More rambling about how it all works

More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 11/20/19 8:10 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 11/20/19 9:18 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 11/20/19 12:24 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Bardo 11/20/19 1:05 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 11/20/19 2:29 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 11/20/19 3:20 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Bardo 11/20/19 3:53 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 11/20/19 8:32 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 11/21/19 12:52 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 11/21/19 7:18 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works shargrol 11/21/19 8:57 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 11/21/19 9:14 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 12/5/19 12:41 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Stirling Campbell 12/5/19 6:58 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 12/6/19 8:24 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Stirling Campbell 12/8/19 10:29 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 12/8/19 2:41 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works terry 12/12/19 3:32 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works terry 12/5/19 6:03 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works terry 12/5/19 5:46 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 12/6/19 9:04 AM
RE: More rambling about how it all works terry 12/6/19 4:41 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works terry 12/6/19 4:13 PM
RE: More rambling about how it all works Ernest Michael Olmos 12/6/19 7:55 AM
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 8:10 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 8:10 AM

More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 219 Join Date: 5/30/14 Recent Posts
Some rambling here, you've been warned:

For some time I've been feeling, watching, etc, the need to control, to understand, etc. How things arise and fade.

Also what gives rise to what (karma), pain, suffering, etc.

Something really weird happened, like a realization or something (like an AP moment?).

I used to think that sensations, memories, feelings, etc are impermanent and arise and end.
But the reality I've been experiencing is a lot, A LOT deeper than that.

That thing that knows, that understands, that separates us humans from animals, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, arises and ends, moment to moment.

It's not identity, self, it's a lot more, it's....everything.
Because without that thing grouping sensations, retrieving from memory....everything, making sense of reality, we are...well animals.

And that thing that separates us from animals is really tiny, really fragile, malleable.
So, here is yet another model of how now I think it works:

— There are a lot of sensations that are processed by the unconscious (the same that other animals).
— Some part of us mammals want to make sense of sensations or panic about them (the same that other animals).
— Consciousness arises (unlike other animals) to make sense of all sensations. In animals, that inability to make sense of them is felt like some sort of pain.
— Consciousness panics and looks for memories about sensations, about who we are, about our body, etc.
— In trying to make sense of the whole world, it triggers millions of request to our memories.
— It makes some sense of our body by looking at sensations old and new. For example, to "create" the idea of our leg and it's solidity, it looks for sensations that happened in our leg an hour ago, yesterday, etc. It groups sensations old and new together. The same with identity, feelings, etc...basically the whole world is recreated based on our memories (some from long ago).

It really makes sense. Consciousness, identity, self, whatever the thing is, it wants to make sense of things. Its drive is to know, to understand.
It arises out of the need to make sense of...everything and it really does a good job.
It arises out of pain, not of the unknown, but of making sense of all the useless sensations that our basic drive to breathe, etc, can't use.

So, a minute for us (humans is something like this):

— There are a lot of sensations.
— The consciousness thing arises and tries to make sense of them (but it uses 99% of the time recreating everything based on our memories) (grasping).
— While this consciousness thing is doing its work, our unconscious keeps churning sensations in real time.
— While doing all this recreating the world from memory, there is grasping at good memories and aversion to bad ones.
— The consciousness thing realizes that by the time it finished, all its work is useless, so it somehow detaches from real sensations and inhabit the world it created from our memories (basic suffering that meditation eliminates).
— The consciousness thing ends and for some time (milliseconds) we operate as animals, processing in real time.
— Another consciousness thing arises.

Some conclusions:

— Fruition doesn't arise, consciousness does. I don't know if fruition is lack of consciousness (like animals) or consciousness is there but it doesn't access our memory for information to make sense of the sensations. Fruition also arises, but it's not like it's something out of the ordinary.
— For some time of our lives we are like other animals, driven by basic instincts.
— Meditation (paths) reduces useless recreation of the world by consciousness (or this thing that wants to know, understand, whatever you want to call it) based on our memories.
— Meditation is a lot more powerful and dangerous than we think. We are dealing with the very thing that makes us humans.
— This consciousness thing is impermanent, not self and it arises of some kind of pain (not knowing).

So I'll stop now, before I get too far.

Hopefully this can be useful for someone, and no one gets offended.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 9:18 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 9:18 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Basically yeah. I think we define consciousness differently, though. I would definitely say that animals are conscious. That's in the everyday sense of the word, though. I assume that you refer to what I would call a self. I'm not so sure that all animals lack a self either. I'm prone to believe that at least some animals have a self. However, we humans have more conceptual overlays than other animals (as far as we know) and build more narratives around our self to hide its discontinuity and lack of substance. And yes, that's exactly what meditation deals with. Meditation has the power to reveal the delusion. It's like one of the pills in the Matrix movie. That doesn't make it dangerous per se. Even if we were to stay unaware of the delusion, it would still be a delusion. Meditation doesn't change the nature of reality. It just enables us to see things in a less distorted way. 

Are you okay? 
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 12:24 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 12:24 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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I'm a little edgy, but I'm always like that on AP emoticon.

I went in a trip to the coast where I did very long walks. I felt very grateful about everything. There was also lots of clarity, etc.

That said, I felt a little worried when I realized that everything arises and stops and that whatever meaning also arises and stops.
I felt extremely grateful that it arised, and it won't stop arising (no more than I can forget about breathing or my heart beating).
There are also some lack of agency (they have been happening in daily life for some time now) that do worry me a little.
But somehow everything turns OK.

About this consciousness thing, probably it's not the right word. "All-knower", "provider of meaning" are better descriptions.

It's not only about identity or self:

It manages time, space, causality, meaning, intention, separation, etc.

For example, that thing in captchas where you know what frames contain cars. After some of my "paths", reality came a lot more integrated.
But not only between myself and other things, but between things themselves.
Also time and space were affected.

So the ability to identify and separate things is an ability that this "knower" can do.
Also reason, etc.

While some animals can recognize themselves in a mirror, I doubt they can have ideas about time, space, meaning and separate or join ideas of things in a logical way. At least not in the way we humans do.

Without time, space, reason, meaning, separation, intention, etc, there is not much left.......

Anyway, the thing will keep arising, doing it's thing emoticonemoticon and ending.
The world (time, space, reason, meaning, separation, intention, identity) will be recreated each time.

I don't really know how to describe what the thing does.

Yeah, I repeated the work thing a lot of times emoticonemoticon.
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Bardo, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 1:05 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 1:05 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Ernest Michael Olmos:

Without time, space, reason, meaning, separation, intention, etc, there is not much left.......

This is where you will find the answer that cannot be cognitively known. This can be fearful - try to imagine what it would be like to have no meaning.

What is left is everything all at once - so much of everything that the mind cannot hold it and so its ability to comprehend in its usual ways collapses and the entire universe falls through you again and again and again. This is what having no meaning is.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 2:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 2:29 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Yes, meaning is created and destroyed (as everything else) by this "knower" thing that arises and ends.

I'm pretty sure that even after 4th path, the knower will arise and end.

It will be using a lot less info from memories about time, space, identity, etc (tons of less suffering), so it's "reality" will be different, but it will still be arising and ending and making sense of everything.

Anyway, this is not useful if you can't feel "all reality" (not a part) vibrating as it arises and ends and realize that what you are looking for was all the time with you. What vibrates (begins and ends) is more than reality, is meaning, causality, reasoning, concepts.

I don't have to look for sensations, feelings, the watcher, suffering, self, etc.

What I'm looking for is everywhere, all the time, as it always was.

Anyway, really powerful AP phenomena.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 3:20 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 3:20 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Great that you are okay! Yeah, I get a bit wired up in the A&P too. I used to love it but now I guess I see more of the dukkha in it. 

Great observations, and yeah, the first time one really sees this - and grasps the implications of it - can be pretty mindblowing and also unsettling. This may take some time to integrate. I mean, you took the red pill (in the Matrix) and suddenly fundamental aspects of the reality that used to be taken for granted are seen through as delusion. That's huge. And yet, it hasn't changed. It hasn't suddenly disintegrated. It was always like this. Nothing has been lost. You can still live your life in this reality, but now you have access to some of the coding, so to speak. It doesn't take away anything, but adds some extent of liberation. 

Yeah, I see what you mean with the choice of word. Narrator, perhaps? Or maybe that's just one aspect of it. I think at least some animals have several of the other features, though, but that's just a belief and I may be wrong. Many people would probably agree more with you than with me. It doesn't make much of a difference for the points you are making anyway. I mainly agree with those. I can assure you, though, that my cats have a better sense of both time and space than I do. One of them consistently wakes me up at five o'clock in the morning. I used to have a cat who made sure that I went to bed in time to get enough sleep. He would pat me on my shoulder and then glance at the bed. He lay next to (or partly on) my face, purred and caressed my cheak with his paw until I fell asleep. If he thought I had fallen asleep, he would very slowly and gently sneak up from the bed (cats are active during the night, after all). If he noticed that I was still awake, he would go back to getting me to sleep. If I told that cat that he could go out for a while but that he would have to come back soon because I would need to leave home, he always came back earlier than otherwise. I doubt that he got lost in stories about himself and about the world in the same way as humans do, though. He probably didn't conceptualize in so many layers either. I think that is what we humans do: we add layers to stuff. Abstraction levels. We categorize. We frame situations in different ways (animals do that too, though, at least some animals, which has been studied by Gregory Bateson who coined the concept of framing as a theory; there are many animals who are capable of playing). We assume rules, read between the lines (often distorting things), make assumptions. We are able to lie. We invented game theory, which turned us into strategic manipulators. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that what distinguishes humans from other animals is the fact that our instincts are so poor that we depend on culture for survival. A human newborn child is totally helpless on its own and needs to be taught how to be human. Fascinating, really. 
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Bardo, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 3:53 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 3:53 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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My heart was warmed by the cat thing. (-:

I usually refer to A&P's as awakening moments as that's how they appear to me. My concentration becomes incredibly sharp like a line of atoms which I can seemingly place anywhere on my body. It's a good time to trawl through various teachings too. You can even intuit the teachings of various other religions which helps break down many preconceptions about religion in general - or at least the facade that is purported to be the religion itself. The deeper teaching usually delivers a much more telling, authentic and sincere scope of things.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 8:32 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/20/19 8:32 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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I have two small poodles and I love the way they know what I want or need.

You are probably right about the layers stuff, but I don't agree about humans being on the same level as other animals (even without culture or society).
What exactly is that thing that puts us on another level I'm not sure what it is, but it has to do with knowing, grouping patterns to form ideas.
Like you say, abstraction levels, categorizations.

Anyway, it's good that I can focus on all reality or agency because what is left of the "watcher" is always moving and I can't seem to confine it or separate from moving awareness. Sensations have little solidity or they appear flickering anyway. My body feels mostly transparent with sensations coming and going. There is also little grasping of feelings as they come and go. There is no centerpoint (in any part of my body). There are not even groups of sensations (what I called the fog) that I can pinpoint.

Whatever watcher or solidity is left, they are wandering everywhere, moving with awareness, making knots and dissapearing.
Basically, everything is integrated, but not in a stable way.

While my awareness, sensations and watcher keep wandering, agency, causality and knowing were pretty stable.

I really didn't expect them to flicker the way they did.

It still shocks me that I'm a new person every second and world is brand new every second.
It really feels like a mind reseting every second. Whatever fruition or nirvana is, we live in a sea of it.

The interesting thing is that when I close my eyes and focus on the flickering of everything, agency tends to fade.
Another interesting thing is that my body feels A LOT more relaxed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 12:52 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 12:52 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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I didn't say that humans and other animals are on the same level. I just don't think it's a binary thing.

Sounds like great progress to me.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 7:18 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 7:17 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Yesterday a really weird thing happened. I could transfer everything (including identity) to an object I was seeing. It was not like resting attention on the object. It was like being it somehow.

Anyway, today I woke up and it's fading. Classic AP, rambling, modeling and showing on Dho included emoticon.

Nothing to see here, moving on......
shargrol, modified 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 8:57 AM
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RE: More rambling about how it all works

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emoticon

But good stuff, nonetheless.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 9:14 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 11/21/19 9:14 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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I can relate to that. And yeah, it can be recognizable and typical and wired up and we can laugh about our own classical displays, and it can still be good stuff. This seems significant to me.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 12:41 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 12:41 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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I'm still cycling, still connecting ideas. I'm a lot less obsessed with it that it seems emoticon.

However, the base of what I proposed is still interesting.

If consciousness arises and ends all the time (flickering), so basically, flickering and fruition are the same.
Only in fruition the gap between the end of each consciousness and the beginning of the other is longer and in flickering is a lot shorter.

What would count is the duration between the end and the new beginning. Also, when you're noting flickering, duration between beginning and end is shorter and in normal life (when you are not paying attention) it is longer (you are working with the original consciousness a lot longer before it ends).

By paying attention to what is happening right now, what you're doing is forcing the brain to trigger each ending faster (and with each one, a new beginning).

Of course, each consciousness that arises is brand new and different (like a new sensation).

Anyway, flickering and fruition being the same seems like an interesting idea.

Yeah, I know, I should spend more time meditating than rambling about all this.
I'm not giving all this all that much importance or time.

Just sharing some "crazy" ideas.
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terry, modified 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 5:46 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 5:46 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Ernest Michael Olmos:
Some rambling here, you've been warned:




Some conclusions:

— Fruition doesn't arise, consciousness does. I don't know if fruition is lack of consciousness (like animals) or consciousness is there but it doesn't access our memory for information to make sense of the sensations. Fruition also arises, but it's not like it's something out of the ordinary.
— For some time of our lives we are like other animals, driven by basic instincts.
— Meditation (paths) reduces useless recreation of the world by consciousness (or this thing that wants to know, understand, whatever you want to call it) based on our memories.
— Meditation is a lot more powerful and dangerous than we think. We are dealing with the very thing that makes us humans.
— This consciousness thing is impermanent, not self and it arises of some kind of pain (not knowing).

So I'll stop now, before I get too far.

Hopefully this can be useful for someone, and no one gets offended.


aloha emo,

    "Hopefully this can be useful for someone, and no one gets offended."  (you can say that again)

    Amen.

    While I don't think animals - even cells - "lack consciousness," their awareness may make them no happier than ourselves. The unconscious grace of animals and the unconscious grace of the human animal are identical. Conscious attempts at self aggrandizement will appear awkward and contrived in any species.

   We are always driven by basic instincts (aka "drives"). We nourish and are nourished, mate and are mated; we live and die to a rhythm reverberating through the web of life. We are a community of cells, wherever you draw the line; and each cell is a community of organelles, themselves complexes. "Great fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite'm/ Little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum."
   
   I agree with the fundamental conclusions here, that consciousness itself is not who we are. Any self-conscious awareness of who we are necessarily frames and thus reduces the true self to an image, a mere picture, a phantom, empty and unsatisfying. As in coleridge's poetic iimage:


Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Water, water, every where, 
And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, every where, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

    Memories - not really memories, being unconscious, like tools in use - inform the unconscious mind, the coping mind which does its work unnoticed. Memories made conscious only impede sense and presence. One reason buddhism emphasizes the suffering of "old age, sickness and death" is this is all more poignant the older one gets. As we age, life behind us becomes longer and life before us becomes shorter. Future memories pale in comparison to our those of our youthful past. Thus buddhism's particular appeal to old men: we need to remember to forget. To simply be present, "this lone brightness here listening to the dharma" (rinnzai).

  Meditation can be dangerous if it connects us with our humanness, not in any antropocentric sense but in not interfering with what it is to be a natural human being. Love is dangerous because we may sacrifice safety and security for what we love. Desire is bad, love is good; confusing because the two are one. The conscious mind would pursue the good (craving) and avoid the bad (aversion). The unconscious mind brings all its talents to bear in a total effort leading to an optimal result - swish. The conscious mind attempts to alter fate and manipulate reality, with predictably deplorable results.

   The three marks of existence, as you say, refer to consciousness, as consciousness = existence. Existence is not the be all and end all of everything, it is "a tiny drop of oil on the buddha's foot." 


terry


from "101 zen stories," paul reps:



101. Buddha's Zen

Buddha said:
'I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of, magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated one as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.'
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terry, modified 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 6:03 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 6:03 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Great that you are okay! Yeah, I get a bit wired up in the A&P too. I used to love it but now I guess I see more of the dukkha in it. 

Great observations, and yeah, the first time one really sees this - and grasps the implications of it - can be pretty mindblowing and also unsettling. This may take some time to integrate. I mean, you took the red pill (in the Matrix) and suddenly fundamental aspects of the reality that used to be taken for granted are seen through as delusion. That's huge. And yet, it hasn't changed. It hasn't suddenly disintegrated. It was always like this. Nothing has been lost. You can still live your life in this reality, but now you have access to some of the coding, so to speak. It doesn't take away anything, but adds some extent of liberation. 

Yeah, I see what you mean with the choice of word. Narrator, perhaps? Or maybe that's just one aspect of it. I think at least some animals have several of the other features, though, but that's just a belief and I may be wrong. Many people would probably agree more with you than with me. It doesn't make much of a difference for the points you are making anyway. I mainly agree with those. I can assure you, though, that my cats have a better sense of both time and space than I do. One of them consistently wakes me up at five o'clock in the morning. I used to have a cat who made sure that I went to bed in time to get enough sleep. He would pat me on my shoulder and then glance at the bed. He lay next to (or partly on) my face, purred and caressed my cheak with his paw until I fell asleep. If he thought I had fallen asleep, he would very slowly and gently sneak up from the bed (cats are active during the night, after all). If he noticed that I was still awake, he would go back to getting me to sleep. If I told that cat that he could go out for a while but that he would have to come back soon because I would need to leave home, he always came back earlier than otherwise. I doubt that he got lost in stories about himself and about the world in the same way as humans do, though. He probably didn't conceptualize in so many layers either. I think that is what we humans do: we add layers to stuff. Abstraction levels. We categorize. We frame situations in different ways (animals do that too, though, at least some animals, which has been studied by Gregory Bateson who coined the concept of framing as a theory; there are many animals who are capable of playing). We assume rules, read between the lines (often distorting things), make assumptions. We are able to lie. We invented game theory, which turned us into strategic manipulators. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz said that what distinguishes humans from other animals is the fact that our instincts are so poor that we depend on culture for survival. A human newborn child is totally helpless on its own and needs to be taught how to be human. Fascinating, really. 

aloha linda,

   Each new generation has to be taught all over again what it means to be...

terry



sailing to byzantium
(w b yeats)

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.


II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.


III

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.


IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
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Stirling Campbell, modified 5 Years ago at 12/5/19 6:58 PM
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RE: More rambling about how it all works

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Ernest Michael Olmos:

If consciousness arises and ends all the time (flickering), so basically, flickering and fruition are the same.

What lies under the arising and passing that is ALWAYS present? It is worth looking there.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 7:55 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 7:53 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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This post contains speculation and lots of rambling and mapping. Probably most of what this post contains is not based on reality.
No cats, dogs or any animals were hurt in the making of this post emoticon.

I´ll summarize my idea (ms is milliseconds):

Before SE (not meditating)
1ms - Fruition
1.000ms - Consciousness (long time before reset, data very old)
    - Creates Identity - Concepts (400ms)
    - Creates Feelings maps (300ms)
    - Creates sensations maps (300ms)
1ms - Fruition
1.000ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
1.000ms - Consciousness
.....


Before SE (when noting or doing insight)
1ms - Fruition
300ms - Consciousness
    - Creates Identity - Concepts (cannot complete because you force another Consciousness wave)
    - Creates Feelings maps  (cannot complete because you force another Consciousness wave)
    - Creates sensations maps (cannot complete because you force another wave)
1ms - Fruition
300ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
300ms - Consciousness
.....

Before SE (flickering)
1ms - Fruition
10ms - Consciousness
    - Creates Identity - Concepts (cannot complete because you force another Consciousness wave)
    - Creates Feelings maps  (cannot complete because you force another Consciousness wave)
    - Creates sensations maps (cannot complete because you force another Consciousness wave)
1ms - Fruition
10ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
10ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
10ms - Consciousness
.....

SE event
1ms - Fruition
1.000ms - Consciousness
10.000ms - Fruition (very very long)
800ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
800ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
800ms - Consciousness
.....

After SE
1ms - Fruition
800ms - Consciousness
    - Creates Identity - Concepts (400ms)
    - Creates Feelings maps (300ms)
    - Cannot creates sensations maps (there's no time), some time after the first path fruition (1000 iterations) the mind realizes that this is useless and drops it (release feeling).
1ms - Fruition
800ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
800ms - Consciousness
.....

After Second Path
1ms - Fruition
600ms - Consciousness
    - Creates Identity - Concepts (400ms)
    - Cannot creates feelings maps (there's no time before another consciousness), some time after the second path long fruition (1000 iterations that this fails) the mind realizes that this is useless and drops it (release feeling).
1ms - Fruition
600ms - Consciousness
1ms - Fruition
600ms - Consciousness
.....

After Third Path
10ms - Fruition (default fruition is longer, so the relaxation response is improved, you can now "notice" the gaps and the arising of Consciousness)
300ms - Consciousness
10ms - Fruition (fruition is longer, so the relaxation response is improved)
300ms - Consciousness
10ms - Fruition (fruition is longer, so the relaxation response is improved)
300ms - Consciousness
.....

After 4th path
50ms - Fruition (default fruition is a lot longer, so the relaxation response very much is improved)
100ms - Consciousness (very short, so reset every few seconds, data very recent, no time for identity, feelings or sensations maps)
50ms - Fruition
100ms - Consciousness
50ms - Fruition
100ms - Consciousness
50ms - Fruition
100ms - Consciousness
.....

So basically, as you progress in the path, you have more shorter "new" Consciousness waves (resets) vs less frequent longer ones, that work with more recent data, less time for rumination, etc.
What is really interesting is that "triggering a new consciousness" can be done the same way that with the breath, by forcing it (in this case being aware of the moment).

Another really, really wild guess: each new fruition-consciousness wave comes with some dopamine (you feel good). So the stages results as this mechanism is disrupted.
Actualism tries to trick this dopamine mechanism (forcing a release of dopamine based on each cycle of fruition-consciousness).

In this post what I call "Consciousness" may not be accurate. I really don't know how to call it (maybe awareness). It is absent during fruition.

Also all this numbers are made up to get the idea. Probably many people spend minutes building and living in the world created by the same "consciousness". Also, this time probably varies from person to person and from time to time.

My guess is that this Consciousness or Awareness "thing" is very demanding on the nervous system.
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 8:24 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 8:23 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 219 Join Date: 5/30/14 Recent Posts
That's exactly the point, between the passing and the new arising there is nothing (if there's anything I can't find it).
And there is a gap.

I assume that this "gap" is similar to the one in a fruition.

Between the arising and the passing there is well, everything, the construction of space, identity, visualizations and feelings, body maps, etc.
Right now what I feel when I focus on each fast wave of arising (I don't give it time to do many things, is what I call the knower.
It's the first thing that I can feel after the arising.
After the knower, some kind of geolocation (based on memory visualizations) and concepts (based on memory feelings).

Then, everything else emoticon.

It usually depends on how fast the "world" is vibrating. If I can make it vibrate really fast and relax, the knower doesn't have time to appear and lack of agency happens (I can't do this very often).

About something being ALWAYS present, well, the knower appears every time, but it is a different knower each time emoticon. And each knower has to remake the world again. When doing fast noting, I don't give it time to do that.

In fact, most things (sensations, location, concepts, etc) are "linked" to the knower, so they are not "real" and made up of the same thing (concepts?).

It's important to note that I don't feel this way all the time, only during AP and when being relaxed (meditating, walking, etc).
Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 9:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 9:04 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 219 Join Date: 5/30/14 Recent Posts
"Memories - not really memories, being unconscious, like tools in use - inform the unconscious mind, the coping mind which does its work unnoticed. Memories made conscious only impede sense and presence. One reason buddhism emphasizes the suffering of "old age, sickness and death" is this is all more poignant the older one gets. As we age, life behind us becomes longer and life before us becomes shorter. Future memories pale in comparison to our those of our youthful past. Thus buddhism's particular appeal to old men: we need to remember to forget. To simply be present, "this lone brightness here listening to the dharma" (rinnzai)."

I agree with all that.
In fact, I agree with most of your post.

Lots of what I posted are opinions or ideas in the moment I wrote them and don't represent the way I think about them all the time.

I'm not sure consciousness or awareness is a thing or if animals have it.

I do know that:
- It is absent during fruition.
- Some of the things it does are important emoticon.

Maybe what makes us human exist during a fruition (fruition is very relaxed and animals are usually very alert, so there's that).
Maybe fruition is a human thing.

I don't have 30min fruition experiences to say more about this, and the very short ones that I had (seconds) I'm not sure they were fruitions, and I really don't know what happened during them (nothing?).

Anyway, I posted the base idea below, it's not so much about what happens during a fruition, but it's relation with flickering, duality processes, being in the moment (noting) and paths.
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terry, modified 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 4:13 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 4:13 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

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terry:
Ernest Michael Olmos:
Some rambling here, you've been warned:




Some conclusions:

— Fruition doesn't arise, consciousness does. I don't know if fruition is lack of consciousness (like animals) or consciousness is there but it doesn't access our memory for information to make sense of the sensations. Fruition also arises, but it's not like it's something out of the ordinary.
— For some time of our lives we are like other animals, driven by basic instincts.
— Meditation (paths) reduces useless recreation of the world by consciousness (or this thing that wants to know, understand, whatever you want to call it) based on our memories.
— Meditation is a lot more powerful and dangerous than we think. We are dealing with the very thing that makes us humans.
— This consciousness thing is impermanent, not self and it arises of some kind of pain (not knowing).

So I'll stop now, before I get too far.

Hopefully this can be useful for someone, and no one gets offended.


aloha emo,

    "Hopefully this can be useful for someone, and no one gets offended."  (you can say that again)

    Amen.

    While I don't think animals - even cells - "lack consciousness," their awareness may make them no happier than ourselves. The unconscious grace of animals and the unconscious grace of the human animal are identical. Conscious attempts at self aggrandizement will appear awkward and contrived in any species.

   We are always driven by basic instincts (aka "drives"). We nourish and are nourished, mate and are mated; we live and die to a rhythm reverberating through the web of life. We are a community of cells, wherever you draw the line; and each cell is a community of organelles, themselves complexes. "Great fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite'm/ Little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum."
   
   I agree with the fundamental conclusions here, that consciousness itself is not who we are. Any self-conscious awareness of who we are necessarily frames and thus reduces the true self to an image, a mere picture, a phantom, empty and unsatisfying. As in coleridge's poetic iimage:


Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Water, water, every where, 
And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, every where, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

    Memories - not really memories, being unconscious, like tools in use - inform the unconscious mind, the coping mind which does its work unnoticed. Memories made conscious only impede sense and presence. One reason buddhism emphasizes the suffering of "old age, sickness and death" is this is all more poignant the older one gets. As we age, life behind us becomes longer and life before us becomes shorter. Future memories pale in comparison to our those of our youthful past. Thus buddhism's particular appeal to old men: we need to remember to forget. To simply be present, "this lone brightness here listening to the dharma" (rinnzai).

  Meditation can be dangerous if it connects us with our humanness, not in any antropocentric sense but in not interfering with what it is to be a natural human being. Love is dangerous because we may sacrifice safety and security for what we love. Desire is bad, love is good; confusing because the two are one. The conscious mind would pursue the good (craving) and avoid the bad (aversion). The unconscious mind brings all its talents to bear in a total effort leading to an optimal result - swish. The conscious mind attempts to alter fate and manipulate reality, with predictably deplorable results.

   The three marks of existence, as you say, refer to consciousness, as consciousness = existence. Existence is not the be all and end all of everything, it is "a tiny drop of oil on the buddha's foot." 


terry


from "101 zen stories," paul reps:



101. Buddha's Zen

Buddha said:
'I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasure of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of, magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated one as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.'


   As for cells having consciousness, there is more to it than that: they have libidos as well, the buggers. Freud posits a fundamental dualism in multicellular organisms between the somatic line, possessed of death instincts, and the germ line, which has life instincts. The germ line is "narcissistic," seeking mainly to reproduce itself, while the somatic line seeks death, its original inanimate state, putting it off though due to its erotic love for its fellow cells; like little bodhisattvas, seeking extinction the long way round. I get the implication here that "loving" and being "loved" is what enables an individual cell  to prolong its life, and those of its neighbors, while other cells willingly sacrifice themselves for the common good.


from freud's "beyond the pleasure principle," trans strachey, p44:

Let us make a bold attempt at another step forward. It is generally considered that the union of a number of cells into a vital association - the multicellular character of organisms­ - has become a means of prolonging their life. One cell helps to preserve the life of another, and the community of cells can survive even if individual cells have to die. We have already heard that conjugation, too, the temporary coalescence of two unicellular organisms, has a life-preserving and rejuvenating effect on both of them. Accordingly, we might attempt to apply the libido theory which has been arrived at in psycho-analysis to the mutual relationship of cells. We might suppose that the life instincts or sexual instincts which are active in each cell take the other cells as their object, that they partly neutralize the death instincts (that is, the processes set up by them) in those cells and thus preserve their life; while the other cells do the same for them, and still others sacrifice themselves in the performance of this libidinal function. The germ-cells themselves would behave in a completely 'narcissistic' fashion - to use the phrase that we are accustomed to use in the theory of the neuroses to describe a whole individual who retains his libido in his ego and pays none of it out in object-cathexes. The germ-cells require their libido, the activity of their life instincts, for themselves, as a reserve against their later momentous constructive activity. (The cells of the malignant neoplasms which destroy the organism should also perhaps be described as narcissistic in this same sense: pathology is prepared to regard their germs as innate and to ascribe embryonic attributes to them.) In this way the libido of our sexual instincts would coincide with the Eros of the poets and philosophers which holds all living things together.

(my italics)
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terry, modified 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 4:41 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/6/19 4:41 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 2797 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Ernest Michael Olmos:
"Memories - not really memories, being unconscious, like tools in use - inform the unconscious mind, the coping mind which does its work unnoticed. Memories made conscious only impede sense and presence. One reason buddhism emphasizes the suffering of "old age, sickness and death" is this is all more poignant the older one gets. As we age, life behind us becomes longer and life before us becomes shorter. Future memories pale in comparison to our those of our youthful past. Thus buddhism's particular appeal to old men: we need to remember to forget. To simply be present, "this lone brightness here listening to the dharma" (rinnzai)."

I agree with all that.
In fact, I agree with most of your post.

Lots of what I posted are opinions or ideas in the moment I wrote them and don't represent the way I think about them all the time.

I'm not sure consciousness or awareness is a thing or if animals have it.

I do know that:
- It is absent during fruition.
- Some of the things it does are important emoticon.

Maybe what makes us human exist during a fruition (fruition is very relaxed and animals are usually very alert, so there's that).
Maybe fruition is a human thing.

I don't have 30min fruition experiences to say more about this, and the very short ones that I had (seconds) I'm not sure they were fruitions, and I really don't know what happened during them (nothing?).

Anyway, I posted the base idea below, it's not so much about what happens during a fruition, but it's relation with flickering, duality processes, being in the moment (noting) and paths.


 aloha ernest,

    My  "experiences" with what you are likely talking about can't be mapped or framed as they dissolve all maps and frames, and drown all memory. No me left to report.

terry



from the shoyoroku (book of equanimity)


CASE 15.

Isan asked Kyôzan, "Where have you come from?" Kyôzan said, "From the rice field." Isan said, "How many people are there in the rice field?" Kyôzan thrust his hoe into the ground and stood with his hands folded on his chest. Isan said, "There are a great number of people cutting thatch on the South Mountain." Kyôzan took up his hoe and left immediately.
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Stirling Campbell, modified 5 Years ago at 12/8/19 10:29 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/8/19 10:29 AM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 636 Join Date: 3/13/16 Recent Posts
Ernest Michael Olmos:
That's exactly the point, between the passing and the new arising there is nothing (if there's anything I can't find it).
And there is a gap.

Right! That gap is what is always present... emptiness of concepts, but still full of the phenomenal world. In the Dzogchen and Zen (my affiliation) traditions we train to stretch out these gaps and rest in this space, and over time it begins to permeate all moments. Rather than arriving at the gap through exertion or effort, however, we just let the activity of the thinking mind drop of it's own accord and drop the "doing".

In fact, most things (sensations, location, concepts, etc) are "linked" to the knower, so they are not "real" and made up of the same thing (concepts?).

Yes! The "knower" is commonly called the "witness", or "observer". It is worth investigating what the "witness" is made of, or if it exists in the "gaps".

Now that you are familiar with the feel of the gaps, can you take a deep breath a drop into one when you are out walking, driving, or doing other activities off-cushion?


Ernest Michael Olmos, modified 5 Years ago at 12/8/19 2:41 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 12/8/19 2:41 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 219 Join Date: 5/30/14 Recent Posts
Right! That gap is what is always present... emptiness of concepts, but still full of the phenomenal world. In the Dzogchen and Zen (my affiliation) traditions we train to stretch out these gaps and rest in this space, and over time it begins to permeate all moments. Rather than arriving at the gap through exertion or effort, however, we just let the activity of the thinking mind drop of it's own accord and drop the "doing".

Stretch the gaps, good idea, I'll try doing it (although it seems that somehow it's already happening).

Yes! The "knower" is commonly called the "witness", or "observer". It is worth investigating what the "witness" is made of, or if it exists in the "gaps".
Now that you are familiar with the feel of the gaps, can you take a deep breath a drop into one when you are out walking, driving, or doing other activities off-cushion?

It doesn't exist in the gaps. There is nothing in the gaps, maybe only relaxation. About what it is, when not in flickering mode it is felt like an observer or witness. When in fast flickering mode, it doesn't have time to consolidate or even get agency. It is felt like a pulse of light, bare awareness, concsiousness or knowing. I really don't have a way of describing it. It's a knowing before space, before concepts.

These days something weird happened. I've been playing chess on Lichess for 2 years, bullet (1 min) and my rating never surpassed 1950. After playing after the out-breaths, somehow I got to 2150 (which is  A LOT).

Also I had some lots of minutes without any thoughts (a lot of time).

But no, I haven't been able to rest on the gaps on daily activities (when I go to bed I can).
Or maybe I have but haven't noticed it.

These days I don't have the willpower to do many things. Like things unfold on their own.
While I haven't been doing a lot of directed effort, I have been noticing A LOT.

Now that I mention, maybe that's whats keeping me from resting on the gaps, noting.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 12/12/19 3:32 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 12/12/19 3:32 PM

RE: More rambling about how it all works

Posts: 2797 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Ernest Michael Olmos:
Right! That gap is what is always present... emptiness of concepts, but still full of the phenomenal world. In the Dzogchen and Zen (my affiliation) traditions we train to stretch out these gaps and rest in this space, and over time it begins to permeate all moments. Rather than arriving at the gap through exertion or effort, however, we just let the activity of the thinking mind drop of it's own accord and drop the "doing".

Stretch the gaps, good idea, I'll try doing it (although it seems that somehow it's already happening).

Yes! The "knower" is commonly called the "witness", or "observer". It is worth investigating what the "witness" is made of, or if it exists in the "gaps".
Now that you are familiar with the feel of the gaps, can you take a deep breath a drop into one when you are out walking, driving, or doing other activities off-cushion?

It doesn't exist in the gaps. There is nothing in the gaps, maybe only relaxation. About what it is, when not in flickering mode it is felt like an observer or witness. When in fast flickering mode, it doesn't have time to consolidate or even get agency. It is felt like a pulse of light, bare awareness, concsiousness or knowing. I really don't have a way of describing it. It's a knowing before space, before concepts.

These days something weird happened. I've been playing chess on Lichess for 2 years, bullet (1 min) and my rating never surpassed 1950. After playing after the out-breaths, somehow I got to 2150 (which is  A LOT).

Also I had some lots of minutes without any thoughts (a lot of time).

But no, I haven't been able to rest on the gaps on daily activities (when I go to bed I can).
Or maybe I have but haven't noticed it.

These days I don't have the willpower to do many things. Like things unfold on their own.
While I haven't been doing a lot of directed effort, I have been noticing A LOT.

Now that I mention, maybe that's whats keeping me from resting on the gaps, noting.


nota bene: you cannot note yourself not noting

t

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