The conditioned default for most of us is ideation. It seems we would rather have the space inside the skull filled with a lot of ideas than just have space. This is so, isn’t it? Because the idea of endless space is rather scary. Therefore we never encounter the actual fact, which is implied in saying, ‘I don’t know.’ There may be a temporary glimpse of the possibility of a new movement within the mind until thought comes back in to claim the ground as its own. But thought can only collect and control ideas; thought cannot do anything about a fact except destroy it through ideation. So can the fact itself destroy the tyranny of thought?
Yes. And boring, nothin’ to do, no entertainment. It’s like the soundtrack to life got turned off.
So can the fact itself destroy the tyranny of thought?
Tyranny, that sounds about right. Thing is thought is not a black-and-white ‘evil’ tyrant. If it were, it might be easier to dethrone. It is a tyrant that, along with terrorizing/manipulating, protects, entertains, inspires, feels deeply, creates things of great beauty and power. It’s a mixed bag!
Can facts dethrone thought? Hmmm. Perhaps if it’s a matter of life and death? Let’s say you were skiing down some steep narrow trail at twilight and you needed 100% thought-free focus or you might crash into a tree at 30 mph. Or maybe if the fact is breathtakingly beautiful or awesome?
It’s a matter of quality of life.
We’re content to let thought determine our quality of life by choosing to live with illusions. The problem, however, is that we can’t choose to live without illusions because they are inevitable until we realize we have no choice.
We are alive together at the same time. This won’t go on forever. We may have a decade or two, a year or two, or just a few days. This is a tremendous fact until thought gets hold of it. But thought is merely a quantifier. All it can do with this tremendous fact is break it down into manageable and meaningful pieces. But this fact only has meaning and beauty as a whole. Then time - whether ten years or ten days - is irrelevant because the whole thing is with us each moment.
I don’t know very much about the meaning and beauty of the Whole. I get glimpses from time to time, but they fade quite quickly.
I know lots about the meaning and beauty of the parts. As do we all.
Parts are wholes (to the parts they contain).
“To see the world in a blade of grass. And heaven in a wild flower. To Hold infinity in the palm of your hand. And eternity in an hour.” – William Blake
You are a living human being and so am I. Have we ever looked directly at another human being without turning them into fragments?
Rarely.
I doubt that it has ever happened. Because if it had so happened, would one go back to the old way of looking?
I don’t know.
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So let’s find out. Are we relying on fragments now?
Yes.
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih
Shantih
Shantih
(T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land)
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At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is
… and there is only the dance.
– T.S. Eliot, from The Four Quartets
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Then we are not thinking intelligently. Because it is far easier to look at the whole. The fragment will never give us the whole picture, whether one is looking at the other person, at a tree, at a dog, a horse, or even something much closer to home, which is looking at fear itself. The whole is not a collection of fragments. But we attempt to run that way, collecting as many fragments as possible in order to gather the greatest amount of information, even though it is obvious we are always going to miss something.
Probably we have never even considered this: that to see the whole of something is far simpler than to see even one fragment of it. To see the whole quality of another human being is so simple once we reject as unreliable every fragment that we think we know about them.
When you see a person begging on the street, do you ever see the whole of that person? There are millions of people begging on the street; but the mind seeing just one of them in fragments is really seeing its own nature in action, which is to maintain a distance between another person and myself. They are showing me a picture of myself that I don’t really want to look at. Therefore either I condemn them, saying that they are probably faking it, or I go off into some sentimental, emotional response, or I go along the cold analytical route and blame some abstraction like the welfare state or the competitiveness of man. In looking at them in this way, I am seeing the fragments of my own fear.
So why do I maintain this distance between another and myself? That’s exactly what all these fragments are allowing me to do. While I hold any image about you, there will be a distance between us. We can’t live in that space without fear.
The reliance on fragments must bring fear in its wake. And the whole is not a collection or an accumulation of fragments. It is only when the mind is no longer operating through these fragments that there is any possibility of seeing the whole.
Do you really want to go into all this? Because everything is going to have to change if you do. Once we have removed this distance between us, there is no going back. Once we have learned what it means to think intelligently, we can’t then go back and pretend to be stupid.
Fair question. I am more of a “one foot in, one foot out” than “all in” kinda guy.
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Why? What does it mean to you to go all in?
I usually keep to the water’s edge - due mainly to great white sharks (and the Kraken)
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To stay with something through thick and thin, to be willing to suffer and perhaps die.
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No, this is ridiculous, isn’t it? We have no idea what it means. Yet we are still willing to listen to a fragmented version of what it might mean. Right? So the presence of the fragment denies the seeing of the whole.
I have no idea what it means to actually see the whole and neither do you, if you are really simple and honest about it. Therefore the distance between us has already started to shrink, even before we’ve begun.
And I want to see the whole of fear. So I am going to see it. Why should this involve suffering or dying or anything else apart from seeing?