I don’t think that you can negotiate with the hurt. The hurt is very deep.
One has to find out why one gets hurt all the time? Is it the image that I have built about myself that gets constantly hurt? Why do I carry any image about myself? What use does it have to have a self-image?
EXaminer, you are talking of hurtability and I was talking of hurt. What you said about self images is right. But sometimes some people can injure your sense of dignity. such hurts are not because of the self image. every person has the right to have some dignity. only a person of very low self esteem will not be hurt by things that injure his dignity.
Okay thanks - I think I get it now.
I am still a bit puzzled by this idea of consciously trying to revive memories to deal with - as a sort of method of cleansing - where does this idea come from? As in how did you come up with it or which school of thought or psycotherapiy does it ressemble?
Yes, we are saying the same thing.
What is the nature of the observer? Why the observer thinks it is different than the observed ?
The feeling of separateness may have been highly effective as a survival mechanism
Physically we are not together we are separate. I need to have my own room to rest in. But when it comes to observation of our selves is observer separate than the observed? Is not the observer part of greed ,fear, loneliness,hope and so on?
All my experiences are part of me. And I am part of the whole. Separate and/or Whole are descriptors.
Would it help confuse the matter further to mention that Observation (aka Experience or Consciousness or Mind) is the only thing that we have direct experience of? Observation is the primary foundation of being - the only thing we can be absolutely certain of.
Observation of fragment observing . The “me” or the observer is a fragment of thought. One fragment looking at other fragments . To see the past interfering with the present and therefore distorting it is to be free from the"me" or the observer.
Yes we know that , but thought is not under our control. For example if you are asked not to think about a black cat you will see that you end up thinking about a black cat. I mean thought is over active and there is not much one can do about it except knowing that the word,the symbol is never the thing.
yes you are right but I must add that thought cannot be WILLED under control, but if you have a good mind, a slow thinking mind, a non reactive mind, then it is indirectly (through the habit of nonreactivity) possible to control your thoughts.
Why is that so ? Because in a nonreactive mind, there is some silence, and second, there are very few linkages with other similar thoughts (associative thinking), so even if you have a thought, you may not have the urge to respond to it. Then because of nonresponse, after the original thought is over, there is silence. The reason why some people say that thought cannot be controlled, is because will cannot contribute to controlling thought. decision to not think cannot control thinking. But there is an indirect way, and that indirect way is to understand yourself so thoroughly that you become non reactive. Once you become nonreactive, there will be very few thoughts (except the deliberate thoughts that you WANT to think).
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According to K’s teaching, one can “become non reactive” by seeing psychological thought for what it is, and by that seeing, end it. This leaves only practical thought, but does that mean having only “the deliberate thoughts that I WANT to think”?
I would say that a practical response has nothing to do with what I want since I was psychological thought, the problem dissolved by seeing it clearly. When I am not, what is practical has little or nothing to do with I. If one needs to draw upon stored knowledge, must I want it, or does practical necessity bring it forth?
Is it possible to live without the observer, the “me” thing?
Is it possible to respond to this question, while the observer is still present in my life ?
Maybe, the original question can be slightly rephrased this way:
Is there a seeing of the observer in action (generating the observed) which makes the observer & the observed powerless (hence, absent) ?
How ever the question is put, those who supposedly know better than I say I is just an illusion, a habit that won’t quit.
It would seem to be a form of extinction if such insight occurs. Then there is only life, not my life.