We have dwelled in what ‘common is’ so far. Maybe we can look at what that ground is?
Attempt:
A ground on which I can stand. Something that is close to me. A point of view maybe?
A firm foundation on which to build the dialogue, something that can never give way or crumble into dust. Knowledge is no good; it is not adequate to the task. Interest and curiosity can only go so far before they turn into disinterest and apathy. So what is the ground upon which can be established something that will last a thousand years or more? Throughout England there are areas of common land that have existed since before the Middle Ages. They are protected by the laws of the realm. So this is not impossible.
Paul - I don’t understand why you insist on separation? The common ground is the world we live in - and primarily, the human, psychological world. The world is full of injustice, suffering, division, conflict. If you do not see that, or are not concerned with that, then we can’t meet.
However, if you are aware of the world - of the human world of difficulty, confusion, loss, conflict, division, etc (which shows up in politics, in nationalism, in religion, in climate change, in social divisions) - then we are on common ground.
The inner world and the outer world are part of the same world. It is the same ground - inwardly as outwardly.
But if a person refuses to see this, or is indifferent, or wants to cut themselves off for some reason of their own, the of course there can be no common ground - they are separating themselves from what is common.
Obviously the word “ground” is only a metaphor, and ought not be used too literally. But we might say - as K often said - that consciousness is the common ground on which we all stand: consciousness being its contents - of fear, hurt, desire, pleasure, joy, suffering, jealousy, envy, loneliness, belief, attachment, death, affection, confusion, etc. We all share in this common consciousness. We all go through more or less the same experiences as human beings (with different colourings and individuated expressions).
Yes.,
The potential for sharing (beyond the superficial), which may also be love, might be when thought/feeling as reaction ,stops.
Which can only be ‘now’ ? The ending of time, sorrow, suffering… while the ‘stream’ ‘K ‘ talks of ,may continue…
I do remember when K said that on multiple occasions but I wonder if the context is the same. Most people differentiate their experiences/ conditioning as unique. Even in our group, although we have very similar if not identical backgrounds yet we still collide and end up in conflict more often than not. All that is conditioning and knowledge based.
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A ground that is not touched by time, or cannot be touched by time. That ground is then alive. Alive in one.
This ground, then, is alive in some and not in others. So what is the responsibility of the ones who operate on that timeless ground?.. Or maybe, operating on that ground, alone, is thee responsibility?
You are reading me wrong. Let’s meet first and then look at the mess that we have made of the world. Then what brings us together is not the mess. At the moment, everything we try to do is dictated by the mess, which means more madness.
Yes, something that is not put together by thought. Is there such a ground?
The context is simply that in Ayham and James (and everyone in the group) there is hurt, fear, envy, pleasure, desire, anxiety and suffering, etc. This is why we can begin a dialogue about it.
The context is that where Ayham lives and James lives (and where everyone in the group lives) there is suffering, conflict, injustice, violence, division etc in the world. This is why we can have a dialogue about it.
We live in a common world, and our individual differences and unique qualities do not change that. But if one asserts one’s individuality, or asserts one’s difference, then we are no longer in dialogue - we have then separated ourselves from the common ground we all share.
This is all I am saying.
You, Paul, are a part of that mess. Are you dodging it? It sounds like you are. But surely you know that you, as a human being with envy, fear, greed, pride, egotism, flaws, violence and suffering - you have inherited the mess and contributed to the mess.
As have I. As has everyone in the group (otherwise we wouldn’t be here). So don’t pretend otherwise: don’t pretend to be out of the mess, because then you become a guru, a fraud, someone who is pretending to be enlightened when they are not enlightened - which creates confusion, which encourages fraud in others who are either weak-minded or gullible.
Then, if all of us can see this (which implies caring about it, not just a visual seeing), see that we are part of this global mess - the outward mess, and the inward mess - then we can begin to look at it together, explore it together, dialogue about it together: because this is our mess, our common ground, whether one personally likes it or not.
I hear you and I agree. But the fact of us being the same, psychologically, is a deep fact that many of us have not touched yet. And even if we touched it at some point we are still exposed to the grasp of thought. All this is evidenced by our weekly group meetings, this is not an assumption.
Me, you and/ or another have been there where we went out of the dialogue. This is why I asked what is the responsibility of the ones who operate on the timeless? Cause we, when we are caught in thought, seem to have no way out while we are in dialogue.
Thought means dimension(s). Also means will and measurement. That ground pierces through space and time as thought has created both. Some of us have witnessed it and most of us remember it either though a personal experience or as a shared memory of culture.
I am here torn between it being an absolute fact or a shared belief. I feel it as a thought-free sensation of no means of communicating it. Whatever means of communicating such a thing proves to be a distraction from ‘what is’!
A pathless ground. If so, why are we pointing at it before we are in it?
This is all I’m trying to get at Ayham. Not everyone wants to dialogue - so dialogue is only for those who have become aware of these basic problems or challenges in the world (and in ourselves). So if a few of us - those in our group - could begin from the common ground of our psychological experience, our common reality, then we can begin to dig.
I don’t follow you here. The timeless ground is what K and Bohm talked about in the Ending of Time discussions. This cannot be a starting point, because such a “timeless ground” is - perhaps for all of us - only theoretical.
Quite possibly indeed!
You say this James, but we both have witnessed how much this dose not work. Will the ones who dig ignore the ones who don’t? Push them away? Try to help them see only to figure that this energy was wasted and the moment is gone? A great deal of frustration is involved in this.
This thread is not for the ones who are not asking, so I believe. It is for the one who are.
Aren’t you frustrated by that as I am?.. If you also see it as I do, in this moment. Can the key be hidden (Behind, in, by) this frustration?
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What have we witnessed which doesn’t work? It is my experience that when a few people are open and willing to meet on the common ground of our shared human experience, our shared sense of the inner and outer mess of the world, that digging can and does occur. It has happened in flashes in our group meetings too - although it is true that in our group there is a higher degree of resistance than in other dialogues I have been involved in.
We cannot assume that we are the ones who dig. We have always to ask ourselves, each time we dialogue, “Am I digging or am I collaborating with those who are refusing to dig?”
Yes, I am frustrated by the resistance, the lack of sensitivity, the apparent lack of awareness of our global crisis as human beings, that seems to occur in the group. However, the group is the world. The stupidity or intransigence or egotism of the group is the stupidity and intransigence that we see in the world. Why should it not be there? We are the world (as K often said), so it would be remarkable if there were no conflicts or tensions in the group. Frustration is a part of that tension.
So what is our responsibility? Is it to evade the reality of these tensions and divisions, or is it to meet the fact of our lack of communication on the common ground of our shared responsibility? Which means that you, Ayham, are completely responsible for the division in the group. As am I. As are the others. - Right?
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There is nothing to dodge. The mess is our daily lives. We are in it right up to our necks. Before we pay one second’s worth of attention to this mess, which we both agree is our common factor, are we both of us in a place or on a ground where such attention to the mess is possible? Or are we merely going to create more of a mess?
This is the starting point. If we cannot begin here - without agreement or disagreement, but simply seeing it, admitting it, recognising it, being aware of it - then there can be no dialogue.
This is up to you. It is up to me. It is the responsibility of each one of us in the group. If we have no sensitivity or awareness of what is happening in the world outside of us, or the world inside our skin, then we cannot meet at all. But if we have such a sensitivity (basic sensitivity - not anything special), then (and only then) can we begin to ask ourselves - as we were beginning to ask ourselves on Saturday - “Can I (we) approach the mess of our daily lives tentatively, hesitantly, with a quality of unknowing?”
What’s the reason we are meeting? To learn? To teach? To help? To improve the world? Whatever reason we give at the start of our enquiry, it means thought has already been active and has decided which path to take. Or is there a reason for meeting one another that has not yet been discovered?
Right. So this shared responsibility is my own. How am I to meet this responsibility?