My humble and sober request for a guide...

[Delma]

Hmmm... what do you usually mean by knowing? (I'm trying to not lead too much)

Anything known at all. Is the knowing of it a free floating exchange of ideas or are they owned or restricted in any way? Silence may be the only restriction in a literal sense, but does anyone own ideas or do they spread like a flow? Freely?

Can you find both knowing and knower? Are there two?

[Dimitri]

Processing... : )

[Delma]

Very good! :)

[Dimitri]

Ok, this is a tricky one. When I look, I see that knowing is really just a form or thought, sometimes combined with view, sometimes not.

Sometimes knowing takes on a kind of surety. I know about the vase and don't need to go and reverify what is now known.

And so there is a collective kind of knowing where we all agree on certain things, as with a vase. This seems to be a "field" of thought that we can share. So there ARE flowing ideas and there are also ideas that "I" may hold exclusively. No real way to verify the latter.

And so as with any other thought, there is just view, in this case, "known." Knowing seems to just arise like other thoughts or arrive when enough investigation has occurred, or it's shared. It's like when enough view accretes around a topic, something solidifies into knowing. Still just ideas and thoughts though. No knower, only a different kind of view.

[Delma]

Isn't it amazing how the things taken for granted as basic truths don't stand up to scrutiny?

Can you apply the same pointed inquiry to the owner of hands or body? Also try ut when looking into a mirror?

The owner of the body is an assumed entity which has moved through time and space. Has it?

Great work indeed.

[Dimitri]

No owner of the body. It seems that the self aware/reflective nature of the mind creates the idea of an owner due to memory but this seems super bogus. The body can view itself. So what?

The body moves through space and time but there's no owner who could accomplish such a thing, just memory. The capacity the body to recognize itself as having passed through space and time seems to contribute to this sense of a self. Again, so what? Just because there is memory and recognition of this life-pattern, that doesn't mean there is someone there to own any of it.

Yup, more bad assumptions fabricated from half-baked data. Weird.

[Delma]

Ok.

Let's look at this more closely.

Yeah, I'm kind of picky, but the "so what's" can actually be addressed and I don't want the questions to come back at you later.

So... if the view isn't owned, does the body actually view itself? And that would lead to your second point about the body recognizing itself as having passed through space and time.

Secondly, what is memory and when does it happen? Is there actual observation of the past, or just thought about the past?

Delma

[Dimitri]

Whoa! That's a good one Delma. I'm not so sure that I know now.

There is a view of the body. There is view of how the body is right now... and memory of how it was. Memory is certainly just a thought, an idea about the past - definitely not a high-fidelity accounting in any way, or even true necessarily.

But this idea of the body viewing itself, that is a thing to consider. I don't know. The sense organs of this body seem involved in this view, and in the view of this body. If these eyse close, seeing ceases. So there's a relationship of some sort.

If the body isn't owned, and the sense organs (as part of the body) aren't owned, and view isn't owned, then I just dont' know. How is there recognition of this life, as it has passed through space and time? Something has passed through space and time, has it not. Some kind of life, or pattern, or view?

I need to keep looking at this one.

[Delma]

Close the eyes. What is there?

[Dimitri]

Other forms of view, just not sight.

[Delma]

Describe what you see with the eyes closed. What is there as other forms of view?

[Dimitri]

Oh strange. There is a subtle shift now. Time and space feel ever so slightly different in some way that I'm not sure I can explain... as if it's one or the other but not both. I'm noticing this in the subway, as I watch people moving about.

It's as if they're all frozen but not, like they're being moved around like claymation figures. This view is so subtle I'm not sure whether I'm making it up or if I'm actually seeing in a new way. I think I've been here before, seeing in this way, and so somehow know it is likely to fade.

Anyway, back to our inquiry. When I close the eyes, vision sensing goes away or changes to seeing splotches of color, light, and dark and not crisp images. But there is still hearing, touch, smell, and presumably taste, if I had something to taste besides my own mouth.

And now I notice that there is view under the senses. Being. Consciousness. There is a quieter view here. Some kind of silence, not so stirred up as sensory viewing.

My stomach feels as if it just dropped - calmer, less agitated. This feels closer to the truth, more real. There's no assessment or interpretation here, just view.

[Delma]

"When I close the eyes, vision sensing goes away or changes to seeing splotches of color, light, and dark and not crisp images."

If seeing isn't still happening, how can it be described at all?

[Dimitri]

Apparently it is still happening, just in a much more subtle way. And it depends. Sometime it seems just black (which I suppose is the seeing of blackness) but then will shift to splotchiness. It's not consistent. Sometimes the black takes on qualities of subtle movement, or redness, or spots.

[Delma]

Is it actually subtle? I mean, the black is pretty pominent, isn't it? There's no mistaking that it's black. And the colors and splotchiness? Well, there would have to be some very distinct seeing to notice that the shifting and splotchiness is happening, no?

It's pretty detailed, isn't it?