Why did K use the metaphor of putting the house in order if doesn’t take time? If your house is in disarray, you can’t magically transform it…you can only bring it to order bit by bit.
And in those proposed timelines, is there a progression towards the end point? Or are we just waiting whilst the psyche struggles with itself?
Is there an “end point” to putting your literal house in order, or is it just something that must be maintained?
Does the following resonate? (in terms of our inquiry into paths or progress) :
Intelligence is perfectly complete as it is - there is nothing it needs to learn in order to function.
The processes that give rise to the self (the known/motivation) are perfectly adequate for their purpose (of suffering and progress) - an improved self is not the point, its about whether it has complete dominance or not, whether it is on or off.
If so, how can time (using paths, progress, gradual improvement) address the issue at all? Except as hope/desire/security?
If the mechanism of thought is ignorant of how it operates, it’s dysfunctional, and this is the human condition. So it may be that instantaneous transformation can’t occur until/unless the brain is aware of every move that thought makes, and whether it’s every move is deliberate, unintentional, or reflexive.
Maybe the miracle of transformation can happen to any brain that has never given a thought to how it thinks, and is content with its content. I don’t know. But a brain that is self-aware and reasonable enough to know it is operating dysfunctionally seems more likely to awaken than one pleasantly dreaming. But that’s just speculation that could be used to justify one’s interest in illuminating and understanding psychological thought.
When the brain is interested in what thought and emotion are doing now, thoughts of a brighter future have a dimming effect.
Maybe we can put this debate (re: gradual path to transformation vs immediate insight into self) to bed with the following : its both, one after the other
I agree with what Rick and Inquiry are proposing, which can be summmed up with the story about gradually coming to the foot of the mountain (or following the path to the edge of the precipice).
This can be a gradual process which leads us to a certain point, which could be the vague sensation that something is amiss with the human experience and that reality might not be solely about me and my suffering; or it might be a more intense situation of seeing clearly that I am always making a mess of things.
My argument was always that effort and motivation is always method and motivation. Whether I was following the monks path (of practising awareness) or the bad boy’s path (of grasping everything I could get) both paths could (but not necessarily) have led me to face the problem of myself. In both paths I could have heard about the Buddha or Jesus or Jung or K.
That’s the gradual bit (more or less). Maybe you think it needs some refining - but now what is the next step (insight) all about?
It seems you want to see the whole before you’ve looked closely enough at the part to know that the conditioned brain is too partial
to do anything more than examine the part it’s most interested in.
The brain can only work with what it has, and if it has the determination to know more than it can know, it needs to look at its determination and see how it’s blocking itself from looking at what it can actually see.
We’d just be looking at another part, a different concept. But I think I get your drift : be aware of our motivations.
Of course if more needs to be said, or more questions need to be asked about “paths/methods/progress over time” - there’s nothng stopping anyone.
Its nearing my bedtime but I saw something that James posted on another thread about “insight being a brain in which there is a state of total attention”
That sound right. But I can already see the old paradox : discomfort trumps attention.
Yes, but even more importantly, be aware of the limitation of the PC brain.