Rupert,
Many thanks for the clarifications in your response to the ‘connection of thoughts’ issue I raised. You make clear that while understanding is expressed by the mind, the understanding itself occurs only when the mind is absent and ‘I’ am not there.
In response to the query of whether one may have a simple experience of a train of thoughts, you wrote that yes, in a contemplation of a train of thoughts, the connection is through what you describe as the knowing part of thinking. It is then, when the train of thoughts comes to an end, and consciousness takes no shape at all, that there is the timeless moment of understanding.
When expressed by the mind as ‘I understood’, the mind claims the experience and attributes it to itself. I would assume that for one who has seen this process at work, the fact that it is only the mind that can express the understanding does not inexorably lead the mind to claim ownership or doership.
Please confirm whether the following understanding is accurate:
1. To function in the world, we must concede a provisional reality to time, space, objects and causality, but this concession need not obliterate our recognition that these objects are substantially awareness itself, and it is a mistake to think that one is living at each moment from either a relative or an absolute point of view. Is this perhaps another way of saying that when living in our natural state, there is no point of view being taken?
2. Concepts and the mind have their proper function to play, and that will occur effortlessly, naturally and spontaneously when the false beliefs and opinions we hold about ourselves, and identification with the body-mind mechanism, no longer hold sway, or when the mind no longer attributes an independent reality to objects.
3. While from the ultimate perspective there is no doer, experiencer or world, the sense of a doer, an experiencer and a world naturally is experienced, and is not a mistake or a problem to be transcended but impartially witnessed and enjoyed.
4. If the above three are accurate, then I have a question as to your response to Julli’s inquiry about the feeling of having a choice in whether to follow a thought or not (‘Do we choose which thoughts to act upon?’). Shouldn’t we concede a provisional reality to her sense of causation in the chain of dealing with those thoughts that we observe simply occurring in the mind? Couldn’t we say that the intelligence governing the universe has set things up just in that way, or is this just a rationalisation to avoid facing the necessity of renouncing any sense of doership at all, provisional or not?
With gratitude and heartfelt thanks,
Bob
Dear Bob,
Bob: It is then, when the train of thoughts comes to an end, and consciousness takes no shape at all, that there is the timeless moment of understanding. When expressed by the mind as ‘I understood’, the mind claims the experience and attributes it to itself. I would assume that for one who has seen this process at work, the fact that it is only the mind that can express the understanding does not inexorably lead the mind to claim ownership or doership.
Rupert: Yes, during any thought, sensation or perception there is only thinking, sensing and perceiving taking place. When the thought, sensation or perception comes to an end, the mind immediately rises up again and creates a ‘filler’ thought – the ‘I’ thought. With this thought the apparent ‘I’ is created and is imagined to have been present during the previous thought, sensation or perception, as its creator and/or witness.
In this way the dualising mind imagines the ‘I’ (which is a product of its own creation) to be a thinker, a feeler, a chooser, a lover, a creator, a doer, and so on. Hence ‘I think’, ‘I feel’, ‘I choose’, ‘I love’, ‘I do’. In other words, perception, ‘I’ thought, perception, ‘I’ thought, perception, ‘I’ thought, perception, ‘I’ thought. Each of these ‘I’ thoughts is considered to be indicative of a permanent ‘I’ entity which runs throughout every perception.
When the ‘I’ thought is seen to be simply a thought and not an entity, this filler thought loses its foundation (the belief that it refers to something real) and dissolves as a result, leaving the presence that was underneath it all along shining. That is, there is perception, presence, perception, presence, perception, presence, perception, presence. As this becomes more natural, the presence that shines in between perceptions is understood to run throughout all perception as well.
Presence is then known to be ever-present and to sometimes take the shape of thinking, sensing or perceiving. So our experience is felt as ‘I, presence’ taking the shape of the texture of sheets, the morning light, the warmth of water, the taste of tea, the hum of traffic, the voices at work, the perceptions of home, the texture of sheets, the image of a dream, the peace of deep sleep, and so on, outwardly always changing, inwardly never changing.
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1. To function in the world, we must concede a provisional reality to time, space, objects and causality, but this concession need not obliterate our recognition that these objects are substantially awareness itself, and it is a mistake to think that one is living at each moment from either a relative or an absolute point of view. Is this perhaps another way of saying that when living in our natural state, there is no point of view being taken?
Yes. If a point of view is required in a particular situation, it is taken up in order to accomplish the task at hand. Then it is forgotten and presence, which took the shape of the particular point of view in reference to a particular situation, just goes back to itself, which means it simply remains as it always is, open and available, ready to take the next shape.
2. Concepts and the mind have their proper function to play, and that will occur effortlessly, naturally and spontaneously when the false beliefs and opinions we hold about ourselves, and identification with the body-mind mechanism, no longer hold sway, or when the mind no longer attributes an independent reality to objects.
Yes, all the concepts of the mind are still available for use in appropriate situations. The only difference is that they now serve love and intelligence, whereas before they served the sense of lack and fear.
3. While from the ultimate perspective there is no doer, experiencer or world, the sense of a doer, an experiencer and a world naturally is experienced, and is not a mistake or a problem to be transcended but impartially witnessed and enjoyed.
If we know ourself as the witness of the doer and the experiencer, then we know that we are not a doer or an experiencer. In other words, we cannot legitimately say that we are the witness and the doer at the same time.
At the moment we know ourself as the witness, we know, by definition, that there is no individual doer or experiencer. There are just thoughts, sensations and perceptions arising in and made out of our own self. The previously imagined doer or experiencer is understood to be simply a witnessed thought or sensation.
When we know thoughts, sensations and perceptions to be arising inour self, we are the witness. When we know them to arise asour self, we are their substance. As witness we are transcendent; as substance, immanent. As witness we take our stand as wisdom; as substance, love.
These are the two modes of experience. As witness we are the knowing element in all experience. As substance we are the being element in all experience. That is, we simultaneously knowthe world and arethe world. The conjunction of these two reveals the third element of experience, known as enjoyment in relation to the world and as friendship in relation to ‘others’.
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4. If the above three are accurate, then I have a question as to your response to Julli’s inquiry about the feeling of having a choice in whether to follow a thought or not (‘Do we choose which thoughts to act upon?’). Shouldn’t we concede a provisional reality to her sense of causation in the chain of dealing with those thoughts that we observe simply occurring in the mind? Couldn’t we say that the intelligence governing the universe has set things up just in that way, or is this just a rationalisation to avoid facing the necessity of renouncing any sense of doership at all, provisional or not?
Yes, we concede a provisional reality to the sense of causation in thoughts and activities. For instance, we act as if the thought ‘I’d like a cup of tea’ was the cause of the subsequent action of putting on the kettle.
However, we realise at the same time that the thought ‘I’d like to have a cup of tea’ was itself inseparably linked to (and therefore caused by) innumerable other factors which, if we were able to trace them all the way back to their origin (objectively), would include the totality.
So it is quite possible to ‘act as if’ whilst at the same time retaining the experiential understanding that there are no independent entities causing actions, situations or events, and likewise no independent actions, situations or events.
If we look deeply into the belief that there are discrete, separate causes for things, we will always find the separate entity lurking there. The reason for this is that to have an idea of a ‘discrete, independent cause’ we must first have divided up the seamless totality of experience into separate parts, and the subject–object relationship is inherent in such a division of experience.
That is the rational approach. The experiential approach would be just to see that the moment the apparent separate entity drops out of the current experience, life is immediately experienced as one seamless whole, everything taking shape of its own accord with no separate parts or entities anywhere to be found. As such, we find our self intimately one with the totality, and the question of a doer or experiencer does not arise.
So when there seems to be a choice, it is the totality that is choosing itself from moment to moment. However, as the totality is already itself, this is just another way of saying that it just is: knowing, being and enjoying itself from moment to moment.
With love,
Rupert
