{"id":105,"date":"2006-10-12T09:33:43","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T16:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/2006\/10\/12\/thoughts-on-working-with-unit-2\/"},"modified":"2012-12-08T11:37:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T19:37:26","slug":"thoughts-on-working-with-unit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Working with Unit 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea that “knowledge is not what the knower knows” is intriguing and compelling for me.\u00c2\u00a0 A number of years ago, while living and working at a Krishnamurti school in India, where I had been taking walks on a daily basis and paying attention to the arising and dissolution of thought and image and inquiring into the nature of the observer, I came to the insight that the observer actually does not see or know anything.\u00c2\u00a0 What I had been identifying with and calling the observer was part of the overall field of experience, an object among other objects.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t very familiar with TSK at the time, but in TSK terms, I would say that I discovered that knowingness was inseparable from the whole field, and that the observer or bystander self is a type of knowledge<\/em> at work, not a knower<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I felt a sense of expansion and freedom with this insight, an opening and lightening up with an accompanying relaxing of the body, but at the time I wasn’t able to fully digest the import of this insight.\u00c2\u00a0 TSK has provided me new ways to understand it and to go more deeply into it — which is one reason why I’m here in this class.<\/p>\n

I’ve been working for the past few days with LOK Ex. 5.\u00c2\u00a0 I have been practicing it during sitting meditation before work, and also on walks during breaks at work.\u00c2\u00a0 Interestingly, I’ve had a hard time locating anything in my experience that stands out believably<\/em> as the self or the observer.\u00c2\u00a0 By this, I do not mean that I no longer operate from a self-centered orientation (I still do this), but I am seeing the points of contraction and identification in my body and thought differently, and they have not been so convincingly standing out as “me” in these inquiries.<\/p>\n

As I shift perspectives, I note a tendency to “stand outside” of the current “vista,” but that positioning is noticed fairly quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 This may set in motion a series of “moves” in which the sense of being positioned keeps shifting, until this shows up as a “whole” which is experienced as layered currents of water circling around each other and dissolving as soon as they do.\u00c2\u00a0 Seeing this, there is a momentary clearing or opening, a sense of not being anchored anywhere.<\/p>\n

I’ve been curious what Rinpoche means when he talks about touching the energy of time with this exercise.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe he may be pointing at this circulating quality, which seems to be a mutual enacting of subject and object poles in experience.\u00c2\u00a0 On several occasions, being a positioned observer or director and having a perspective seemed to stand out clearly as a single movement, rather than an alternating one, and in this mutual enacting there is a feeling of fluidity.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, it’s hard to describe what<\/em> it feels like, beyond the sense that it is dynamic and open at the same time.<\/p>\n

At other times during my meditative walks or sittings, however, I do not see these things so clearly.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, thought just goes on by itself, carrying on my usual narratives with a subtle but definite sense of being the director and observer. When I become aware of occupying the stream of internal dialogue in this way, I habitually “stand back” to look at it.\u00c2\u00a0 This has a tendency to introduce mental and physical tension as I try to maintain this position, until I notice this dynamic and it opens up into the process I described above.<\/p>\n

Best wishes,<\/p>\n

Bruce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea that “knowledge is not what the knower knows” is intriguing and compelling for me.\u00c2\u00a0 A number of years ago, while living and working at a Krishnamurti school in India, where I had been taking walks on a daily … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-01_general","category-tsk-online-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}