What is negation?

[DanMcD]

@anon78228991

I am not interested in myself because I can deceive myself a thousand times over. Has our conversation changed the nature of our relationship? Are we able to look at one another without a trace of analysis, suspicion, desire - you know, without all the chicanery of thought? When this has happened, we’ll both know it together. Or are we still caught in time, waiting for this miracle to happen?

Good questions…

[Inquiry]

@James

negation implies the perception of a thing’s actual nothingness - a perception that is simultaneously non-action (because there is no actual ‘thing’ being affirmed or acted upon). I.e. a ‘thing’ that we have heretofore taken to be an actual thing - such as the self - is in fact not.

Yes, there is no “negating”, no dismissing or denying anything, but only awakening to the fact that there was nothing there to begin with but a belief, assumption, illusion, etc.

[Inquiry]

@DanMcD

Yes when I look without analysis, judgement, then the ‘I’ is not there.

How do you know the “I” is not there? What is it that knows, if not I?

There has to be an awareness of what is in my ‘looking’ that is of the past in order for the negation of that to happen.

Yes, if that quality of awareness is possible, but will you find out if it is by “working”, or by ceasing to work and beginning to listen?

[anon78228991]

@DanMcD

Good questions…

That’s why I am wondering first of all if we are - sorry to labour the point - just looking at one another. Before anything else even comes into it, is this possible? Only the looking itself will tell us if it is possible. Any ideas or opinions about whether or not it is possible are therefore naturally a complete waste of time. Can we look at each other and find out what happens, without any foregone conclusions or predictions? This is simple enough, isn’t it?

[DanMcD]

@anon78228991

This is simple enough, isn’t it?

It obviously is for you Paul but for others not so inclined, which I think is most of us, not so simple. But haven’t you found this to be the case after all this time? Why do you persist?

PS I’m watching a bird hesitantly discover the joy of bathing for the first time and it brings a big smile to my face.

[anon78228991]

@DanMcD

It obviously is for you, but for others not so inclined, which I think is most of us, not so simple. But haven’t you found this to be the case after all this time? Why do you persist?

PS I’m watching a bird hesitantly discover the joy of bathing for the first time and it brings a big smile to my face.

No, it is something new, that’s all. For both of us, I mean. The part of the mind that goes along with its inclinations, the part of the mind that relishes challenges, the part of the mind that wants things either very difficult or very easy, the part of the mind that says, ‘I have done this before,’ and even the part of the mind that says, ‘What on earth am I being asked to do?’ - none of that is new. Persistence applies when we know what we are doing and have a clear idea of what we want from it. Can we look without any of this background? This means the negation of literally everything except the object in view, which is you. Apparently, if you are a pigeon, your mere presence is enough to bring a smile to my face. I don’t see why two human beings can’t have exactly the same effect on one another without any other reason for it but that they both are just here in the same place at the same time. Perhaps this is our moment for learning to bathe.