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Manna wrote:I don't know what you're asking

are my orgasms less than my thoughts or my arm?

Please I am trying to concentrate.

is the thought you are having less than the thought and your arm?

are you asking if the following is true?:

current thought < thought + arm

I don't know if it true, because now I am thinking about my arm.
Also, I don't know how to quantify these things. What parameters are we using?

Ok thats it, enough about you. Lets talk about me.
Since what we are looking at uses the word "we" I get my say as well.
a short while ago I wrote something that had many of the words that we are talking about and maybe we can look at it and see if Laing's words fit the moment I wrote about.

I was completely, totally immersed in love with here, this, now. Every little speck of dust floating in the sunlight that was coming in through my window was a world bursting with joy, no wait, it was just find that it was a speck of dust, I don't need to say it was a world. Oh I'll go ahead and say it anyways, every speck of dust seemed like it contained potential worlds of joy. The joy was falling on me like a rain and it seemed to be coming from deep within me. A thought emerged from me and the thought was "I could spend eternity here" That was the only thought that I had about me. It seems to me to answer your question.
I said above that there was only one thought but also the experience came with some knowing that I thought about later.

When speaking about that moment I noticed that I wrote that I had only one thought but that the experience came with some knowing that I thought about later.

So if Dr. Laing came to me and said "What we think is less than what we know" do you think I would argue with him?

do you think that perception happens without thought?

Manna wrote: You liked it when your brain was impaired, J, or at least thought it worth memorizing. does it still hold for you? I welcome you to help me change my mind.

This wasn't what I memorized. I don't remember ever seeing this before today.

Manna wrote:do you think that perception happens without thought?

Yes. what we think is less than what we know

even in a biblical way

Maybe there is always some thought accompanying knowing. I tend to think a lot but I am not sure that this has to be

Maybe there is always some thought accompanying knowing.

For me, it seems that there are knowings [mind-based, intellectual] and knowings [at other levels than mind and intellect]. I'm out of my league in all this, as I haven't studied a lick of what I'm trying to talk about... but sometimes we know at a feeling level, sometimes at a subconscious level, and sometimes [I'm sure] at other levels.

Isn't there a 'knowing' that's also at an instinctual level... like birds knowing when and where to migrate... a newborn kitten knowing where to find its mother's nipples and why, before its eyes are open... etc.? I know there are human examples of instinctual knowing, but I'm kind of stuck on a woman who senses danger from a man with an intent to rape or harm her. We hear about these stories. Unfortunately, at this moment, it's the only one that comes to mind. She knows to walk away and stops short and turns without thought. I've done it, so maybe that's why it's taking up all the space in my head right now.

A baby knows how to suckle its mother's breast.


~ Lizzy

Hi Daka,
sorry you got ignored a bit earlier, I was having too much fun rolling with Jack.

daka wrote:

What we think is less than what we know.

In one of our meditation practices there is the expression "exhausted by our elaborations" Most of the real kernels of wisdom knowledge are described as extremely simple, quite obvious, almost hidden by the processes of unnecessarily complex and convoluted conceptualizations.

Yes, I've run into such things. At first, they tend to sound impossible to agree with, but after I look closely and force my own understanding, sometimes (sometimes things really are impossible for me to agree with), it's a thing that ends up so right on that I end up memorizing it.

There is a famous American Buddhist psychotherapist, I think his name is Mark Levine. he states that we all have a meta-addiction, and this addiction is to our mind, (to our mental processes, habitual, ingrained, programmed like a computer, and potentially very problematic).

ha ha ha. I think he is right, but I don't know if I think he is right the same way that you think he is right.

Manna, when you said

'Brain Dead' [in answer to: what are you without your thoughts]

above, I don't believe it.

ha! That's ok, it's only true when certain other unmentioned conditions are met. It was a flip answer that seemed to do ok in the spirit of the moment. It has since become apparent that Jack and I use the word "thought" differently, and you also use the word differently than I do, see below.

There is a meditation that has a long complicated name: the 'yoga of the absorption of cessation of gross conceptual, thoughts'. It is much simpler than it sounds. One simply stops paying attention to all of the input from the 5 senses and the mental sense perceiver, and relaxes in that state of 'absorption', for a while.

sounds very much like sleep to me.

It is described as a temporary liberation. it s quite restful and generally appreciated by both the body and the mind. It is not that hard to do, but our minds are used to having free rein, like a horse with the bit in his teeth, and we can get into all sorts of trouble that way.

how do you know you're in that state?

To me, awareness of things and perception are both thought processes.

Not every thought is worded; I have many many thoughts that are not words, and if you ever meet me in person, this may become apparent. I am often not as fast as I would like to be when I am expressing myself verbally. Getting the thought into words, thinking of the right word, these things don't happen for me quickly. (bless the continuous stutter of the flesh being made into word.) When I want to share my thoughts, language is the most common contrivance for doing so, but getting the thought into a linguistic form takes even more thought. Sometimes I think that drawing will help, but then I have to take a moment and figure out what to draw to be able to show my still-unworded thought.

But I am getting the idea that you and Jack both only include the words & sentences you think to yourselves as thoughts. Please tell me if I am wrong; I am looking forward to hearing from you. I am interested in seeing you disclude what you include and exclude when you use the word 'thought.'

lizzytysh wrote:

Maybe there is always some thought accompanying knowing.

For me, it seems that there are knowings [mind-based, intellectual] and knowings [at other levels than mind and intellect]. I'm out of my league in all this, as I haven't studied a lick of what I'm trying to talk about... but sometimes we know at a feeling level, sometimes at a subconscious level, and sometimes [I'm sure] at other levels.

Isn't there a 'knowing' that's also at an instinctual level... like birds knowing when and where to migrate...
...

A baby knows how to suckle its mother's breast.


~ Lizzy

And it seems you're including things we do seemingly without conscious thought in the things-we-know category. Maybe it is grey - are we born knowing how to breathe, or do we just do it? I wouldn't think a baby puts thought into its first breath, but I can't say I remember. Maybe the first breath is scary, and that is why the baby cries. I bet his own crying scares him too. Am I still alive because I "know" how to be alive? And when I die will it be because I have forgotten?

This is fun. I hope I'm not being a jerk. I've been smiling & feeling a bit lovey the whole time.

Well, I don't think you're being jerky, Manna. I didn't take it as contrariness, but trying to get to the core and the essence at the same time... and best o' luck to ya on it and to me, too... if y'know what I mean. When you mentioned breathing, I thought, "Yeah... there you go, that's a good example." But, then, isn't that a process? Yet, we hear about our "thought processes," too... so that to me also suggests that there are thought processes and other kinds of processes, so thought remains different. Ha. If you think YOU'RE slow putting things into verbal words, I've got you beat by a mile on that; I'm just not a very verbal person, period.


~ Lizzy

"What you think is less than what you know"

I would like to look at that another way. I met an old indian man one time on the reservation and he said something that seemed for some to be a contradiction. He said that people knew too much and they think too little.

Those who said that by saying we know too much he was meaning that we should be feeling more, but then they ran into the problem of his saying that people think too little.

Those who said that what he meant by thinking more is that what is important is information but then they wondered why he said that we know too much.

The way that strikes me is that:

"We know too much" = [is more or less equivalent to] "the compilation of facts and information in our brains is large."

"We think too little" = [is more or less equivalent to] "the processing of the world and the information we receive from it, so as to create what one might consider 'original' thought [or at least thoughts of our own vs. parroting of facts] and/or which might result in genuine understanding happens too little."

For me it's more about the contrast between knowing facts and understanding concepts.

With an American Indian, I would consider the possibility of an Anglo visitor to a reservation knowing all about the trees in a scientific way, but not understanding their power, significance, and meaning, and why they are held reverent. The scientific vs. the spiritual and mystical. Their construction vs. their essence.

With the Indians revering the nature and spirit of things, it also seems it might include we know too much about the world [objective information], but think too little regarding the value of everything in it and how it all inter-relates [subjective meaning].

Outward vs. inward. "Know too much" ~ talk and recite. "Think too little" ~ reflect and process. Talking and trying to have an effect vs. simply being quiet and still, and absorbing.

Or, also, that we spend too much time talking [to show how much "we know"] and too little time thinking [simply being reflective about and appreciating life].

A lot of shades of meaning in there for me... obviously.

I think I'll go look at the sunrise , rest a minute, and then off to bed.


~ Lizzy

lizzytysh wrote:
With an American Indian, I would consider the possibility of an Anglo visitor to a reservation knowing all about the trees in a scientific way, but not understanding their power, significance, and meaning, and why they are held reverent. The scientific vs. the spiritual and mystical. Their construction vs. their essence.

~ Lizzy

Funny you should talk about that. As it happens that was a little of the tale I was getting from my friend who was on the band council when I first went out there and we were taking a long walk to go see the beautiful lake that was there.

We got to the lake and sat on the ground and looked out over the lake and I asked a few questions.
How deep is it?
What fish are in it?
What water sources feed it?
Is it healthy?
With each question I got an honest answer "I don't know"

I asked "Would you like to know?" He said that famous indian word "how?"
I told him that I had some friends with Canadian National Hydrology who I thought would be willing to come and take a look at it.
He said that it would never fly by council. Something about distrust of outsiders. We concluded that it was a little hard being the caretakers of Mother Earth without a little bit of trust of those outside of the reservation. Things are like that on the reservation. But I will mention something else that shocked me.
When I went there one time i brought a fiddle player with me and she joined in with some music playing.
Anyway a few months later, back in the city I was sitting around one day drinking my coffee and there was a knock on the door. I went to the door and there was an elder from the reservation, a shy man who I had maybe spoken about five words to while i was there. He wanted to come in and i let him in. He had a fiddle with him and he had missed the day that my lady friend had come out to the res and he wanted to meet her and play some music with her.
I mean from these people who were so distrustful of outsiders this man came by himself far away from his home, a shy person, never really having talked to me and he comes by to play some music. What that man knew pretty well was what he loved well. he loved that people can play music together and he thought of a way to do something that very few of the others on his reservation would ever even think of doing. My lady friend was delighted to play with him.

Hi Jack,

Maybe what the old Indian man meant was that what people "knew" was the unquestioned
stuff, some of which, is worthy of thinking about or rethinking?

To Jack first: Nice moment... probably felt unbounded by space or time?


________________________________________________________________-

To Manna: You seem to be genuinely interestd in the topic of mind/thought/and various associated phenomena. So I will go on a bit about a one-year retreat In engaged in in 1999. "The conventional nature of the mind"... mine in particular.

Essentially i contemplated and meditated on the nature of the mind via it's definition: The mind is that whose nature is clarity, and whose function is to cognize. (objects of knowledge).

I really don't want to bore you (or others) so I will try to go right to an appropriate analogy: the sky and clouds (We both have an interest in this because it is where we both 'come from', NO?.

I studied meteorolgy to get my private pilot licence many years ago. I learned that the sky is often completely clear. Then certain conditions begin manifesting.. humidity... temperature .. and lo and behold, from the absence of cloud manifests a cloud. Conversely when the conditions dissipate, so does the cloud.

My personal view of this whole reality that is appearing to my mind is that it is manifesting due to causes and conditions (karma), complex, invisible, powerful, and, fortunately, impermanent.

Another very useful meditation analogy is waves and the ocean. We can say that waves(thoughts) manifest from the ocean of the mind and dissolve back into the ocean, never to manifest again. In meditation I observed my mind as a still ocean. When phenomena tried to grab my attention, with increasing success, I discouraged this. Even distractions give up after a while!


It is admittedly a little nerve-wracking initially to experience the 'absence' of mental activity, mental excitement, plans, etc. My biggest obstacle personally, is thinking to myself, "hey you might die today, maybe you could be doing something useful!"

Happiness in Buddhism is defined as having a calm and peaceful mind, so I don't think I could be doing anything more useful.

daka