Turning the light of awareness around

[Songtsan]

So:

 

When attempting this, is it true that you are not trying to concentrate deeper on perceptions, but instead trying to find that which is being aware? Because sometimes I think that although it seems that there is something perceiving the perception, that in fact - the perception itself is the seeing - and so concentrating more firmly and intensely on the perception is the true turning the light of awareness around.

 

So, taking vision as an example:

 

If I see a spot on the wall - I am looking right at it, gaze fixed - should I try to penetrate deeper? Or should I keep the gaze, but try to go backwards to find who is seeing it?

 

Usually if I try to go backwards, I become aware of a feeling in my brain, as if I am going to the area where the perception is occurring.

 

I am aware that although the perception appears to be 'away'/'apart' from me - that it is in fact occurring behind my eyes in my brain....

 

If that is the case, then should I not really even care so much about the spot on the wall, but instead keep searching backwards?

 

Or can that spot be further penetrated?

 

I have been exploring both.

 

As far as turning the light around though, as per Secrets of the Golden Flower, I wish to focus in the 'right' directions.

[Taomeow]

A spot on the wall -- no, don't go deeper. Turn around. I'll elaborate.

 

In order to do this, you become aware of your perceptions first -- say, vision. You are looking from somewhere toward or at or onto somewhere else. (You are not looking at your looking eyes, see?) So, first become aware of where you're looking from.

 

And then look from elsewhere. Don't get radical all at once -- look from somewhere close to the habitual place. Don't look from your eyes, look from, e.g., the tip of your nose. Practice that for a while. Then move on -- that point on the tip of your nose, you can move it an inch forward and away from your nose, and look from there. And then move it a foot away. From a foot away, you can look back at the tip of your nose. That's turning the sight around.

 

A spot on the wall? Change places between where you're looking from and where you're looking at. Look from that spot on the wall onto yourself.

 

The same technique can be applied to each and every one of your senses, perceptions and functions. You breathe? Now turn it around and let it breathe you.

 

When you turn around all of your senses simultaneously in this manner -- that's what turning the light of awareness around means. This is a technique for "dissolution of self," incidentally, which is a side effect, not the goal. A self is only a technique in and of itself, and becomes a problem only when it locks one in a habitual awareness rut where the technique of "self" takes up far more space than it deserves. If it doesn't, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with having it. If you can change your awareness from the POV of "self" to any other chosen one with completeness and ease, "self" becomes just one POV out of many available to you (infinitely many for that matter) and, as such, not such a big deal anymore. No need to keep trying to fight it off when it knows its place.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Taomeow

[Songtsan]

A spot on the wall -- no, don't go deeper. Turn around. I'll elaborate.

 

Thats what I was hoping it meant...I am good so far...

 

In order to do this, you become aware of your perceptions first -- say, vision. You are looking from somewhere toward or at or onto somewhere else. (You are not looking at your looking eyes, see?) So, first become aware of where you're looking from.

 

This is great, because I am not sure I am understanding and that means there is something important for me to know. When you say that I should become aware of where I am looking from, do you mean visually or the feeling of the energy there? I can feel my eyes on a somatic level, and see little micro-filaments, eyelashes and white blood cells swirling around, but I cannot see my eyes themselves..so my awareness as far as the fact that I am looking from them is basically a sense of tactile/somatic sensation and misc. mind-stuff that says 'this is me seeing,' etc...

 

I am still not convinced I am looking from my eyes to something, as if some energy is going out (is it? If so please tell me how!!! ) - I think my eyes are receiving photons and and the information is being sent back to 'me,' the perceiver spot - The seer being like a receiver/antenna...

 

And then look from elsewhere. Don't get radical all at once -- look from somewhere close to the habitual place. Don't look from your eyes, look from, e.g., the tip of your nose. Practice that for a while. Then move on -- that point on the tip of your nose, you can move it an inch forward and away from your nose, and look from there. And then move it a foot away. From a foot away, you can look back at the tip of your nose. That's turning the sight around.

 

This is where I am having even more trouble, although I am just trying this as I am writing...(assuming this isn't an internal minds eye/visual thing you are talking about) Can you actually look from the nose, for example? Do I focus on the feeling of the tip of my nose and link it to the spot? If I am looking at the spot, there are two noses in view due to stereoscopic effects. I am assuming that you mean that I keep the gaze focused on the spot but will my awareness to focus on certain areas. Is it like putting all ones focus on the tip of the nose and trying to extend energy outwards as if seeing visually from there?

 

So the gaze remains fixed and unmoving (for this exercise at least)?

 

I know that all the stuff I see is still part of my mind, yet I can't seem to free myself from my conventional perspective of me being in the head...

 

please more details!

 

I will keep trying, but I am confused at this point.

 

Thank you!

Edited January 9, 2014 by Songtsan

[Songtsan]

Maybe let's explore just straight tactile senses...let's say that my eyes are closed...it's dark...I am not even focusing on sight or the little sparkly flecks one sees with closed eyes....no sound....no smell or taste, just body sensations.

 

I sense my finger tip. What then?

[joeblast]

do you get that looking with your eyes is an illusion, but you're just conditioned to interpret their signals as "all you can see"

[Songtsan]

do you get that looking with your eyes is an illusion, but you're just conditioned to interpret their signals as "all you can see"

 

Hmmm...it's definitely all in the brain, yet the fact that someone can be staring at the back of your head and you can feel it says something - as if there is more than just a one way energy stream..

 

but anyways, are you saying that one can 'see' with senses other than the eyes - sort of like in far-seeing?

[yabyum24]

...that you are not trying to concentrate deeper on perceptions, but instead trying to find that which is being aware?

This is the kind of thing I do but in a very different context. It's perhaps the most profound question anyone can ask.

 

Like whatever you do, whatever senses come to the fore, or thoughts cascade through the mind, there is always the silent, still witness to it all. The clear, natural mind.

 

You don't have to do a thing to find it - it's always there.

[Songtsan]

This is the kind of thing I do but in a very different context. It's perhaps the most profound question anyone can ask.

 

Like whatever you do, whatever senses come to the fore, or thoughts cascade through the mind, there is always the silent, still witness to it all. The clear, natural mind.

 

You don't have to do a thing to find it - it's always there.

 

Yet seemingly intangible...

[yabyum24]

Yet seemingly intangible...

It's like being unable to see the mirror due to all the distracting reflections arising within it.

[yabyum24]

That said, you can become aware of it. It's a bit like the eye of a hurricane - it's there in all the movement.

[子泰]

It's like one of those "what was my face before I was born" jazz that you gotta do

[Songtsan]

I have had thoughts these last few years that just before I die, I will find some neurosurgeon willing to operate on my brain and sever the afferent nerves to all my sense organs so that I can experience what it is like to have no external sensory perceptions for some months so that I could explore in detail the boundaries of perception.

[yabyum24]

That could either be very scary, like sensory deprivation (like waking up inside a still sleeping body) or like a profound boundless samhadi (for which you don't need the surgery).

 

Even the deepest meditative state though is still held within the clear light of awareness - no different in that regard from any mundane state. The same clear witnessing awareness which pervades your transient waking state enfolds within it everything you can ever experience.

[Boy]

...

Edited January 15, 2014 by Boy

[Taomeow]

Thats what I was hoping it meant...I am good so far...

 

 

This is great, because I am not sure I am understanding and that means there is something important for me to know. When you say that I should become aware of where I am looking from, do you mean visually or the feeling of the energy there? I can feel my eyes on a somatic level, and see little micro-filaments, eyelashes and white blood cells swirling around, but I cannot see my eyes themselves..so my awareness as far as the fact that I am looking from them is basically a sense of tactile/somatic sensation and misc. mind-stuff that says 'this is me seeing,' etc...

 

I am still not convinced I am looking from my eyes to something, as if some energy is going out (is it? If so please tell me how!!! ) - I think my eyes are receiving photons and and the information is being sent back to 'me,' the perceiver spot - The seer being like a receiver/antenna...

 

 

This is where I am having even more trouble, although I am just trying this as I am writing...(assuming this isn't an internal minds eye/visual thing you are talking about) Can you actually look from the nose, for example? Do I focus on the feeling of the tip of my nose and link it to the spot? If I am looking at the spot, there are two noses in view due to stereoscopic effects. I am assuming that you mean that I keep the gaze focused on the spot but will my awareness to focus on certain areas. Is it like putting all ones focus on the tip of the nose and trying to extend energy outwards as if seeing visually from there?

 

So the gaze remains fixed and unmoving (for this exercise at least)?

 

I know that all the stuff I see is still part of my mind, yet I can't seem to free myself from my conventional perspective of me being in the head...

 

please more details!

 

I will keep trying, but I am confused at this point.

 

Thank you!

 

OK, let's try this by increments.

 

You don't need to focus on any sensations, you are moving your awareness, not your extraocular muscles or the ciliary of any such physical organ. On the contrary, what you want to do is take your awareness away from any sensations in your eyes or your nose, and look with your awareness, not with your physical organs. Awareness is mobile independently of physical organs, but the habit of tying it down to what your physical organs can perceive is strong, so learning to turn it around requires practice. It's not a physical practice, it's a form of meditation. Let's start with your proving to yourself that your awareness is mobile independently of the physical motions and sensations in your eyes.

 

Place two objects in front of you, next to each other -- say, an apple and an orange, touching each other, so close that you don't have to move your eyes to see one and then the other -- in the spot they are touching in any event, you can see both with single focus. Don't move your eyes but focus your awareness on the apple, to the exclusion of the orange. Observe its color, shape, texture, think of its taste, remember the mythology of Eve getting one from the serpent, become aware of all things apple in all its incarnations and manifestations. What happened to the orange while you were doing this? You didn't move your eyes but you took your awareness away from it. Now take your awareness onto the orange instead. Do the same thing as you did with the apple. What happened to the apple while you were at it? It disappeared, right? Not from your sight, but from your awareness. You can move your awareness from one to the other without involvement of any physical perceptions. It is mobile.

 

Now replace the fruit with a mug that has a handle and place it in front of you so that you can see the handle. You see it with your eyes and your awareness alike. Now turn it so your eyes can't see the handle. Without moving your eyes, move your awareness to where you would have to look from so as to still see the handle. Close your eyes and move your awareness to where you can see the handle from. Open your eyes but don't change the place where you placed your awareness so as to look at the handle from there. It is a spot that has mobility, though it has no physical existence. You can also give it stability, but that's the next exercise. First let me know if you can do what I described -- but don't do it while typing, focus your awareness (not your eyes...)

[Taomeow]

Just a few questions..

 

 

1. Could you provide any sources for this definition?

2. What is the goal?

3. Why do you call it "dissolution"?

Sure.

 

1. It's not a definition, it's a description of a side effect of a particular practice. The source of this description is this practice.

 

2. The goal depends on your motivation for cultivation. E.g., getting rid of the "ego" is the goal of some practices in some traditions. It is not the goal of my practice in my tradition, but it can be a "side effect." Much like increased flexibility is a side effect of practicing yoga even if you practice it toward a different goal altogether.

 

3. I call it "dissolution" because this word points toward the actual subjectively perceived dynamics of what you are experiencing. If the dynamics were different, I'd call it "going up in flames" or "dropping like a dead fly" or "tumbling down with a mighty roar" or some such. But it feels like melting ice, like a spoonful of sugar in a cup of hot tea, hence the term "dissolution."

Edited January 9, 2014 by Taomeow

[子泰]

I have had thoughts these last few years that just before I die, I will find some neurosurgeon willing to operate on my brain and sever the afferent nerves to all my sense organs so that I can experience what it is like to have no external sensory perceptions for some months so that I could explore in detail the boundaries of perception.

That may cost a lot of money. You will need to have heavy support, because you won't be able to breath, eat, drink. Pretty much a coma. You will be placed into anesthesia before the operation and you might not even know when you wake up. You could also go into shock or just die straight out as a result of the operation. I really just suggest you meditate ;d

Edited January 9, 2014 by dazed

[Boy]

...

Edited January 15, 2014 by Boy

[silent thunder]

I'm getting great value from the extended explanations... thank you!

Great thread!

[Songtsan]

That may cost a lot of money. You will need to have heavy support, because you won't be able to breath, eat, drink. Pretty much a coma. You will be placed into anesthesia before the operation and you might not even know when you wake up. You could also go into shock or just die straight out as a result of the operation. I really just suggest you meditate ;d

 

breathing will still occur actually...yeah I would be in a hospital situation - keep in mind that this experiment would be done when I think I am months from death. If I can even persuade someone to perform it for me. It's just a possibility

[Songtsan]

OK, let's try this by increments.

 

You don't need to focus on any sensations, you are moving your awareness, not your extraocular muscles or the ciliary of any such physical organ. On the contrary, what you want to do is take your awareness away from any sensations in your eyes or your nose, and look with your awareness, not with your physical organs. Awareness is mobile independently of physical organs, but the habit of tying it down to what your physical organs can perceive is strong, so learning to turn it around requires practice. It's not a physical practice, it's a form of meditation. Let's start with your proving to yourself that your awareness is mobile independently of the physical motions and sensations in your eyes.

 

Place two objects in front of you, next to each other -- say, an apple and an orange, touching each other, so close that you don't have to move your eyes to see one and then the other -- in the spot they are touching in any event, you can see both with single focus. Don't move your eyes but focus your awareness on the apple, to the exclusion of the orange. Observe its color, shape, texture, think of its taste, remember the mythology of Eve getting one from the serpent, become aware of all things apple in all its incarnations and manifestations. What happened to the orange while you were doing this? You didn't move your eyes but you took your awareness away from it. Now take your awareness onto the orange instead. Do the same thing as you did with the apple. What happened to the apple while you were at it? It disappeared, right? Not from your sight, but from your awareness. You can move your awareness from one to the other without involvement of any physical perceptions. It is mobile.

 

Now replace the fruit with a mug that has a handle and place it in front of you so that you can see the handle. You see it with your eyes and your awareness alike. Now turn it so your eyes can't see the handle. Without moving your eyes, move your awareness to where you would have to look from so as to still see the handle. Close your eyes and move your awareness to where you can see the handle from. Open your eyes but don't change the place where you placed your awareness so as to look at the handle from there. It is a spot that has mobility, though it has no physical existence. You can also give it stability, but that's the next exercise. First let me know if you can do what I described -- but don't do it while typing, focus your awareness (not your eyes...)

 

I will try this one tonight or tomorrow...and keep working the original one too. Will update later!

[Taomeow]

Thanks for your answers Taomeow! They make no sense to me at all

 

You are very welcome, and your outcome is brilliantly reflective or your cognitive effort.

[arktos]

And then look from elsewhere. Don't get radical all at once -- look from somewhere close to the habitual place. Don't look from your eyes, look from, e.g., the tip of your nose. Practice that for a while. Then move on -- that point on the tip of your nose, you can move it an inch forward and away from your nose, and look from there. And then move it a foot away. From a foot away, you can look back at the tip of your nose. That's turning the sight around.

 

 

Taomeow, I am thoroughly intrigued by your description of this practice. Descriptions of this detail are hard to come by in general written media. Is this the way it is taught by teachers in your experience?

 

The way you put it reminds me of statements from this essay on sufi meditations and the imaginal realm:

 

"What was key was that place of inversion-I began to collect statements that seemed to bring me to the internal condition that somehow preserved dimensionality and extension in space, though not a usual sense of space. One was the statement above that "a balm, one drop of which you instill by holding it facing the sun and which passes through to the back of your hand".

Or as our own son( from his internal condition) actually instructed us to imagine looking into a mirror facing a mirror...it's like going behind the mirror, or reflecting 180 degrees but to a new dimension each time."

 

-from http://www.sufihealingorder.org/SHO/ISHO/classes/resurrectionbody.htm

 

 

In my own experience, relying on intuition and personal resonance with the simplest teachings (rather than, say, detailed instructions by a human teacher in one of the lineages from which those words are used), I came to interpret the terms "turning the light around on itself" in the following manner:

 

There is an impulse behind the urge to "pursue" things with one's senses… In other words, for whatever pops up, be it concrete or subtle, to any sense, there is a whole lot of habitual pull… This "pull" is tied to an addiction of sorts, the addiction of scattering the light of awareness into the senses and thoughts-- while we remain disconnected from the integrity of its (potentially infinite) finer operations. When we get experience with letting this "pull" pass without giving into the urge to pursue it, more of our awareness accumulates within and we become more aware of the subtle foundations behind this phenomena. Deep in these subtle foundations, there is some kind of threshold or gate from which a primordial fount of pre-awareness emerges and flows into the mind and senses. Distilling one's senses back into this primal light and then returning it to itself, directing it upon itself, allowing it to manifest qualities within its own non-projected, non-reflected domain, produces the inversion of ordinary existence into trans-mundane illuminations. This new "light turned in on itself" allows one to explore the authentic inner body and universe, and is some kind of "substance" of its own which transcends ordinary limitations. (All in a manner of degrees, it seems. I can only speak in terms of glimpses. )

I'm curious how this take of mine relates to the one you've shared, or how it doesn't. Any thoughts?

Edited January 10, 2014 by arktos

[joeblast]

Hmmm...it's definitely all in the brain, yet the fact that someone can be staring at the back of your head and you can feel it says something - as if there is more than just a one way energy stream..

 

but anyways, are you saying that one can 'see' with senses other than the eyes - sort of like in far-seeing?

its something I got out of attenuating the shit out of all my cranial nerves - I found myself staring at the inside of my skull independent of my eyes, coming from the center, then you really start realizing how stereo your eye-vision is. its amongst the many reasons I keep advocating a rote method at doing things and getting there. all these interesting things emerge just from simple execution & observation.

[liminal_luke]

 

its amongst the many reasons I keep advocating a rote method at doing things and getting there. all these interesting things emerge just from simple execution & observation.

 

In every case there's the practice and there's the understanding that grows out of the practice. The order matters. Trying to get the understanding first, getting lost in the philosophical dazzle--a person can spend a lifetime like that and get much of nowhere. It's a real Taobumer.

Edited January 10, 2014 by liminal_luke