel what I have recognized as self-activities occurring. I sense them in the process of the way organizing and cohering is happening. While I need not look at space thereby making it a thing, I CAN feel it as… and there’s the rub… need I try and name it, ‘thing-a-fying’ it? Or can I like Michael say…
Yes, but not just a ‘belief’ in it, to somehow feel its allowingness, feel the open-endedness, that sense of awareness without object, a sense of non-contracted and decentered presence out of which the seed of experience unfolds.
It’s something like when a distinctive taste explodes in your mouth, can you sense the space of that sense field expanding with the taste, or only the taste itself? Can you also sense the process going on of making meaning out of the taste? Is the process layers of an organizing tendency, and is it happening in expanding space?
Hi Eliana,
I’ve been pondering your post/assignment, “Opening the focal setting” in ways that have been useful for me.
1/ One thought is that the sense of “presence” and of being “fully aware” is hard to achieve. In fact I’m wondering whether the TSK vision talks much about presence. Feeling more present can certainly be a benefit of working with the TSK vision, but is it ever presented as an objective to be pursued. Like happiness, perhaps presence is most likely to arise it we are concerned about how we are preventing it from naturally arising?
2/ I wonder if we are actually capable of opening a focal length to include the self. Perhaps the benefit of becoming aware–that a particular focal length is in operation–is that we will feel less dedicated to what we are seeing through it. Perhaps we cannot ever really look at ourselves looking, so much as becoming sensitive to the fact that we are looking in a particular way. (More a quality of feeling that can be experienced from within than a way of observing anything from outside.) Although it may not be possible for the self to look in a detached way at its own operation, it may be possible to transform the way it operates by feeling more strongly what it means to be a self with interests and particular perspectives. When the focal length is informed by a sense that we are all beings who want to be happy, we may look differently at others, even those whom we perceive as being in opposition to our interests. Sensing our own partialities we may become more understanding of the limitations of others? Then we may become more friendly towards ourselves, not because we are inside the range of our focal length, but more indirectly than that. Kind of like we can believe in space without seeing it, and time without giving up a foothold in a linear, sequential moment.
Just some observations which I suspect are highly influenced by the focal length I automatically draw on whatever arises before me . . .
Michael
I would like to add that when the self is included in the focal setting and is no more a bystander, the boundary that separates it from experience falls apart.
When self is within the range of awareness, being fully present, he begins to see differently activating a new knowledge. By seeing differently and dropping old ideas, space becomes available.