Hopefully Inquiry is not offended by what has been said, and will share his response (if he has one).
I feel you guys may have to start by agreeing on something first though! 
or at least share some small common observation together.
I feel this may be a little bit too complicated Erik. Why must we measure the “impact” of what happens when we are aware of something?
When you say the words “if we really see”, it implies - doesn’t it? - that there isn’t in fact a real seeing at all; which in turn implies that the ideal of “real seeing” is being compared with what we actually see.
Do you see what I mean?
The grammatical implication of your sentence (just to point his out) is that you - Erik - no longer “fall into the trap” of thinking; and that you - Erik - no longer “identify anymore with anything” (because you said “if” and “cannot”, which implies that you know something for certain).
But is this so?
If it is not so, and there is still “thinking” and “identifying” taking place, then the comparison with “real seeing” must be admitted to be a complicating factor. It is simply another form of thinking, isn’t it?
To me, breaking the stream of thinking by simply paying attention, being aware, or just seeing and hearing (in the ordinary sense) is impact enough if we are interested in it.
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This quote reminds me that it is our possibility to come into contact with the “Immensity”!
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All right, lets look at the facts. We might realize something in the moment, see it and see for example that it is false. But in the next moment we do the same thing again for example drawing a conclusion or interpreting or stealing or whatever. Then the seeing of it in the past obviously has no meaning. I have not understood it. And if you look around this is exactly what we humans are doing. You would not be interested in awarenes if you simply would be aware. It is the stream of thinking that is the fact and which makes us look at something else. Because if we would be aware, that would just be it. We all know about climate change, we can observe it, be aware of it and still keep on doing what we all have done. That is what I am refering to. Do not interprete again what I might see or not. Just be aware of the facts. And the facts tell us we have not seen it. Otherwise we would not talk about it. We also have to be clear that awareness, at least a certain kind, is always active. It is important for the protection of the body. We could not jump of the street in time if there is a danger when we would wait until thinking realizes danger. Thinking comes too late for our instincts and for them to operate we need awareness. Also, and that is a reason why I brought autistic people in, there is often an awareness, which might or might not be conscious, always active. I personally know cases of autistic people who are aware of things far beyond what average people percieve. Not that we all could that but because of our conditioning it is not necessary. I probably do not have to tell you that there are a lot of schools of meditation who just practice that, paying attention. But they have not broken the stream of thinking. Otherwise they would not practice.
James, I question that because if so time is introduced .
To me something like this seems more accurate:
“One of the things that interests me about awareness is that it seems it is already one step ahead of us. Our minds have let the world in, while we are unaware that this is happening.
Stillness is the absence of the doing.”
But Erik, this is not what I have been talking about. I am not interested in “false” or “true”, but just being aware of the colour of a flower, the sound of a bird. And, with regards to the inner, the feeling of a mood coming on, the sensation of wind on my arm, the daydreaming that picks up and dies away like a breeze blowing through the laundry of the mind…
This is what presently interests me, not bringing about some kind of change in consciousness, finding truth, seeing the false, analysing the self, the nature of thought, etc.
This is more in line with the direction of inquiry that presently interests me. There is something essential and immediate about awareness that I find fascinating, that’s all. I hope you don’t mind me repeating myself.
Why not find out what I value before assuming I need “to find something valuable in life”?
Your reply shows your complete lack of interest in this human aspect.
Why do you express your opinion as if it is a fact? Why, instead of asking whether I lack interest in this matter, do you just assume I have a “complete lack of interest in this human aspect”?
Yes, of course, but in what way is it useful? Is it useful for me to know that I can get gratifying results from my effort, or useful for me in building self-esteem and strengthening my sense of self?
It seems to me to be a fact that there is no way out of the labyrinth of the mental space (of thinking, reacting, etc) from within that thinking. You may disagree with this, but I honestly think it is a fact - so long, that is, that one is not aware of the existence of any other space.
I think we are all aware that thought creates its own space and that it’s captive and contained for as long as it operates compulsively. But this awareness doesn’t mean one is not in the labyrinth of thought, or that there’s something one can deliberately do to get out. It just means one has no illusions about the human condition.
Well, speaking for myself, when I read it, it reminded me that the present moment (what Voyager referred to as being “rooted in the now”) contains its own richness. Often I forget this, and so it is nice to be reminded of it.
It also resonated with me because, like Voyager, I have often noticed that when I am very present, just being aware without any particular or focussed interest, the thoughts and emotions that are going on in the mind have less of a grip on my attention - one is less identified with them, and so can just watch them like birds flying in the garden.
This also gives one license to actually experiment with feeling one’s emotions more deeply. Emotions can be a labyrinth too, like thoughts (they are of course connected phenomena).
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried just feeling your emotions completely, holistically, with your whole body? Often I can only feel my emotions in my head (where the thinking is taking place), but sometimes it happens that they spread out and I can feel them in my chest and heart and stomach - and then I find that one’s relationship to them changes. There is an opportunity to embody the emotion or feeling holistically, with one’s whole body - and then the emotion or feeling relents, dissolves, or lessens its force.
Some emotions are presently too intense for me to do this with, but all emotions are similar, so the principle is the same. I find this a meaningful field to explore - not just through thought, but through direct feeling and sensing with the body. This may not interest you, but to me it has great value.
Dear James, I understand you very well but if that is all you are interested in you are not looking at the whole. I really feel the same about what you say and indeed that is very fascinating. But this way you fragment the whole. Because you cannot separate your interest from what it brought up and that is the stream of thinking. We both can really just marvel about awareness but that has no meaning. Because awareness is the whole and cannot be separated. That is like the jump of the street. If we are aware of a danger there is immediate action. That is the nature of awareness that it is action and change because we are part of the whole. The now is moving from moment to moment and if we are aware of it we flow with it. There is nothing else to do than change then.
Yes it does dissolve the emotions. And we can do it with every emotion. But the danger is, that we turn that into a practice and then it is a matter of thinking again.
I wasn’t attempting to be logical or consistent, but I think I explained myself a little bit more than this, didn’t I Wim?
I wrote that
Isn’t this so?
And furthermore, aren’t all of these things, such as
And yet usually we only become aware of these things after they have started to happen. Do you see what I mean?
So:
-
Our sense perceptions - which are already sense-percieving the sound of a dog barking - is one form of awareness.
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But then there is also the awareness that becomes aware of this sense-perceiving of the sound of dog barking…!!!
Bear in mind that I am not claiming there to be definitively two totally different kinds of awareness operating; all I am saying is that my phenomenological experience of being aware (look it up!) apparently reveals these two forms of awareness in action.
Perhaps their disjunction is due to a limitation on my part. I am not denying this.
Maybe it relates to the distance K talked about between the ‘observer and the observed’? - so that if one’s awareness of the sound of the dog barking can be completely in tune with one’s sense-perception of the sound of the dog, then that might be true (nondual) awareness.
Maybe.
Erik, I think we are talking at cross-purposes. You want to talk about thought and thinking from within thinking - and I am bored with that. I have done it for years, and it holds no interest for me. For you it may be the whole, but for me it is very, very, very partial.
Apparently awareness, observation, sensory seeing, have no real interest for you. Don’t deny it! You cannot just continue to say “yes this is interesting, but”. Your “but” is your actual interest. For instance:
Do you see the pattern? So you are interested in thinking. That is what moves you at present. And you want to have a discussion about thinking at the level of thinking.
But this does not interest me!!! Sorry. You can call thinking about thinking at the level of thinking “the whole”, but to me it is not the whole at all.
I am wanting to look experimentally at this field of awareness, sense-perception, bodily awareness - to explore it without too much knowledge or baggage. I don’t want to approach it with dogmas or conclusions. I want to look at it afresh.
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That would be too academic for me; on the contrary, I like the simple, clear language used in both the dialogues and K’s talk.
I can distinguish the physical and mental activities of the body, and where the whole is in harmony, there is the state of being awareness.
We probably mean the same and we may be using the wording in an educated or uneducated way, at least that’s how it seems to me.
Apart from the word “phenomenology” - which just means “the study of phenomena” - I don’t think I used any particularly educated words.
The word phenomena just means “that which appears”, “that which happens” - i.e. thoughts, feelings, sensations, the sounds of birds, the sounds of dogs barking, etc. It doesn’t make any claims about what the phenomena are in and of themselves (which is a different matter).
So, by using this word, all I was saying is that in talking about my experience of being aware I wasn’t making any claims to have final knowledge or insight about awareness. I hope this is clearer now.
Probably.
I apologize for my failure to conform to your notion of “a more decent and friendly way” of communicating, but I reply as honestly as I can, and that isn’t always as decent and friendly as some would have it. Pardon me.
I know I’m biased against Inquiry but I gave him several times, in the past and yesterday too, the chance to change “these relational habits”
Again, I apologize for my failure to conform to your standard of what-should-be, but who are you to give me “several times…to change”?
I don’t want to change anything about you. If I don’t like the way you express yourself in this forum, I might say something or I might ignore you, but I wouldn’t make an issue of it. I come here to talk about what K talked about.
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Dear James, I waited for you to bring this pattern forth. Because I did that on purpose. It was just a matter of time because you easily detect it with others, but you do the same. You stick to words and what you want to find. You are interested in thinking and you do here nothing else then thinking, exchanging words, explaining. That is not awareness. If you want to experiment, why don’t you do it with what we exchange. That is very difficult to do because a forum like this is first of all just about words and thinking, exchanging words. Together we could find out, if we can meet here differently, in awareness or if it is simply not possible, because the medium is very limited? You say, you do not want to approach it with dogmas and all the knowledge you have at the same time you do - look at just how often you quote K, which is just knowledge. If you want to be aware so be it. But you want to discuss about it, which is thinking. And you miss the point that thinking steers our awareness when it dominates. A lot of bodily reactions we can percieve are actually steered by thinking, unconsciously. That is a fact.
First of all, we should remember that this thread is about awareness, practical awareness. James stressed the importance of understanding the fact that awareness is practical and therefore each one of us can apply it into our daily life.
At first I had some objections about it being practical in some cases, but after a very interesting dialogue, where James had the patience, ability and good-will to explain to me what was wrong in my approach to awareness, I saw his point. That is: I was aware of my wrong way of proceeding in facing “what is”, in facing my resistance. “Facing” means I had materially, practically put myself in front (face to face or cheek to cheek) of my resistance.
Awareness means to observe, as K said, without speculating about what we see, i.e., without trying to understand it according to what we think, and therefore without jumping at conclusions. This is very practical, and it works.
When it does not work, when we are not aware of something, this means we have not observed or listened with the necessary attention because our thinking was more important to us than the mere act of listening, and it’s our thinking -which takes place automatically – responsible of this blindness.
In participating in this forum, we have the possibility to test our awareness in regard of what it’s being said and discussed, and this is an aspect of practical awareness. This to me is the only thing which can make this forum worth-while, otherwise to me, it’s only a waste of time. Therefore, when I see a person who talks about awareness, but only in theoretical way and then fails to be aware, practically aware, of what it’s being said here, including his/her words, I lose my patience and I return, as fast as possible, to the more comforting view of a lovely beach.
(I added that last sentence, Inquiry, just to let you know how I am, so that you can have a realistic vision of me).
So, I invite you, Inquiry, to test your awareness practically, now, while you are reading these lines of mine and see if you are merely listening (or reading) or you are jumping to a conclusion, starting to have objections to what I said, like: oh, what a bore, I know all that, who are you to tell me that, etc. In the latter case you will know you are not aware of the text, (and so are not creating the conditions for a real understanding). In that case you can anyhow be aware of the objections your mind has created, and this can be a useful practical awareness (as James pointed out), but not in the sense that you remain immersed and so conditioned in the content of the objections, but you are simply aware they are only thoughts.
And do it for your own sake, for your benefit and not to comply with my wish, and your will see you will find a way out of the labyrinth.
Writing has a great advantage upon talking: one can read again what one has written. This often should be repeated until the text reveals itself to us. 90% of the misunderstandings here in this forum are due to a hasty reading. I remember being advised to read something important at least three times. This is valid, useful also to what we write: before posting a reply we should re-read it several times, maybe letting it rest for a while, so that we can come to it with a new approach and a fresh mind.
This re-reading several times is specially needed when, in discussing with another, we can see we are not meeting each other and maybe we have created a hostile environment.
This is the only tool we have to solve the problem of communication, if, as I said before, we are really interested in communication.
Everything (or almost) I wrote to you had its source in this attentive observation of what you wrote. When we open our mouth Inquiry, we are revealing ourselves. And we reveal ourselves even when we keep it shut. So in a relationship like here, there is no way to hide ourselves. All your objections that I don’t know you, what you value, etc, have no sense because you are what you say, not what you think you are. Same thing is valid for me of-course. I’ve been aggressive with you, purposedly, to mirror your behaviour and in an attempt to kick you out of the labyrinth of words and speculations you are blocked in. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But I have also tried different strategies with you but nothing worked because “there is no worse deaf than the one who doesn’t want to listen”. And if you don’t want to listen, if you don’t’ want to apply practical awareness, then what are you doing here?
Remember? I asked several times this question to you in the past: Why you are here? But you never replied. So now you have another chance to answer this question. But I remind you to be coherent in your reply, because some of your replies shows incoherence, you think one thing and do the opposite. And of-course to be coherent one needs to be practically aware of himself. And only with self-awareness comes honesty.
Now, taking into consideration all that I have said (and not only a fragment as you are used to do) I will answer some of your questions and my answer will reflect what I was able to see in what you wrote.
- I will not reply to your previous post (N° 287), not out of unkindness, but simply because they are wrong questions and as I told you in my precious post, I am available only to answer sensate questions. If you want to understand why I consider them to be wrong you have only to re-read them and re-read a number of times what I had written previously, applying the practical awareness to it.
Now, your last post:
I appreciate your apologizing but it will be useless without the necessary awareness. If you don’t use practical awareness to understand why I said what I said, then the situation and the interaction between you and me will never change, can never improve.
The first thing one can notice here, and it’s quite plain to see, is that you are giving two contradictory answers to the same sentence of mine, and even inside the second answer there is a contradiction. In the first answer you acknowledge that your replies are not “as decent and friendly as some would have it”. And you are apologizing for that, but in the second answer you are objecting to all that. So, what value has your apologizing? Just a mere act of courtesy?
Then you say: “your standard of what-should be”, forgetting that that sentence is extracted from a conversation I had with James and it was James who talked about those “standard”. Go and re-read the whole post, this will be beneficial to you. So, you see how you jumped to hasty conclusions?
(I see you have edited the text, previously you said: "Clarity matters most, to me.” and didn’t mention K. I will answer to the first text, ignoring for practical purpose the second).
What James meant was about changing the kind of relationship we had through practical awareness,
“is an opportunity to look at these relational habits again - as though for the first time - to see if they have outlived their usefulness or not.”
“Look” and “usefulness” are the key words here. I invited you to look at your habits pointing out the uselessness of them. It’s not important whether I’m right or wrong, but only if you are willing to look and to have clarity about your intentions in this forum.
Erik, I feel that we are pushing against each other rather than sharing an inquiry. Isn’t this so? I am not absenting myself from blame for this, but I just note it. So what do we do?
I have told you quite explicitly that, for the time being at least, I am not interested in dialoguing about the nature of thought, self, ego, etc - I think I made that clear right at the start of this thread. I have explored the nature of thought, its limitations, its relationship to the contents of consciousness, etc, on other threads. You may not have been present for those discussions, but I feel I have inquired along that line sufficiently for the time being (I am not saying that I will never return to that inquiry - into thought - that would be silly; but for the time being it holds not interest for me). I am not claiming to be an expert on thought, or to have had an insight into the nature of thought, but I sense the limitations of discussing thought from within thought, which is why (for the time being) I am putting that tool back in its box.
What interests me at present is awareness. I think I have made this clear.
You say that we ought not to discuss awareness, because any discussion is just thought. But for me thought is simply a tool of communication, and I would like to hear what others have to say about awareness, and to explore this subject as much as it is possible to do with others. For this, thought and language is necessary. But, personally, I don’t believe that merely discussing awareness reduces it to words and thoughts: the word is not the thing, the description is not the described. You might disagree with this, but this is my approach.
To repeat it again, as Voyager has written:
Given that I have been explicit about this, I do not understand your “strategy” here? Your strategy has apparently been to say “yes awareness is interesting, but” (which implies that you are not actually interested in the topic of awareness). You write
But what kind of purpose is this? As far as I understand it, your purpose has simply been to reject/ignore/undermine my stated interest in exploring the topic of awareness, and instead promote your own preferred topics of thought, thinking, self, etc. Am I wrong? You say, for instance,
Which is why I have been requesting that we put “thinking” aside for a change, and just explore awareness for itself.
I have attempted to meet you half-way, I have touched on your preferred topic of thought and thinking (as in post number 243, for instance), I have invited you to share your topic on a new thread; and yet each time I return to the topic of this thread - awareness - you come back with essentially the same reply:
Which means, if I may point this out, that you do not “completely agree”, you do not “understand [me] very well”. In fact, you completely disagree, and you do not understand me at all! - because I have said that I am not interested in inquiring through thought into the nature of thought.
If you like, I am interested in inquiring through thought into the nature of awareness! It sounds absurd, but maybe this way of putting it will give you the justification you need to let the topic go, once and for all? (of course, as I said previously, for me the word is not the thing, the description is not the described, so there is no reason why we cannot discuss awareness with words).
Meanwhile, I will continue (for a little while longer) to plow this furrow of awareness (i.e. the topic of awareness).
So if you are not interested in doing this with me without resorting to endless “buts” and “so whats”, then you have absolutely no need to do so.
Are we clear on the matter? Can we leave it at that?
So far most of my own exploration of awareness has been limited to external observation - the awareness of sounds and sights, external sensations of touch and taste (the sound of the dog barking, the colour of the flower, the sensations of the breeze on one’s face, the taste of mango).
To take a further step into this process of awareness, I thought it would be worth exploring the inner dimension of experience - our consciousness.
When replying to Inquiry, it was already mentioned that feeling one’s emotions directly in the body has its own value - to contact the emotion, if possible, with our entire body, with a certain wholeness of bodily perception.
And then I read on another thread (titled “Consciousness”) a useful description of consciousness by Anonimity (sic):
ice is water but water is not ice because ice has a structure that water hasn´t, it is not limited by anything whereas ice is.
Consciousness is awareness caught in certain limits but awareness is not consciousness because it is not limited.
Consciousness is of course the inner dimension of experience. Perhaps just as matter is condensed energy, so consciousness is condensed attention or awareness. Consciousness is the sensation and emotion of yesterday, frozen.
As K says, consciousness is its content: fear, pleasure, hurt, suffering, jealousy, etc. It is a kind of storehouse of everything we have ever felt and experienced (at least in essence), and perhaps even of what the whole of humanity has felt and experienced (at least in essence).
This storehouse is what we experience inwardly as our reactions, our hurts and griefs, our psychological baggage. It is the ever-renewed sensate residue of the psychological past.
So how does one contact it?
As far as I understand this matter, it is the same awareness that we have of external phenomena (of sights, sounds, smells and tastes, etc) that we can then bring inwardly to bear on consciousness.
Consciousness is always and only ever content. So it shows itself as hurt, for instance, or reactivity, irritation, fear, envy, suffering. It is the ground of our emotional existence, of our reactions and judgements (of like and dislike) about (almost) everything.
And so, because it is essentially emotive, it can be contacted at the level of sensation, in the body - just as was being discussed previously.
Now the point is that this content is to be contacted directly (by awareness). Which means that there can be no duality between oneself and the content itself (for instance, hurt). The hurt (for instance) is present in the body just like the bird flying overhead or the tree in the garden. It is there, objectively.
So my question (to myself and to others) is, can this objective hurt be met, be contacted, directly through bodily awareness? Can the sensation of hurt be met just as it is, as pure sensation?
Which means, of course, that it is not the word “hurt” which is met (with the associations of the word “hurt”), but the raw sensation of the content itself, just as it is.
Just as there can be a holistic awareness of the sound of the breeze blowing through the leaves on the tree - which includes the sensations of the breeze on one’s face and body, the light of the sky flooding through the greens of the foliage, the tastes and smells of the earth, the tree bark and the leaves, all at once - so, in the same way, can there be a holistic awareness of the movement of inward psychological content through the brain and body of the organism (within which it has taken up residence)? Which means direct contact with it, the choiceless sensation of its entire movement?
The flowering of the content may be the emptying of the content - the liberation of consciousness as consciousness, transformed into awareness. But if one is aware of the content with an end or goal in mind, then this obviously puts a stop to the direct meeting of the content. So there is no goal or guaranteed outcome to the awareness of content. It must be done for itself - just as one listens to the breeze among the leaves of the tree, for itself.
Does this sound right? What do others think?
So just to remain with a feeling, like hurt, for instance, and to see what happens (at the level of holistic mental, emotional and bodily awareness, i.e. sensation, etc).