vince

[Ilona]

Hey Vince, sorry it took a while with you..
Please join our groups on FB and help spread the word.
much love.

[James Anderson]

You're trying to work it out conceptually Vince.
Can you find anything other than experience. Don't think, actually look.
If there were no six experiences. No sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought. Would you or anything else exist?

[vinceschubert]

Sorry to disagree James, that was not a conceptual answer, it's what came as looking happened.
When you say "If there..." you are asking me to develop a concept.
I can't answer what it would be like (except conceptually) without the senses.
I have no experience of existence or non-existence. i can only reason that there is existence.

[James Anderson]

Here's the thing Vince. Before enlightenment, it's like somebody who's always been stuck in a house and doesn't know that there's a sun outside. We try to get them to break down a wall to see and feel the sun. What a lot of people do is understand it conceptually, believe that there's a sun and paint a picture of a sun on the wall.
Now obviously only you know what your experience is, but in my experience, it's very clear what i am in relation to experience, and what would be without experience.

[James Anderson]

What actually caught my attention with you is that you said that the body is part of experience, and you know this because it's obvious to see, but you also said that experience is of the body. How do you know? Do you see why that answer is conceptual? How do you know that this isn't a dream, where you'll wake up in two minutes with a blue body and three heads?

Try looking again at experience. Don't reason anything. Is there anything other than experience? Look hard.

[vinceschubert]

Your right James, that is conceptual.
The trap was to talk of experience (noun) instead of experiencing.
Your post also triggered thoughts of doubt. (did it really happen ?? etc.)
Answer is there is no knowing. i don't know that this isn't a dream and whether when i wake up is it a dream that i woke up...
Rather than re-read previous posts and try and worm out of anything,(false confirmation is of no interest here) i will start again here with this question.
Question "what part does the body have in experiencing?" (if this question evades anything, please persevere and slap me)
Answer; when i walk, when this body walks, it is walking that is happening, it feels like walking is doing the body. A label (conceptualisation) for that would be the experience of walking.
Walking happens and the body and the ground and the scenery all contribute to the whole experience called walking.
To change any component changes the experience.
Ok, going back to re-read your original question...
"Experientially, does experience belong to the body, or is the body part of experience?"
Answer; the body is part of the experience.

Everything i write is with absolute honesty, BUT like i don't know if this is a dream, i don't know if i'm bullshitting to myself.
All of the above feels right, but really can't distinguish if it comes from mind or ??
i can recognise that the doubt is starting with thought and has sensations attached.
The desire for certainty also starts with thought...

[James Anderson]

Ok let's just work from this bit. "When this body walks, it is walking that is happening". You're still working under the assumption that there's a body walking.
Try pinpointing the thing that knows there's a body walking.
Another exercise is this. Put your arm out on a table in front of you a look. Before thoughts of mine and not mine arise, is there any distinction between the arm and anything else on the table? What makes the arm, table, and everything else exist?

[vinceschubert]

Hmm, i can't say what knows the body is walking.
First thought was it was somewhere in the head where the knowing came from, then it was a body sensation, then it was the ground and the sky that knew it then it was everything that knew walking. All this from a memory of walking.
Will go for a short walk now and see if awareness can be pinpointed... back in a sec.
Can't delineate walking as everything in awareness seems involved. Can artificially separate bits of 'experience' and label it walking, but that is ignoring a whole lot of seen stuff that is involved.
The sound of the wind, and the feeling of it on this body etc all happened when walking did.
i can't pinpoint which bit knows that walking is happening. It seems that it is walking that knows walking is happening, but that is still artificial as walking is happening along with a shit load of other things that can't really be separated.
No there is no distinction between the arm on the table until it moves then the distinction is about feeling but no sense of mine or not mine in an ownership way. Just a description of touching and not touching.
Being touched by awareness seems to make things exist.

keep it coming, please James.

[James Anderson]

How about the zen koan.
If a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?

[vinceschubert]

This may be contaminated from past consideration.
Answer; vibrating air only becomes sound when it interacts with the ear apparatus which sends impulses to the brain which then registers something called sound.
So it takes tree falling and mind/body to have sound.
Short answer; no.

[James Anderson]

You're on the right lines, but does it become sound at the ear, or does mind create sound when it receives a signal from the ear?
What about the other senses. Are they created by mind as well?
For example, another zen koan is, who is the master that makes the grass green?

[vinceschubert]

Yes, the the brain creates the sound after it gets the signal. The mind then overlays it with meaning (and values/judgement)
Yes the same for all senses.
BUT this is all conceptual.
Sounding, feeling, tasting all just happen, and can't be separated from all of existence.
i know that this sounds grandiose, but hearing something as a discreet sound is to ignore all of everything else that is happening, which is just done for the convenience of the task at hand. (the characteristics of the sound, the context of it, the associated events, ie the wind generated by the foliage as the tree falls, the vibration of the ground as it hits, the flight of birds & scattering of ground animals etc. etc.) Then there is the unperceived associations as in the worms that got squashed and other microbes affected, etc and on into infinity....

who is the master that makes the grass green?

first thought... greening just happens
No "who"
No "master"
No "makes"

Second thoughts... interaction between the suns emanations and the starches to produce chlorophyll which due to the visible light spectrum appears as green...
This is but 'how' it occurs (one explanation) with still no answer to the koan.

Third thought... there is no green.
That is just an interpretation. At dusk that green will be dark grey. At night it will be black. Even during the day the green will have different hues depending on the light.
It is the brain that makes the green and the mind that says it is attractive or otherwise or looks healthy or whatever.

Even grass is not grass. It can be a multitude of different types each with a multitude of possible characteristics.
Calling it grass is also just a convenience of language.
What it actually is, is just ISness ISing and to call it anything or focus on any limited characteristic has value for communication (and maybe other things)

[James Anderson]

1. Yes you're right it's just conceptual. For now. Bear with me.
2. Don't worry about isness etc. I'm trying to change your experience of that.
3. Yes you're right again. Green only exists as a mind formation. Colour doesn't exist outside of mind.
So would it be fair to say that everything you've ever experienced is mind projection? Would it be fair to say that it's impossible to experience anything other than mind?

[vinceschubert]

Would it be fair to say that it's impossible to experience anything other than mind?

i'd say yes, but with the caveat that this is conceptual.
Experiencing is so subtle and so all encompassing that it is actually impossible to isolate an origin for it.

[James Anderson]

Ok. Well i'll suggest two things at this point.
1. It's impossible for us to actually know whether mind formation is based on outside stimuli, or whether it's self created, like a dream.
2. There's no you experiencing mind. You are the whole mind projection and nothing more.
Like in a dream where you think you are interacting with others, but you're actually the whole dream.

What i'd suggest now is that you concentrate on the transition between wake and sleep and see if anything happens.