The Third Alternative (page 3)

onacruse

How about:

Life is meaningless; that is, in and of itself it has no meaning. Life just IS. Our minds are "meaning" machines that are designed to put meaning into life, a meaning that's not intrinsically there. Then, we live life in accord with the meaning we have put into it, and therefore expect certain things to happen in life, and evaluate what does happen based on our assigned right/wrong meanings. But life (being) itself does not have meaning, it is not positive or negative; it simply is what it is.

A physical example: When matter combines with antimatter, the result is not another form of matter. Rather, the result is pure energy. Energy can be converted to matter, but it need not be. Also, pure energy is neither positive or negative. Only as energy is resolved into material particles does it become positve or negative.

Craig

Edited by - onacruse on 23 January 2003 4:59:23

LyinEyes

I think I am with Goshawk on this one,,,,,,,,,,,, I would have to say his version of #4.

Because, one day I am at #1 , then that night I am at #2, then I find myself at #3, ,,, but I go back and forth, trying to understand. Trying to accept that I will never know, maybe I was never meant to know, and accept that someone up there is screwing with our heads..j/k.

But yeah,,,,,,,,,,,,, I go with #4,,,,,,,, right now, I think, wait, maybe ......... crap... I.D.F.C.

( or I can borrown Animals famous quote,,,,, God I love this...... D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.?????

jgnat

I don't know if this will add to the discussion or not. To discuss unbelief, belief, non belief in this way, we are already activating the complex part of our brain that was necessarily developed in our our toddler years. People are hard-wired for communication. This also makes it impossible to discuss non-analysis. Or for us to successfully process, catalogue, or file away the process of becoming an non-analyzer.

Brain, stop thinking now. I said stop that! Oops. That was a thought! Stop! Stop! Oops. Stop is a thought. Doh!

I have seen the same problem when watching a genius teacher try and make artists out of people who are unused to using the non-language part of their brain. The process of observation is almost impossible to teach. Over and over I have seen art students stare at an apple, then draw a perfect circle on the page. Apples are round, after all. But none are PERFECTLY round. I am so tired, sigh, of new students asking me how to create "flesh colored" paint. Every face is FULL of colour, not only from the inner glow of lifeblood, but from the constantly shifting patterns of light and shade. After painting for a day, my TV watching takes on a surrealistic flavour, as each face becomes a map of fascinating colours and shades. Hard to describe. You have to be there.

Perhaps non-analysis can only be practiced. Perhaps like learning to be an an artist that can SEE, non-analysis can be learned with enough practice.

Siddhashunyata

jgnat, your right "the process of observation is impossible to teach" . The student has to experience it himself. The teacher can only point the way or stimulate awareness of the process. This thread was started with that in mind.

Many on this board are suffering because they have lost a belief system. Some are experiencing profound emotional pain because they sense belief systems, in general, are vulnerable regardless of their level of sincerity. The Third Alternative thread is an attempt to raise awareness that there is another way to approach one's spiritual need. There is nothing new in what I'm saying here but many are not aware of these things . I thought it would help to stimulate interest by contrasting Belief/Non- Belief.....with the experience of Direct Knowing .

Introspection

Siddha,

One thing stood out in one of your posts, and that is the common description of witnessing - (that is what they call it, ironic isn't it) this observation without judgement - is like a sense or feeling. You probably know this already, but I like to say if we can take the perspective of awareness itself, then what is aware of the feeling? Anyways, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this.

Perhaps non-analysis can only be practiced. Perhaps like learning to be an an artist that can SEE, non-analysis can be learned with enough practice.

There's actually another aspect to this. It's one thing not to judge and interpret, but there's also the aspect of not resisting or trying to hold on to. Someone who tends to be a thinker may be very analytical, but that resistive factor may not be there. But the thing is that's actually where we get to see how much energy we waste and how much we run in circles chasing our own tail, you can literally feel it then. On the other hand, you might have someone who sits there all day wanting this and that and resisting what they do have in their life, and they haven't given a whole lot of thought to any of it. So I guess you might say there's these two aspects of non-interpretation and non-resistance, though not interpreting is not saying you don't care either - because then you can just go to sleep and not even observe, and again you are not going to the other extreme of clinging instead of resisting, either. By the way, it isn't that there is no analysis - I mean after all we gotta think for a lot of stuff. It's that it's not compartmentalized and separated.

I find it more useful to talk about this stuff using more of a homey, down to earth language. For anyone who may not know, what we're talking about has a lot to do with what they call enlightenment. (oooo, ahhh - the big word) But see, while you're not being dismissive about it, someone who is described as selfless doesn't care enough to be worrying about it in the sense of being really concerned. They don't even care about enlightenment itself, not for you or themselves. I think the difference between someone who gets it and someone who don't is when say a good friend is talking to them about all this stuff, the person who doesn't will just engage them in the abstract, conceptual level which I think we've already seen as not being it. Someone who gets it would more than likely go "Yeah. (smile) Hey, lets go get a drink." (not necessarily alcoholic, but there's no problem if it is) For an enlightened person, there is no separation between thought and action. This doesn't mean they will avoid conceptual stuff as a rule, but it's just that they are not interested in thought by itself. This is why you got these teachers who don't write books right, they might do a little poetry and other people might write down what they've said, but since they're only interested in what's real it's always just a live interaction with people and life, not a matter of formulating theories. No theory ever got anyone to become enlightened, just as people who read books don't necessarily know what the book is talking about. In fact, doesn't a lot of these "spiritual teachers" say they're not really teachers? It's sort of like you want to play this game of being a student, so they gotta play the other role of being a teacher. I was reading a little thing about zen master Suzuki Roshi, and someone asked him once: "Roshi, what's the difference between you and me?" without hesitation he said: "I have students and you don't." Most people are just caught up in the roles they're playing and what they're playing with, but it's cool just to be playing.

Edited by - Introspection on 23 January 2003 22:53:38

siegswife

From the Tao Te Ching :

When people see things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

siegswife

More:

Colors blind the eye. Sounds deafen the ear. Flavors numb the taste. Thoughts weaken the mind. Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.

Introspection

Hi Siegswife,

Thanks for posting those.. I gotta say though, Stephen Mitchell takes some great liberties in his "translation." (by the way, I know this is a commonly used rendering so I'm not criticizing your choice, I'm posting this for everyone's benefit) I read that he doesn't even know Chinese, he basically pulled from different translations and came up with a paraphrase based on his own understanding. Chapter 46 makes this very clear: In the first part he mentions things like tractors, factories, warheads and so on - things which no doubt didn't exist at the time - and the second part reads this way:

There is no greater illusion than fear,
no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.

Well.. That sort of makes sense, but other translations point to greed. For example John Wu's (not the director) read:

There is no calamity like not knowing what is enough.
There is no evil like covetousness.
Only he who knows what is enough will always have enough.

Anyways, I don't want to take too much time on this but in getting carried away with the tractors and factories and warheads (oh my!) in the first part, he also lost the thought that the same thing can be used for two intents - the original text there being horses can be used for farming or for war. In the big picture of life I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, but he is very much on the opposite in the rendering here because of greed being an aggressive quality, whereas fear is a defensive one.

Edited by - Introspection on 23 January 2003 23:47:44

jgnat

Without stimulation the brain atrophies.

Introspection

Ok I'll try to explain and get back on topic in the same message.. That thing about the five whatsits is basically like the bible saying keeping the eye simple, it's about desire and covetousness. But in talking about the eye, it kind of points back to this whole business of observing or "witnessing" .. Ok, we're back?

The Third Alternative

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