Ok, sorry again for the delay; I now have some time free to respond.
Ok, first things first. We can be flexible with words. The word is not the thing, etc. So if you object to the word “practical” then I am happy to drop it. The meaning that was intended by using that word originally can be rediscovered using different words that may be more acceptable to you (or not!).
Second: simplicity. I actually do try to be as simple and concise as I can with words. I realise that this is a very partial opinion (with which others may very well disagree), but generally I tend to find other peoples’ posts complicated, and so try to be simple myself. Although simplicity doesn’t mean simplistic, if you know what I mean.
Third, being willing to agree and disagree without contention. For me a disagreement is something perfectly healthy and normal so long as areas of commonality are recognised as well. I have family members with whom I disagree about all sorts of small matters, but we share too much common ground to be insufferable to each other. So I assume that is the case here with you too.
Now, possibility and impossibility:
I don’t know that K believed his teachings to be difficult or impossible. As you mentioned in scenario 1.
I don’t personally think this was a bluff, or a teaching strategy. I think he genuinely felt that what he was sharing with other people was accessible to any reasonably healthy, reasonably non-neurotic, reasonably intelligent person. At the moment of saying whatever he was saying, he gave the impression of someone stating the obvious, and that the obviousness of what he was saying ought also to be obvious to other people. He may have been wrong in this - clearly, he often was - but if one considers what he said about speaking primarily to his audience’s unconscious (rather than their conscious minds), then perhaps his confidence of being understood is not so strange after all. - However, this is clearly speculative on my part, so I won’t develop it.
Nevertheless, as you yourself have asked for us to
then I would say that if something is “impossible”, then it is impossible. For example, it is impossible for me to be Roger Federer. It is not impossible for there to be another person who is Roger Federer (because there is someone who answers to that name), but for me it is impossible. So actual impossibilities do not interest me.
There are other impossibilities that are impossible because they generally remain at the level of theory, and so discussion about them becomes an exercise in futility. This is also the danger for me of talking about total insight, absolute attention, the complete emptying of the contents of consciousness, total selflessness, etc. I don’t ignore them as outside possibilities, but they are often (if not always) no more than theoretical distractions from what currently is the case.
In ordinary language one can sometimes speak of “possibility” in such a way that it means something that is merely assumed to be possible, something known (and so not worthy of being explored). But if we consider what is possible as a question to be asked (rather than assuming we know the answer in advance) then I see nothing wrong with asking about what is possible.
So, to return now to awareness.
Part of my interest in starting the thread was to take a step back from the many assumptions we have about K’s teachings, and just begin from scratch. I like the phrase “beginner’s mind” (from Zen), not because I am a Zen Buddhist, but because it strikes the right note for me. This is what I mean by “no authority”: just to begin again every time we have a moment free to explore these matters.
I don’t want to analyse experience, or cut it up into the self-image and the observer of the self-mage, the nature of time and thought, etc. All of this can feed into present awareness, but not at the level of discussion.
That is, I am quite happy to discuss these things between friends, but not as part of what it means to be aware, unless these issues spontaneously suggest themselves to my mind as being a natural part of present awareness. (if you see what I mean).
So there is nothing to overcome, as I see it, because overcoming implies a goal to be reached, something to be achieved, a future that has been imagined which is better than the present. This future might be called “selflessness”, “nothingness”, the “death of the ego”, “pure attention”, etc, and is for me something that generally remains theoretical. This doesn’t mean, as I said before, that such a state is ruled out in some absolute sense; but so long as it exists merely at the level of theory, of comparison with masters and saints, then it is merely an idea, an opposite to what currently is one’s state of mind. And ideas are empty, as you know.
So when you write
I would in fact reverse this, to say instead: “we have tried many impossible ideas and ideals, did they work? Once one discards all the impossible ideas and ideals which did not work one is left only with what is: the simple awareness of whatever actually presently is taking place (inwardly or outwardly).”
The phrase “observation without the observer” is a phrase that I feel most people (I don’t mean you) have completely misunderstood. As I understand it, the “observer” is simply the words, thoughts and judgements that arise in our minds whenever we look at something (outwardly or inwardly); so to observe without the observer is the same thing as to be aware without choice. As K says (just to refer to him here, seeing as it is his phrase after all) to look at a lamp is already to observe without the observer:
Is there an awareness in which the observer is totally absent? Obviously there is. I am aware of that lamp, I do not have to choose when I am aware of it. (Tradition and Revolution, Biological Survival and Intelligence)
Now, clearly not all observation (or awareness) is as simple as just looking at a lamp, or at the glass of water on my desk, etc; and so almost always judgements and words and thoughts (which constitute the observer) arise in one’s mind to label experience: likes and dislikes, names and associations (memories), identification with experience, etc; and all of this interferes with the thing we are observing (aware of).
The point, as I understand it, is just to be aware of this activity of the mind (i.e. of the observer) as it is happening, and find out experimentally if there can sometimes be a break in the movement of identification/association/like/dislike/judgement/choice, etc.
The simplest place to start for me is outwardly, with nature, with objective things. Because it is obvious that one can - for however limited a time - look at a tree or a bird without labelling it or having a mental reaction to it. Most people on Kinfonet skip over this simple looking business, because they think it is too obvious. But the very simplicity of it is also a clue to everything else. If we ignore this simple seeing when it really is simple, then we stand no chance of seeing something more complicated, such as a reaction in relationship, a strong emotional reaction.
So, with the same simplicity of looking that can be experienced with trees and birds and clouds, etc, then there is the inner world of thought and feeling (or emotion). And again, it is the same principle: is it possible to look at what one is currently feeling or sensing inwardly, without labelling, without judgement, without like and dislike, etc? I remember hearing some talk K gave in which he asked people to just remove from experience (for example, the experience of feeling hurt) all words and labels (including in this instance the word “hurt”) and to just remain with the sensation of hurt as sensation.
None of this takes time, effort, or particular genius. But, in my experience, it does require reflective leisure (i.e. chronological time) and a certain curiosity to experiment, an interest to explore and be open. That interest is not always present, and forcing oneself to be interested is counter-productive. So it cannot become a routine, something to be mechanically reproduced at will.
This is about as far as I understand the whole business of awareness at present. I have noticed that when I am aware in the way I have outlined that I notice little things more quickly, both externally about nature, about other people, and about my own reactions and responses. There is beauty and natural affection in awareness. Although sometimes my sleep is disturbed by finding myself more alert than usual. And sometimes certain emotional reactions that had been unconscious (or on the back-burner) linger more intensely than is comfortable, and can affect me with fluctuating moods until they have seemingly been processed. I have not ended my suffering, which remains like a bedrock in the mind. And I have not ended self-interest or ego (fear, desire, insecurity and arrogance), which returns swiftly enough once I am no longer transparently open and aware.
But, as you know, to catch oneself being unaware is already something. To catch oneself being irritated, anxious, greedy, hurt, is already to have turned on the light switch (however dimly). So this is what interests me at present.
I hope this is sufficient to give a general picture of my approach.
