Hi David
Thanks a lot for the extensive post. I can see that you put great effort in this. The thing with direct experience is, that once we start truly looking, our mind comes in, saying, this can’t be it, this I do not understand, this is ridiculous and probably much more. It the mind is perfectly right because our mind neither can grasp this nor could it understand. That’s why we only go by direct experience.
David wrote: I'm afraid I can't get the hang of the Quotes
Maybe just play with the editor, eventually you might find out.
David wrote: If I listen to music on the radio there is a physical separation, the musicians are in the concert hall and I am at home.
Ok, there are a number of assumptions here. Let’s go into details then:
Is there physical separation in direct experience? Can you find any boundaries or draw any lines? What is the evidence of separation except the concepts and thinking? Are there any musicians, is there any hall when you’re at home or is this too just conceptualization of what you think it’s there instead of looking what is there by direct sensory perception? There’s just this – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
David wrote: I think that listener and musicians are separate. I think that the music is a shared experience, a bridge linking musicians and listener. But musicians and listener remain distinct entities.
Again, what proof do you have of any separation in direct experience? What are the boundaries or how do you draw lines?
And again don’t look for concepts such as ‘bridge linking musicians and listener’. Instead stay with direct experience? Can you make out any separation between sound, what is heard, and you as
the hearer? Again, where are the boundaries? Is there any evidence for any boundary?
See if you can find a distinction between musicians and listener apart from thought concepts? Just look! What can you find by raw experience, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling?
Rolly worte: What would the separate perceiver be like?
David wrote: I suppose myself.
When I asked about what a separate perceiver would be like, I mean this: we normally assume that there are boundaries to ourselves or myself. And we then tend to use various phenomena as evidence that boundaries exist. Find out if there are any actual, findable boundaries of yourself in direct experience. By "yourself" what I mean is whatever it is that you know to be yourself - entirely non-conceptual. Yourself is what you absolutely cannot doubt. You can doubt the body, roles, thoughts, sensations, beliefs, and all else. But yourself is not something you can doubt. So see if yourself has boundaries.
David wrote: I’m sorry I’m back tracking here. When I say there is no separation between music and listener I mean that David’s sense of self is temporarily absorbed into the music (as when I listen to a particularly beautiful Mozart passage). But music is sound waves, however beautiful, and David is a physical entity, living in the present moment.
Well, let’s see what you find in the forgoing questioning.
Rolly worte: Do you experience instruments and/or voices independent of sound?
David wrote: Yes if I can see the instrument or speaker.
The question is not whether you can see instruments and/or voices (which by the way is obviously not the case unless you’re at a concert or some other act) The question is whether you experience instruments and/or voices independent of sound? Or is it more like instrument and sound are heard simultaneously as one happening?
David wrote: No I can see the violin and hear its sound when it is played. The violin has a separate existence from the music and continues to exist when the music stops, i.e. when it is no longer being played.
When you listen to a violin do you perceive a separate violin? Can you differentiate between the violin and what is heard just by listening? What is the evidence of that?
Rolly wrote: Do you experience something that is making sound?
David wrote: YES
In direct experience can you really experience something that is making sound? How can you proof this assumption?
Rolly worte: Do you experience music to be independent of hearing?
David wrote: YES, the music will be present whether or not I am listening.
Yes that’s right. But, as always, do you experience music to be something different than what is heard? Pay attention to the slight nuance of this question. Is sound or music independent of the hearing, independent of what is heard? Or, again, is it one happening?
Rolly worte: Do you experience a sound waiting to be heard, a sound outside the scope of your hearing?
David wrote: NO
Good, that’s clear. Can you see that sound, the heard and the hearer altogether make out the hearing at this moment?
David: I don’t really think the musical analogy is taking me anywhere.
Just keep on track, you’re doing fine. Answer these questions with fresh looking, don’t go into thoughts, concepts or assumptions. Only just look by direct experience, what is exclusively there, here and now.
David wrote: I have continued to read Gateless Gatecrashers. I have fundamental problems with the idea that “Life just happens, and we have no say in it.” The idea that decisions happen on their own, that there is no one to take responsibility for those decisions and that life looks after itself, strikes me as implausible and socially and morally corrosive. This is a recipe for doing nothing in the world. We all make choices from what to have for breakfast to important decisions which affect our lives and our families. It is morally suspect because if life just happens we will have no sense of duty, morality or compassion. And life would rapidly collapse into anarchy.
Remember David, we are not here for assumptions and concepts. We are here to look, honestly looking what is there in direct experience – full stop. Please sit with the above cited questions and find out for yourself whether your assumptions are of direct experience, a result of truly looking, what’s here and now, or whether they originates in thought wrapped up as concepts.
While I fully accept that there is no permanent, unchanging self, I am certain that in the present moment there is a distinct entity called David who needs to make decisions in his daily life and who should try to make the right ones.
Of course decisions apparently have to be made on a daily basis, no doubt about that. Now we are exploring the nature of decision making, choosing, intending and so on in direct experience which is somewhat mysteriously different than in what we’re used to through conceptualization.
Sit with each question. Let me know what you find then.