Re: Hey ddm, let's do this..
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2011 8:43 am
yeah, i've been having a few thoughts on that one.
short answer - yes, yes i do.
examining it here and now is a bit hard because it has disappeared (hence 'liberation' i guess). it may come back, but it'll be like an over the top drag-queen; easy to spot the fake.
it's just a mistake really, that's grown out of something practical, language, which has an inbuilt mistake in the use of the word "I". it's just grown that way, it never got corrected, and we get taught it and just go along.
maybe there's an isolated tribe somewhere who has no word for "I", and no concept of any solid or separate self.
or another image that i had was of a net, which represents consciousness, being bunched together at one point, and an "I" is created there as a reference point from which one part of the net can survey the rest of the net. this "I" is obviously arbitrary and can be swapped for any other point on the net. but sometimes a part of the net gets bunched up for too long and it is forgotten that it's only a context from which to survey the rest of the net.
or, as sentient beings one of the tricks, and traps, of intelligent consciousness is that we can virtually divide ourselves up and talk to another part of ourselves, we can create an instigator and an instigat-ee, an actor and an audience, and hold a conversation with ourselves. somehow this trick gets believed at some point.
also somehow all our emotional experiences get attached to "I", maybe as an attempt to make sense of them. when people refer to themselves in order to communicate to others, they say 'I am embarrassed, I am angry, I am sore', and, usually, the I has a lot of implied weight and assumed depth or permanency to it.
but seeing through the lie of self means the "I" in any statement used is paper thin, as indeed, is a label - it's a simple statement of the moment.
so maybe all those dynamics are playing into each other and become the belief in the self.
people believe in all kinds of shit.
short answer - yes, yes i do.
examining it here and now is a bit hard because it has disappeared (hence 'liberation' i guess). it may come back, but it'll be like an over the top drag-queen; easy to spot the fake.
it's just a mistake really, that's grown out of something practical, language, which has an inbuilt mistake in the use of the word "I". it's just grown that way, it never got corrected, and we get taught it and just go along.
maybe there's an isolated tribe somewhere who has no word for "I", and no concept of any solid or separate self.
or another image that i had was of a net, which represents consciousness, being bunched together at one point, and an "I" is created there as a reference point from which one part of the net can survey the rest of the net. this "I" is obviously arbitrary and can be swapped for any other point on the net. but sometimes a part of the net gets bunched up for too long and it is forgotten that it's only a context from which to survey the rest of the net.
or, as sentient beings one of the tricks, and traps, of intelligent consciousness is that we can virtually divide ourselves up and talk to another part of ourselves, we can create an instigator and an instigat-ee, an actor and an audience, and hold a conversation with ourselves. somehow this trick gets believed at some point.
also somehow all our emotional experiences get attached to "I", maybe as an attempt to make sense of them. when people refer to themselves in order to communicate to others, they say 'I am embarrassed, I am angry, I am sore', and, usually, the I has a lot of implied weight and assumed depth or permanency to it.
but seeing through the lie of self means the "I" in any statement used is paper thin, as indeed, is a label - it's a simple statement of the moment.
so maybe all those dynamics are playing into each other and become the belief in the self.
people believe in all kinds of shit.