Piet to Heloisa and Rod

Heloisa and Rod,

I feel we've come at a fork in the road, and I'm a bit torn as to which path to take. On the one hand, it would be fascinating to analyze further the shifts I mentioned and the levels that Rod described. For example, I could point out that in my sketch of shifts, timelessness becomes clear on level four, rather than three, and the notion of an `I' doing or trying something is no longer present at level three, having left that behind at level two.

On the other hand, I also feel attracted to jumping in right away at the end, and really focusing on the furthest level, level 4 in Rod's terminology, the level beyond levels that includes all other levels, as Heloisa suggested in the first paragraph of her last contribution.

If we were sitting together in one room, without the current 500-word restrictions on each contribution, a detailed analysis of the various shifts and levels would be fun and inspiring. But given our web based framework, it may be best to focus on the ultimate level, for now, which is actually what the working hypothesis squarely addresses.

I think it was useful to mention the possibility of identifying and sketching out a few shifts and levels, just to give some sense of the terrain when looking bottom-up, from the ordinary mind way of viewing to the ultimate view of the working hypothesis. However, when we really apply the working hypothesis, we have to adopt a top-down view, or more accurately, we have to accustom ourselves to there no longer being any `selves', nor `top', `view' or `time' to `do' anything in.

I'm not trying here to talk like a zen person, cutting off all language by pointing out how each term is not appropriate at the highest level. Rather, I'm trying to describe how to work with the working hypothesis, the way a scientist does, when confronted with a deep puzzle. Newton was known to walk around holding a tantalizing problem in his mind for days and weeks on end. At first, this `holding in mind' involves a person doing something as part of a project, but in time the emphasis on `me' and on `working on' and on `project' may fade away or even drop away altogether.

Given that the three of us have spent some time exchanging descriptions of past experiences and of current views, enough to make it clear that we are in basic agreement about the value of both, how about putting aside all that for a while? Instead, I suggest that each of us will report how it is to hold the working hypothesis in mind for, say, one whole day, as much as we are able to.

I myself will attempt to do that, and report in a couple days. I invite you to do the same. We can then compare notes. Would that be okay with both of you?

Piet