I have a small question about the mechanics of perception when we were doing the exercise
earlier uh looking at a person as a person and then looking at them as awareness I found the
second time that it was really hard to focus on her features or her eyes because it became that
kind of they used to teach in my Buddhist meditation that kind of global view soft
focus thing that was happening and I notice in your video when you were trying to do the gap
between waking and realizing that you're in this room at this time in this part of the universe
the sheets were out of focus and then the sheets slowly came into focus and I noticed that when I
focus on something I cannot help but make it an object and I cannot help but become an object in
response to that object and so I wanted to ask about seeing that way that even if and the other
piece of it was um there was this practice I used to have to practice seeing the Buddha in everybody
so no matter how p****d off I was at my mother I saw herself as a little Buddha and it helped you
know but all it did was replace the story with a better story it didn't really do anything but
it's self help right but now when I was looking this morning I was getting that it's not another
story over there yes exactly so you're quite right that it's not enough to to see somebody to look at
someone and to imagine that they are yourself to superimpose that belief it puts a sticky plaster
over the separate self for 24 hours or for 20 minutes but it come it doesn't really up root
the sense of separation so what we were what we were doing this morning was not imposing
an idea on top of our self but we were really trying to go deeply into our staying very close
to our experience and you're right that if we if we look at somebody in the eyes we there is very
often a subtle wanting of something from them a subtle either of projecting something onto them
trying to communicate some kind of feeling to them or wanting something from them and that's why this
morning we left we were left looking for sometime at each other in spite of the the discomfort that
they that this may arouse because after a while this this negotiation between egos drops falls
down and you describe it as it's a softening of the focus you're no longer projecting anything or
wanting anything so you're just looking clearly it's like a neutral looking it may appear from
the old perspective of the separate self it may appear to be even a little cold because
it's not all gooey and and trying to but it's not cold it's it's actually just devoid of the kind
of negotiating separate self trying to project something trying to get something so it's kind
of it's more yes it can it can be seen as more neutral did you feel it there what the tone of it
was a little colder and but also I noticed that I didn't see any object in the field anymore and in
fact I was noticing whatever quality she had sowed the lamp had and everything else had like there
was no person there anymore it's what happened and it wasn't like I disappeared or anything I was
like something was still looking in my experience but it it was like I didn't really understand like
I was trying to grok it you know and then it kept fading in and out yes you see that the separate
self is always going towards an object so when we look at something with the feeling that we are a
separate self we we go towards it we've focused on it we seem to go towards it from awarenesses
point of view which is the only real point of view the object comes to it and it's a very
different quality of looking the separate self is always going towards something so when it looks at
an object there is there is a sense that either separate self and going out from in here towards
the object the awareness is way of seeing which is actually the only way of seeing is very different
the object comes to it it doesn't go out to the object the object comes back comes to it so it it
what it's always at rest it awareness I yourself it is is always here it never needs to go out of
itself towards an object or a person it allows everything to come to it and this it's you can
see this in in in the way we here the way we see it's a very different quality of seeing let's just
try it now let's try it really evoke the sense of separation feel that what I am is a separate self
and look at something this this flower or look at it as a separate self going towards an object
the separate self might might want something from might want to go up
to him I want to buy it white might want to smell him I want it to go towards it
and now evoke or be in the presence of awareness be knowingly the presence of awareness and allow
this perception to come to you to arise in you isn't there a different quality of seeing
isn't it tangible the difference it seems to be the same activity of seeing but it has a very
different quality now it may be that the focus softens but in some cases it's not it's not
appropriate for the focus to soften for instance if you're driving or if you're if then it's it's
it's best to keep it so just if it's not really about the fact of whether or not it's it's in
focus although I understand what you mean when there's a kind of softening it's not really a
softening of the focus it's the softening of going out as an entity in here towards something outside
of myself it's it's a deep relaxation it allows experience to come to us we are not moving through
time and space we are not an entity always moving forward always destined to towards a future no we
are always in the same place this ever-present experience comes to us you're on the cusp of
something very critical in terms of experience here because I also notice what happened when
you did that switch is my old body relaxed yes perfect my whole body relaxed don't you find I
use a knowledge into the space you're not going out yeah and in this in the looking that we did
this morning we're not going out to a person we're not with with everything relaxes the body
relaxes that because why because the awareness in which the in which the experience is happening is
already total relaxation total openness so the body is taking on the qualities of awareness
previously in the first way of looking awareness takes on the qualities of the body it becomes
local and limited and then we go out but now the body takes on the qualities of awareness it
becomes open it doesn't have a motive it doesn't want anything from the other so the body softens
and opens it's actually mimicking the presence of awareness in a way sharing its qualities rather
than awareness sharing the qualities of the body the body now shares the qualities of awareness it
becomes open transparent empty and it this it has a an effect on the way we see the way we walk the
way we eat the way we speak to people the way we look at one another it that this deconditioning of
the whole system of the body mind is is very is very subtle we don't realize how deeply
embedded in the system it the separate self is it permeates subtly the way we think not just the way
we think the way we feel the way we see the way we move the way we the way we do everything so
this this yoga of non-duality this tantric yoga that we do is is very very subtle it's a way of
reconditioning the way we see the way we perceive the way we hear the way we it's an application of
our intellectual understanding to these to every aspect of our lives I'm going to take this one
step further because if you look at the headless way the purpose of those exercises in Douglas
Harding is to get grok the whole idea that most of us here already get we get it intellectually
yeah you don't need a whole bunch of pointing out pointing in real to realize that this is this is
yeah this is us this is that we are it's the part that you just trying to get us to get which is in
the body a microsecond by microsecond we're always taking we're solidifying into a self in relation
to two objects yeah and and if you could think of 20 more exercises that would do what you just
tried to do with the flower and break it down that would be so useful because it is not about really
for me it's not about getting the idea it's about what she was saying it's the embodied moment by
moment perspective in the body held in the body way below our conscious understanding at the
brainstem level of what the hell we're doing in relation to the world yes you know enlightenment
and Awakening is is overrated it's because in the in the 60s and the 70s India was the place to go
for enlightenment so our ideas of enlightenment were colored by the exotic culture of India and
because we didn't spend time living with sages if we went it was more this whole post enlightenment
part of the process was just never spoken about so it was all enlightenment was the big thing and
it was always colored by the exotic packaging of India enlightenment is not exotic its India
as exotic but enlightenment isn't and and and we muddle the two up so we put awakening way up
here on a pedestal as the kind of the final goal it's not it's just the first step realizing our
true nature is just just the beginning by far the larger part of what we do here is how is
this how does this impact all aspects of our experience the thinking is is such a small I
mean how much of our experience it is really to do with thinking I mean if we were to rate thinking
along with with sensing with seeing with touching with hearing with tasting and where does thinking
rate not very highly you know you you didn't say to as I I'm longing to think more it is it's not
really what we want it's not me it's not it's not it's not very sexy it's not it's not juicy