So my various ideas about awareness, being, God, etc., are still just ideas? That these constructs are better than ideas about, say, what to have for dinner, is a compelling valuation of specialness. Maybe certain ideas can be held provisionally as a stepping stone to both interior silence and non-identification with interior thought flow?
All ideas are ideas, but they generally refer to something that isn't an idea, whether it is the actuality of "awareness" or the actuality of " the dinner I'm eating right now" or the actuality of "water." Maps can indeed be very useful--they only become problematic if we mistake them for the territory they describe and then try to live in the map or eat the menu. As I said, "words can be immensely evocative and transformative. Language, complex thinking and imagination are all undeniable and emergent aspects of what is." I love words and ideas. And they can definitely be very helpful pointers and stepping stones. The key is to hold them provisionally and discover the living reality that they are meant to evoke or describe.
This was just what I needed to hear right now, even in a computerized voice. And it reinforced what I read earlier...your recommendation of John Astin’s Substack article. Now I am going to go to the Internet and get instructions for experientially “seeing” that blind spot, a pilgrimage I seem to take every few years. It’s good reminder of blind spots everywhere! Thank you, Joan.
Thank you once again Joan for a brilliant page. You have an amazing talent for translating extremely difficult concepts into simple words. Like you say, language is useful.All we say and write are just concepts, but we need them to make sense of our experience. Living “as if” is sometimes difficult but I try to remember it’s all a movie, and there’s no Oscar for any actor🤣
Been on this pathless path for eons it seems, Love how you and John A. have helped so much pointing to All that could be, is just This, All is Life experiencing Itself, just as It Is💚
Beautifully written, Joan ☀️. Not to counter your own words, but I would suggest that your "thinking mind" is doing a bang up job and not in any way lacking the "listening presence" you reference. In fact, to my ear you have great certainty - and clarity - and there isn't a darned bit about that that is coming from a lack of the open quality of "not knowing" or the presence of a constricting "need to know." Your writing demonstrates that there is not a conflict between action and being, except apparently so when the idea that there is predominates.
A challenge I had for years was I would directly experience something, but as soon as I started thinking it would disappear. And the experience couldn't be understood by thought, so it didn't seem 'real' to thought, and I'd discount it. I think some of the teachings about not clinging to experiences actually helped sustain this.
this passage in particular jumped out at me and grabbed on and so here it is, still with me:
"...all experiences are of the past. They can be enjoyed, like a good movie, but if taken too seriously or identified with, suffering and confusion will be the result."
this is so helpful. thank you for being a character in my life-movie!
I have been enjoying your posts, Joan, since first finding that you're here on Substack a month or two ago. (Late to the party, I know.). And I find this latest one to be particularly and lucidly enjoyable. I also enjoy it whenever I encounter someone else saying something that resonates or links up quite precisely with what I have recently been thinking and saying myself. So maybe that's why this latest post from you resonates so strongly. To risk ickiness by quoting from my own second-to-latest post:
"When it comes to perceiving the real, ultimate truth of the world and ourselves, if both our physical and mental senses are in fact a form of blindness, what happens when we massively extend and amplify them via technological means and develop an accompanying cultural narrative and ad hoc epistemology that tells us we are thereby that much more knowing and enlightened? In the inverted system of knowing that constitutes real knowledge of what’s real and who we are, how much more awesome is our blindness and ignorance when we develop our means of objective knowing to a fantastic level of power and sophistication, and place all our reliance on this? What, exactly, are we missing? And what small but significant shift in perspective does it take for us to recognize that this overlooked linchpin of everything, the key to our world and our selves, is precisely triangulated by the very blindness of all our vast means of seeing, hearing, and knowing?" https://www.livingdark.net/p/what-no-eye-has-seen-or-screen-has
Reading this piece brings to mind my 12-step work(?) and the sayings "Live and let Live" and "meeting others where they're at." Both ideas recognize that a) I am not in control, and b) that others are NOT watching the same movie I am. My practice of both concepts allows me much peace and serenity in this present moment!
I learned about letting go of the steering wheel in the 12 Steps, but this excerpt below helped me to understand it so much better why they taught that. It’s so freeing. Thanks Joan.
“Our usual way of conceptualizing our life is to think that we are in the driver’s seat of our bodymind, steering the car, so to speak. But science tells us there is actually a split second time delay in perception, so a more accurate picture would be that we are looking out the rear window of the car. We don’t know where we’re going; we’re seeing where we’ve just been. We may have a pretend steering wheel back there, but it’s not connected to anything. We’re not in control. And we only seem to be going somewhere, and only in the story. Here-Now is timeless and immovable. “
"How we each see the world is conditioned by our *nature and nature*—our life experiences, genetics, cultural surroundings, the language we speak, and so on. We all have blind spots, places we can’t actually see, and our conditioning fills them in."
They hide in plain sight. Rather like typos, yes? ;)
Yes, and thank you for pointing one out which I shall now correct in the online version. I suspect this was the work of that pesky auto-correct feature that sometimes jumps in too soon, gets it wrong, and escapes my notice. And, of course, "I" did proof-read the whole thing more than once, even reading it aloud, and always every time saw "nature and nurture." 😊
Thank you, Joan. I feel something like that even I would like it would be different
So my various ideas about awareness, being, God, etc., are still just ideas? That these constructs are better than ideas about, say, what to have for dinner, is a compelling valuation of specialness. Maybe certain ideas can be held provisionally as a stepping stone to both interior silence and non-identification with interior thought flow?
All ideas are ideas, but they generally refer to something that isn't an idea, whether it is the actuality of "awareness" or the actuality of " the dinner I'm eating right now" or the actuality of "water." Maps can indeed be very useful--they only become problematic if we mistake them for the territory they describe and then try to live in the map or eat the menu. As I said, "words can be immensely evocative and transformative. Language, complex thinking and imagination are all undeniable and emergent aspects of what is." I love words and ideas. And they can definitely be very helpful pointers and stepping stones. The key is to hold them provisionally and discover the living reality that they are meant to evoke or describe.
This was just what I needed to hear right now, even in a computerized voice. And it reinforced what I read earlier...your recommendation of John Astin’s Substack article. Now I am going to go to the Internet and get instructions for experientially “seeing” that blind spot, a pilgrimage I seem to take every few years. It’s good reminder of blind spots everywhere! Thank you, Joan.
https://youtube.com/shorts/kXexKidj76w?si=5c2X7aRH0phfYXYk
Blind spot experiment from YouTube
Thank you once again Joan for a brilliant page. You have an amazing talent for translating extremely difficult concepts into simple words. Like you say, language is useful.All we say and write are just concepts, but we need them to make sense of our experience. Living “as if” is sometimes difficult but I try to remember it’s all a movie, and there’s no Oscar for any actor🤣
Been on this pathless path for eons it seems, Love how you and John A. have helped so much pointing to All that could be, is just This, All is Life experiencing Itself, just as It Is💚
Beautifully written, Joan ☀️. Not to counter your own words, but I would suggest that your "thinking mind" is doing a bang up job and not in any way lacking the "listening presence" you reference. In fact, to my ear you have great certainty - and clarity - and there isn't a darned bit about that that is coming from a lack of the open quality of "not knowing" or the presence of a constricting "need to know." Your writing demonstrates that there is not a conflict between action and being, except apparently so when the idea that there is predominates.
A challenge I had for years was I would directly experience something, but as soon as I started thinking it would disappear. And the experience couldn't be understood by thought, so it didn't seem 'real' to thought, and I'd discount it. I think some of the teachings about not clinging to experiences actually helped sustain this.
dear joan,
thank you for this as always!
this passage in particular jumped out at me and grabbed on and so here it is, still with me:
"...all experiences are of the past. They can be enjoyed, like a good movie, but if taken too seriously or identified with, suffering and confusion will be the result."
this is so helpful. thank you for being a character in my life-movie!
love,
myq
Thank you.
Thank you
I have been enjoying your posts, Joan, since first finding that you're here on Substack a month or two ago. (Late to the party, I know.). And I find this latest one to be particularly and lucidly enjoyable. I also enjoy it whenever I encounter someone else saying something that resonates or links up quite precisely with what I have recently been thinking and saying myself. So maybe that's why this latest post from you resonates so strongly. To risk ickiness by quoting from my own second-to-latest post:
"When it comes to perceiving the real, ultimate truth of the world and ourselves, if both our physical and mental senses are in fact a form of blindness, what happens when we massively extend and amplify them via technological means and develop an accompanying cultural narrative and ad hoc epistemology that tells us we are thereby that much more knowing and enlightened? In the inverted system of knowing that constitutes real knowledge of what’s real and who we are, how much more awesome is our blindness and ignorance when we develop our means of objective knowing to a fantastic level of power and sophistication, and place all our reliance on this? What, exactly, are we missing? And what small but significant shift in perspective does it take for us to recognize that this overlooked linchpin of everything, the key to our world and our selves, is precisely triangulated by the very blindness of all our vast means of seeing, hearing, and knowing?" https://www.livingdark.net/p/what-no-eye-has-seen-or-screen-has
Reading this piece brings to mind my 12-step work(?) and the sayings "Live and let Live" and "meeting others where they're at." Both ideas recognize that a) I am not in control, and b) that others are NOT watching the same movie I am. My practice of both concepts allows me much peace and serenity in this present moment!
I learned about letting go of the steering wheel in the 12 Steps, but this excerpt below helped me to understand it so much better why they taught that. It’s so freeing. Thanks Joan.
“Our usual way of conceptualizing our life is to think that we are in the driver’s seat of our bodymind, steering the car, so to speak. But science tells us there is actually a split second time delay in perception, so a more accurate picture would be that we are looking out the rear window of the car. We don’t know where we’re going; we’re seeing where we’ve just been. We may have a pretend steering wheel back there, but it’s not connected to anything. We’re not in control. And we only seem to be going somewhere, and only in the story. Here-Now is timeless and immovable. “
I love “looking out the rear window” to see where we’ve just been. I didn’t know about that split second of perception that science teaches.
"How we each see the world is conditioned by our *nature and nature*—our life experiences, genetics, cultural surroundings, the language we speak, and so on. We all have blind spots, places we can’t actually see, and our conditioning fills them in."
They hide in plain sight. Rather like typos, yes? ;)
Yes, and thank you for pointing one out which I shall now correct in the online version. I suspect this was the work of that pesky auto-correct feature that sometimes jumps in too soon, gets it wrong, and escapes my notice. And, of course, "I" did proof-read the whole thing more than once, even reading it aloud, and always every time saw "nature and nurture." 😊