Kub933's Journal

Journals
21

The way I would put it is — indeed there are no “boundaries” in actuality. The feeling of ‘me’ the feeling-being existing , creates an artificial perceived boundary / separation between ‘me’ and everything else.

HOWEVER, it’s not the case that actually ‘I’ as feeling-being exist , and there is no boundary between ‘me’/‘my’ feelings and the rest of the universe.

RATHER, what one finds is that ‘I’ the feeling-being am that very illusory boundary in and of itself. ‘I’ am the separation in and of itself. ‘I’ am a felt yet not factual separation.

When the lack of boundaries is experienced as an actuality - simultaneously one is experiencing a PCE and ‘I’ am already absent (and seen to not have really existed). (And it also becomes clear what “exists” refers to in this case :smiley: ).

And conversely when a PCE is what is eventuating one finds that there are in fact no boundaries being experienced - ending of ‘me’ is the ending of ‘boundaries’.

So it works both ways, it is an “if and only if”.

The mistake was thinking there is a ‘me’ that is then separate from the universe via a boundary, ie thinking there’s 3 things: ‘me’, boundary, universe.

Actually ‘I’ am the boundary, so it’s only two things: ‘me’=boundary and universe.

And only one of them is actual !

If one were to have done such a thing as to be experiencing one’s feelings & emotions as not having any boundary between them and the universe, and not seeing that those feelings/emotions/me in and of itself is/are an illusory boundary … essentially one would be projecting one’s ‘self’ to cover the entire universe, which would give the lived illusion of no separation, but one would in fact continue ‘being’ that very separation, still impossibly separate from actuality, still covering up that pristine purity with one’s ‘being’…

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22

Yes and maybe an important distinction here is between the word boundary and distinction.

There are distinctions in the actual world, as in I can distinguish between this flesh and blood body and that tree even when in PCE, yet there is no boundary and consequently no separation between this flesh and blood body and the tree.

Maybe my word boundaries was a bit confusing, I should have said in the actual world there are firm distinctions such as I am this flesh and blood body but I am not at the same time the flesh and blood body called Claudiu, even though there is no separation between the 2, as in there is no actual boundary between them that could ever be drawn.

The boundaries are made real by ‘me’, the passions that fuel the illusion of being a separate entity are projected out onto the world thus creating the real world, the world of lament.

Contemplating all this has been pretty exciting today, I see that in order to self immolate ‘I’ must give up ‘my’ very sense of being a separate entity, as ‘I’ am that sense of separateness though it means ‘I’ am also giving ‘myself’ up.

Then there isn’t anything left that could be called ‘me’ as in a localised ‘being’ that is removed from the rest of Actuality.

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23

@rick I just wrote a long ass reply with lots of specifics but I don’t think it really hit the mark so that’s deleted :sweat_smile: I am not quite sure how to articulate this but it seems to me that there is an ‘I’ skulking behind your contemplations and it is skewing the outcomes into something that seems to be verging away from actuality.

I think in order for contemplation to be fruitful (as in leading to a seeing of a fact) it has to be Pure. That means one must have a connection to that Purity in place before commencing any contemplations. Here is Peter’s description of Pure contemplation that I found :

"While contemplation has led to most of humankind’s amazing discoveries and inventions, it has also led to some of the most inane as in the case of purely intellectual contemplation – usually undertaken by men in Ivory towers, or mystics in monastic cells. Contemplating such questions as ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘What happens after death?’ has led not only the mystics but the scientists as well into passionate imagination resulting in elaborate fairy stories of meta-physical worlds and spiritual concepts. If what is factual and actual is ignored or denied in contemplative thought, then passionate imagination is the inevitable result.

"Pure contemplation, on the other hand, is the brain’s ability to make sense of the physical world as directly experienced by the senses, free of any imagination, affectation, concepts, traditions or beliefs. The universe is clearly seen as infinite, eternal and perfect with no ‘outside’ to it. Contemplation, when guided by pure intent and a relentless commitment to what is factual and actual, will inevitably free one from the grip of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire that nestle in the bosom of every human being."

Do you take ‘me’ to be a fact? If so then ‘I’ will forever muddle any attempt at pure contemplation.

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24

I guess that really sums it up :grin: maybe there is a way to approach this though that will be a lot more than just having a wank, it will have the potential to change ‘you’.

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25

Although there is also this that you wrote, I would be really interested to hear if/how the contemplation changed your experience?

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26

This is where I think my approach would differ, I do appreciate that intellectual contemplation is often used to produce more questions than one had to begin with. However it seems that allowing Pure contemplation is the opposite of this, the intent is to see a fact, and once it is seen one ‘has it’, there is always a firm knowing as opposed to disorientation.

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27

Kuba - I don’t regard my motives for responding to your own contemplations as hidden, sinister and cowardly:

Skulk: keep out of sight, typically with a sinister or cowardly motive.

It was more done out of the spirit of communal fun. I’m fascinated by these topics and, given the direction your own musings were taking, I thought you (and others) might be receptive. But yeah, you got me. I’m a feeling being enjoying the contemplative process. Have you heard the expression “pot calling the kettle black”?

Isn’t that enough a reason to do something?

Now as pure contemplation only happens when self is not, then what does one do in the meantime?

Richard (2000): Experiential disorientation:
•This intellectual knowing provided the basis for experiments in experiential knowing: in my formal study of art at college in my twenties and with the daily practise of art thereafter as a living I experientially became aware of the human tendency toward … um … ‘frontal-ness’ (the face, the eyes, the nostrils, the mouth, faces forwards) which defines the typical human viewpoint and determines the classic world-view (forward/backward; up/down; left/right; in/out; top/bottom; front/back). By physically lying on one’s back one is no longer looking ‘up’ into space but ‘out’ into space … all the while intellectually knowing that people on the opposite point on the globe are looking ‘down’ into space whilst standing and ‘out’ into space whilst laying. Thus ‘out’ into space becomes as nonsensical as ‘up’ or ‘down’ … and this disorientating of the habitual mindset can be extended to other physical experiments: paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space as this form. This experiential attention becomes fascination … and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then –apperception can occur.
General Correspondence Number Nine

It is only possible for apperception to occur when an identity is being contemplative. If you disagree, that’s fine, but take it up with Richard.

Richard (1999): Considered contemplation combined with fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 12

Richard (1998): Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought . . . .
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 11

And if apperception doesn’t result, no worries. As long as it was fun it wasn’t a waste.

It’s akin to psychedelic experience. It’s quite literally mind expanding (once you begin wondering about where your mind actually ends). I mean, we took a trip across the universe by just being here.

If I get angry then is it not a fact that I got angry? That is, if I were angry, I would be in fact angry. Anger would be the fact of the situation. Denying this would be to deny the fact that anger was occurring. Do you deny the fact that you are a feeling being? If you do not deny the fact that you are a feeling being, then you have to acknowledge the fact that you (a feeling being) are in fact a fact, because it is a fact that you are a feeling being. Is that not a fact?

Look, if my post to you rubbed you the wrong way somehow, I apologize. It wasn’t my intention. It’s probably best at this point to disregard the whole thing.

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28

@rick Your post certainly didn’t rub me the wrong way so there is no need for any apologies, I like anyone and everyone posting in my journal so you’re welcome to do so anytime :slight_smile: There are just a few things about your post that don’t quite add up for me which is why I am probing.
Later when I get a chance I will re-write the longer more detailed post that I had which explained the exact bits that I had an issue with.

In terms of this one I will certainly say let’s disregard as there is already a very long post history tackling this one between you and a certain @claudiu, I don’t think I will bring this any closer to a resolution :yum:

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29

Ok so I just had another read of your post, I will write a short one and see how that lines up with what you are describing.

Yes we have the ability to arbitrarily divide or unite the universe into infinite components or systems.

Yet when talking about what is actual it does not make sense to talk in these terms. The actual does not rely on the decision of the group or the individual to unite or separate it, it already is.

The problem is that ‘I’ feeling ‘my’ boundaries to be real project this out onto the word, the unity or segregation that ‘I’ experience is a projection of ‘myself’. Irregardles of how intricately ‘I’ distinguish the word, separation never ends, ‘I’ can only make more and more divisions/unities. This is the only way ‘I’ know how to operate.

When ‘I’ vacate the scene the boundaries disappear and things are seen for what they are, this allows for a matter of fact seeing that this body is not the tree outside (of course) yet there is no way one could create a boundary between the 2.

There is the ability to discriminate but there is no ultimate division between that which is being discriminated against.

This does not apply to ‘me’ though, ‘I’ feel forever separated and no matter how intricately ‘I’ distinguish ‘myself’ or the world out there, ‘I’ will never bridge that separation. To try to do this is to head in the direction of becoming one with the universe.

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30

I must have misinterpreted or incompletely interpreted @rick’s original post, as I don’t quite understand what Rick said that merited your and @claudiu’s posts… They are obviously opposites/divergent from Rick’s post, but I fail to see where Rick said what merited your comments/responses.

It was clearly a “Rick-like” post (written to kick the board around, provoke, make us think, etc.), but I didn’t perceive that he said anything essentially different than what had been said; so I must be kind of lost…

If you can/want to, it would be helpful if you could summarize/point out what specifically originated this back and forth.

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31

OK so the main thing which might clarify what it is that I am pointing to is mentioned in the ASA article - Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness

The bit I am specifically referring to is the following - This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone … and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ … a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’

My initial post was regarding the boundries as experienced in the real world and how in actuality there is no such boundries however there is still the ability to distinguish and discriminate.

It appears that what @rick is attempting to do is to use a more general intellectual probing of the topic surrounding distinctions, as you mentioned @Miguel to provoke thought, make us think etc.

However in that sense @rick’s post does not stay relevant to the topic at hand. Because the crux of it all is not to explore in just how many ways we can arbitarily separate or unite the universe via our minds, this keeps the discussion within the terms of life as experienced in the real world.
My main intent is to observe the fundamental error in perception which arises out of ‘being’ ie - "and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ … a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’"

The point being that it does not matter wether a European has 1 word for snow and the Inuit has 7, because the very action of subverting pure perception into an ontological ‘being’ is still taking place, it is just that this has now more ways to divide and more ways to unite. But fundamentally nothing has changed.

So I guess my main question for you @rick would be wether you are looking to have a intellectual probing into the various ways in which we distinguish/unite the world via our minds or wether you are interested in uncovering that which skulks behind and causes the confusion in the first place? My assumption was that it was the latter which I think may be the reason for the apparent conflict in the first place.

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32

Thanks!
Your words reinforce my affinity for the old “Reader’s Digest” :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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33

The thrust of Rick’s post is that discernment / distinction is ultimately arbitrary and that it is ultimately up to us as humans per se to say what is what, what delineates one thing from another.

This might appear superficially correct, but it’s clear what he is getting at in the context of his other posts - namely he is making the case that ultimately any distinction between ‘me’ as a feeling-being, and the universe itself, is equally arbitrary / equally up to ‘humans’ to make. In Rick’s understanding, Richard and the rest of us are arbitrarily labelling ‘me’ as feeling being / feelings as ‘not actual’ / not pure / not existing etc., while in fact there is no such distinction to be found in the universe itself.

The critical mistake Rick is making here, which for example Grant also made, is that he is taking himself to be the ultimate arbiter of what is what, instead of the PCE which is entirely outside of ‘him’ and/or a connection to that purity experienced in the PCE via pure intent.

As Kuba put it well, in order for the contemplation to be fruitful it has to be pure, one must have a connection to that purity in place… With the PCE firmly in mind it becomes clear that the distinction between ‘me’ and the universe is not arbitrary / is not up to ‘me’, but rather is simply a matter of what-is-the-case. And it doesn’t matter whether Claudiu says it, or Kuba says it, or whether nobody says it at all – it doesn’t change the fact of the matter (i.e. it matters not whether any human is making any distinction – it remains to be the case, just as a rock is different from water whether a human is around to witness it and think about it or not).

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34

… Yeah …

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35

Yes what @claudiu describes also sums up what I am getting at very well. @rick My intent is not for this to come across as bashing you for just trying to have some fun with contemplation. I would think the reason why were are all here on this forum is to become actually free of the human condition, to actually do it. So probing and questioning these things is not just about intellectual masturbation or one-upmanship but that there is benefit to be gained for all by getting to the bottom of these things, by finding out the facts.

I was always hesitant to engage in these sort of discussions until that 25 or so minute PCE that happened for me directly after reading and contemplating @rick’s and @claudiu’s back and forth thread - Drawing the line between feeling and fact

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36

omg awesome!! I didn’t know , or maybe knew and forgot, that that resulted in a PCE for you. That means it was worth it :smile:

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37

haha yeah you must have forgotten because you replied with something similar at the time, this was the post - Drawing the line between feeling and fact - #78 by Kub933

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38

Work has been quiet today so I have spent a fair bit of time re-reading some of the older posts on here. I have found some of the posts by Srinath and Geoffrey to be especially stimulating, this one has been on my mind since - Actualism and the Weird - #45 by Srinath

It has been so fascinating because I have been getting glimpses of this, of matter being not merely passive. It is interesting because as discussed in that thread, ‘I’ turn the physical world into something dead and mechanical and then project any enchantment into the spiritual realms.

But I started looking from the other angle, the angle of the PCE, where ‘I’ simply don’t exist, in fact in that world ‘I’ have never existed. Yet there is all this stuff happening, how could this universe ever be dead!

It is only because ‘I’ am the arbiter of existence and the physical is not ‘me’ as such it is seen as cold, dead, mechanical. Then this interesting flip happens when ‘I’ slip away and everything including this body is made of that same magical, effervescent stuff and there is only this stuff.
I was contemplating all this in the car at my lunch break and it seemed to be on a brink of a PCE, those experiences actually remind me of what Richard used to say “being on the verge of it happening/not happening”.
The other thing standing out was the sensuosity of the world around, including me, the colours and the shapes being so saturated that they are almost ridiculous, looking at the red jumper I am wearing today I couldn’t believe that the red could be so juicy. Then looking down at my hands I see that they are the very same scintillating, magical stuff.
At this point I realise/I am reminded that ‘I’ never existed in the first place.
I always struggled to accept what Richard describes, that as a flesh and blood body one is already pristine and perfect, that there is no differentiation between that Purity and this body.
The reason ‘I’ could never accept this is because ‘I’ know just how dirty ‘I’ am. What about the malice raging on inside ‘me’, what about the endless problems that ‘I’ cause, how could all this just be wiped clean like that, leaving nothing but purity and innocence.
Yet when that ‘flip’ happens everything is seen to be already perfect, including this body.
It is a very weird space I find myself in lately, it is like oscillating between a world where ‘I’ simply don’t exist/have never existed, where everything is already pristine, and then back into reality, although reality is getting very flimsy indeed! It’s becoming so easy to slip out of it.

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39

So my neck injury has been aggravated in training once more, something very interesting has come out of it all though.

I was sparring yesterday with my brother (who is well aware of the extent of the injury and how it affects me), during a wrestling scramble his hip made contact with my neck causing the injury to resurface.

Initially I dropped to the floor with my arm going completely numb. I have only just spent a few weeks in constant pain and with significant weakness in my right arm due to this thing.

The very first instinct was anger, somehow I had flipped the situation (which is nobody’s fault at all, it is a fact of doing what we do, injury can happen at any time) to be his fault, as in he was not doing something ‘right’ and that was the reason I was hurt.

While I was on the floor he asked me “how did it happen?” I began speaking and caught myself mid sentence as I was about the say “you hit me with your hip”.
This is precisely when I noticed the flip that has happened and so I nipped that in the bud, I replied with “I got caught in the head with your hip”.

However what became apparent after is the interesting part. I had dealt with my initial anger and blame following the incident however I was still in sorrow. There was thoughts/feelings of how this will affect my training, how I will be in a lot of pain, how ‘this always happens to me’, feeling helpless, feeling a victim etc.

It was at the moment that my brother said ‘I am sorry’ that the whole thing became clear to me. I realised immediately that it is not just my malice that has a deleterious effect on others, but my sorrow also! It is just harder to see because it can dress itself up under the guise of seeing solace, it is a more covert effect.

I could tell that although I had dealt with the anger, my brother felt my sorrow and as such he intuitively took it as an indication of his apparent wrongdoing and a need to apologise.
The instant thought that went through me at that moment was “why would I ever want to inflict this upon him”?
And even though I can say “oh don’t worry about it, its not your fault”, that does nothing, because he has already felt my sorrow and he has already assumed responsibility for it.
He will now have to turn to trusting me in order to ‘believe that I really mean it’ even though he knows deep down I do not. This has then the potential to become resentment in him as he realises that he is apologising for something that happened due to nobody’s fault, or even if he does not, and he becomes compassionate instead, he is still carrying the weight of my sorrow. As Richard writes in his journal, mutual intimacy is nowhere to be found in this whole process, it is actually such a rotten process and this dawned on me so clearly.

My relationship with my brother is really great, we have so much fun training and living together, I can tell how much he appreciates us spending time together, not just by his actions but because he tells me.

So why would I want to inflict this upon him! Not just my malice but also my sorrow. What I realised was that if I really want to be harmless, truly harmless, then I need to clean up not only my overt aggression, but even the subtle forms of sorrow.

I was driving home with a big smile on my face even though I sorta ‘fucked up’, because I know now what the goal is… to be harmless is to be unable to induce/contribute to any sort of suffering, be it via malice OR sorrow, in any form, no matter how subtle. It is a challenge and a challenge that I sincerely want to complete.

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40

Mornings are always a great time for me as ‘I’ seem to be especially out of the way. it’s like ‘I’ have not fully kicked into gear yet. I always aim to take this time to sit outside, enjoy a coffee and cigarette and allow contemplation.

This morning I was having the same experience I wrote about yesterday, of oscillating between ‘being’ and disappearing. It was a very powerful experience though, almost overwhelming at the extent of the actuality being experienced, it having the feeling of taking over.

Then it would settle somewhat and become smoother, it is so cool that the very instant that Actuality is experienced can never be mistaken, it is fresh each time even though I know it from past experience.

Each time there is that exquisite realisation that I am actually here as this body, the air caressing the skin, the actual smells and sounds all around, this can not be denied. From that experience it is also equally seen just how unreal ‘reality’ is, it’s like some outdated computer programme misfiring in the brain.

It is quite funny because this morning I was thinking “I don’t know how much closer I can get to allowing self immolation” and yet I remember countless times saying this in the past and yet each time getting further, or so it seems!

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