February 2017 / More
TAT Foundation News
It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped
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"You don't know anything until you know Everything...." Mister Rose is an intimate look at a West Virginia native many people called a Zen Master because of the depth of his wisdom and the spiritual system he conveyed to his students. Profound and profane, Richard Rose was not the kind of man most people picture when they think of mystics or spiritual teachers. Yet, he was the truest of teachers, one who had "been there," one who had the cataclysmic experience of spiritual enlightenment. Filmed in the spring of 1991, the extraordinary documentary follows Mr. Rose from a radio interview, to a university lecture and back to his farm, as he talks about his experience, his philosophy and the details of his life. Whether you find him charming or offensive, fatherly or fearsome, you will not forget him, and never again will you think about yourself, reality, or life after death in quite the same way. 3+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.
2012 April TAT Meeting – Remembering Your True Desire Includes all the speakers from the April 2012 TAT meeting: Art Ticknor, Bob Fergeson, Shawn Nevins and Heather Saunders.
1) Remembering Your True Desire ... and Acting on It, by Art Ticknor
2) Swimming in the Inner Ocean: Trips to the Beach, by Bob Fergeson
3) A Wider and Wilder Vision, by Shawn Nevins
4) Make Your Whole Life a Prayer, by Heather Saunders 5+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/. Return to the main page of the February 2017 TAT Forum. |
Reader Commentary
Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends
Last month the Forum staff asked the question: When you meditate, what constitutes a "good" session?
submitted by Bill K. [We're always happy to get your questions for other readers!]
The complete response from Richard G. follows:
From Richard G:
My view on meditation is basic and simplistic. Methods to quiet the "mind" seem to be geared toward relaxation. This type of "meditation" is very helpful to reduce anxiety, move toward sleep and/or calm when there is a general distress or upset. I equate this type of meditation as a generator of positive feelings, thoughts, and sensations. In other words, a "warm fuzzy" facilitator. However, this type of meditation I think avoids or suppresses "what is" and reinforces the "power" of mental faculties.
I seem to be convinced that self-inquiry (going within) through questioning, koans, and/or focusing on the sense of I-ness or I am-ness (challenging the substantiality or validity of self or I) goes directly to the heart of the matter. The "heart of the problem" seems to be the "I thought," the sense of "I-ness," or of "I am-ness." I'm not sure if these concepts are interchangeable. I'm no longer sure why I'm moving in this direction, but for now I will trust intuition.
Challenging the pervasiveness of the "I thought" and directing the mental faculties to a point or degree where thinking or the thinking process is arrested or no longer functional is the discipline I'm using now. This challenging of the "I thought" does seem to facilitate a "subtractive" process: identifying what I'm not. When thinking seems to lose its effectiveness or experience as being the core of consciousness, all sorts of things and views are recognized that I hadn't recognized before, such as a no-state state, void, or significant reduction of objects of consciousness.
I like to review a set of inquiries before meditation, which can occur anywhere and anytime. A quietness in the environment seems to help and reduce distractions. Lately I have been attempting to use self-inquiry when I'm in more "attention grabbing" situations. Here are some examples of questions I have developed, extrapolated from others, or used from readings, such as Solid Ground of Being, TAT Archives, and writings of Robert Wolfe. All seem very helpful to generate questions.
- Is the mind capable of watching the mind, i.e., thoughts (pictures and words)? If so how can the mind separate its own functioning in terms of a subject/object duality? If not, what is aware of or observing the mind's reactions, i.e., thoughts and images?
- What happens when the "I" vanishes momentarily? Where does it go? When it "vanishes" why is it that the body/mind still functions?
- Where does the "I" go during dreamless sleep?
- Is the sense of "I-ness" necessary for the body to function? If the "I-ness" disappeared altogether, then what?
- When the "I-ness" vanishes, why is it that desire no longer can be identified?
- Is the "I-ness" the chief feature or main producer of duality or subject/object split?
- Why do I not desire when the "I" vanishes?
- Who or what is the hearer when "I" hear the ringing sound?
- Where does the ringing come from? Where is its source?
- Is it possible that the heard and hearer don't really exist? If not, then what?
- What is the source of the hearer? What is the source of the heard?
- What is the aim of thinking there is a source (seeing, hearing, awareness)?
- Does looking for the source (hearing, seeing, awareness, etc.) imply a subject (the looker and seeker) and a source (a thing found)?
- Do questions imply a duality, i.e., a subject/object split?
- Is the I am-ness a necessary "ingredient" to experience all the time?
- What is the relation between I am-ness or I-ness and consciousness?
- What is the definition of I-ness? To me the I-ness is an understanding or belief that we are a separate entity from other objects and/or persons. Is this idea verifiable?
- Is separateness or divisiveness a mental phenomenon only? Can the sense of separateness or divisiveness be modified, eliminated, or contained through thinking, fewer thoughts, or other types of knowing?
- Is the void or emptiness that seems to occur during meditation just another thing or object of consciousness, another state or dimension, an imagined state, or something or non-thing else?
- What is self-identification? Is it the belief that we are a separate entity; a body/mind?
- How can one be aware and self-aware?
- What is the screen of awareness? What does "screen of awareness" mean?
- Is the screen of awareness verifiable? What happens when there are no objects "on" the screen of awareness?
- Is it possible to know or remember states or transcendental states when objects of consciousness are not evident on the screen?
Return to the main page of the February 2017 TAT Forum.
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Beyond Mind, Beyond Death
