09-23-2010, 12:00 AM
Hi SHM,
Thanks for your insights, gives much to respond to and to keep these ideas flowing! I really like these sorts of discussions that get to the heart of experience.
SHM: You mention, “Because its been anchored...” Thus the question, what’s being anchored? Our perception?
Yes! But here’s the rub, perception cannot truly be anchored, it’s like a flowing stream of water continually on the move; it’s an elusive thing where when you look for the previous moment its gone. Or an example, you meet a friend on the street corner one day, the next day you cross the same corner and your friend is not there, so it was a synchronous event that you originally ran into the friend (unplanned) but you can’t necessarily produce that perceptual event again. But there is a way to ”manufacture” a sense of stability and predictability (repetition), and that’s by returning repeatedly to an idea and so now we come again to the term inception.
In the movie what is inserted into the dream and consequently perception of the dreamer is the inception of an idea specifically, and that is determined by the outcome wishing to be produced by the inserter. Now since perception is not a fixed thing, then first the inception that perception IS a fixed thing would have to occur. This last sentence is most important, the idea that perception is a fixed thing. So what could do this? What inception could accomplish the equivalent of a perceived damming up of the flowing river of perception, not truly but the appearance of?
That inception would be to establish linear time, insinuating a beginning, middle and end to perception itself. Then perception becomes something measurable, something fixed.
How does this occur? It occurs when we are young and everyone around us insists upon linear time and that we acknowledge our birth, enduring life and eventual death. And we thought birthdays were for fun, truly they are part of a vast sinister plot, bwaahahha. I am joking a bit, lol. But certainly a birthday will help to anchor perception, will it not?
Instead of a following river that was so from beginningless time, what is perceived is an origination, and coupled with it a sense of luck that it occurred, and with that a fear of it's ending. So fear has now entering into the landscape (fear being the tool of manipulation). Fear of losing perception that began apparently at birth and is enduring now, but soon will end. And around this is the appearance that it’s all so normal and nearly everyone will confirm it’s so for each other. You mention logic later in your post, this is a good example, that logic is the glue that holds everything linear together. Nagarjuna’s text does a full out assault on logic, and shakes those foundations. The idea of a self that originated (is born) just does not hold up to logic, the very means that was believed to give it validity in the first place. That’s when you begin to smell a rat, when you see that even the logic it’s founded on is not logical.
“The real us” is interesting as well. In chat we spoke about ‘reality.’ What’s reality? I mentioned that reality is a position of the AP (assemblage point) anchored. Our attention held in this AP position. Another idea mentioned is that reality is this here and now, this waking state. We always return to it.
Yet, if we look at it from a different perspective, as don Juan mentioned the Double dreaming us, how does it change? What if reality is the Double, and our waking state is a journey into the unknown? Reality isn’t the correct word for what I’m describing, but fun to speculate
Yes, I would say all that’s perceived is a reality. The only mistake is to perceive and then see it as not reality, or that one perception or realm is more real than another. Again, this is what’s being done. The waking is often seen as the reality, where we are born live and die, and dreaming is but an extension of that, so not really "real", only in the sense of imagery and subconscious expression, so it’s down-graded to like a sub-reality that is merely an extension of the waking person. But like you said, if the dreaming double dreams the waking, then suddenly it’s like the dream is reality and the waking is not as real, but rather a substrate of the dreamer. But, why not both as realities? Why is it even felt there is a need to decide?
“The movie puts forth the idea at the end, at least this is how I interpreted it, of "is there even such a thing as a true state (essence) of reality that is more than dreaming? and if not, then all is dreaming.""
SHM: Understood. Here’s one for you: If reality is nothing more than a Dream, why be concerned about death if ‘our experience’ isn’t real? Where does that leave the idea of ‘Death as an Advisor?’
Its not that we should not be concerned about death, its that we should unravel the twisted version of reality that holds us in fear and thus a control that is not our own doing. The fear will drive us, but we reach a point where fear no longer drives us when we no longer fear dying. Suffering can still motivate us then. Unlike fear, which is an unwanted outcome of events, suffering is what’s happening here and now. So the wish to end all suffering becomes more prominent than the previous fear. Both were useful allies so both are functional and aid in evolution. And death as an adviser works when a sense of self is intact as an active idea, once that is vanquished completely though, suffering becomes the next hurdle. Maybe it does not happen quite like one after the other, but more often simultaneously. But I do believe that suffering is the last obstacle rather than death. So after we lose death as an advisor, we still have suffering as an advisor and we keep pressing for evolution away from it.
Here’s another idea: If experience isn’t real or fact, what is experience?
For me, it’s that experience IS real and impermanent. So “fact” would not be something very reliable in impermanence. Such as gravity is a fact to many people, but one day it’s not a fact anymore when one can defy it. So never should reality or experience be seen as fixed. Its real but we can’t grasp it. Only experience it. And the rules continually change as perception changes. That’s why a shaman can shapeshift for example. Or yogis can walk through walls. Because they have dispelled the idea of permanent laws in reality. The idea, inception, is what holds a view of permanence. A new inception, impermanence, opens possibilities previous unavailable. Experience is dreamlike but its real at the same time.
“My friend who was with me was uncomfortable with the ending and I see this as the uneasiness of temporarily losing the anchor point of solidification and so she tried to reestablish it by asking questions such as "ok, what happened, did he get back to his real life?" So she was going to anchor it eventually with whatever conclusion she came up with because her intent was not so much to understand, but rather to re-anchor herself to the idea of a solid reality.”
SHM: This ‘anchoring’ is interesting. It reminds me again of the AP; Dreaming is used to move it, Stalking is used to anchor it. I think where the issue comes in, with everyone at some point, is that of taking one ‘anchored point’ as MORE REAL than another.
Yes, absolutely. I could not agree more. The whole ability to manipulate and be manipulated springs from this idea, which is an origination idea. Because, the only way to view one thing as more real than another is to give one precedence. First Cause.
So to anchor in the understanding that its all real and spontaneously arising, changes the dynamics in the playing field.
“Dreaming is used to move it, Stalking is used to anchor it.”
Great insight!
Now here’s a question for you: Do you see any way we can we get beyond these two precepts? And, if so, how?
It once again reminds me of Castaneda’s work, when he was ingesting hallucinogens. His AP (reality?) was moved and remained unstable. Juan needed him to anchor, using his shields, which of course is daily life after the hallucinogens. Daily patterns become entrenched anchors, even though we should be able to move about freely.
The consensual agreement of the collective social understandings works like a force of inertia and often and effectively reestablishes connection to anchors, so it’s like a two steps forward, one step back scenario. But for a person on the path of liberating all this, understanding the hidden core Lex alludes to is essential! And it blasts away the force of inertia of this collective in a way that it is greatly weakened if not done away with all together. Again Nagarjuna is really good for this. So establishing a new anchor point that is adaptive and counteracts inertia of a social collective. It’s a superior anchor point in that it has the vantage of seeing the social anchoring and avoiding such as a result of knowing what the remedy is. Its not the end of the road, but rather just the beginning of a new venture.
These are my views and experiences anyway.
Ok, part 2 coming soon : )
Thanks for your insights, gives much to respond to and to keep these ideas flowing! I really like these sorts of discussions that get to the heart of experience.
SHM: You mention, “Because its been anchored...” Thus the question, what’s being anchored? Our perception?
Yes! But here’s the rub, perception cannot truly be anchored, it’s like a flowing stream of water continually on the move; it’s an elusive thing where when you look for the previous moment its gone. Or an example, you meet a friend on the street corner one day, the next day you cross the same corner and your friend is not there, so it was a synchronous event that you originally ran into the friend (unplanned) but you can’t necessarily produce that perceptual event again. But there is a way to ”manufacture” a sense of stability and predictability (repetition), and that’s by returning repeatedly to an idea and so now we come again to the term inception.
In the movie what is inserted into the dream and consequently perception of the dreamer is the inception of an idea specifically, and that is determined by the outcome wishing to be produced by the inserter. Now since perception is not a fixed thing, then first the inception that perception IS a fixed thing would have to occur. This last sentence is most important, the idea that perception is a fixed thing. So what could do this? What inception could accomplish the equivalent of a perceived damming up of the flowing river of perception, not truly but the appearance of?
That inception would be to establish linear time, insinuating a beginning, middle and end to perception itself. Then perception becomes something measurable, something fixed.
How does this occur? It occurs when we are young and everyone around us insists upon linear time and that we acknowledge our birth, enduring life and eventual death. And we thought birthdays were for fun, truly they are part of a vast sinister plot, bwaahahha. I am joking a bit, lol. But certainly a birthday will help to anchor perception, will it not?
Instead of a following river that was so from beginningless time, what is perceived is an origination, and coupled with it a sense of luck that it occurred, and with that a fear of it's ending. So fear has now entering into the landscape (fear being the tool of manipulation). Fear of losing perception that began apparently at birth and is enduring now, but soon will end. And around this is the appearance that it’s all so normal and nearly everyone will confirm it’s so for each other. You mention logic later in your post, this is a good example, that logic is the glue that holds everything linear together. Nagarjuna’s text does a full out assault on logic, and shakes those foundations. The idea of a self that originated (is born) just does not hold up to logic, the very means that was believed to give it validity in the first place. That’s when you begin to smell a rat, when you see that even the logic it’s founded on is not logical.
“The real us” is interesting as well. In chat we spoke about ‘reality.’ What’s reality? I mentioned that reality is a position of the AP (assemblage point) anchored. Our attention held in this AP position. Another idea mentioned is that reality is this here and now, this waking state. We always return to it.
Yet, if we look at it from a different perspective, as don Juan mentioned the Double dreaming us, how does it change? What if reality is the Double, and our waking state is a journey into the unknown? Reality isn’t the correct word for what I’m describing, but fun to speculate
Yes, I would say all that’s perceived is a reality. The only mistake is to perceive and then see it as not reality, or that one perception or realm is more real than another. Again, this is what’s being done. The waking is often seen as the reality, where we are born live and die, and dreaming is but an extension of that, so not really "real", only in the sense of imagery and subconscious expression, so it’s down-graded to like a sub-reality that is merely an extension of the waking person. But like you said, if the dreaming double dreams the waking, then suddenly it’s like the dream is reality and the waking is not as real, but rather a substrate of the dreamer. But, why not both as realities? Why is it even felt there is a need to decide?
“The movie puts forth the idea at the end, at least this is how I interpreted it, of "is there even such a thing as a true state (essence) of reality that is more than dreaming? and if not, then all is dreaming.""
SHM: Understood. Here’s one for you: If reality is nothing more than a Dream, why be concerned about death if ‘our experience’ isn’t real? Where does that leave the idea of ‘Death as an Advisor?’
Its not that we should not be concerned about death, its that we should unravel the twisted version of reality that holds us in fear and thus a control that is not our own doing. The fear will drive us, but we reach a point where fear no longer drives us when we no longer fear dying. Suffering can still motivate us then. Unlike fear, which is an unwanted outcome of events, suffering is what’s happening here and now. So the wish to end all suffering becomes more prominent than the previous fear. Both were useful allies so both are functional and aid in evolution. And death as an adviser works when a sense of self is intact as an active idea, once that is vanquished completely though, suffering becomes the next hurdle. Maybe it does not happen quite like one after the other, but more often simultaneously. But I do believe that suffering is the last obstacle rather than death. So after we lose death as an advisor, we still have suffering as an advisor and we keep pressing for evolution away from it.
Here’s another idea: If experience isn’t real or fact, what is experience?
For me, it’s that experience IS real and impermanent. So “fact” would not be something very reliable in impermanence. Such as gravity is a fact to many people, but one day it’s not a fact anymore when one can defy it. So never should reality or experience be seen as fixed. Its real but we can’t grasp it. Only experience it. And the rules continually change as perception changes. That’s why a shaman can shapeshift for example. Or yogis can walk through walls. Because they have dispelled the idea of permanent laws in reality. The idea, inception, is what holds a view of permanence. A new inception, impermanence, opens possibilities previous unavailable. Experience is dreamlike but its real at the same time.
“My friend who was with me was uncomfortable with the ending and I see this as the uneasiness of temporarily losing the anchor point of solidification and so she tried to reestablish it by asking questions such as "ok, what happened, did he get back to his real life?" So she was going to anchor it eventually with whatever conclusion she came up with because her intent was not so much to understand, but rather to re-anchor herself to the idea of a solid reality.”
SHM: This ‘anchoring’ is interesting. It reminds me again of the AP; Dreaming is used to move it, Stalking is used to anchor it. I think where the issue comes in, with everyone at some point, is that of taking one ‘anchored point’ as MORE REAL than another.
Yes, absolutely. I could not agree more. The whole ability to manipulate and be manipulated springs from this idea, which is an origination idea. Because, the only way to view one thing as more real than another is to give one precedence. First Cause.
So to anchor in the understanding that its all real and spontaneously arising, changes the dynamics in the playing field.
“Dreaming is used to move it, Stalking is used to anchor it.”
Great insight!
Now here’s a question for you: Do you see any way we can we get beyond these two precepts? And, if so, how?
It once again reminds me of Castaneda’s work, when he was ingesting hallucinogens. His AP (reality?) was moved and remained unstable. Juan needed him to anchor, using his shields, which of course is daily life after the hallucinogens. Daily patterns become entrenched anchors, even though we should be able to move about freely.
The consensual agreement of the collective social understandings works like a force of inertia and often and effectively reestablishes connection to anchors, so it’s like a two steps forward, one step back scenario. But for a person on the path of liberating all this, understanding the hidden core Lex alludes to is essential! And it blasts away the force of inertia of this collective in a way that it is greatly weakened if not done away with all together. Again Nagarjuna is really good for this. So establishing a new anchor point that is adaptive and counteracts inertia of a social collective. It’s a superior anchor point in that it has the vantage of seeing the social anchoring and avoiding such as a result of knowing what the remedy is. Its not the end of the road, but rather just the beginning of a new venture.
These are my views and experiences anyway.
Ok, part 2 coming soon : )