What is more important to understand...

by Siddhashunyata 46 Replies latest jw friends

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  Siddhashunyata

  zen nudist wrote:

  " you were born into your own mental inventions, no matter how you slice it, the only thing you have ever known and will ever know is your own minds interpretation and symbolization of reality"

  In my opinion this view is true. Most people will die in this condition. However , if you don't mind me saying , you also expressed the way out:

  "...that is why understanding our limitations is more important than understanding our true self..."

  The first step out of the "mental inventions" (as above) is recognizing what they are doing . That is, recognizing how they limit our perceptions.

  If I am able to observe the mental processes that guide my perceptions (mental inventions) I weaken their power to control . For example: If I see a black man and note the thoughts that I have, I become aware of the mental things controlling my perceptions. For no reason at all, other than my mental conditioning, I may perceive him as inferior. By observing what my mind is doing I'm, In effect, uncovering the mental "root" of perceiving him as inferior. By attentively observing the process , the process is weakened. The limitation is weakened.

  As I "watch" my mind I observe limitation after limitation. My perception is being cleansed by simply observing the "action". Limitation is declining and something else is coming forward. A different quality of mind .
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  Narkissos

  The limitation of understanding is that it is tied in with language. Human language is our impassable horizon, beyond which there is nothing to understand.

  One of the best patterns I have seen thus far is Lacan's distinction between real, symbolic and imaginary. Three autonomous though connected instances, or circles. I experience the real, name it with words and represent it in mental images which make up "reality". Understanding is letting those three circles connect and interact freely with each other.
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  LittleToe

  Narkissos:

  Human language is our impassable horizon, beyond which there is nothing to understand.

  I may be misunderstanding your point, but I disagree with the statement above.
  I have experienced things that I am unable to put into words.
  "Better felt that telled", is an expression that comes to mind.
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  Narkissos

  Hello LittleToe,

  Yes you can experience (real) what you can neither say (symbolic) nor figure out (imaginary). But then you don't understand it, and then you (as the subject of knowledge and understanding) don't really experience it. Understanding is the effort to put your real experience into words and "ideas", your "grasp of reality" into words and actions, the logic of your words into "vision" and "action", never giving up one aspect although there will never be exact correspondence between the three.

  Kind of trinitarian structure, don't you think?
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  Siddhashunyata

  Narkissos wrote :

  "Understanding is the effort to put your real experience into words and "ideas", your "grasp of reality" into words and actions, the logic of your words into "vision" and "action", never giving up one aspect although there will never be exact correspondence between the three."

  Are you saying "understanding" requires communication or expression of that understanding in order for it to be "understanding"?
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  zen nudist

  As I "watch" my mind I observe limitation after limitation. My perception is being cleansed by simply observing the "action". Limitation is declining and something else is coming forward. A different quality of mind .

  Yes I agree, what you are doing is digging into the sources of judgements.... we are always comparing, but not always conscious of what we are comparing things to... by observation and self questioning--- compared to what? over and over again, we can come to a realization of our inner ideals... after that we can examine them and see if they have any validity at all. Does my automatic identification of ugly with bad person pan out in experience? what is it based on? why do I see them ugly in the first place, what am I comparing them to? why is it so compelling to see them that way?

  one theory regarding beauty is that we have an inner template which corrosponds to DNA health...it detects the degree of symmetry and proportions in a persons structure and compares this to the inner stored ideal and find those who are too far from its norm are to be seen as genetically unfit for reproduction, thus UGLY. from that we add layers of unconscious assumption and belief by seeing how others react to such individuals....they are to be avoided socially, in business, in life period....and so our prejudice is built up and reinforced by the same reactions we find in others.... so many blindly follow such prejudices and act on them to the harm of themselves and others.
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  Sassy

  Ourselves. I think that is important.. if we can understand ourselves, then we can figure out what our needs are, including spiritually

  I also think morals are important..
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  JamesThomas

  I could write a menu and include the recipes on how the food is cooked and prepared; I could even include the history of food cultivation and preparation, and throw in scientific data on taste and smell. Having intellectually consumed all this, you would still be hungry and have no real understanding of what it is like to eat a meal. not when I read your autobiography, but when I live through the same or similar tragedies and blessing as you. True understanding is lived, not expressed through language. If or when, I discover my True-self, indescribably beyond mental and intellectual concepts, ideas and beliefs about who I believe myself to be, then, Life will be experienced as it was meant to be -- from the very same stage as Life itself, rather than secondhand via intellectual understanding or rendition. This, is why we must discover our True-self first, for only then -- do we live truly.
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  Siddhashunyata

  zen nudist, the idea of a template for beauty is very interesting. I see some resemblance to Plato (Theory of Ideas) and some relationship to the idea that all relative phenomena (including our minds) are created through and to our minds.Taking this viewpoint, we have an accurate template for all ideal forms (including such things as color). I think "color" is the most obvious support of this viewpoint. If all in the brain is electro- chemical, how can one know the idea of green? If green were "templated" then it becomes a matter of matching the electrochemical code to the template, thus green is created through the mind and to the mind.

  But I think the long and short of it is expressed in James Thomas' post. The real language is the "thing" itself. The problem is that the process of creating relative phenomena through and to the mind , that process is being interfered with. Enter ego, conceptualization etc.

  Moral Principles and Dogma do little to alter the interference. With that "knowledge" we merely imitate ego-lessness for a time with very little real transformation ( ie:"without love I am not profited at all"). But by focusing on what's going on in our heads(heart) we become aware of and evolve out of the false "self" and a "true self" ( of which there is only ONE) comes forward. I think James Thomas would agree with this.

  Because we are promoting an experience with life itself, the tool of language is helpful only as a "pointing " device. When Little toe expressed the idea that he has experienced things that could not be expressed in words, he stopped short of the fundamental truth that nothing can be fully expressed in words. The reason for this is that all "things" are fundamentally inherent in every particular thing. What this means is that a full definition of any one thing requires the inclusion of everything that "is" over all time. Words cannot do this, but it can be "sensed" when the "doors of perception" are cleansed. On a personal level, an encounter with life , free of conditioning, does not lead to Religion nor does it lead to "Theories" but it leads to Recommendation or "Pointing" .

  Narkissos has yet to "weigh in" on the relationship of expression to understanding . Preemptively, I don't see any.
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  Special K

  Ones true self....

  special K