Me - "We do!"
Part 4.
Above clouds, between the void of space, above the pull of earth. I am drowsy between reality and anxiety.
At times like this when I have sought the glittering edge, I’ve longed for a simple way in; the perfect drug, the perfect word, the instant translocation....
Again, I've not posted the rest here.
He - "When you are writing this, is it a stream of consciousness or.."
Me - "It's a putting together of the things I think"
He - "And does anything change at the end of this, do you go through the process of writing it then some new connection is made, or the satisfaction of clarity, or or what"?
Me - "I enjoy writing it. Um, what's the question - what changes because I write"?
He - "Or does anything change"?
Me - "Does anything change because I write. Everything changes, but does anything change because I write. This is like you are talking to the real person, but I'm aware that things must change, but I can't say what changes"
He - "Well it's not necessary that everything changes"
Me - "It must do, it is impossible for it not to. It is not possible for things not to change. Things can change slowly or quickly"
He - "So what are you heading for"?
Me - "The ring of truth - that's all"
He - "And what is that - what is the ring of truth in part 4"?
Me - "How do I know the ring of truth? Like when you cook bread and you tap it, there is a sense of it's cooked"
He - "But my question is, what is the ring of truth? To distil part 4 into a phrase, what would it be"?
Me - "I don't know what it would be. It seems very strange like ' which shelf in the library will this book be put on'.
He - "It's just almost every sentence there's a reference to something which isn't - which is implicit, rather than explained"
Me - "Yes"!
Yes indeed Kit, you were trying to find the something, the constructor...
I think basically that all I've said in part 4 is that the plane is going to crash. The imaginary Mr Perls - as quoted and referenced in the text - is reminding me of the Buddhist view (that he probably paraphrased from Trungpa, as they were at Esalan together!) and that now more than ever I need to remind myself that the only way I'm going to cope with what's coming (the end of our afternoons) is by escaping into awareness of the present moment - don't look down / don't try to save yourself.
He - "So I'm thinking with all these implicit references, what's all that pointing to"?
Me - "Fritz on the plane, criticizes me"
He - "A very combative one - but that's.."
Me - "But that's Fritz, his own way, yes. But the words were from 'Gestalt Verbatim' but it tickles me that it is the same stuff (Trungpa) but he misses it. And he is treated as a lama, but lama he is not."
He - "No, really not. Yes. Is there going to be a part 5"?
Me - "Probably"
He - "So it's like walking through a library isn't it - just flicking through the shelf and referencing it. Is there any satisfaction in there? "
Me - "I've always enjoyed writing, yes. A satisfaction in going through the shelves and connecting the dots. I do believe, as I've said before, that everything makes us who we are, so when something goes from your life, then that is part of my identity lost "
When something goes from your life.
This.
You.
He - "So this is you heading towards a personal constitution"?
Me - "No, I don't have a personal constitution - do I? Do the best with what you have, make it up as you go along, that's it! What do I believe in? I believe in FimFim and the trolls that live in the forest!"
Meaning, I don't know that anything that I think that I know is either true or false!
He - "There must be a basis for that"?
Me - "What's the basis?"
Originally, fallibilism (from Medieval Latin: fallibilis, "liable to err") is the philosophical principle that propositions can be accepted even though they cannot be conclusively proven or justified, or that neither knowledge nor belief is certain. The term was coined in the late nineteenth century by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce [+]
He - "Because for example..."
Me - "The basis? Well behind all of that it is very simple - May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness. May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering. May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering. May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others - so if you start with that as the basis then the question is, how is that to be played out? So, one can never know the whole situation or the whole story so one is always going to make mistakes. Therefore, doing the best you can with what you have is the answer and the awareness that you do not, cannot have perfect knowledge. It is as simple as that"
He - "With all those books in the library, and all those references, there has to be a basis for, filtering. There has to be a basis for saying I'll take this bit but I'm not going to take that bit because there has to be a basis for saying that"
Me - "No, I don't think so? So, why those selected instances"?
He - "Well for example you are having a dialogue with Perls"
Me - "Why did Perls turn up?"
He - "Well it could be Perls or anybody else in the dialogue. You are going to take a stance, and that stance has to be based on something because we are either going to accept or reject what Perls says or what Perls stands for and we can only accept or reject the basis"
Me - "No, no <laughing> the path of the cross (binary oppositions, love/hate. Stay/go!?) it is more complex than that. His words came from the book, Gestalt Verbatim. It has always tickled me the similarity - so I took what he actually said from that book. You ask why did I select those particular bits. Because?"
He - "I'm not asking why you selected those particular bits"
Me - "OK"
He - "I'm saying that if you're going to, everybody has a filter and I'm asking you about the basis of the filter because we don't accept everything we are told, we don't reject everything we are told. We accept or reject on a particular type of basis"
Me - "Do we? So I took the words that were particularly related to - so he is talking about interaction, how there are four layers - This whole accept/reject thing is anathema to me, sorry! It is making me laugh. I cannot accept or reject his words, I'm using them for my own purpose. I manipulated you, Perls! I took your words and used them"
He - "We are all accepting and rejecting all the time"
Me - "Are we."
He - "of course we are"!
Me - "Accepting or rejecting? No, you can hold true and false equally because you do not know. So with the understanding that one cannot know means that choice is only the best guess. You cannot know"
He - "Yes, but that best guess has to be based on something, it has to be based on a principle"
Me - "On experience - memory of previous experience, and desired outcome which is also based on previous experience, probably"
He - "So desired outcome is the filter, the basis"
Me - "Well trying to get the fulfilment of need is the basis for all actions, is it not?"
He - "But even then there is a filter"
Me - "I don't know about a filter, there are definitely preferences. Are they filters? Is a preference a filter?"
Breaking the fourth wall now, this dialogue is one of the most insane I've ever had. and because I keep writing the word filter, and thinking about filter. <play the track Filter: Face Down>
Me - "There are experiences people have that they do not chose or reject. And experiences people reject and then experience by accident, finding out that the experience wasn't what they had imagined it to be. So perhaps there is something like a filter based on a concept of one's identity - the 'I' don't do that - until I do! But more to the point, as a person experiences something unexpected, there is a gap where either the old settings kick in and nothing changes, or new awareness widens the person's 'identity filter'. So the unknown changes us, which is what I was saying in Part 4. Fritz was saying that you can't change anything, though he is saying almost that time can be split into 'dots' or moments, and that in a moment a person is what they do. But a person is changed by going into (accepting) the potential of the experience (rejecting the process of rejecting). So you can block or allow potential. But is there a filter? Surely the filter here is one's concept of identity"
He - "Well the filter is what we call in TA the frame of reference. Or in PCT it is self-concept. Because there is no such thing as an experience in itself"
Me - "There is potentially"
He - "No, experience is always experienced by somebody"
Hilarious - he is out-Buddhist-ing me again ;-)
But I took this trip there and back, dissecting existence/non-existence over the course of a week's worth of teachings with Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. So I don't believe there can be one, certain, true position.
Being open to all possibilities, remain playful!
Me - "This is the tree in the forest, if it falls and no one sees it, it didn't fall. Obviously the signifiers that describe it's fall are in human language, so one could say it hasn't happened because no one described it. But that's not true. The tree fell!
He - "It's not the tree in the forest at all. It's exactly not that. That's not relevant to what I'm saying"
Me - "But if a tree falls and no one hears it - are you sure this isn't the same argument"?
He -"There is no such thing as an experience without an experiencer"
Me - "It is the same thing, because something happened regardless of being experienced."
He - "No it isn't the same thing. The experiencer has a filter, and the filter shapes the experience. So for example, if there is a fire in the house and a child who has no understanding of fire and needs to be grabbed has one particular understanding because they are a child. Someone who is seeing their whole life go up in flames has a different filter, because they are about to experience a great tragedy"
Me - "OK, so the word filter..."
He - "And the fire fighter arrives, and it is his job is to get all the people out of the house and make it safe has a different filter."
Me - "So the concept you are using as filter, I use as theory. The child has a theory about fire and it isn't a comprehensive theory because it has not been informed by enough experience of fire. Or not enough experiments, so the child hasn't a comprehensive theory of fire because they have not seen, heard or felt - because it has to be through reaction with reality that knowledge is created. So the word you are using, filter is a way to look at it, but a filter has.. its as if the filter has a mesh that can be made bigger or smaller"
He - "It sounds entirely cognitive and I mean more bigger"
Me - "Hmm I also mean something much more bigger by the word theory. Theory contains everything one knows about something. There are a lot of inexplicit bits of knowledge within a person's theory about stuff. So I believe if I drop this cup it will fall. That is an explicit theory, but I probably have feelings about this cup. As I look at it I have feelings about the whiteness of it, but unless I give it attention, this is just an inexplicit feeling . OK, so when you cross the road you don't need to use a stop watch and do the calculations. You can feel the timings when you cross, that is inexplicit, like if the cup falls and I automatically put out my hand to catch it, I don't need to think, 'oh the cup is falling I need to put out my hand'."
He - "My original question was about the basis of what's kept and what isn't kept in the reference library"
Me - "Why have I got all this junk in my library - is that the question? Well this is my understanding about the journeys that people make I guess. And the use of fantasy with reality, that interface (writing as an interface). The use of 'virtual', I've always used that "
He - "Could there be somethings that are in your library, and somethings that aren't? Are there somethings that you wouldn't want in your library?"
Me - "I don't know about that - <I'm reacting to the idea of not allowing a book, an idea, a feeling to be in 'my library'> - all books can have their place."
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi - Translated by Coleman Barks
He - "Really"!?
Me - "Yes, I'm pretty sure! Because they are just going to be there, and what I do with their information will be up to me. "
He - "But if you know where to look, for example, there are manuals on how to successfully commit suicide, or how to successfully kill another person, or how to make home built fire-arms"
Me - "Yeah, I know but"
He - "But they would be welcome in your library"?
Me - " They are welcome. But if you are asking would I prefer them to be excised, as if, as if I could make the world a pure, perfect place? No, no not at all. No, they can sit there and what I do with their information is up to me. There is no 'getting rid of' "
He - "But you would refer to them how"?
Me - "Why would I want to read them, you mean"?
He-"Well if you don't, why would they be in the library"?
Me -"Because they are a part of the place I am in. They are a part of reality."
He - "Yeah, but I'm not talking about the world, I'm talking about your personal references, which is what the story is about."
Me: "Yeah, why is Alistair Crowley sitting there (I'm imagining Crowley, whose writings have influenced so many of the people whose books are part of my 'personal library' sitting in 'the empty chair'). He does make me laugh, sometimes his writing was so terrible, I don't understand how he was seen as such a terrible person! "The udders of the cat of slime" I'm still waiting for an opportunity to use that description, or expletive! I would love to have asked him why did he use that description! If I could have that dinner party with all the most fascinating guests - I would definitely have asked him to attend. I think this is called fearlessness, what you are seeing in me. That I think that the worst abuses of power are quiet, and appear to be nice and happy and positive, and they are done by people simply doing their jobs and signing forms without any thought. I go back to the fact that I try not to be, but I actually am a Buddhist - I can't help it - I have taken 'refuge. I have promised on bended knee before High Lamas to follow certain precepts and vows. So it is impossible for me not to know that it is up to me what I do with what is in front of me, I can't blame books or my knowledge for making me do something! And actually I had a relative whose plan it was to commit suicide. She had arthritis and felt that she could manage the sufferings she had, but not more than this. And when she was on the verge of death - feeling really ill - she had called an ambulance. And when it arrived they received another call and she asked them to take that call and return later to her, and this was how she died. So all her talk about wishing to kill herself - and she had the manual - it had been a comfort for her because she didn't want to suffer. Or perhaps sending the ambulance away was a compassionate act of suicide? So you can have those books in the library of the mind, because for people who feel that their futures could be so terrible and scary, they can read about their suicide and imagine it. But it is a visualization, not the act. I don't have a point of view about that. I have a point of view on what I would do if they were trying to kill themselves in front of me - that I need to assess and act. And here and now, I can't even tell you what I would do. If I'd found my relative unconscious in what was clearly a suicide attempt, knowing that she had planned this and had told me that she wished to have the power over her own life...do I respect the law, or the person? I wish that I could always know with certainty, what is right and what is wrong but I know that I don't, ever."
He - "Ever"?
Me - "Ever - never can I know completely, totally, that I'm right. And I hate that. I hate having that amount of knowledge. I wish I could be simple, I wish! I wish I could see things in black and white. So I can believe that what someone is doing isn't right, but I cannot know"
He - "Isn't that a contradiction in terms"?
Me - "To not know, and yet to believe? I don't know that what I believe is true.
He - "Now, that is semantics"
Me - "It is a certain 'place of mind', a certain edge of something - I can't describe it. But it is the position I've always taken"
He <This refers to a part of the conversation I've not included>:"And yet you can be very sure that a person is a bad person, and not a 'good. misunderstood person.'"
Me - "I am sure that this is a bad person, yes. Because I am sure that this person is in control and choosing of their own volition to do these things."
He - "And you are very sure about that"?
Me - "Well, with the information I've got, that is how it appears"
He - "And yet you say that you never know what is right"?
Me - "I don't know what is right! I only know what I would do in that position, what I believe to be right! <I'm laughing now and saying 'this conversation feels like deathmatch (Quake 3!)'> I have opinions, but I don't know that my opinions are right! <I sigh in exasperation!> it is only my best guess, that is how it all appears to me!"
He - "So you would be willing to be persuaded"?
Me - "Who ever it was would have a hard job to persuade me. But they would be welcome to try. For instance, I believe that someone who sets out to kill people in an indiscriminate way, based only upon a nebulous concept such as 'nationality' is totally in the wrong"
He - "Oh, so you do know what is right"!
Me - "<Laughing> So you are putting yourself in the position of God, you are on the high cloud saying that you know what is right and wrongs! I am saying that to set out to kill people for reasons that are ideological doesn't make sense to me. If someone was threatening to seriously harm my children, yes, I would act to do harm to that person"
He - "So what I'm saying is, the theory and the practice don't match up. If the theory is 'I never know what is right" a world-class example..."
Me - <interrupting> The theory is never whole, there is more to find out. I, you, can never know everything about anything"
He - "But you seem very sure about X being a bad person"
Me - "I'm not very sure about anything"
He - "Now we are into just complete contradiction!"
Me - "You are at it again, calling me contrary..."
He - "No, I'm just testing you out!"
Me - "Testing me for what! Do I get a gold star <laughing>
He - "No, I'm only reflecting back to you what you said"
Me - "Another standard thing ... or not in my terms. You are putting me in a strange place, you are asking me, is person X justified - no, hang on you are not asking that - no, hang on. You are asking me if person X is good! I don't know that! I think this person's actions are not good, they don't serve life, and I personally stand on the side of all beings should be free from suffering"
He - "So you do have a sense of what's right when given a concrete example"
Me - "Are my values right? Again, we cannot know. I can only know my values. You cannot know!
He - "Really? But you just said that you did know. You did know that what person X is doing is wrong!"
Me - "From my point of view, yes. I don't know if it is right or wrong from another's view. I own my stuff, I know what I think and feel, and what I would do. But I don't know if it is right or wrong in the grand scheme of things. I cannot know!
He - "So what person X is doing might be OK then"?
Me - "It might be. I don't see how - oh OK, the only image I have for this is the opening scene in John Carpenter's The Thing <film> when it appears that stir-crazy scientist in an isolated Antarctic base, just decide to shoot a dog from the helicopter. This looks so wrong. Until you know what has happened. You know, it looks like perhaps a rebellious dog that causes fights maybe, a dog no one likes. A brave, plucky dog running for its life. Or perhaps it had escaped and it will die a slow cold death on the ice, and shooting it is a mercy! Yeah, watch the film! If someone put the gun in my hand and said ' you need to kill something, someone, because of reasonsX.Y and Z' I would have to weigh it up very carefully, but fundamentally I have a vow not to kill, but that would have to be broken in certain circumstances! There is no abdication from responsibility - but I will never know, probably will never know that I made the right choice."
He - "It sounds very clear"
Me - "It is clear. It has to be clear when I chose, I may not feel happy, I may feel conflicted. But if I have weighed the situation up - that's what I do. But it is only my best guess"
He - "Yes - so you do have a sense of what is right and wrong"
Me - "No, I don't have a sense of what is right and wrong. I only have theories about how it appears to me. I know what I think is right and wrong, I don't know that I'm right or wrong"
He - "What's the distinction"?
Me - "That I don't have the bigger picture. I don't have the totality, nobody does"
He - "Hmm. But you still have to act in the world"
Me - "Yes, so I act. Obviously."
He - "Yes, but there are complicated examples like the dog in the film, and there are less complicated examples like bombing men, women and children who are non-combatants and just trying to live their life. Difficult to see how that could be complicated isn't it, and say well I don't know what is right and wrong in these circumstances".
Me - "But there isn't somebody telling me to do this. It is different if it is me. I can't judge what other people do, or rather I'm unwilling to, because of course I do - but I judge what I do and I'm damn sure that when I make a decision that it is fitting various criteria, this is important. I could get annoyed and rage about what other people do, but it is just hot air"
He - "But you could have views about what other people do, because your response about person X was very clear"
Me - "I can have an opinion, yes"
He - "So are we going to get part 5? That's going to be two weeks from now, and five, six and seven, who knows <Oh...the arrow in my breaking heart, for how can there be more. I'm never coming back. Why doesn't he see this>"
Me - "I don't know"
He - "Are you writing these for yourself, or writing them to bring here"?
Me - "To bring here because what is there to do with this time? And also it is related to here."
He - "Yes...yes...<sigh> yes. <pause> A lot of Perls today"
Me - "<I laugh>
He - "Without an A"
Me - "Without an A?
He - "Because Fritz doesn't do those, no pearls of wisdom"
Me - "You are terribly hard on him, that's very unfair"
He - "I don't like Perls. I'm very clear on that. I don't like thugs and Fritz Perls is one, of course he is a thug or was a thug. and a hypocrite. I'm not keen on hypocrites really"
Me - "He was human, a messy compost heap of a person sometimes. No hypocrisy, it was all there in his writing, he was very open"
He - "Hmm not sure about that!"
Me - "What do you think he kept hidden? I think 'In and Out of the Garbage Pail' is pretty straight forward, no pretence; he is disparaging about himself, he is cruel too"
He - "And he made a career about giving that to other people..."
He - "This is happening all the time isn't it, when you take something from one cultural context and put it into another, then the meaning changes"
And then we are talking about how the original Ark story - Atrahasis, and not Noah...
Comments