Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 12:23 am
Dimebag wrote: ↑Sun May 09, 2021 11:15 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun May 09, 2021 8:37 pm
If we can
only experience internal phenomena, then the experience of kicking something, and even any notion that one has a leg to kick anything with, is simply internal phenomena and one has no way to even begin to tell that it's not just a fantasy.
When you watch a really good movie you get “lost” in the movie. Our minds are the same, we get “lost in” our own perceptions. Another term is being identified with the contents of experience.
Now there is also the sense of consistency and immersion. Imagine you have a sore back. Pain is inherently attention grabbing. Because it signals damage to the supporting organism, it cannot be ignored unless it falls below a certain threshold, or other stimuli are distracting enough. When there is pain, awareness will be preoccupied with relieving this pain, which may involve moving one’s bodily position to a point which relieves some pain, or maybe taking pain killers, applying some kind of topical ointment, etc.
Other such stimuli are, hunger, fear, sexual lust, to name a few. Because these all have important survival and reproductive value they have been imbued with strong attention grabbing capacity, as well as strong identification capacity.
Maybe we could try it this way: try paraphrasing the issue I'm trying to get you to focus on, so I can see if you understand it at all.
You don’t understand how, if everything we perceive, both that which seems internal (thoughts, feelings), and that which seems external (the world, other people, creatures) is actually an experience occurring “inside” our own minds, how could we even begin to imagine that anything is external to us. If everything is actually inside us, how can anything ever not just seem like we are watching some inner tv screen?
How did I do there?
Now my response to this is, firstly, when we are born, we have no conception of inner and outer. All there is, is experience. There is no distinction between an inside, nor is there even a knowing of any boundary between inside and outside (a self). All there is, are experiences. All there is is hunger, all there is is wanting, all there is is the need for connection with the mother. All there is is curiosity about this world which appears right here. No understanding that I am apart from the experience of the world. And actually, there really IS no separation between you and the world. But, there is also no “knowing” of these, due to there being no one to know.
This separation which occurs, a kind of sorting of experience, develops as the sense of a self develops. As the sense of a self develops, as the name becomes adopted and owned as a label referring to this unknowable “I”, a “vortex” starts to form around this self, which is really just nothing but a concept. With this sense of self, also develops “knowing”, of the world, of the self, and this all attaches to this created self, who becomes the “knower”. The vortex is the collection of all thoughts, predispositions, self referenced beliefs, likes, dislikes, self labels, etc. another name for this might be the ego, not so much in the Freudian sense as distinct from superego and Id. Once this “self vortex” forms, it creates an artificial boundary in experience, between “me” or this organism, I.e. the knower, and the experience of the world, or the known.
This division is necessary for our species, because, we are social beings, and in order to have survived to this point, we needed a sense of self, which could feel guilt, regret, could learn from its mistakes, had an understanding of itself, but could also use knowledge in relation to this idea of itself to survive. Without this division, there would be no motive power behind these feelings, because they inherently refer to this self, and consequently, if this self were to be seen through, those feelings would also lose their pull, and furthermore no useful knowledge would exist. This artificial self is actually an extremely important aspect of our species survival. But it also comes with a cost. It creates that division between itself and the experience of the world, which is artificial, because as mentioned, these internal representations are actually occurring within the being. And actually, as viewed from the point of “no self” or outside the artificial construct of the self/other boundary, all is self.
I’m not sure if that clears ANYTHING up for you, but maybe if you try understand how this self might be a construct, that the artificial distinction between self and other/world might be able to be seen as illusory, when it’s understood that ALL is occurring AS EXPERIENCE. If that can be understood, at least conceptually, you might be able to see how there can be a distinction between inner and outer. The distinction itself is also constructed, but it is so pervasive, that to see through it is essentially enlightenment. Don’t expect to experience this without truly going down this path with a sense of trust and, dare I say, faith.
In the end, you should take my words and mull over them, but also, do your OWN research if you are truly interested. AND, very importantly, observe your OWN experience. Start to observe your self, your thoughts, reactions, etc. Once you stop looking through these things as your self, and start looking “AT” them, as objects to experience, you can begin to do so with the world, and notice that there is NO DIFFERENCE in the “place” that all of these objects of experience are occurring, they all occur “within” you. But, if they all occur “within” you, then, there is no distinction between inner and outer, Therefore, they don’t really occur “within” you, but rather, “you” are literally “made of experience”.
Good luck, it’s not going to make sense at first, it’s certainly a hard pill to swallow, and you will probably just spit it out. But, this is not new information, it is ancient information, and actually, to view it as information is wrong as well and won’t help, it must be swallowed and become part of you.