What are we trying to accomplish? Are we efforting to understand time, space and knowledge? Or are we reveling in and cultivating a direct opening – an opening available through time, space and knowing?
I’ve often thought about how it seems like we are always starting in the same place when we discuss any aspect of the vision. This is not a judgment, but an interesting observation. Is there a sense that we are ‘farther along’ as a group and individually than we were a year ago? Again, just a provocative question. As a study group, or just on our own, are we working toward some depth or completeness of understanding? And what are the indicators of understanding?
Sometimes I wonder, are we just being random here? Are we deepening or opening simultaneously, in a unified way as a study group, or are we each opening just according to our own path, and not clear where we all stand together in a unified vision? Are we all exploring the same dimensions, or all experiencing the same levels of the vision? And how would we ‘know’? I’m not talking about the inherent beauty of how we individually experience as expressed by T-S-K, but rather curious about a unity inherent in the intimacy of T-S-K, in the intimacy of reality, and are we ‘approaching’ that? Are we sharing that? Or are we like philosophers, expounding individual perspectives and experiences? How do we know if we are grounding more and more individually and as a group in the deep fields of T-S-K?
I’m a constant oscillation – an oscillating focal setting, once a small aperture, then a wide aperture, repeating in a wavelike form, changing in amplitude, sometimes reaching harmonics, even pure silence, then dropping back into gravity fields and sensory kaleidoscopes.
But I ‘know’ that we are unified, that we are deepening, that openness is available, and that the vast beauty of Time, of Space, and Knowledge is always ready to absorb ‘me’, and change the ‘ratio’ of me/it.
John, your post made me think some more about what I feel about TSK and our group interactions as we study the vision together. I feel that relationship (which is perhaps not explicitly emphasized in the vision) is crucial for me. Whether it’s the self relating to it’s environment, the present moment relating to other times, or branches of the knowledge tree waving in the same breeze–new connections are vital to any kind of growth.
I encountered TSK at a point in my life when the Skillful Means book had already helped me reclaim my working life. So I was inclined to give the more weighty TSK vision a charitable reading. And then I was quickly amazed to discover how directly it spoke to me.
TSK, although it places no teacher or tradition on a higher level than our own inquiring mind–at least for anyone who has glimpsed the incredible accomplishments of the Nyingma tradition in America–comes with the knowledge that Rinpoche has devoted great effort to extending and sharing its strange vision with the western world.
After studying the first book, I read every TSK book that followed but no longer practiced anything. When WRI came out, I dabbled but never attempted to treat it as a study guide for on-going inquiry.
But a little more than a year ago, the opportunity to participate in the teacher training program arose and I am glad I leaped. It has provided the chance to study TSK in a supportive environment and to draw each week on Jack’s close acquaintance with the vision.
As for there being a cohesive group it still feels like parallel play much of the time. But the retreats have been a wonderful opportunity to meet face-to-face with other fellow students. E-mail has added to the opportunities for communication with fellow TSK students on a daily basis. Person-to-person, like time-to-time, place-t0-place, and life-to-life, provides opportunities to knit together the different points of view we each contribute. I think that TSK needs to be exercised in these kinds of relationships. Otherwise our access to the field cmmunique is likely to be taken over by our own familiar patterns. Whatever that field can provide, it is likely to be richer if we share with one another what we are finding there.