'How is this?' & 'This is known' - Discussion
| 'How is this?' & 'This is known' | Stian Gudmundsen Høiland | 10/20/11 2:00 PM |
RE: 'How is this?' & 'This is known'
|
Tommy M | 10/20/11 2:45 PM |
HAIETMOBA
I understand this as a technique where one brings awareness to the raw sense impressions instead of their proliferated versions, and perceiving raw sense impressions is called apperception.
My personal version of it is "How is this?".
"This" being the ongoing experience of raw sensuousness in the present moment. The answer to the question is kind of like a "sampling" of the current moment. One takes a good look at the raw sensuousness of the present moment, and whatever it is that you see when you take that look, that is the answer to the question.
Awareness
"This is known".
"This" being the content of awareness/consciousness/experience/attention, whatever it might be. E.g.: If you get up quickly and blood drains quickly from your brain, "this" is that very heavy, impeding and contracted experience. It doesn't matter how contracted or open your current experience is. Awareness has no shape, color, texture, etc. It wraps around or reflects whatever shape, color, texture, etc. that is present - Awareness "takes on" the shape of it's content (i.e. the current experience).
Awareness is always there, how can it not? If awareness wasn't there... well, you would not be reading this, would you, because you are aware of reading this.
The words of "This is known" are a pointer towards "That which knows". One can become aware of "That which knows" by experiential inference when one is constantly reminded that "This is known".
This might help point the right way: When looking at a mirror, you see your reflection. You cannot actually see the mirror, only the reflection. But you can still infer that there is a mirror. If you stare at a your reflection long enough, you can suddenly become intimately aware of the mirror, not the reflection. Seriously - try it with a mirror.
Thoughts
When I do "This is known", there are two things that might happen. The most infrequent one is a intimate, bright and vast recognition that Awareness pervades. The second, which happens each and every time I remember "This is known" (which I currently do up to 20 times a minute when I'm mindful) is a certain dis-embeding or dissociation. It is much like becoming lucid in a dream. But this is not what is interesting to me at the moment, because there is another side effect of "This is known".
It is like a momentary thinning of being. The inner world collapses and experience becomes very external. The clouds "pop", they suddenly have more depth, they are more dimensional, "volumus". But the most fascinating thing is the perceived "meaning" of the clouds. The clouds are suddenly "important" or deeply satisfying. Suddenly, the clouds quench a certain thirst. A thirst for what? Hmmm...
It seems that "This is known" dissociates the self/being to such a degree that it also takes on the function of "How is this?". It removes the veil of being/self. It reveals this present moment without the filter or lens of the individual.
Try this, experiment with it. I'm very interested in your experience of these two attitudes. Let me know
I understand this as a technique where one brings awareness to the raw sense impressions instead of their proliferated versions, and perceiving raw sense impressions is called apperception.
My personal version of it is "How is this?".
"This" being the ongoing experience of raw sensuousness in the present moment. The answer to the question is kind of like a "sampling" of the current moment. One takes a good look at the raw sensuousness of the present moment, and whatever it is that you see when you take that look, that is the answer to the question.
Awareness
"This is known".
"This" being the content of awareness/consciousness/experience/attention, whatever it might be. E.g.: If you get up quickly and blood drains quickly from your brain, "this" is that very heavy, impeding and contracted experience. It doesn't matter how contracted or open your current experience is. Awareness has no shape, color, texture, etc. It wraps around or reflects whatever shape, color, texture, etc. that is present - Awareness "takes on" the shape of it's content (i.e. the current experience).
Awareness is always there, how can it not? If awareness wasn't there... well, you would not be reading this, would you, because you are aware of reading this.
The words of "This is known" are a pointer towards "That which knows". One can become aware of "That which knows" by experiential inference when one is constantly reminded that "This is known".
This might help point the right way: When looking at a mirror, you see your reflection. You cannot actually see the mirror, only the reflection. But you can still infer that there is a mirror. If you stare at a your reflection long enough, you can suddenly become intimately aware of the mirror, not the reflection. Seriously - try it with a mirror.
Thoughts
When I do "This is known", there are two things that might happen. The most infrequent one is a intimate, bright and vast recognition that Awareness pervades. The second, which happens each and every time I remember "This is known" (which I currently do up to 20 times a minute when I'm mindful) is a certain dis-embeding or dissociation. It is much like becoming lucid in a dream. But this is not what is interesting to me at the moment, because there is another side effect of "This is known".
It is like a momentary thinning of being. The inner world collapses and experience becomes very external. The clouds "pop", they suddenly have more depth, they are more dimensional, "volumus". But the most fascinating thing is the perceived "meaning" of the clouds. The clouds are suddenly "important" or deeply satisfying. Suddenly, the clouds quench a certain thirst. A thirst for what? Hmmm...
It seems that "This is known" dissociates the self/being to such a degree that it also takes on the function of "How is this?". It removes the veil of being/self. It reveals this present moment without the filter or lens of the individual.
Try this, experiment with it. I'm very interested in your experience of these two attitudes. Let me know
