December 2021 / More
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TAT Foundation News
It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped
Downloadable/rental versions of the Mister Rose video and of April TAT talks Remembering Your True Desire:
"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
Spiritual action is like diving for the Pearl beyond Price. What do you do when you don't know what to do or how to do it? An informal discussion centered around the question: "What prevents effective spiritual action?"
2) Swimming in the Inner Ocean: Trips to the Beach, by Bob Fergeson
A discussion of the varied ways we can use in order to hear the voice of our inner ocean, the heart of our true desires.
3) A Wider and Wilder Vision, by Shawn Nevins
Notes on assumptions, beliefs, and perspectives that bind and free us.
4) Make Your Whole Life a Prayer, by Heather Saunders
An intriguing look into a feeling-oriented approach to life.
5+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.
Return to the main page of the December 2021 TAT Forum.
Reader Commentary
Encouraging interactive readership among TAT members and friends
Thanks to Brett S. for the Reader Commentary question for the December TAT Forum, which is:
If your life was something you purchased on Amazon, what would your review be?
The complete response from JK:
My Life Review for sale on Amazon
This life for me for as far back as I can remember was an exploration of what is means to be alive igniting a curiosity to experience and explore.
The following question arose: “Why am I here and for what purpose?”
In the search for the answer to this question a pursuit for happiness followed. Fulfilment was sought by exploring, over the years, meaningful connections in my family and my childhood community, friendships, courses of study to find a meaningful career, a meaningful intimate romantic relationship, artistic pursuits, travel, psychotherapy, yoga, a secure job, giving birth to my son and buying a home. Following this an exploration of healing modalities to fill up the void inside that none of the latter could fulfil. A search for understanding outwardly in the world for a sense of security and belonging and a path of self-healing to understand the existential angst I felt through each pursuit as they failed my expectations one after the other. Bringing me further away from any real connection, security, or joy inside my being.
The collapse of identities to any of the above began the commencement of a search for “Truth, Reality, God”. I began first by reading different material to previously, studying different practises, meeting, and learning from interesting and realised people and attending events with enlightened individuals that ignited a questioning of my previous perceptions and the shift once more of my curiosity from the above focus of what it means to truly BE alive.
Igniting a new question. “Who am I?”
A change of focus, of looking from outward looking to an inward looking, began a journey of an honest reflection of all that is arising, and questioning every perception. A courageous continuation of delving deeper despite often a sense of despair, grief and having to navigate my seemingly never-ending pain body. A recognition of a string of untruths followed by a falling away of illusory patterning, redefining an unrecognisable reality and acceptance that what I have previously thought to be true was not. Contemplation on what is causing my addiction to be in a place of suffering, and my continued contribution to it. Uncovering the many beliefs that are driving my patterning and conditioning. Finding ways to loosen the grip of my perpetual looping through mental projections/neuroticism. Working with 'Who and what is witnessing, observing?', having experienced an awareness of all that is continually changing cannot be real, yet that I am at the centre of all that is, including my suffering, having to accept the shame that this realisation sparked and move beyond it. Moving further away from that which I am not, by elimination after elimination. Noticing subtle changes of perception by remembering to practise disinterest in the experiencing.
Strengthening the intuitive sense of what it is to be alive through dreams and esoteric referencing with images, synchronised events/happening, etc., yet remaining a witness only, and not getting sucked into the juicy experiencing of it. As this processing deepened.
The question took another slant: How then can I become truth?
This has begun an earnest commitment to deepen the elimination process and a looking back at that which is observing and strengthening that focus, that attention. My experiential search is a daily grind of fine tuning the becoming as I feel around in the dark of the unknown and realise from a profound place, I truly do know nothing and stop trying to know. The despair of what to do, when there paradoxically is nothing that I can do. Just observe vigilantly without expectation.
Return to the main page of the December 2021 TAT Forum.
The complete response from Sarah J:
I have no memory of ordering this item and I did not pay for it.
And I still have no idea what it is. It seems to take a different shape each time I look, sometimes even within a single glance. I wonder if I’m supposed to laugh or cry.
Right now I’m done being curious about it because trying to understand has become infuriating. Any halfway plausible theory is crushed as I look again and it has changed. To be honest, I prefer it, and find it less crazy-making when it actually looks markedly different. Even when it seems to stay the same, there is some indefinable difference from the aspect I thought I had finally pinned down.
How I feel seems to actually change its colours. Strong feelings and their accompanying thoughts actually change the shape of this thing. At least to my eye. Which is impossible. Don't get me started on all the angles....
But I love it so I can’t return it. I can’t live without it. I couldn’t give it a rating. You must realise the whole rating system falls down with such an item.
Why I’d import this from America is beyond me. We manufacture our own amorphous, incomprehensible crazy right here in New Zealand.
What I really need to know is: What is it?
Return to the main page of the December 2021 TAT Forum.
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Beyond Mind, Beyond Death
