Or moderately modified to meet my minimal requirements for acceptability.
Central intelligence rules until its raison detre is gone.
Does intelligent thought weaken the self, or neither strengthen nor weaken it?
I knew I was gonna get called on that ‘unimpeded!’ I originally wrote ‘relatively unimpeded’ but had a moment of boldness and dropped the ‘relatively.’ I doubt that a freely flowing mindstream can remain utterly unperturbed when it is being self-awared.
Do I have clarity enough to know I don’t have clarity? If so, how do I know?
Clarity means there is no “me” to say this is or isn’t clarity, because it can’t be denied and it can’t be believed. It can only abide.
But you have an idea of what it means to collaborate, which brings with it all its opposites.
Silence is necessary first of all. This is not a didactic statement. Take it simply and slowly and maybe then we are working together.
What is the state of the mind? Maybe observation is the last thing needed, because who is the observer of this mind?
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I’m saying that our knowledge of the world, in the form of conscious knowing: like when I am automatically providing myself with a narration of my conditioned world view : this is a wall, this is a tree, this is my state of mind etc is only useful in that it solidifies my world view.
In my understanding of Buddhism, this would be Karma in action : a cause of rebirth of the self. (meaning rebirth of the self in my current manifestation - macdougdoug in my case)
Awareness is not about knowing, is not about narration of my world view.
If there is observation, is there an observer? (Funny how all roads seem to lead to the core ?s.)
Art thou saying awareness = intelligence?
Then what happens to the mind, the one that we call ‘my mind’? The observer is a product of that mind. When they are both absent, what is the mind?
In our line of thought (K) - I think awareness means : no barrier to intelligence
I don’t need a teacher to know that “silence is necessary first of all”, but if you must teach, advocate silence (instead of “thinking together”) and say no more.
How about thinking? Is its presence necessary for intelligence? Its absence?
But you can’t have the one without the other. They are complementary, not two separate movements. Anyone or any group can sit in silence for hours on end. But now the mind is asking itself to be silent and to think at the same time.
None of this is coming from a teacher. We are learning about this as we are putting it together. So far I don’t think we have suggested anything nonsensical. But whether it is possible or not is a different question.
Thought is intelligence squeezed through the funnel of fear and narration.
Just like whatever a starfish is doing is intelligence squeezed through a starfish.
You’re speaking for yourself
What is the mind when both ‘my mind’ and ‘the observer’ are absent?
I don’t know.
Am I? I don’t know. Probably it doesn’t matter. What matters is the fact that thinking is only possible from a background of silence.
You don’t know - so there is no you.
But we have to be careful when we say, ‘I don’t know,’ because there may be a strong yet hidden sense of ‘I know’ somewhere in the background. Even a sense of fear or anxiety has an element of ‘l know’ to it; and then the phrase, ‘I don’t know,’ is merely a reactive statement, a chance to put a pause in the proceedings before the next opportunity to say with more certainty, ‘I know.’
To say, ‘I don’t know,’ really means we have turned our back on any consideration of what is going on inside our own mind. We are no longer going there to find out who we are.
Yes. Not-knowing is something we can grab onto as the known. “I am the not-knower!”
A deep “I don’t know” stops the default mind churning (the DMN) in its tracks.