Piet's Summary

The wh implies that reality is complete and timeless, and yet we tend to use time to try to work with the working hypothesis. Strictly speaking, this means that we're going about it the wrong way. However, in practice, there seems to be no other choice, at least initially.

This last week I have been chewing on this contradiction, which is an enormous paradox when viewed with the normal logic of the ordinary mind. Yet I also have an intuition of what it might mean to realize instantly what completeness and timelessness really is. It feels very odd, to keep using vestiges of a time-based approach, to try and get comfortable with dropping everything instantaneously: concepts, addictions to doing and happening, a belief in self and time.

Working with the wh this way, by trying to drop both `work' and `-ing', I was struck by the strong parallel between our wh and a typical scientific working hypothesis. When I do my scientific research, too, I often find myself facing a paradox. I am confronted with a puzzle, and for a while I don't see a solution. At the same time, I know from experience that holding the puzzling situation in my mind long enough is likely to let a solution `pop out.' To use an image: when I put all the elements of a problem on the table, and walk around the table, for a while nothing seems to happen, and the best description I can given is that I feel that I am sinking into what is on the table. And then, suddenly, it seems as if everything on the table arranges itself, showing the connections I was looking for, that were completely beyond any logical step-by-step-in-time construction I could have thought of.

Inspired by this out-of-time aspect of solving a typical scientific wh, I spent several hours this last week trying to contemplate the timeless simplicity of our wh, sometimes just lying awake in bed, sometimes sitting, sometimes walking, sometimes engaged in other activities. I tried to just rest, and to let everything come to rest, watching my ingrained tendency to let myself be carried along by the stream of time. And rather than resisting the stream, I tried to rest in the stream as well, which seemed a more effective way to really drop buying into time. I have tried this many times, but in a strange way, each time I try it again, deeper layers of meaning and insight seem to unfold; the whole thing becomes more concrete, felt, active in a non-moving way.

Reflections

Last week I was struck by how rich all of our first monthly summaries were, with clearly all of us reaping significant benefits from the mere 7 minutes/day that we agreed to invest so far in our wh explorations.

This week I want to encourage everybody to fine tune his or her practice a bit more. So far, many summaries have been about meditation-like experiences as well as life experiences. While both are fine, neither is what we are trying to focus on in our wh work. The name of the game for us is to see to what extent holding the wh in mind can change the way reality appears. If that leads to meditative states, fine, at least fine for a while, but then we should try to drop those `states' and keep working with the wh, rather than using the concept of a wh to help us feel better in doing ordinary forms of meditation.

In short, the wh can be a silver bullet if we really work with it.

Now this if has three parts: first, a firm intention to REALLY work with the wh, to REALLY give it a chance to reach out to us; second, making an honest effort to report as best we can what we experience; third, listening to others who upon reading our reports can help us by trying to point out how we may still be missing part of the point.

So: try hard to look for yourself; report honestly; listen to others.

Responses

Here is my attempt, as best as I can at this moment, to give some feedback along these lines. I would appreciate receiving your feedback to my feedback in turn, so that we can make this a true community experience. To keep this email within reasonable length, I will mainly respond to one summary of last week, that by Frank. I really like the devotional side that he connected with the wh, so lets see whether we can start a dialogue about fine tuning that approach.

Frank, you wrote "The innermost refuge is taken into true nature of one's being, which is the true nature of this moment, which is wh." Yes, the wh addresses the true nature of what is, including what we mistakenly label as `this moment' or `myriad phenomena', but working with the working hypothesis may be more than taking refuge in terms of a strong belief and trust in the truth of the wh. Taking refuge is a wonderful method, but it is not based on a hypothesis but a belief. For the wh, there is a subtle difference, namely a belief that it is appropriate to work with the notion of perfection as a hypothesis. A belief is replaced by a meta-belief, namely that not believing may be more appropriate than believing!

Do you see the difference? If we believe in perfection, we almost certainly will believe in the wrong thing, our mental picture of what perfection could be. But if we believe that it is really worth while to try to really work very intensely with the wh, then we can get the courage to NOT accept perfection on faith and also to NOT accept the seeming imperfection of the ordinary life world. Keeping our mind open by NOT accepting either, neither believing nor disbelieving the content of the wh, this requires real courage, a lot more than we may think at first. But it has an enormous payoff.

Am I making sense? Or do you see it differently? Don't accept my word for anything; let's discuss this together. Email is a rather limited way to talk about what goes beyond words, and we should mutually check to see whether we are both `getting' what the other is trying to express in just a few kbytes! And just to make really sure: I have great respect for practices such as taking refuge, and by all means, if that appeals to you, continue that as well. It is not a matter of either-or. I myself continue daily forms of devotional practices of various kinds. But while doing so, see whether you can find subtle ways to shift from believing in what you think they have to offer to becoming open to what they really have to offer, inconceivably beyond any understanding that you can currently imagine.

Don't block the gold by holding up a piece of yellow paper in front of it.

Short note: Miles, you wrote "And yet we are". I don't think so. How about accepting the "are" but reconsidering the "we"? Nicole's `just light' may help here ;>).