Bohm dialogue

Kinfonet Discussion
22

Well, yes - but most path-based approaches (i.e. traditional conservative religious practices) are at least not claiming to be a special, all-new “fourth turning of the dharma wheel” (as integral theorists are claiming)!!

Integral theory adds more bells and whistles to the traditional schema (of ‘spiritual development’, with all its stages and attainments), but it has nothing substantially new to say about it.

All religions are comfortable with paths, because they give us something to depend on, to look forward to, to hold onto in our mind’s eye. But these paths are constructed through authority and imagination - they are the product of our psychological thinking - so it is a comfort in something that we have created: it is comfort in illusion.

Why should we accept something simply because it is comfortable?

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23

Godspeed! :innocent:

24

Comfort may be for some people a way in, for others an obstacle. Stay with what works? The challenge being: How would you know if it was working?

25

You are referring to fear and desire, knowledge of good and bad - isn’t the goal an understanding of (thus freedom from) this habitual self centred process, rather than habitual dependance on the process?

Meta self rather than Uber self? :innocent:

26

A way in to what? To the ‘spiritual search’? To a preordained sequence of meditative states? To being a good person?

Well this is surely the point: would the degree to which one felt comfortable be a reliable guide as to the truth of something?

There are millions of people who are comfortable in their faith, in their systems and practices - as Catholics, as Evangelicals, as Buddhists, as Hindus, etc. Who are we to judge, right? If they’re comfortable with it, then that’s ok then. Like the 81% of Russians (according to some polls) who are comfortable with the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine. Like the 40% of Americans who are comfortable in their belief that Trump won the 2020 election. Like the 22 Floridian senators who were comfortable passing legislation that outlaws “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity”.

Temporary feelings of comfort (or discomfort) are no guide to the truth of something.

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27

He used the G word, oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

My goal is to get IT = understand the whole process, one of whose sub-processes is the self.

28

To discovering what’s really going on here in this existence of ours.

If comfort is the main thing you are feeling in your explorations, that needs looking at. But if, as I suggested, it is a ‘way in,’ a vehicle that helps you get to the territory you want to explore, then the comfort has done good work.

I know this approach goes contrary to Krishnamurti’s ‘non’-approach, “the first step is the last step,” but tbh Krishnamurti’s pathlessness, though theoretically compelling, doesn’t really work for me.

29

Seeing as you are the one looking, it might necessarily be the first sub-process to grok in order to ascend to the potential other levels that the self has imagined.

I use the word might for conversational purposes - logically though it is evident. Of course, logic might not carry any more weight than anyting else in this conversation.

The Metamodern approach may be helpful in apprehending the confusion re: Goals.

  • If my goal is freedom from suffering, I must first be free of the goal - “goalless practise” (nice meta style paradox)

  • Even if my goal is to become a great bassist, or to learn how to play a particular riff - the goal is absent when the scales are being practised.

30

The territory being oneself and one’s existence? Obviously if one is genuinely interested in exploring oneself comfort is totally irrelevant. Comfort is a vehicle to illusion.

Well don’t let any doubts regarding your ‘work’ get in your way!

31

Maybe. Clean your microscope/telescope lenses before you start gazing.

My kind of rabbit hole! :slight_smile:

I like it! Reminds me of Zen’s “the gateless gate.”

I don’t know, if an intention frames a process (I want to learn to be a master bass player), it might be present all the way through?

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32

We obviously disagree about this. Comfort has a place for me in exploring reality, it has no place for you. I keep stating my view, you keep stating yours. A classic stalemate! What can we learn from this predicament? What does it reveal about how our thinking works?

33

I wonder what you mean by this? Do you mean physical comfort, sitting in a comfortable position? Or the mental comfort which comes from being made to feel happy, secure, peaceful?

There’s nothing wrong with being physically comfortable. Nor is there anything wrong with feeling peaceful, harmonious, equanimous. But don’t you know that one can find comfort in things that aren’t true?

One can settle into a habit of some kind, and feel comfortable there - a habit of thought, belief, ‘meditation’, or the habit of a certain food. Then one can get attached to that habit, and resist giving it up, or questioning it.

So when seeking to understand oneself, surely one must be willing to look at one’s habits (of behaviour, belief, practice, etc), question them, even though it brings discomfort to do so - no?

If the feeling of comfort is one’s criterion for what is true or false, then one will refuse to question any habit or belief that makes us feel uncomfortable - and that puts a stop to investigation.

Do you reject this?

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34

Before being told about the existence of Metamodernism, I met Mr Nobody.
Not being familiar with the concepts of “informed naivety”, transcending true & false, being able to include contradictory claims in one’s worldview etc… I wondered whether he was a prepubescent philosopher dealing in ideas that he hadn’t quite understood, or a speculatively creative dopehead etc… (and I apologise)

Now I find myself wondering whether logic holds any weight in metamodernism - and whether this causes confusion or not knowing (which seem like opposites to my modernist brain)

Maybe one should keep in mind that Metamodernism began as a description of current thought and culture - not a prescription. A description of stuff like “the Secret” (what you wish for will manifest in reality), post truth, etc…

35

If there is comfort for me in certain aspects of my life, and if this comfort helps me do the work of self/world exploration, then the comfort has a place for me. If the comfort needs to be looked at because it’s interfering with the exploration, I’ll look at it. (Already have, many times.)

36

! :wink: I don’t do drugs, but my brain is often altered. I love speculating. And I cultivate half-knowing where I get a hint of the “truth” then fill in the blanks on my own, without much regard for consensus reality.

As far as metamodernism goes, I only found out about it a few months ago, so it’s not to blame for my intellectual and spiritual eccentricities, my worldview was already quite well established. But certain aspects of Integral Theory are eerily similar to conclusions I reached on my own(ish) years ago.

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37

We seem to be talking past each other? It genuinely surprises me that you don’t seem to accept the problem of prioritising comfort above truth, so I will try to be as clear as I can, as reasonable and simple as I can.

For the sake of avoiding any misunderstanding: we are not dismissing the need for physical comfort at a certain level. We are not talking about ascetic denial or wearing a hair-shirt.

Neither are we talking about subjecting ourselves to unnecessary psychological harm, putting oneself in psychological jeopardy simply in order to deny oneself comfort.

There is nothing intrinsically problematic about having money, living in a nice house, having good friends, family, etc, or enjoying certain activities like travelling, walking, swimming, or whatever one does (yoga?). All of these things create the space - physical and psychological - that we all (not just you, nobody) need to thrive, to be creative, to explore. This is not being denied.

What I am talking about is the desire to maintain the experience of comfort, even when it is no longer honest to do so. That is to say, once we have become attached to it, when we wish to prolong it artificially, when we hold on to it, even though it is no longer appropriate or healthy to do so.

For example, I may have found the presence of someone I appreciate dearly consoling, comforting. But if I get attached to that, then when that person is no longer near, I feel disconsolate. It was comforting until it wasn’t, right?

Or if I believe in some idea, such as that I am on a clearly marked out path to enlightenment, and I receive comfort from that; so obviously I want to maintain that idea - even in the face of evidence that it might not be accurate or true.

And once a defensive resistance to being uncomfortable takes hold, then it is no longer the case that the ‘comfort’ is helping me “do the work of self/world exploration”, right? - because the very desire to maintain the comfort has become more important than the exploration (which may at this point necessarily involve discomfort, because of what I have invested in the comforting idea).

The self/world we inhabit (as you must know) is full of facts, actualities - like war, greed, ecocide, insecurities of every kind - that are greatly disturbing, discomforting. So if my priority is merely how comfortable I feel about them, then I am obviously going to screen those things off from my awareness - and this will make me insensitive. It will make me invulnerable, callous, walled off from myself and from the world - and that’s not, in the end, a comfortable place to be.

But I write all this, and you will come back with some short remark rejecting it (though I hope not)… I don’t think I know where you’re coming from.

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38

Yeah, I think you’re right. My attitude about comfort is not coming across.

Yes I agree that when comfort manifests in this way, it needs looking at, unraveling. Just leaving it alone to do its thing will probably undermine the learning, block the flow.

The rub is being able to see when comfort turns from helpful to harmful. Thought-feeling wants comfort, it will try to trick you into seeking comfort even when it’s harmful. I’m sure this happens to me.

Hopefully the above does not feel like a rejection of what you wrote.

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39

Perhaps because you are not being entirely sincere?

Comfort is not an ‘attitude’; it is a psycho-physical reaction to a very specific object of experience - an object that you have decided not to make explicit in any of your replies (hence the confusion).

The object in this case may well be the system or method (the ‘path’) that you admit to following, but which you apparently don’t care to question or explain.

40

Just to stress this again : The desire to maintain comfort is discomfort. The desire for comfort is fear.

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41

Yes - if the object of comfort is a particular ‘meditative’ state, then the desire to maintain it implies fear of loss, fear of not having it in the future, and the discomfort which comes with that.

Even in traditional meditation prescriptions (Buddhist, Christian and Hindu) they are very careful to point out that one must not get attached to comforting or gratifying states of consciousness - but must ‘let them go’. So nobody’s (apparent) defence of comfort is a mystery to me.

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