Further discussion

[rene]

Manitou, said: "After all, the Tao considers us all as straw dogs, and I don't think it cares one way or the other who dies when or where".

 

Rene said: "You are right, it does not, and to me that is the greatest gift of all."

 

3bob said: Could you gals qualify (and contextualize) your thoughts above? (thanks)

 

 

 

For me, having (whatever it is or isn't) (do or not do whatever it does or doesn't) without favoritism - keeps all this as a level playing field; in the sense that I do not have the extra layer of trying to figure out a 'side' to be on. (God is on our side! <-- battlecry)

 

Did that convoluted reply make sense? I cant tell.

Edited August 16, 2013 by rene

[manitou]

My thoughts exactly, rene. I couldn't have said it better. The rain falls equally upon all. When we look into the dark spots in the eyes of another, whether a person, animal, or insect - we are seeing god or the tao or however you want to put it. There is no favoritism. So often things are exactly opposite of what they seem. A segment of our population idolizes those with money and fame, and yet the richest of all are those that have love in their hearts and emit that love. It doesn't matter when we live or die because our consciousness has always been, is now, and will always be. The ourouborus. The tao is impersonal and this linear time-space line is illusion. This is why the greatest freedom is losing the fear of death - because we know that awareness continues on past this little arroyo of illusion we're temporarily in. Once the fear of death is lost, all fear is lost.

[i am]

I'm just jumping into this thread without reading more than this last page...but at the point I've jumped in, it brings up a lot for me.

 

Growing up somewhat sort of Christian, in the way it's taught to most of us, I couldn't buy into the heaven after death thing, and was almost, at times, paralyzed by fear of death, or would jump out of bed in what I now realize was a panic attack, at the the thought that there isn't anything after death, that we're just gone, no heaven etc. This started around age...7 maybe? Because I realized how fast time could move, and it'd be the blink of an eye and it would all be over and I'd be gone.

 

It's not exactly the same as that with Taoism...but it's funny that rather than finding something that refutes my above ideas, I've actually found comfort in something that to some extend supports them. Just a different way of looking at me vanishing into emptiness.

Edited August 16, 2013 by i am

[3bob]

Ladies, I agree that the Tao doesn't play favorites but I don't think it should be implied that the Tao is indifferent while being impartial with words along the lines of the Tao doesn't care.

 

for instance chapter 51 of the TTC:

 

51.
TAO gives them life,
Virtue nurses them,
Matter shapes them,
Environment perfects them.
Therefore all things without exception worship Tao and
do homage to Virtue.
They have not been commanded to worship Tao and do
homage to Virtue,
But they always do so spontaneously.

It is Tao that gives them life:
It is Virtue that nurses them, grows them, fosters them,
shelters them, comforts them, nourishes them, and
covers them under her wings.
To give life but to claim nothing,
To do your work but to set no store by it,
To be a leader, not a butcher,
This is called hidden Virtue.

 

also from the end of chapter 30 there is the warning of:

 

"...For to be over-developed is to hasten decay,
And this is against Tao,
And what is against Tao will soon cease to be."

 

thus saying to me that in the end result the Tao is not impartial to that which is against it.

[rene]

3bob, hi

 

The Laozi has been translated/interpreted/rendered in many ways by many people - including those who, in their own minds, believe "Tao" to be something that can be "followed" or "gone against".

 

My take, is that it is not possible to 'follow' or to 'go against' Tao... as there is no where i could go that Tao is not, and no direction I could move in that Tao is not also moving in.

 

There are lots of ways I can follow, or go against, the flow of energy or the flow of the manifest - like fighting to swim upstream - but Tao is also in my efforts, just as it's in the efforts of salmon who jump.

 

"...For to be over-developed is to hasten decay,
And this is against Tao,
And what is against Tao will soon cease to be."

 

Decay is also part of Tao, ceasing to be is also part of Tao - except for those who wish it were otherwise.

 

Every action and non-action is one of simultaneous creation and destruction. Such is the Way.

 

Or so it seems to me.

 

warm regards

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apech]

3bob, hi

 

The Laozi has been translated/interpreted/rendered in many ways by many people - including those who, in their own minds, believe "Tao" to be something that can be "followed" or "gone against".

 

My take, is that it is not possible to 'follow' or to 'go against' Tao... as there is no where i could go that Tao is not, and no direction I could move in that Tao is not also moving in.

 

There are lots of ways I can follow, or go against, the flow of energy or the flow of the manifest - like fighting to swim upstream - but Tao is also in my efforts, just as it's in the efforts of salmon who jump.

 

"...For to be over-developed is to hasten decay,

And this is against Tao,

And what is against Tao will soon cease to be."

 

Decay is also part of Tao, ceasing to be is also part of Tao - except for those who wish it were otherwise.

 

Every action and non-action is one of simultaneous creation and destruction. Such is the Way.

 

Or so it seems to me.

 

warm regards

 

I feel that reduces the Tao to something meaningless ... perhaps I have misunderstood.

[rene]

I feel that reduces the Tao to something meaningless ... perhaps I have misunderstood.

 

Maybe Tao is meaningless. Maybe Tao is the only thing that means anything at all!

 

We each have our own ideas about Tao, yes?

 

Who could know for sure?

 

warmest regards

[doc benway]

I think this is a great and challenging line of inquiry.

Most of the characteristics we are describing and perhaps attributing to Dao, are simply projections.

Caring is a human characteristic (and perhaps some other sentient beings, let's leave that alone for the time being).

Preference is a human characteristic.

 

It is Tao that gives them life:
It is Virtue that nurses them, grows them, fosters them,
shelters them, comforts them, nourishes them, and
covers them under her wings.

 

Notice that Tao gives life but does not participate in all of these other activities, these are related to Virtue.

Virtue is yet another characteristic of humanity. In this way, the Dao De Jing is inviting us to manifest virtue in our lives as this is what will shelter, nurse, nourish, comfort, and so forth. Very Buddhist sounding sentiment to my ears (and Abrahamic...).

 

The rain is the same no matter where it falls, and yet it nourishes thorns in the desert and roses in the garden.

Dao kills, maims, and destroys as easily and without emotion, as it gives life.

The hurricane and cancer do not spare the virtuous any more than the evil...

 

So we, as humans, are the very manifestation of caring and love and the bad stuff too...

So Dao certainly does embrace those aspects of beauty and caring and yet there is equal balance with the bad.

And all of that is expressed through us and experienced through us.

[3bob]

I'd say that decay and ceasing to be over time applies to forms, not to Tao,

(although certain forms can be maintained and or regenerated for very long periods using methods of Taoism)

 

otherwise all is similar to the saying of, "vanity of vanities" and or meaningless as Apech also stated.

Edited August 16, 2013 by 3bob

[manitou]

What a wonderful discussion with wonderful people. Perhaps my words were too harsh in saying 'the Dao doesn't care'. I was referring mainly to the straw dog allusion contained within, wherein the Dao shows no preference for one over another. The choice is ours whether to embrace it or not. If we choose not to embrace it, our lives are out of sync. But to find the love within us for everything on the planet, we embrace the Dao, we go with the flow, in each and every situation we find ourselves in. Wu-wei becomes possible, to do without doing because everything is in perfect order if the movement is left to the Dao. Even the most despicable person has the black spots of cosmic Awareness in his eyes, and as such, is the Dao as well. He is just playing a despicable part, that's all - and that is the intention of the Dao as well. Perhaps he too will find more harmony in a few incarnations.

 

I think it goes back to developing the I Am consciousness, to KNOW WHO WE REALLY ARE! And to know who our 'enemy' (if we think of him as our enemy we are unrealized) is too - he too is the god consciousness, the Dao.

 

Sometimes I think it all boils down to that singer that came out with a song a few years back, can't remember his name:

"Don't Worry. Be Happy." This is perhaps the most profound song in all of history! All is in order, although it appears chaotic at this time. We are all the I Am, the god consciousness. As I said earlier, our Awareness has always been, Is Now, and Always will be. Eternity doesn't start the day we die. Our awareness has been around forever. We are a very small speck of the grand evolution, and yet if we cleanse our inner selves and get into sync with the Dao we emit pure love and there is absolutely nothing to fear. Especially not death. The essence of the Dao is our golden radiant presence, but we are puppets of the Dao. Just skinwalkers, but it is our choice to embrace it closely and merge our souls with the essence. And to live it to the best of our daily awareness, to stay in consciousness at every moment.

 

That would be our challenge. I am capable of staying in Awareness much of the time, but sometimes maya overcomes me. But not for long. I can feel instantly when I fall out of sync and I try to find a way to love even the most horrific of circumstances and see that it's all in the plan too. Things will work out just fine, despite appearances to the contrary.

Edited August 17, 2013 by manitou

[C T]

"Don't Worry. Be Happy." This is perhaps the most profound song in all of history!

That is one truly wonderful song, Manitou!

 

So is this:

 

[3bob]

Aloha

[3bob]

Manitou, Something from the Chandogya Upanishad that may be of parallel interest to you:

 

 

"4. "When the person in the eye resides in the body, he resides where the organ of sight has entered into the akasa (i.e. the pupil of the eye); the eye is the instrument of seeing. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me smell this,’ he is the Self; the nose is the instrument of smelling. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me speak,’ he is the Self; the tongue is the instrument of speaking. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me hear,’ he is the Self; the ear is the instrument of hearing.

5. "He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me think this,’ he is the Self; the mind is his divine eye. He, the Self sees all these desires in the World of Brahman through the divine eye, the mind and rejoices.

6. "The gods meditate on that Self. Therefore all worlds belong to them and all desires. He who knows that Self and understands It obtains all worlds and all desires." Thus said Prajapati, yea, thus said Prajapati."

[doc benway]

I'd say that decay and ceasing to be over time applies to forms, not to Tao,

Same with life and arising, no?

[Mark Foote]

Gautama said that extension of the mind of friendliness, of compassion, of sympathetic joy, and of equanimity in ten directions is associated with the excellences of the further meditative states.

 

Here's a lovely one:

 

“It were better… if the untaught manyfolk approached this body, child of the four great elements, as the self rather than the mind. Why so? Seen is it… how this body, child of the four great elements, persists for a year, persists for two years, persists for three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, persists for forty, for fifty years, persists for a hundred years and even longer. But this… that we call thought, that we call mind, that we call consciousness, that arises as one thing, ceases as another, whether by night or by day.”

(SN II 93-94, Pali Text Society II pg 66)

 

With regard to the initial meditative states, Gautama spoke of certain “controlling faculties” that are observed to cease or stop with the induction of each of the meditative states. Thus, in the first meditative state:

 

“… the controlling faculty of discomfort, which has arisen, ceases without remainder.”

(SN V 214, Pali Text Society V pg 188)

 

Similarly, in the second meditative state:

 

“… the controlling faculty of unhappiness, which has arisen, comes to cease without remainder.”

(Ibid)

 

In the third meditative state, Gautama said, “… the controlling faculty of ease, which has arisen, comes to cease without remainder”; he described the experience as follows:

 

“… (an individual), by the fading out of rapture, dwells with equanimity, attentive and clearly conscious and experiences in (their) person that joy of which the (noble) ones say: ‘Joyful lives (the one) who has equanimity and is mindful.’”

(MN III 93, Pali Text Society III pg 133)

 

The fourth meditative state sees an end to the controlling faculty of happiness (and is perhaps associated with the extension of the mind of friendliness in ten directions).

 

Now I've gone to great lengths to thread it together in what I wrote in the link below, but to sum it up for myself before I sit tonight: relax, calm down, stretch, observe.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Mark Foote

[Tibetan_Ice]

Manitou, Something from the Chandogya Upanishad that may be of parallel interest to you:

 

 

"4. "When the person in the eye resides in the body, he resides where the organ of sight has entered into the akasa (i.e. the pupil of the eye); the eye is the instrument of seeing. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me smell this,’ he is the Self; the nose is the instrument of smelling. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me speak,’ he is the Self; the tongue is the instrument of speaking. He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me hear,’ he is the Self; the ear is the instrument of hearing.

 

5. "He who is aware of the thought: ‘Let me think this,’ he is the Self; the mind is his divine eye. He, the Self sees all these desires in the World of Brahman through the divine eye, the mind and rejoices.

 

6. "The gods meditate on that Self. Therefore all worlds belong to them and all desires. He who knows that Self and understands It obtains all worlds and all desires." Thus said Prajapati, yea, thus said Prajapati."

Hi Bob

I do not want to obtain any worlds, there are so many, it is meaningless.

 

I do not want to have my desires fulfilled because a desire fulfilled only breeds more desires. There is no end to it.

 

If all desires were truly obtainable, then surely someone somewhere, having accomplished knowledge of the Self, would have had the desire that no sentient being ever suffer again in all the planes of existence. As you can see, there is still suffering.

 

My last remark, is that Nisargadatta has a little more distinction between mind, self and ...

from "I AM THAT":

 

Q: I cannot say that I am now a different man. But I did discover new things about myself, states so unlike what I knew before that I feel justified in calling them new.

 

M: The old self is your own self. The state which sprouts suddenly and without cause, carries no stain of self; you may call it 'god'. What is seedless and rootless, what does not sprout and grow, flower and fruit, what comes into being suddenly and in full glory, mysteriously and marvellously, you may call that 'god'. It is entirely unexpected yet inevitable, infinitely familiar yet most surprising, beyond all hope yet absolutely certain. Because it is without cause, it is without hindrance. It obeys one law only; the law of freedom. Anything that implies a continuity, a sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be the real. There is no progress in reality, it is final, perfect, unrelated.

 

Q: How can I bring it about?

 

M: You can do nothing to bring it about, but you can avoid creating obstacles. Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there. It is not in the sky nor in the all-pervading ether. God is all that is great and wonderful; I am nothing, have nothing, can do nothing. Yet all comes out of me -- the source is me; the root, the origin is me.

 

When reality explodes in you, you may call it experience of God. Or, rather, it is God experiencing you. God knows you when you know yourself. Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion. It is definitely beyond the mind, but all you can do is to know your mind well. Not that the mind will help you, but by knowing your mind you may avoid your mind disabling you. You have to be very alert, or else your mind will play false with you. It is like watching a thief -- not that you expect anything from a thief, but you do not want to be robbed. In the same way you give a lot of attention to the mind without expecting anything from it.

 

So hopefully that explains some ambiguities in terminology...

 

TI

[manitou]

Hi Bob

I do not want to obtain any worlds, there are so many, it is meaningless.

 

I do not want to have my desires fulfilled because a desire fulfilled only breeds more desires. There is no end to it.

 

If all desires were truly obtainable, then surely someone somewhere, having accomplished knowledge of the Self, would have had the desire that no sentient being ever suffer again in all the planes of existence. As you can see, there is still suffering.

 

My last remark, is that Nisargadatta has a little more distinction between mind, self and ...

from "I AM THAT":

 

 

 

So hopefully that explains some ambiguities in terminology...

 

TI

 

 

I wanted to respond to something in your quote, but I see that the quote didn't get pulled into this post. When the quote says "the old self is your own self", perhaps he or she was looking at it from the perspective that time is an illusion. We ARE our old self, I agree - because Time is an illusion. It's all Here and Now. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that those who have measured dreaming impulses in the brain will say that the impulses appear to last a very short time. However, to the dreamer, it seems to go on for hours, even like it's all night. Is that not proof that our linear brains are stuck in this linear time span, and yet our Original Self appears in our dreams? Or the fact that we can look up into the nighttime sky and see the light from stars that have imploded eons ago?

 

I often think of the I Am as the 'Eye Am'. I also think the eye on the top of the pyramid on a US dollar bill is not the 'All Seeing Eye' at all - I think it is the 'Eye Am' as understood by 33rd degree Freemasonry (in the form of cHiram Abiff, the Awareness of the I Am within us). Our founders were largely Freemasons and I think I recall that Washington was a 33rd degree? I could be wrong there. It floats above the pyramid, the pyramid being the illusion of 'realness'. This country was founded with good intent, but the larger populous were not men of enlightenment or near-enlightenment, so things are way out of whack now. But we must know that all is happening as the Tao is creating it.

 

The trick is not to keep God, Tao, Brahma at arm distance and 'worship' it. Or even to celebrate Jesus' birthday. He was a man, just like us. He attained his own illumination, perhaps through the Essene tradition? How close do we want to get? The choice is ours. To look into the eyes of the bible thumpers who come up to my porch with regularity to save my soul - I have to remember that They Are That as well. That breeds tolerance and even Love within me, once I remember that. Sometimes it takes a minute or two, because my first visceral reaction is adverse. But when I allow love and tolerance to reappear, I can gently sit down on the porch for a while and engage them in conversation. They usually go away shaking their heads.

 

CT, I absolutely fell in love with Israel (can't remember his last name, but I'm pretty sure it has the letters K, U, P, O, and A in it, in a repetitive fashion. Perhaps an N in there as well, lol. His Over The Rainbow is a fabulous song, the first time I heard it was driving up to the Iao Needle in Maui. My heart melted, hearing his song and watching the beautiful lushness around me. It is an implant in my heart that I'll never forget, that glorious moment.

 

As an aside, CT, I'll bet you have a fabulous art collection. Just guessing.

Edited August 17, 2013 by manitou

[3bob]

TI,

 

My recent quote from the Chandogya Upanishad is very, very partial, I suggest you read most of or the entire text for better context. I will say that my take on "obtaining all worlds" means freedom in all worlds, and that fulfilling "all desires" means and can only be done through fulfilling the one true desire - namely attaining said freedom (along with working with its sister aspects).

 

From a certain Buddhist perspective, which I'm reluctant to assume, one might say "Buddha nature" (and not just or only a particular Buddha) is free in all the 'worlds' as depicted on the Tibetan Wheel of life, yet also free beyond just that wheel. Also when the one true desire (hidden so to speak within countless other and binding like desires) is fulfilled then everything is seen in its "Rightful" place or way and peace prevails.

 

Om

 

p.s. the "golden" one is free.

Edited August 17, 2013 by 3bob

[3bob]

Hello Manitou,

 

You make so many considerate, interesting and loving observations....

 

Another rhetorical like take on time: If time (and related space) is a connected and multi-dimensional extension (so to speak) of timelessness then at what point does it become real illusion?

Edited August 17, 2013 by 3bob

[doc benway]

Gautama said that extension of the mind of friendliness, of compassion, of sympathetic joy, and of equanimity in ten directions is associated with the excellences of the further meditative states.

 

Here's a lovely one:

 

“It were better… if the untaught manyfolk approached this body, child of the four great elements, as the self rather than the mind. Why so? Seen is it… how this body, child of the four great elements, persists for a year, persists for two years, persists for three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, persists for forty, for fifty years, persists for a hundred years and even longer. But this… that we call thought, that we call mind, that we call consciousness, that arises as one thing, ceases as another, whether by night or by day.”

(SN II 93-94, Pali Text Society II pg 66)

 

With regard to the initial meditative states, Gautama spoke of certain “controlling faculties” that are observed to cease or stop with the induction of each of the meditative states. Thus, in the first meditative state:

 

“… the controlling faculty of discomfort, which has arisen, ceases without remainder.”

(SN V 214, Pali Text Society V pg 188)

 

Similarly, in the second meditative state:

 

“… the controlling faculty of unhappiness, which has arisen, comes to cease without remainder.”

(Ibid)

 

In the third meditative state, Gautama said, “… the controlling faculty of ease, which has arisen, comes to cease without remainder”; he described the experience as follows:

 

“… (an individual), by the fading out of rapture, dwells with equanimity, attentive and clearly conscious and experiences in (their) person that joy of which the (noble) ones say: ‘Joyful lives (the one) who has equanimity and is mindful.’”

(MN III 93, Pali Text Society III pg 133)

 

The fourth meditative state sees an end to the controlling faculty of happiness (and is perhaps associated with the extension of the mind of friendliness in ten directions).

 

Now I've gone to great lengths to thread it together in what I wrote in the link below, but to sum it up for myself before I sit tonight: relax, calm down, stretch, observe.

 

I find it interesting and perhaps important to remind myself that it is the "controlling faculty" that "comes to cease without remainder" and not necessarily the experience of "discomfort", "unhappiness", "ease", and "happiness".

 

It's wonderful to see where this thread has been and is going.

I don't have time to catch up but will try to do so later.

Thanks for all of the great contributions all.

[Mark Foote]

I find it interesting and perhaps important to remind myself that it is the "controlling faculty" that "comes to cease without remainder" and not necessarily the experience of "discomfort", "unhappiness", "ease", and "happiness".

 

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

 

Because it is without cause, it is without hindrance. It obeys one law only; the law of freedom. Anything that implies a continuity, a sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be the real. There is no progress in reality, it is final, perfect, unrelated.

 

Like that. My practice lately revolves a lot around re-discovering my sense of location,through equalibrium and the physical presence provided by the vestibular organ, and freeing my sense of location to move and engage with the proprioceptive sense of movement and place (provided by the muscles and ligaments). Particularly in freeing the sense of location, the discontinuity of experience comes forward, until it's swallowed again in the continuity of sleep or thought or hypnogogic state (meditative state?). I think that's why the focus on discontinuity, on the body and the senses including the mind, and the emphasis on suddenness. The image that comes forward for me is connected with fractals, with the patterns that seem so related to the things and beings all around us, and how an invisible recursive relationship is suddenly embodied in a material universe.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Mark Foote

[3bob]

Does that mean the ducks never flew away?

[manitou]

Hello Manitou,

 

You make so many considerate, interesting and loving observations....

 

Another rhetorical like take on time: If time (and related space) is a connected and multi-dimensional extension (so to speak) of timelessness then at what point does it become real illusion?

 

I can't even guess on that one. I just don't have the education. All I can speak of is my own universe, which started at the moment of conception. My maya will discontinue in the death process. My guess is our particular illusion started with the big bang and all of the suns are part and parcel of each other. Maybe it started with something like 'let there be light?' Maybe it will end when it's all sucked into a black hole. Maybe it'll start up again on the other side of the black hole, a different dimension. Like a bellows.

 

3Bob, thank you for your kind words. Also, a bit earlier you said something about attaining true freedom. My idea of true freedom is the freedom to embrace death without fear. All other fears are an extension of that fear. Once we can do that and realize that our consciousness has always been and will always be, we're free to live in the flow of love.

Edited August 18, 2013 by manitou

[manitou]

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

 

 

Like that. My practice lately revolves a lot around re-discovering my sense of location,through equalibrium and the physical presence provided by the vestibular organ, and freeing my sense of location to move and engage with the proprioceptive sense of movement and place (provided by the muscles and ligaments). Particularly in freeing the sense of location, the discontinuity of experience comes forward, until it's swallowed again in the continuity of sleep or thought or hypnogogic state (meditative state?). I think that's why the focus on discontinuity, on the body and the senses including the mind, and the emphasis on suddenness. The image that comes forward for me is connected with fractals, with the patterns that seem so related to the things and beings all around us, and how an invisible recursive relationship is suddenly embodied in a material universe.

 

In Castaneda-esque, it sounds like your assemblage point is no longer fixed at all and everything is in the moment. You are a very free man, Mark Foote.

Edited August 18, 2013 by manitou

[Mark Foote]

In Castaneda-esque, it sounds like your assemblage point is no longer fixed at all and everything is in the moment. You are a very free man, Mark Foote.

 

Oftentimes when I reread something I've written in a forum or on a blog, I wonder that anybody else could make sense of it at all. You're very charitable, Manitou.

 

The beauty of Tao Bums is that we all bring our current and real process to mind in writing, and people's hearts are evident, regardless of what gets said. Oftentimes that helps me in ways that I only realize after the fact.

 

I have my daily life, and everything about it is imperfect; I have behaviours that could stand redirection; I have my failed relationships, failed potentials, failed friendships.

 

Maybe I have an inkling of what Nasargadatta was talking about, or maybe it's just the universe of parallel understandings and I'm as close to understanding Nasargadatta as the Seventh Day Adventists are to understanding Taoism (they are, sometimes, in a sort of parallel way!).

 

But lately a freedom of mind is a part of my practice, to the extent that I observe that where I am shifts and moves as I am open to everything there is to feel. It's a freedom of my heart-mind to move and shift without continuity, with suddenness. When I identify this practice with the inclusion of three senses that are not historically identified as senses, I can accept that I am developmentally challenged, and I am more objective about things as they is (to use Suzuki's phrase).

 

The sense of gravity is with the ostoliths, near the vestibular organs that provide the sense of place; that's the third sense. The other two are:

 

The Vestibular Sense

 

The Forgotten Sense- Proprioception

 

David Brown is an educator with San Francisco State, I believe, and a specialist in deaf-blind education.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Mark Foote