May 2024 TAT Forum

Ten years later, the monk returned to the head monk’s office. “It has been ten more years,” said the head monk. “What are the two words you would like to speak?”

“Food… stinks…” said the monk.

“I see,” replied the head monk.

Yet another ten years passed and the monk once again met with the head monk who asked, “What are your two words now, after these ten years?”

“I… quit!” said the monk.

“Well, I can see why,” replied the head monk. “All you ever do is complain.”

*

A testament to the influence of hypnosis in the face of absurdity. “A gooseberry on the end of your nose.”

A sign of incomplete commitment.

The silence of uncontested cleverness. The quiet of unadmitted doubt.

The friendship imposter.

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The emperor’s new clothes.

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The admitted truth and highest potential of relative self-knowing.

The unassailable position.

The unseen-self definition as blinded by a heart-shaped desire.

The answer to the call to leave home.

The sound me, me makes and me, me, me points at.

A sign of having walked in a circle.

Backing away from inconsistency with the presupposed.

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Identification with the screen itself.

No stomach for mirrors.

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The “closed to help” sign honored by the Holy Spirit.

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The answer for manipulation, insistence and demand.

The jealous beloved.

The teenager looking down on their parents.

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A closed-lip smile.

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An agreeable place from which to scapegoat language.

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The unrecognized. (A synonym suitable for interchangeable use.)

*

a) Abiding and non-abiding awakening (i.e., knowledge of the Self/Truth vs. abiding as the Self/Truth)

While there are reports of exceptions, for most, glimpses and hints and parts of the solution and realization will arise before there is some more established abiding in that, which may also be phrased as the process of falsely imputing separateness, stability, and knowledge to the sense of a center, doer, controller, subject, etc. may be seen through in pieces and parts until finally the process of limited identification and futile attempts at stabilization, generally layer by layer, stops.

b) Are “Who (or what are you), whence (where did you come from), and whither (where are you going)?” fundamental questions for a seeker?

They certainly may be very useful for some, often if this curiosity is coupled with cultivated enhancements to attention, acceptance, and perception, and some support to the views that might increase the likelihood of such inquiry being salutary.

c) Bliss

Bliss is of many varieties, some positive, meaning due to the presence of something, such as bliss, or related feelings and qualities such as gratitude, peace, tranquility, stability, acceptance, openness, focus, wisdom, health, etc. Bliss may also be negative, meaning due to the absence of something, such as the absence of identification, contraction, adversity, disturbance, craving, ignorance, sickness, pain, etc.

Bliss of the positive variety is always conditional, meaning transient, and relating skillfully to this transience is important. Bliss may also be an object of investigation, as with any other object.

Bliss also may, in the very special case of the type related to the stopping of the processes of identification that are comprised in the term “ignorance”, apply to all things, in that very specific way, and not precluding any particular arising of specifics. Regarding myself, I am a bit of an aversive type, so bliss doesn’t hold my attention as well as it holds the attention of some. This is a mixed blessing, but it did make bliss easier to investigate and break into component parts and gain insights from.

d) Doing vs. not doing

Doing and not doing are impressions that arise naturally, owing to the conditioning of the universe, often called karma or causality or dependent arising. They are meanings based on specific sensate qualities. Sometimes, the feeling of control, doing, action, agency is arising. Sometimes the feeling of non-control, inevitability, non-negotiability, passivity, and agencylessness is arising. Sometimes there may be a paradoxical mix of these. In a few, there is the deep, abiding understanding, “Doing and not doing are simply two categories of related qualities that arise naturally sometimes and imply no separate, stable, localized doer anywhere.” Investigating the naturally arising stream of intentions that precede actions may reveal this sort of wisdom, as may other types of practices.

e) Enlightenment (Buddhahood, Christ-consciousness)

It is described above in various ways, and, while there is controversy around these sorts of definitions and criteria, as well as the language around this, I tend to prefer the definition include somehow notions of natural arising, things perceiving themselves where they are, all thoughts of present and past and now being clearly perceived naturally as transiently occurring now, no sense of a true and stable “center, doer, controller, be-er, perceiver, knower, agent,” to be found in any transient experience as one’s baseline without exception, the process of creating such a set of impressions or root existential interpretations having stopped entirely. If often is reported and experienced to progress in stages, layers, and quantum shifts, but not always. It is easy to mistake many transient highs, openings, formless experiences, unitive experiences, void experiences, unknowing experiences, equanimous experiences, blissful experiences, and magical experiences as being an abiding awakening. I tend towards a rough perennialism regarding awakening, with some elements that are nearly universal, and some that do seem to have individual variation in the particulars.

f) Hypnosis (influencing another person mind-to-mind)

Hypnosis is a potentially powerful modality that one can use both related to others and also on oneself. Clearly, some are more susceptible or amenable than others, and this trait of it working on one appears to be something one can cultivate. Ethics are extremely powerful here, and its misuse is common in spiritual circles (as well as in politics, advertising, etc.). Variants of hypnotic inductions and techniques are often used in spiritual talks, and some teachers, such as Dan Brown, were explicitly doing this to help point people towards realization. Strong debates exist about the degree to which hypnotic pointings towards wisdom or deep states are equivalent to “real pointings”, and how to even sort out this question is not easy. If done skillfully, hypnosis can produce deep shifts, healing, revelations, journeys, insights, and psychological benefits, as well as physical ones. If done poorly, a vast range of damage may be done. For some, it seems to do little, and they appear nearly congenitally immune to its effects. In subtle forms, it pervades spiritual messages and likely has memetic and mythic impact broadly across the globe in ways often underappreciated. I personally have appreciated a range of techniques that involve hypnotic elements, and, in fact, view all meditation as involving elements essentially indistinguishable from elements you find within the hypnotic practice traditions. For magic, using hypnotic priming is extremely powerful, and care and ethics must be used in this regard to attempt to optimize good outcomes.

g) Identity

Identity is a complex question with many layers and aspects, including, but not limited to: existential, psychological (often containing multitudes, as in Internal Family Systems), social (roles, jobs, family, community, etc.), physical, emotional, perceptual, ontological, epistemic, and “spiritual”. Spiritual practices may add, subtract, and modify our senses of identity — as seekers, True Self, no-self, teachers, successes, failures, members of a tribe or sect, knowers, as having existed across many lives or not exist at all, as being divine or void, as being transient or eternal, as being energy, 5D, incarnated aliens, love, Cosmic Consciousness, etc. Projections, Transference, and Countertransference arising from interactions with community members, other sects, teachers, students, the internet, the public, and the like may produce very complex identity effects. Fundamental perceptual shifts of a wide variety may be created by various practices and modalities, including powerful dissociations, powerful identifications, powerful disentanglings, powerful tanglings, many others. The mixed benefits and harms of these shifts may vary widely across various practitioners and time-scales and settings. It is rare to engage deeply in spiritual practices and modalities without having numerous “life lessons” related to the many forms of identity. Disorientation for some periods of time is common both in ourselves and those around us as identities of various types shift and morph on the path.

h) Individual consciousness of awareness

Clearly, from some very ordinary functional points of view, the notion of there being an “individual consciousness of awareness” is an ontological, perceptual, clinical, and ordinary lens that has many uses, being most of the default way that the situation with people is described and operationalized in both discourse and the ordinary business of our lives. That some may have also added perceptual shifts that “see through” this process in varying degrees of depth and apparent permanence doesn’t negate the first key point. Still, this should not in any way negate the counterpoint, that being that seeing through some sense that consciousness is individual, seeing deeply that everything seems to be aware of itself where it is, isn’t also very important, and some version of this is very understandably included in many to most descriptions and reports of awakening, realization, or however it is phrased. Simply perceiving experience right now clearly enough can begin to show the paradoxes related to the sense of individuality as well as something in the apparent pervasiveness of “awareness”, as well as the curious thing that “consciousness” seems to be and seems not to be and how this may relate to the typically initially perceived separate something that “awareness” might be, and exploring these is rightly often reported to be a key to understanding and wisdom.

i) Meditation

Meditation has a vast range of meanings and definitions, as well as functional techniques and real-world operationalizations. It is practiced with so many differing focuses, styles, doses, and settings and with so many varied conceptual underpinnings and stated and implied goals as to be a topic as wide as saying something like “Religion” or “Culture”. Narrowing it down, and related to my own path, I have found meditation very helpful, generally, though producing a wide variety of effects, many of which were not pleasant in the short to medium term, but, ultimately, was profoundly empowering, revelatory, and transformative, though not always in the exact ways described by orthodoxy, though sometimes very much so. I have followed a variety of styles and traditions, from those designed to produce deep states of bliss, peace, and even formless experiences, as well as loving-kindness, caring, compassion, empathy, equanimity, and a wide range of elemental, colorful, archetypal, healing, and magical experiences. However, my primary path was one of insight practices, often heavily influenced by various strains of vipassana, often heavily influenced by the Theravada Commentaries and the Pali Canon, particularly the Abhidhamma, and often with a modern Burmese twist.

j) No-self

That there is no stable, separate, abiding, knowing, doing, controlling, be-ing self at the center of experience, and realizing this in a way that totally stops the process of the brain desperately trying to create such a thing from transient, natural sensations that arise and vanish on their own — this was, for me, the key point, and the most important benefit of the path. I recognize that there are various risks, benefits, and alternatives to the language of no-self, and some, at times, might benefit from other sorts of language, such as True Self, Soul, Divine Self, etc. I consider all such linguistic maneuvers potentially valuable in various contexts, depending on desired outcomes, functional considerations, and cultural resonances.

k) No-thought

I have a long discourse on no-thought found here https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/the-no-thought-models/

Summarizing, and losing much in the summary: first one must be very careful about what one means by “thought”: Inner voice? Intentions to perform actions? Mental impressions? Ability to dream? Ability to anticipate? Ability to remember? Ability to reason? Ability to visualize? Ability to conceptualize? Mental noise? Primarily being consciousness through one’s mental impressions and concepts vs by direct experience? Self-referential narrative?

While it is often reported, and I have found myself, that the proportion of experience taken up by thought may, on average, diminish sometimes (dreams being an obvious exception), and that thoughts may be perceived not only for their meanings but also as subtle experiences of sounds, sights, physical stuff, etc., and that thus the proportion of experience that is made up by thought may radically diminish as the Default Mode Network is reconfigured to prefer being “in the room” rather than “lost in thought”, and that the basic experience may become vastly more quiet, and that the vast majority of experience may be perceived vastly more directly vastly more of the time, still… I find ideas of “no-thought” as an ideal often produce massive shadow sides as people cultivate layers of delusion to fit the model and thus massive shadow sides rather than “waking up”. Having had the good fortune to talk and correspond with some people who claim to have “no thoughts”, I can confidently state that they do, in fact, “think”, even if they think they don’t. 😉

l) Rapport (contacting another person mind-to-mind)

Yeah, this is something that can happen sometimes, and some are more skilled at contacting others, and some are more skilled at being contacted, and some are more skilled at both. Like all of the powers, the signal and reliability are generally glitchy and should be taken with appropriate grains of salt. Ethics, as always, is a key consideration. Given that mind-to-mind connections probably happen at least at some subtle level with each and every interaction, ethics thus should always be maintained as a key goal and practice, even if we don’t believe some more dramatic mind-to-mind something is happening.

The range of effects that can happen during what you call “rapport” is vast, and basically everything you have ever heard described and probably more. Clearly, there is some positive correlation between more meditation dose and rapport, as well as intending to have it happen and it happening, as well as the dose of other things, such as psychedelics, powerful rituals, and the like. Priming is also clearly positively correlated as well, as are other hypnotic techniques.

m) Reality

I personally am an ontologically agnostic Empirical empirical pragmatist, meaning that I hold ontological frame of “what is reality” loosely, checking in my personal experience (Empirical, in the David Hume sense) that reproducibly (empirical in the scientific sense of experiment) an adopted ontological frame will pragmatically be of some utility. We all do this to some degree, shifting from various frames, mathematical, psychological, social, experiential, etc., depending on our situation and goals, but I go out of my way to do this a bit more formally sometimes. For insight meditation, I have found an immediate sensate frame useful. For magical practices, I find magical frames often useful, though not always. For stopping magical effects, I find Materialist frames useful, as I do for some clinical situations, but not all. For clinical situations, a mix of social, biological, and experiential frames often worked well. For business, I like a good spreadsheet taken with a high dose of skepticism of the numbers that go into it. For human relationships, a vast range of frames are useful, from various psychological, energetic, ethical, and archetypal to many others. So, as to the question of “reality”, well, that depends.

n) Self-Realization (peeling away fabricated layers of one’s own personality to understand the true self and hence the true nature of reality)

I think it is a good idea, though as to whether nor not I would frame it as “self-realization” or no-self, or whatever, see above.

o) Silence

Times of silence are clearly beneficial sometimes from a practice, meditative point of view. As to an experience, silence is a designation of a particular set of sensate qualities. There are a wide variety of silences, as pointed out by authors such as Patrick Rothfuss and many others — the silences of absence, the silences of anticipation, the silences in conversation, the silences of intentionally secluding the mind from sound, the silences of distraction and inattention (such as when we don’t hear someone say something directly to us as we are lost in thought), the deep silences found in deep states of meditation, etc. Silence may be relative or absolute. Silence may be pathological, as in deafness from illness or ear damage, or extremely valuable for getting work done, as in from noise-cancelling headphones. I attribute no particularly ontological statue or hierarchical value to silence necessarily, but have, at times, valued some of the silences mentioned above greatly.

p) Tension

Tension has a wide range of meanings, including, but not limited to: social, physical, structural, ontological, philosophical, etc. Tension can be useful signal, but often implies something negative, as in “that rope is too tense and it might break”, or “you are gripping this too tightly”, or “your neck muscles are too tense”, or “that meeting sure felt tense”. Tension can be an indication of both pathology (“their abdominal muscles were so tense that I wonder if they have intraabdominal trauma”) or valuable (“the tension on that guitar string is just right, sounds great”). There can be tension in the body during meditation that might be an indication of an opportunity for growth through investigation or just poor posture that might be good to listen to in order to avoid hurting oneself. There can be tension between students and teachers, between various sects, between ideals and reality, and these may be dynamic or somewhat static, as well as lead to mixes of growth and discord, problems and possibilities. We may have tensions within ourselves, often during the process by which decisions occur. Lots to say about tensions beyond this, and exploring where one might go might be interpreted as a Rorschach test of the explorer. From a meditative point of view, I have benefitted from the tension exploration techniques of Robert Harry Hover as articulated in the book Internal Moving Healing, and influenced by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, as well as a variety of bodywork modalities, yoga, vipassana, and many others.

q) Transmission

Transmission, presuming in this case you mean the spiritual/energetic variety and not those found in automobiles, for example, is definitely a thing, reported across cultures, times, and settings. I have been on both ends of it, sometimes dramatically. Some people are good at transmitting, with some able to do this with curiously high rates of reliability, and others transmit sporadically or rarely, with little sense of dependability or control. Others are good at receiving, being transmitted to, and various settings, frame, preparations, rituals, contexts, mythic resonances, primings, and the like clearly appear to correlate with receiving transmissions being more likely. Transmissions may have a range of predominant and lesser aspects of what is transmitted and what is received, including feelings, energy, information, wisdom, perceptions, healings, and influence. Transmissions may work in both directions, and, I believe, nearly always do to some degree. Transmissions may be energy draining or amplifying for one or both parties. Transmissions may not always be entirely beneficial, and, in fact, some may be profoundly detrimental, either accidentally or intentionally. Transmissions can be profoundly connecting, yet may also cause powerful social instabilities, and these effects may vary depending on time-scale — short, medium, long, etc. Some transmissions strike like lightening, others may be very subtle, and the intensity may also vary in the short, medium, and long-term, with some transmissions not being obvious until months, years, or even decades later. Mass group transmissions can occur as well, with large collective effects, and many human gatherings contain elements of transmission of some sort. Transmissions are often also initiations. Transmission is a very complex topic that I have just scratched the surface of here. Again, the intentional practice and aspiration to ethics around transmission is vital, realizing that transmission often also involves shadow sides being a part of the mix even if we try to pretend otherwise.

r) Truth

Lots of ways to conceptualize and discourse on “truth” obviously. I will begin simply, with ethics, and the notion that truth in speech is very often a good thing to aspire to and practice, with the question of what and in what context exceptions are the more ethical option being a life-long koan, at least for me. So, as a precept, as part of the 5, 8, 10, or 227/311+ precepts in the tradition I have most often practiced in, Right Speech is a valuable practice to undertake. “Truth” may also be deeper, regarding how we view and interpret the world, and you should see my discussion of ontologically agnostic Empirical empirical pragmatism above. One meaning of “Dharma” or “dhamma” is “truth”: truths of this momentary experience, truths that help us better understand this experience, truths that might help reduce suffering and increase wisdom and wellbeing, depending on the epistemic and temporal frame. Questions of universal Truths and their relationship to individual truths are often a key part of explorations on the spiritual path, at least so I found on my own path. On the other hand, there are moments when skillful or instinctual denial of various truths might have a temporary practical benefit, such as in cases of shock and immediate trauma, or continuing on living happy lives in the face of things like Climate Change, etc. It might be true that focusing too hard on various truths might not always lead to the best outcomes across various timescales and in various settings. Still, obviously, the Quest for Truth drives many a practitioner, and certainly drove and drives me often enough. These days, the truths I find most interesting to chase are mostly large, philanthropic ones, questions such as, “How to effectively scale knowledge of the deep end of human experience to the global clinical, mental health, public health, and public mainstreams to promote better outcomes for those on and around the path?”

s) What can we know for sure: What we are? What we aren’t? Other?

Again, see above with regard to my strict ontological frame, which does contain one key element relevant here, that of Empiricism, in the David Hume sense, in the strict immediate experience sense, that experiences occur: this does seem a sound basis from which to be begin, at least, and hard to imagine others, once we realize that thoughts and extrapolations are also experiences in that immediate Empirical frame.

t) What is your certainty based on?

See above.

u) What prevents a seeker from knowing the truth?

The answers to this question are clearly “many uncountable causes”, and, from a certain point of view, the question is sort of like asking, “Why is there experience?” However, bringing it back down from that vast uncertainty, and speaking in practical but reductive generalities, common categories of reasons may include: 1) a lack of sufficiently clear perception of the numerous sensations that appear to constitute experience, thoughts, intentions, mental impressions, memories, anticipations, emotions, states of mind, the body, sounds, tastes, smells, sights, etc. 2) the notion that truth is found in an imagine future rather than this immediate changing present, 3) that truth involves a stable experience rather than giving up the existential, interpretive, and perceptual habit of creating a sense of separate, knowing, controlling central stability, 4) numerous Maslowvian hindrances that cause understandable preoccupations with things like securing food, shelter, safety, a healthy relationship or relationships, physical health, basic psychological health, healing from trauma, dealing with war, poverty, oppression, lack of access to information and the freedom to practice, etc. 5) poor instructions and models that take the seeker more away from their actual lived experience than towards it, 6) poor interpretations of good instructions and models in that same away direction, 7) poor fits between the seeker and the instructions and models, which may be good, but not good for that person at that time, 8) there are probably genetic and epigenetic factors we don’t understand very well yet related to perception, 9) the perennial drives for control, stability, safety, and bliss in a universe of sensations that unfolds naturally, transiently, and which involves pain, suffering, illness, conflict, disappointment, grief, loss, and death, 10) the countless temptations and distractions of the world that may promise salvation but which may mostly deliver cost, addiction, distraction, ill health, biosphere degradation, or craving for only fleeting reprieve, 11) a lack of sufficient intensity of one of the “roads to power”, such as curiosity, compassion, aspiration, kindness, ethical motivation, or suffering sufficient to create necessity, 12) fellow travelers on the path that have settled for lesser truths and may counsel that others do the same, 13) having been born in a place, time, and circumstance not conducive to practice and wisdom, 14) countless other factors that are hard to fathom.

v) “You are aware prior to birth and aware after you die, so you begin with awareness, but you are not conscious of awareness.” ~ Richard Rose, The Direct-Mind Experience

Interesting quote and a complex set of ontological and existential ideas that might be of varying degrees of value to various seekers at various places on various paths. Making this personal for just a bit, and using that frame to illustrate more general points: having had nearly “all” of the various ontologically compelling experiences — oneness, voidness, non-duality, rebirth and past lives, all is pure energy, there is nothing that is reborn, there is only this moment, I have existed since the Dawn of Time, thousands of lifetimes ago I was a divine time-perceiving being that could see through countless possible permutations of the Multiverse, traveling out of body, perceiving AWARENESS as a stable and eternal space in which all arise, perceiving that same sense of “eternal AWARENESS” to flicker and vanish utterly, etc. — and having had those with the super-potent sense of noesis, of knowing, of absolute certainty, at some point, I began to notice, “Ah, various absolutely compelling experiences that appear to answer the deepest questions of meaning, identity, Truth, Ultimate Reality, Emptiness, and the like. Had I just one, or just a few that clustered together in a close web of meaning, I, like so many others, would certainly be conditioned to hold views along these lines. However, having had so many ultra-compelling meanings arise that are yet so utterly contradictory, mutually entirely incompatible, irresolvable within a coherent ontological frame, better to not cling to any of those, and make one’s way in the world of meaning based on what seems to promote good outcomes rather than based on transient experiences, however compelling, but with sympathy and understanding for those who do otherwise, as such is their conditioning, just as you have your conditioning.”

w) Other comments:

Interesting exercise. May it be of some use to someone. Best wishes! 🙏🙂

Asking myself to see what I’m stuck on. Asking for words for it to make sense.
Holding a feeling in mind and stewing on it until it becomes untangled and clear what it is about and where it is from or at least just letting it go and being free of it.
Looking back at the feeling in dreams and the images or messages themselves. Dreams can be about me or someone else and they can be symbolic at the same time.
Jungian psychology and shadow work to communicate with unhealed parts of myself and bring about integration of the many “I”s.
Labeling the problem or problems I think I have.
Sharing what is going on with others.
Just trying different things to not be stuck. Getting experience and info and then recalibrating to where I want to go.
Asking “Is it True?”
Asking “What is different/What changed?”
Letting go of assumptions and starting with base facts. Taking bare bones logic and following step by step.
Leaps of faith where logic can’t go.
Find out and know for yourself.

The most recent thing I am trying to do is to study the full list of virtues outlined by Fr Chad Ripperger: Full List of Virtues – From Father Ripperger. Becoming virtuous is not like gaining “brownie points”, it is an effort to perfect my inner nature so as to vibrate on higher levels (I am using the vibration principle from the hermetic philosophy, taken from the book, The Kybalion. Virtues “already” exist in the human being, they are either on the negative side or the positive side. Becoming virtuous is not a trip toward vanity, but it can be, if done sinfully. You are either virtuous or you are sinful, that seems to be the fact of the matter. When I talk about sin here, it may not be the same as the obvious ones we are taught growing up. An example of a sin may be not doing physical exercise every day when I know it makes me feel better and more positive.

My intuition tells me that the above list of virtues would be a good document to consider, to try to uncover my “chief feature”. Was it Jim Burns who said that our psychology is held up at certain points? Gurdjieff would probably attest to our psychology being mainly held up around our “Chief Feature”, which to me represents that most glaring obstacle that is currently outside of my ability to see, somewhere my nature is resonating on the negative side. Maybe to view how I am operating in disharmony with Thy will (the 64 virtues) will help me to trace my way back to the unconscious feeling beliefs that keep playing the programmes of the false self.

Jim Burns said, “The unconscious is suppressed conscious capability”. By unlocking the unconscious, you are speeding up your mental computer, freeing it up for better/higher goals. Become obsessed with insight and keep at it. The hope is that when all the supporting faulty feeling beliefs have been “seen”, then that makes the way for the keystone in the arch of faulty beliefs to come toppling down. Some have mentioned that this keystone belief is the belief in being a separate self and once seen, you have found your real home, the home that paradoxically you have never left, so here’s hoping. This is my path, it may and most likely does have glitches and suffers neglect of application toward it, but at least something is compelling me to keep at it, to keep trying.