Open Dialogue as a form of inquiry

The “slave” it seems to me, is the brain that is captive to the movement of sorrow. That it is kept from ‘blossoming ‘ in silence?

Yes, if we identify with the contents or our consciousness.

Do we actually have to realise first what suffering/self is, before listening is possible?

As far as I can tell, K was saying that the brain must be free of personal identity before it can realize that it is free.

No.

Let me tell you this: in my beginning here, in the forum, you sounded to me ….a bit mean, but I think I start to see it as … humor !

I am a bit mean…but not enough to take seriously.

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I’m glad you’re on board with this idea.
As one of our best combative debaters here on Kinfonet (yet not quite aggressive enough to get banned, bravo!) I would like to compare and contrast a couple of your recent statements with suggestions made by people like Bohm on Bohm dialogue or open dialogue:

In the first comment above, where we tell people that they’re fulavit - this is obviously the case of “reacting to the contents of our consciousness” ie. mistaking our experience for truth, and reacting accordingly.
Which is the opposite of what has been suggested for “conscious dialogue” attention to (and freedom from?) our conditioned experience.

In the 2nd comment about having particular goals in conversation, there is always the danger of being tied to those goals and thus in conflict with what actually is going on : what is actually being said by one’s interlocutor, what their motivation and presuppositions might be etc… Thus not open to what is, but rather in pursuit of what should be (ie. the opposite of meditation).

Let me just pause here to say that we are all doing this kind of stuff to various degrees - its not just @Inquiry (nb. bohm dialogue guidance examples in a future post)

We know "the contents of our consciousness” are a mix of belief, suspicion, wishful/dreadful thinking, and that some mixtures are more outlandish than others, so why not react to the more egregious ones? How many times have you reacted to me with “Whoah!”

Which is the opposite of what has been suggested for “conscious dialogue” attention to (and freedom from?) our conditioned experience.

But we’re not free from our conditioned experience, so why pretend? We can’t help but reveal our content, and we can’t help but react to what others reveal, so why not just respond honestly?

Thanks for your comments @Inquiry - just to reiterate : I thought yours were good examples of the normal combative debate that humans do. (not condemnation)

Can we be conditioned to understand - at least intellectually that we are not truth detecting entities, and thus (if our life does not seem to be immediately in danger) realise that violence is never appropriate (in a world full of suffering)?

Honesty is one of the tenants in the “conscious dialogue” handbook - some “authorities” on the subject encourage us to say stuff like “I’m feeling overwhelmed right now by whatever feelings” (rather than, for example, “I keel you, you bastard!”) during the dialogue. (personally I prefer silent awareness/letting go of self - but that may not be possible, especially in a real time, face to face dialogue)

If honesty means to react as best we can to the contents of our consciousness then doesn’t anyone who has come into contact with the teachings of K instinctively question whether they are truth seeing machines? Rather than simply react as if they were?

And if we are intimately persuaded beyond a doubt that our interlocutor is a fool or a madman (or a crook which is the same as a fool in this case) what do we honestly think is the best course of action?

It depends on how you define “violence”. In this forum, it’s the algorithm that determines whether someone is “combative”.

If honesty means to react as best we can to the contents of our consciousness then doesn’t anyone who has come into contact with the teachings of K instinctively question whether they are truth seeing machines? Rather than simply react as if they were?

If you’re implying that I think I’m a “truth seeing machine”, I could feel insulted, but I prefer to think that’s not your intention.

We don’t just react to what we feel is a misrepresentation of the facts, but to what we feel is indelicate, insensitive, brutish, callous, manipulative, deceptive, etc. We react to whatever doesn’t square with our feelings about how one should behave in a forum like this.

And if we are intimately persuaded beyond a doubt that our interlocutor is a fool or a madman (or a crook which is the same as a fool in this case) what do we honestly think is the best course of action?

I demonstrated this when I called out Paul Dimmock for his behavior in this forum.

So aren’t you saying that, as far as you were concerned, you felt that you were seeing the truth and reacting accordingly? (ie. coming down on the sinner with a never ending hail of fire n brimstone)

Isn’t this what we are all prone to do? - we are conditioned to take our experience of reality seriously (this helps keep us alive).

This is normal behaviour. We feel separate from, and determined to act upon the contents of our consciousness.

Shall we now look at descriptions of conscious dialogue?

I was reluctant to confront him for quite a while because I wasn’t sure about what he was doing, but eventually it became clear that he was just jerking people around with his K impersonation while insisting constantly on “meeting”. He was taking out his loneliness and frustration on all those who wouldn’t “meet” him, and finally, when someone did meet him, he dropped his whole charade and admitted that he never cared about anything but being loved by someone.

Isn’t this what we are all prone to do? - we are conditioned to take our experience of reality seriously (this helps keep us alive). This is normal behaviour. We feel separate from, and determined to act upon the contents of our consciousness.

That’s the limitation of the conditioned brain, and that’s why we have to rely on evidence rather than our distorted perception.

What I see, confirms what I believe. My experience reinforces my reality. What I see is obviously the truth - my experience tells me so.

Why should I turn away from what seems so evidently true? If everything I see and do confirms that the world is as I believe it to be, surely it would be folly?

I am a truth detecting machine and everything I detect reinforces this obvious fact.

So it is not only very difficult, but unreasonable to be free from what we know. All we have are some teaching concepts that point out some vague problems that arise from such selfish delusion; and the hope that there might be something to gain by engaging with these concepts.

So despite the fact that we don’t really see whats wrong with living from the viewpoint of this first person conditioned center (ie. whats wrong with being a suffering machine) - despite the fact that we always feel vindicated by our conflictual relationship with our world - here we are on Kinfonet.

Whether for amusement, out of curiousity etc lets have a look at what “open dialogue” or dialogue as meditation is about. Lets just go ahead anyway and lay out what we know about this crazy notion.

The “suffering machine” is a ‘thing’…and you are “nothing (not-a-thing)”. If that is true then a major confusion is taking place, no?

If we can’t see the truth of something, the description of the concept is just words.

Maybe there is no point in “trying to meditate” or “trying to listen” or “experimenting with awareness”.
Maybe we need to see what the whole movement of the “me experience” is, and in the seeing is the actual transformation. (freedom from)
But there is no way of forcing realisation upon anyone - so for the moment, all we can do is experiment.

So lets just lay out the rules of this experimental game called “conscious dialogue”.

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Even if I believe this, awareness reveals that it’s just belief, a lie I tell myself. And if I’m less interested in what awareness reveals than in maintaining illusions, confirmation bias is my modus operandi.

So it is not only very difficult, but unreasonable to be free from what we know. All we have are some teaching concepts

It’s not all we have - we have awareness.

So despite the fact that we don’t really see what’s wrong with living from the viewpoint of this first person conditioned center (ie. whats wrong with being a suffering machine) - despite the fact that we always feel vindicated by our conflictual relationship with our world - here we are on Kinfonet.

We know we are self-centered and know what’s wrong with being self-centered, but knowing is not seeing (as K defined it). We’re too committed to words and concepts to directly perceive what actually is, so until/unless actuality is undeniable, impervious to distortion, the truth is whatever we believe it is.

When I become aware of ‘talking to myself’, the question arises: if there is no ‘me’ as such, what is going on here? Is the whole thing the movement of thought? And it’s the illusory thinker that does all the suffering? No thinker apart, no suffering? Is this feeling that ‘I Am’, actually not part of this physical, mental, emotional organism?
But that in some way the ‘I Am’ is ‘awareness’ itself? The Silence from which every ‘thing’ emerges? And which is in every ‘thing’?

What is this “Awareness” of which you all speak? For example, what is the difference between what I am experiencing now, and what would be taking place if awareness was engaged?

Maybe we can address this question by looking at some pointers on “open dialogue”.

I’ll start:

Dialogue as a form of meditation is, in my opinion, one of the trickiest forms of meditation I’m aware of - because we are actually engaging with words ie. symbols, representations of the known, of thought.

Of course, this may be a good thing, in that it is only by engaging with the beast can one have an opportunity of transforming one’s relation to it.

So experiment number 1 : when together in dialogue, can we be free from what I want, what I know, what should be, and actually listen to whats being said?

In open dialogue we are encouraged to keep silent if we are not able to say something similar to or positive about what has been said.
On the Bohm Dialogue entry on Wikipedia (if memory serves me well) we are encouraged to repeat what the speaker has said (in our own words) and the inquiry advances via the slight differences that arise from such exchanges.

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What does it mean to begin with freedom, as K suggested?
Are we free from what we know, what we want or is this a “should be”?
Is “listening to what is being said” a should be?
Repeating what the speaker has said in our own words shows to what we are listening, isn’t that a beginning free from “should be”?
“Our own words” is our reality full of meaning and context, our relationship to words, to the world.

This is what I take to be me, this world of thought? A world of ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’.
The patterns of my thinking…What does “freedom” mean here? To be free of me?
To be free of the “authority” of ‘me’?

“To begin with freedom” is pointing at the same thing as today’s quote of the day, which is that to listen you must be “free of Authority”.

In our case, experimenting with dialogue, or dialogue as an exercise in listening, if we are wondering what should or shouldn’t be, we are wondering how to start un-free. So I suggest we take open dialogue and its “rules” as a game with which to experiment.

Unfortunately Utes, I am not sure exactly what you are asking,

Yes - so the question is how malleable, how free is our relationship to our world view.
In dialogue can we enter into a relationship with each other? What does that mean? etc