Open-Secrets

Category: Perceptions

  • The Art of the Steal

    Most Minds are Common Thieves

    Well at least mine is and has been. Part of the natural state of my mind and mental activity seems to be nothing more than simple, endless theft – always stealing someone else’s ideas and utterances. I offer no apology for my stealing activity, I understand it as part of the mind’s mechanical functioning.

    Damn, it’s a little more subtle and complicated than it appears. There’s this pesky identity that likes to assert ownership of “stolen goods.” Well, be that as it may, our minds like to gather up content, repackage it and sell it to the unsuspecting masses as original content.

    mechanical mind bullshittersNo wonder we become bored and jaded with life at times. Our world is filled with stolen goods activity supplied by almost 8 billion mechanical bull-shitters. Like many of you, I love to read fiction and go to the movies. Do we ever really see or read anything new? Endlessly rearranging content to sell ourselves an “original bill of goods” requires a lot of distraction and impaired awareness.

    And don’t fool yourself, I’m not about to stop. Not only is stealing masochistically and sadistically pleasing in its veiled form – I can’t quit. The identity conundrum again. The mind is going to continue to do what it does automatically and unconsciously. The thief is going to continue stealing – it is simply part of what it does.

    Oh well, I guess I will just have to rely on honor amongst thieves unless there is some other dimension of mind beyond thievery.

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  • More on Sensing, Looking & Listening

    Moving Beyond 6 Senses – Awareness & Consciousness

    As a continuation of my thoughts on Sensing, Looking & Listening, I must consider the senses. Seems obvious, but Sensing, Looking & Listening, if practiced and explored with sincerity, quickly leads beyond the senses.

    awareness practicsThe beginning practice of Sensing, Looking & Listening is associated with sight, sound & touch. As a first step, it is often suggested that one begin with the toes of one foot and move up the leg to the hip – slowly sensing each segment of the foot and leg. The sensing then moves to the fingers of the hand on the same side of the body and proceeds up the arm to the shoulder – again, sensing each segment as the awareness moves up the body. The practice then proceeds to the opposite shoulder moving down the arm to the leg and terminating at the toes on the opposite foot.

    As one gains proficiency sensing the body, looking and listening are added. When adding looking and listening, the practice is to not “go out” to see and hear, but to allow perception to come in – think receptivity.

    The art of sensing often carries a bit more emphasis as it is said that sensing is closer to how the soul perceives. So let’s look at this – what are we really exploring and developing? Our sensitivity for sure, but what does that imply? Ultimately, we are nurturing our capacity for awareness and consciousness.

    The soul is the field of consciousness, the medium of experience. More basic than consciousness is awareness, so what we are is fundamentally a self-aware field of experience. It shouldn’t be too much of a leap to understand how sensing is closer to how the soul perceives.

    If we are the medium of experience, then experience arises within the medium. This (us) self-aware medium perceives and knows by being “in touch” with what is forming within it – sensitive to the arising. The sensitivity is basic perception.

    One really cool thing is that the forms arising in the medium are also “of the medium. In this world, what we perceive of as physical forms, thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations are all forms of, and within, the soul. One can experience this as a telescoping of perception – think about the endless reflections you see when you stand between two mirrors – forms within forms within forms. Not only this, but dimensions sensory deprivationwithin dimensions within dimensions.

    An Evolution of the Practice – Sensing, Looking & Listening Beyond the 6 Senses

    Imagine you are in a sensory deprivation chamber – what is sensing, looking & listening?

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    Ponder, wonder, contemplate…

  • Reality as Living Mathematics

    Does Reality Add Up?

    In the August issue of Scientific American, Mario Livio explores – Why Math Works – Is math invented or discovered? A leading astrophysicist suggest that the answer to the millenia-old question is both. Here’s what Mario offers in brief:

    • Reality Mathematics Golden Ratio Fractal GeometryThe deepest mysteries are often the things we take for granted. Most people never think twice about the fact that scientists use mathematics to describe and explain the world. But why should that be the case?
    • Math concepts developed for purely abstract reasons turn out to explain real phenomena. Their utility, as physicist Eugene Wigner? once wrote, “is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”
    • Part of the puzzle is the question of whether mathematics is an invention (a creation of the human mind) or a discovery (something that exists independently of us). The author suggests it is both.

    Cosmic Mathematics

    • The Golden Ration – Ancient Greek mathematicians first studied what we now call the golden ratio because of its frequent appearance in geometry. The division of a line into “extreme and mean ratio” (the golden section) is important in the geometry of regular pentagrams and pentagons. Some of the greatest mathematical minds of all ages, from Pythagoras and Euclid in ancient Greece, through the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simple ratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians, historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines like no other number in the history of mathematics.
    • Fractal Geomentry – A fractal is “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,” a property called self-similarity. Roots of the idea of fractals go back to the 17th century, while mathematically rigorous treatment of fractals can be traced back to functions studied by Karl Weierstrass, Georg Cantor and Felix Hausdorff a century later in studying functions that were continuous but not differentiable; however, the term fractal was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning “broken” or “fractured.” A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion. There are several examples of fractals, which are defined as portraying exact self-similarity, quasi self-similarity, or statistical self-similarity. While fractals are a mathematical construct, they are found in nature, which has led to their inclusion in artwork. They are useful in medicine, soil mechanics, seismology, and technical analysis.
    • Holographic Universe – In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure “painted” on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales and at low energies. Cosmological holography has not been made mathematically precise, partly because the cosmological horizon has a finite area and grows with time

    Our Western spiritual understanding has grown distant from its roots; Plato’s and Pythagoras’s spiritual training required the utmost rigor of logic and precision of discrimination. Pythagoras taught spirituality through instruction in mathematics, and Plato instituted mathematics as part of the curriculum of his academy. Logical debates were part of Plato’s spiritual training, a practice inspired by Socrates. The originators of our Western thought conceived of mystical experience and logical discrimination as two sides of the same capacity for knowing. The contemporary assumptions are radically otherwise; the major thrust of thought now is that mystical experience and logical thought are not only divergent but also incompatible.  – Inner Journey Home, A.H. Almaas

    It’s enough to make my mind spin! When it comes to the question of whether or not it all adds up, I guess the answer is – how is it going in your corner of the multiverse?

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  • Rate My Life

    How Many Stars will My Friends Give My Life?

    Chris Colin has an article in the new edition of Wired magazine titled – Rate this Article.

    A funny thing has quietly accompanied our era’s eye-gouging proliferation of information, and by funny I mean not very funny. For every ocean of new data we generate each hour – videos, blog posts, VRBO listings, MP3s, ebooks, tweets – an attendant ocean’s worth of reviewage follows. The Internet-begotten abundance of absolutely everything has given rise to a parrell universe of stars, rankings, most-recommended lists and other valuations designed to help us sort the wheat from the chaff we’re drowning in.

    5 star ratingPerhaps gravestones should reflect a 5-star rating for lives lived. Why bother with our opinion when we can just ask others. Better yet, why not just check in with the inner critic and get its judgment?

    I was having an extended talk with a friend the other night that covered a lot of territory – life being such a vast experience it is. At times the dynamic between us became quite charged as we expressed very different views on our spiritual perspectives and processes. What became apparent to me was that our personal experiences held a lot of meaing for each of us and that there seems to be a tendency in the mind for – either or.

    This either or bent in the mind tends to create a lot of friction. As I noticed my mind’s tendency to do this, I brought more awareness and mindfulness to listening to what my friend was saying and focused on listening from a perspective of the personal significance being revealed.

    It became apparent to me that we were often saying the same things in different words and that the personal experiences that held and revealed meaning for each of us were wrapped in different looking packages – belief systems, world view, etc.

    This got me reflecting on several things:

    • Defending personal positions
    • Comparing & validating experience
    • The need for mirroring or merged support

    The list is actually quiet long as as each thread of interest leads to many intertwined threads – all of which seem to connect to the human need for connection and acceptance. Somewhere in the process of living it seems that the opinions of others often outweigh our own. Or, that we often rely too much on the opinions of others, so we don’t have to do the hard work of critical thinking, arriving at our understanding and being comfortable enough to “own” that understanding while being open enough to having it challenged and changed.

    All of which leads me back to Socrates –

    the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living.

    I imagine when I dance the light fantastic, I will give my life 5 Stars – not that it could not have been different or that I could have been a better person at many moments – but the gift of a life seems to merit 5 Stars.

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  • We Can’t Choose Our Parents or Do We?

    Would You Choose Your Parents?

    Some think we choose our parents, some think it’s the luck of the draw or even misfortune or bad karma.

    My eighty five year old father and I have been sharing living space for almost two years now. In that time, I have seen and learned a few things that have left me contemplating this question more than once.

    I have 2 sisters and a brother and we all agree – if we were to meet our father on the street or at a social function, we would not be inclined to add him to our circle of friends – even if he were our age. What’s the aversion?

    To us, he’s just not that interesting. He’s self centered. He talks at you not to you. His range of interests and social skills is limited. He’s the product of a past that is full of sexual innuendo and bad jokes. This list goes on.

    Dad has his good points and he sacrificed a lot to raise us. We all love him, but our liking him is more situational than a consistent theme.

    You might think me terrible for writing this, but I find it very interesting how you can love and appreciate someone and not be motivated to friend them. I might as well fess up that these thoughts were going through my mind on Father’s Day as well.

    The feedback I get from dad is that he would choose us as children if he had the choice, though I’m not sure if he had it all to do over if he would do it the same. BTW – mom passed on a few years ago, so I’m leaving her out of this.

    You learn a lot when you live with a parent. Everyday habits can drive you nuts – and as memory weakens and fails, going nuts has a great appeal like a Hawaiian vacation.

    All my life, dad was the seat of intelligence. He was always telling us how things were. If we had a thought or idea, he was always quick to correct any misunderstanding on our part. After a few months of living with dad, I noticed that he wasn’t as smart as I always thought he was. As my childhood idealization was challenged by day-to-day reality, I recognized that I am much more intelligent than my father. So sad to see all the years of efforting to not be dumb and gain approval and acceptance. Obviously, those years and efforts were wasted, they helped me to become intelligent.

    There’s a lot that I could write, but here’s where I’m left with the question of – Do we choose our parents? If we do, it’s not made from the place we normally make decisions and, for me, that is probably a good thing because God knows where I would be or if I would be.

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  • Sensing Looking Listening

    It All Comes Down to Sensing, Looking & Listening

    I was meditating. My mind was restless. As I worked on concentrating my attention, I naturally began sensing, looking & listening. It was early morning, about 5am. Quiet with just a bird or two.

    Sensing Looking Listening[/caption]

    As I worked with sensing, looking and listening, I realized that these three modes of perceiving were really just simple discriminations of a more fundamental mode of perception – that of the soul. The field of consciousness which perceives is the perceiver, the perceiving and the perceived. (you can order a t-shirt by clicking on the image)

    Continuing to sense, look and listen, I was soon hearing through my eyes and seeing through my ears. Everything is simply a form within the field of consciousness which is known by the simple fact that consciousness is a self-aware medium – not two.

    When the meditation ended, I wasn’t quite sure what/who was getting up out of the chair. I did however note that it was a beautiful day arising, that somehow seemed to feel very close to the perceiver.

    I first read abo9ut sensing, looking and listening in Waking Up by Charles Tart – that was a lifetime ago – about 1981. The Diamond Approach teaches sensing, looking and listening as one of its main practices. I remember John Davis, a teacher of the Diamond Approach saying that basically it’s all just sensing, looking and listening. His meaning being that the intention to sense, look and listen are all about presence, perception, emptiness. All spiritual practices are simply some version or elaboration of sensing, looking and listening.

    Void of night
    A dead calm sea
    Ubiquitous stars
    Above and below
    Which is the reflection
    The eyes cannot tell
    Let awareness
    Be like this
    Holding the entirety
    Equally
    Inner – outer
    Objective – subjective
    Circles for the mind
    Here
    The vast infinite
    Stretches you
    Beyond the dual
    Into everywhere

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