Tag Archives: mind

Feeding Wolves and Wearing Wolf Suits

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality, Suffering and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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In the post, What Remains, the point was made that nothing, no circumstance has duration; nothing is fixed. So what makes any situation, problem, or identification appear to have duration and substance? What makes it seem real and seemingly long lasting?

Attention.

Seeing this, that past and future are nothing more than random images and thoughts happening now, changes everything. How you can have a solid sense of self, or anything else, if there is no fixed past or future image for it to have been or to become? Attention to, to the point of what could be called “fixation,” is what appears to give it (anything) life.  Experience is quite literally determined by the wolf you feed.

The wolf is the problem or the identity. Attention is how it is fed.

Attention to fearful thoughts and emotions, creating deeper and deeper reality tunnels–is no different than being in the midst of a dream, a nightmare, and forgetting that you are asleep. If there is, for instance, a medical issue, by all means, seek medical attention. But then what? Is a diagnosis what you are? Or is it what you think about, and feel all the time? There is a mental proclivity to do just that, of course, but who or what are you absent the fixed attention on a thing apart? Shift attention away, from everything. Catch that, even if just for an instant. The sky is still wide open above you. Attend to that openness.

Max in his wolf suit, in Where the Wild Things Are tells the whole story. There really are no wolves, only kids in wolf suits, imagining things to be a certain way. But eventually it’s time to go home, to your own room, where dinner is waiting, and it’s still hot.

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Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Loops

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

So it’s as if there is this imaginary line between you, and me, and everything else. The line creates loops, and looks something like this: (Me and others and experience)loopsThe wonder is that each loop tends to mistakenly believe in its own isolated identity. The interior of the loop becomes crowded with (tinyplus or tinyminus)images, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and everything seems to be experienced entirely within that loop as a function of those inner fluctuations. “I” live within, and am defined by, this loop. And all this from an imaginary line that seems to divide the world into parts. It feels very real within the loop, but it’s still a part of the imaginary line.

plus&minusLoops, by the very nature of the line, can and do change all the time. One loop (within the continuous line) can look look, at any given time–when a belief, opinion, or perspective is changed, or it just changes shape, or loses volume:

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—–>Not discrete parts, or other than.

 

What you think you are–name–is this ever changing, expanding, contracting loop, that appears to interact with other loops. How can the illusion be maintained that you are this loop or that, given its changeability, and its unreality as a discrete entity, separate from the imaginary line that creates that loop?

What happens when you pull the line taut, and all loops disappear, along with their specific qualia, left to float free, attached to no body and no thing? No loops. No parts. Just an imaginary line that is done playing loop de loop.straightline.jpgYou are not that loop. Nor are you defined by the tinyplus or tinyminuscontained within the loop, that only seem to define you.

Please contact me if you wish to discuss your loopiness, or other distractions. Thank you.

What Remains?

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Non-duality, Suffering and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Nothing has substance. (Wave? Particle? Non-locality? Schrodinger’s cat and probability?)

Nothing has duration. (Time as a random series of images?)

So how can you, or anything else, be anything in particular? The mind strings an infinite number of images together, creating the appearance of being linear. Which image doesn’t fade? And thus fading, which would be true?

There is no attempt here to be mysterious, or hyperbolic, or even spiritual. Seriously. Both time and object permanence are learned. Does that make them true?

Please contact me here, if you’d like to discuss and/or consider the fallibility of perception/time/identity. Nothing is fixed. So who are you, and what is happening? Thank you.

Acting!

Posted by colettekelso in awareness, Being, Expression, Non-duality, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Image by Andrew Ostrovsky

The One Thing, the Life Force, is always acting as if it is one thing or another. You can hear it in the voice of an imperious pretense. Perhaps it seems like your own voice, or another’s. But there is only one voice, one sound. Not this person or that, but this aliveness pretending, in high drama, to be this or that interacting with its apparent counterpart as this or that.

And what is, this infinite One expression expressing, can never do anything but, because it is not real. Like Pinocchio, it is coming to life. Character and drama is Its only possible manifestation.

To act is to draw out or forth, to stir up,” It is all a movement and a rest. The variety show that passes for a life lived. No giving or receiving, only the appearance of hands reaching, but never joining. Only merging, never separate. Appearing on the screen, for an instant. Nothing appearing as something(s).

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image by Andrew Ostrovsky

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image by Andrew Ostrovsky

 

Nonduality and Neurographics

Posted by colettekelso in Non-duality, Suffering, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
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Neurographic “Difficult Emotion” Algorithm

Nonduality is either a conceptual framework overlaid upon reality–your reality, if it be personal–or not. For that matter, any concept is an overlay. There either is a conceptual framework, or not. Nonduality is like every other picture frame around which the world is viewed. It’s just a frame. Forget about the frame, forget about the picture, and become aware of the seeing itself, that which is devoid of, and comes before, any concept, interpretation, labeling, belief, opinion–or filter that creates an apparent segregation of seer and seen.

If the separation between seer and seen appears to still be there, what is interfering is a translating mechanism, a pattern of conditioning, still running the show. That subjective translation is reinforced, made more real-seeming, by an emotional response. The interpretation is what you think is happening, or being seen. The emotion is the concurrent response–to the interpretation that is an overlay on the seeing itself. And by seeing, again, I mean that which has no, and is prior to, any conceptual filter.

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Looking in the Wrong Direction

Posted by colettekelso in awareness, Being, Non-duality, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,
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The Understandascope, by Michael Leunig

“The refusal to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.”

“Somebody likes a particular concept and passes it on to his disciples, and he gets a following. But with that, they cannot get eternal peace or satisfaction. In order to get that satisfaction, you must find the source of this primary concept “I am.” And once you know that, you can transcend it. Then you do not have anything to tell the world, because the world wants only fragmentary modifications. They want activities. So this knowledge will remain only with yourself, and there will not be any customers for it.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

The spiritual marketplace is experience driven. One wants to feel good or just better, get a buzz, an insight, improve the life experience, and most of all, to understand–what cannot be grasped by the mind.

Turn around and see what’s behind it all, prior to experience. You can’t make sense of, or solve a problem within, the context of a dream. There is a whole lot of dream-fixing going on when really,  isn’t it much simpler to simply wake up from the dream? Isn’t manipulating images within the illusions ultimately futile and tiresome? Doesn’t it surprisingly and constantly shift and become something else, requiring more fixing, manipulation, and adjustment?

If I was observing you in the midst of a dream of being chased by a bear, would it make sense to tell you to run faster, or talk about bear safety? Wouldn’t it be kinder to jostle you out of sleep–so you’d just wake up and see there was no bear, literally never had been a threat at all, while you slept?

Can a problem be solved by moving images around or barking orders in a hologram? What does this mean? It is opposite land, literally. Instead of looking “out there” and relating to experience as a problem to solve, or something to find and gain there, how about looking in the opposite direction? The lens of the telescope is what distorts or enhances the experience, is what creates the images with which you seem to struggle. What is behind the lens, and looking through? 

Notice that something is in front of you on the screen now. Before you even read the words, or try to understand what they mean, what you truly need to know, is this awareness that comes to the page, that is already always here. Not one word that you read or see or hear is more important than that awake, alert, awareness that attends to everything that is read or seen or heard. There is no need to read a book about consciousness, or attend a spiritual event, if the awareness that precedes it–as in aware that the book is there in your hand, as in the same awareness of walking into a room and hearing noises, as in this same awareness of the screen in front of you–is simply recognized.

If you don’t come to know that, you will know nothing, no matter how many words you read or hear. If that is seen and brought to the forefront, then the Source of everything is known. What you are precedes all that is experienced. All questions dissolve here, not “out there.” And here and there merge as one.

“Deny illusions, but accept the truth.” ~ A Course in Miracles

 

 

 

 

Pre-Existing Condition (ΑΩ)

Posted by colettekelso in Being and tagged with , , , , , ,

4DeD4fvSeekers seeking peace. The very act of looking for it is to step away from it, like a paper doll cut out of the paper, that then tries to find itself, and its source.

Peace doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t come and it doesn’t leave.

It is the unmoving eye at the center of the experiential storm.

Peace is neither a place to get to, or a status barometer.

It is not yours; nor is it mine. It isn’t personal. It cannot be owned, kept, found, or lost. It’s what is here when there’s no “you-ing” or “me-ing,” (i.e., hoping, looking, waiting for it).

It cannot possibly be had one minute, and then lost the next. Because it is prior to time; prior to the idea of looking for it; prior to hoping and waiting; prior to everything.

Peace is the pre-existing condition. It is just here, now. It is the absence of any condition.

Peace is the water, the ocean in which you swim. And you are not the fish.

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The Broadest Possible POV is No POV

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

“Any movement of consciousness toward the phenomenal is equivalent to a movement away from what is real. The Real is attained by a movement of consciousness in the direction opposite from that by which the phenomenon is experienced.” Wu Hsin

To opposite world: attention flipping.

Take a playing card from a deck. In the game, all attention is focused upon the face card–the queen, the ace, a six–all of which represent the phenomenal. That with which the game is played. All experience–of self, other, world–all phenomena is the result of attention limited to which particular face card, or cards, appears.

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” ~ Alice in Wonderland

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March Thinking Dialogues ~ Dates/Times

Posted by colettekelso in Being, love, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , ,
Flower Petal and the Puppy

Flower Petal and the Puppy

Please let me know if you wish to continue participating in these group calls. If there is sufficient interest, we will resume the second week in March. There will be no calls the first week of March. And there will no longer be dialogues on Saturdays, after February 28th. I am looking into a possible 3rd date and time during the week, which will depend upon interest and availability of those who are interested in participating. So let me know if and when. Due to various differences in time changes, March calls will take place on Tuesdays at 9:30 am and Thursdays at 1 pm, all MDT, Denver Time. This might change in April, after all the clocks have been set forward or backward.

If you’re interested in observing the body/mind and its reflexes, but you cannot make the calls, there will be the option of subscribing to the recordings of the calls, for the same price–$40 for 4 1 1/2 hr recordings. I’ll send the link for the “best of” once a week.

It’s hard to express the gratitude and awe that has been experienced in hearing all these voices, as One Mind, over the last couple of months. Mind is not, it seems, a big hairy entanglement, but more like a rascally puppy that doesn’t know what it is doing, but can be pointed in the right direction. Chewing up your shoes, and pooping on the floor is not an expression of aggression. It is not the absence of love, but an exuberant confusion of boundaries. It doesn’t know what it is doing, this playful pup, and is unfamiliar with right and wrong, and boundaries. And it knows not what the body does, or the inside from the outside. It can be loved “into alignment,” and never lose that wild exuberance, that playfulness.

Clearly, words and metaphors are limited. Pandering to puppy love is an apparent result of the limits of language. Please let me know if you’re interested in continuing to look into thought and its unpredictable yet entirely predictable antics. You can contact me at colette.kelso@gmail.com.

Thank you all for the wild ride.puppy6

At Peace With Not Knowing

Posted by colettekelso in conflict and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

4169318053_561c68de17The topic being discussed on Wednesday’s Look-See is At Peace With Not Knowing. What does that mean? Not knowing and its relationship to peace is similar to a line from Faith Mind (published here yesterday):

“Do not seek for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”

Science, philosophy, psychology, physics—all the ideas of yesterday become outmoded like the fabled myth of a flat earth. The string theory of today cannot hold, if we but empirically witness the historical falling away of one so-called truth after another. Conversely, in psychology, the adherence to behaviorism to the denial or a disinterest in genetics is to hold an opinion. To hold to a gold standard, whether as a metallurgist, an economist, or a moralist, is of course nothing more than opinion.

To espouse nonduality, Advaita, Christianity, Buddhism, or atheism is to have a perspective, an opinion—a way of perceiving and expressing that perception. Even to say, “We are all One,” is an opinion. Everything written in these pages is a way of expressing a perspective. It is not true, nor are these words or any of the above perspectives untrue, as long as they remain in the lightly-held realm of opinion, viewpoint, and perspective. There is nothing wrong with any of them as far as points of view go…until they are taken as hard-cold facts, as reality. Even unquestioned “consensus reality” is an opportunity for amusement rather than argument.

So what does this have to do with peace? The argument, the conflict, the separation of families, friends, tribes, and nations is what arises from cherishing opinions. Seeking and presumably finding truth is taking a stand, and then having to defend the very ground you stand on, even if only to yourself.

Matter is…mind is…enlightenment is…the truth is…the way to truth is… none of these things are known. Yet the attempt and the assertion of certainty in these matters keep us from equanimity, a relaxed uncertainty that allows us to see without “the smallest distinction” that heaven and hell are set apart only because we have made such a distinction. If knowing for certain pits us for or against this or that, we thus have something, sometimes everything, to defend and protect.

What if not knowing is the source of The Buddha’s smile? We don’t know. I don’t know. Letting go of the need to know feels like the deepest peace, releases the deepest and longest-held sense of contraction. The fist opens to reveal welcoming palm.

If you wish to join Beth Bellamy and I in this discussion on Wednesday, contact me here. We will not figure anything out; we will not become certain of anything, but we might very well smile, and be at peace by and by.