Guest guest Posted July 12, 2000 Report Share Posted July 12, 2000 >Glo wrote: >For all those who may be missing Dan as much as I do, tho he has never left, nor left >my heart, not even in San Francisco. Dan: Hi Glo and all! Yup - never left, nowhere to go -- just this tired old body truckin' itself down to FL to say hi to mom and dad, and now back. I appreciate the warmth of your words, Glo. Been back for a couple of days, silently noticing what is said here. >I got to feeling what we could use about now is a breath of fresh air from Dan, so I >dipped into my saved Dan messages and picked a couple that mean a lot to me. They are >possibly even pertinent to whatever is going on here now, I mean very likely they >are, being as how being is so timeless and and all that. When IS >he getting back, anyway? ~~ Sentimental Glo D: We're in synch, Sentimental Glo. I was close to sending the following, when your letter was posted. It's a general response to many, many posts read recently. So, synchronistically yours, here 'tis: This isn't someone else's inquiry -- it doesn't depend on someone else's words, insight, experience, or point of view -- it wasn't originated from somewhere else and isn't an imitation of how someone else went about it, is going about it, or says to go about it. This inquiry is only this: looking into suffering (friction between "me" and "it") experienced here, and noticing how that friction occurs. Without suffering, there is no inquiry, no need for inquiry. Suffering arises "here", so there is inquiry. The ending of the basis for suffering is the ending of inquiry. To say "there is no 'me' or 'it'" while friction continues is not useful. So, it's not about "having the right answer", it's about really "looking into it" (and not from outside of it), so as to see directly how "friction" arises. "The end of the inquiry" doesn't mean always smiling, always feeling supremely great or blissed out, always having positive thoughts (all of that is an idealized image rather than simply "what is"). "The end of the inquiry" isn't determined by any criteria, measurement, or observation from "a position outside" (or "inside" for that matter ;-). It is its own criteria, there is no one "else" there to judge it. It's not of "the past," not memories nor words spoken in the past, *not something gained and then brought forward*. Thus, any position taken about It, or attributing it to a particular person, experience, or situation, has limits. Itself has no limits. Positions about it have limits, *particularly positions that localize it somewhere in space and time*. Suffering can arise in many ways; the response is always simply to "look into 'what is'". This inquiry is a natural, choiceless response to the experience of splitness, of "me" and "it", of tension between the reality that is present and the image of what it should be, needs to be, etc. The inquiry is only awareness noticing clearly the reality of itself, as is. It is not awareness apart from "this" not anything other than exactly "this" as presents itself "here". If I attempt to make someone else's description, plan, explanation, or experience real for me, all I have done is split myself from who I am this moment. This inquiry is not an attempt to receive Grace, gain an enlightenment experience, be "in the know", etc. It is not an attempt to manipulate reality, to be like someone else, to have reality conform to an idea, to have a different experience than this, or to formulate a conclusion that will explain everything. This inquiry is only the necessary and choiceless response of awareness to its own self-constructed dilemma. Can awareness notice how itself is rejecting its own being, constructing distance, this instant? It is this construction of distance that defines a 'self' confronting an 'other' in a process taking time, psychologically. Distancing begins preverbally, through a felt sense that "something outside is affecting me in a way I don't like", or "I'm uncomfortable and something needs to be different". Inquiry can go to the preverbal awareness in which "self" and "other" split, not just to thoughts about a "me". This is not a journey backwards to a remembered time, it is a nonjourney of "now" because this split occurs nonverbally and cognitively "now". Notice "distancing" as: "I exist and need to take care of this existence," "I need to protect myself" "this isn't good enough," "I need to control what I'm feeling and thinking," "I need to solve this,I need security", "I need to be somewhere I'm not,I need to fit such and such image,I need to get something I lack," etc. Inquiry isn't an attempt to stop "distancing", make it go away (that itself would be "distancing"). It's "looking into" (*not* from an "outside position") the nature of "distancing" or "separation" as it occurs. This "noticing" takes no time, psychologically speaking. Time is simply awareness postponing its being by projecting another moment when "I will know something" or "I will have what I need". Being is rejected as soon as I assume a continuing position, project a place I need to be, or invest energy in maintaining a description or explanation. So, one's inquiry can "look into" the continuity assumed in the inquiry itself, the assumption that there is a consistent process of inquiry being maintained over time. This instant does not continue. It does not come from someplace "else", nor from "the past". There is no one "else" here. Nothing is continuing here. There is not a process toward a goal here. There is no room for anyone here. There is not even a space for "here" nor time for "now". Love, Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 12, 2000 Report Share Posted July 12, 2000 Hey D-Ji, I felt you were close, even in FL! Love, --Greg At 02:09 PM 7/12/00 -0400, Dan Berkow wrote: > > >>Glo wrote: >>For all those who may be missing Dan as much as I do, tho he has never >left, nor left >>my heart, not even in San Francisco. > >Dan: Hi Glo and all! > Yup - never left, nowhere to go -- > just this tired old body truckin' > itself down to FL to say hi to mom > and dad, and now back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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