I must eradicate self-referential thought

Who is eating his/her tail? You answer that question, and this won't be an issue. Drop concepts.

Jake Yeager wrote: Who is eating his/her tail? You answer that question, and this won't be an issue. Drop concepts.

Who wants to drop concepts?

I believe that the classic Buddhist description of this is "trying to wash out blood with blood." (Also, the inability of the eye to see itself, or a knife to cut itself.)

ETA: the GIF makes it vivid and visceral, though!

Chris Marti wrote: Jake, is this your personal experience? Have you dropped concepts?

Some, but not all.

Thoughts are a problem!

— Thought

Chris Marti wrote: How does that work?

For example, yesterday the thought "I don't get it" arose. That is, I just didn't understand this awakening thing or this whole process. The thought was laced with emotion, primarily confusion. Right after the thought arose, i inquired "Where am I?" Then, there arose a sense that there is nothing to "get," that the notion that there is something to understand is false. Thus, "i" dropped the concept that awakening is about understanding a.k.a. "getting" something.

The concept that is currently in the process of being let go of is that awakening is dependent on conditions, such as needing to eliminate tension from the body, to awaken chakras, to eradicate thought.

A person might believe that inquiry into the "I" cannot eliminate self-referential thoughts because the "I" cannot possibly eliminate itself. Although this is a logical paradox, in my experience, inquiry is very effective at eliminating thoughts. One must just see for him or herself if this is true. __/\__

A couple of thoughts:

1. Chris and Jake are defining "thought" differently. Both Chris and Jake are making valid points.

2. In my experience, it is possible for thinking to happen in the absence of identification as self. From such a lens, "all of this is happening" without any sense that it's happening to me. From this place, there can even be writing and speaking. The words "I am not here" can be spoken sincerely; the words are spoken as a real-time report rather than an ontological assertion or an attempt to permanently invalidate other lenses. The words are coming out, but there is no feeling that they are coming from "me." It's even possible for this to happen without identifying as a disembodied watcher or witness who is standing by observing all this, and even without identifying with "pure knowing." (Both of these postures, which are very common and normal, are really just kicking the can of self further up the road.) The lens I'm describing is a nonpersonal, nonautonomous lens. If this is what Jake is describing, I think he's onto something valid. I would add that access to this lens tends to be developmental, meaning that in order for it to become one's baseline, many other lenses will probably have to be accessed and cultivated first. Attempting to leapfrog stages is more likely to result in delusion than wisdom. "Baseline" in this context means whichever meaning-making system operates most often during the course of a day. We all have access to many meaning-making systems, and we don't lose access to (or stop spontaneously operating from) lenses that developed earlier, even after having baselined a developmentally higher lens. After all, from a postautonomous point of view, none of this is up to us anyway. Consider too that "developmentally more advanced" does not mean better, any more than elder adulthood is "better" than young adulthood. If anything, all developmental lenses together can be seen as an ecosystem where every niche is filled; and it must be this way for the entire system to function normally.

3. Acknowledging that non-identified thinking can happen and is a developmentally advanced lens is very different from saying that this lens not only happens and is valid, but is the best lens or the Right Way to Be. I would find that a highly questionable assertion given the nature of knowledge as I understand it. By that, I mean that it isn't possible to stand outside of experience in order to evaluate experience; even the subjectively compelling feeling of certainty, as in "my god, this is Absolute Reality," is itself an experience, and we are as likely to be mistaken about this as anything else.

4. Irrespective of whether a thought is personal or nonpersonal, any kind of evaluation that places one phenomenon above another is a function of thought by most reasonable definitions. I believe this is Chris' point, and I concur.

5. Sometimes we evaluate the truth of what someone is saying by how confident they sound as they say it. I am wary of this heuristic for spotting truth, as it tends to give too much weight to something I like to think of as "narcissistic certitude." If anything, I now use narcissistic certitude as a red flag to indicate that someone is either deluded, manipulative, or simply overplaying their hand. When I find myself behaving with narcissistic certitude, I like to do some soul-searching and ask myself why I so desperately need to be right about this.

Chris Marti wrote: We use terms like "dis-embed" and "objective observer" and "the witness" to explain and describe a set of lenses we can practice and try on, but they aren't outside of experience. They're part of experience.

Nice.

Kenneth Folk wrote: 1. Chris and Jake are defining "thought" differently. Both Chris and Jake are making valid points.

That is one of the reasons I'm working on a new transcend and include step. There's so much confusion in worlds like thoughts, feelings, states, stages, lenses, lines, structures. They point to sometimes different, sometimes the same, but always interrelate and here comes the confusion and lots of misuderstanding.

I'm experimenting with new metaphors (like channels and bandwidth) and together with Katia we're experimenting with visualization that both will catch the one major meaning for each concept and show interrelations between them.

As I've said on Facebook: we are trying to visualize several 4-6 dimensional non-linear functions in 2-3 dimensions.

Kenneth Folk wrote: Consider too that "developmentally more advanced" does not mean better, any more than elder adulthood is "better" than young adulthood. If anything, all developmental lenses together can be seen as an ecosystem where every niche is filled; and it must be this way for the entire system to function normally.

Another way to put it, what is "better" — seeing a shirt as a bundle of shapes, distances and colors OR as a blue shirt that produces pleasant feelings OR as a tool for making a necessary impression on today's meeting to be better heard.

All are valid, some include other, some are more useful for particular moments in life.

Kenneth Folk wrote: A couple of thoughts

Missed this pointer on the first read.

Chris Marti wrote: So it sounds like thoughts are being used to help you eliminate thoughts

Yeah, inquiry is a thought, e.g., "Where am I?" or "What am I?" that destroys other thoughts IME. In the "end," when the only thought remaining is the inquiry, the inquiry is also destroyed, at least according to Ramana and Bassui.

From Ramana's "Who am I?":

The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.

From Bassui's "Dharma Talk on One Mind":

At work, at rest, never stop trying to realize who it is that hears. Even though your questioning becomes almost unconscious, you won’t find the one who hears, and all your efforts will come to naught. Yet sounds can be heard, so question yourself to an even profounder level. At last every vestige of self-awareness will disappear and you will feel like a cloudless sky. Within yourself you will find no “I,” nor will you discover anyone who hears. This Mind is like the void, yet it hasn’t a single spot that can be called empty. This state is often mistaken for Self-realization. But continue to ask yourself even more intensely, “Now who is it that hears?” If you bore and bore into this question, oblivious to anything else; even this feeling of voidness will vanish and you will be unaware of anything-total darkness will prevail. [Don't stop here, but] keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like a man come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face to face and the Patriarchs past and present. Test yourself with this koan: “A monk asked Joshu: ‘What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?’ Joshu replied: ‘The oak tree in the garden.’ ” Should this koan leave you with the slightest doubt, you need to resume questioning, “What is it that hears?” [emphasis mine]

__/\__