Suppose I am looking at a tree with grass and bushes scattered about and other trees, mostly alive and some dead, bounding the horizon across a several acre field. It is mid September and the sky is mile high blue with a few distant white cumuli. That tree in front of me is a long leafed green ash about twenty feet high, looking healthy but with a few spider webs and an occasional dead branch.
In the normal way of speech I am looking at the tree, or I was, then, earlier in the morning, when I thought these ideas which proceeded to the words that I am now writing. In the normal way of discourse, I am, or was, a human entity looking at a tree entity with some peripheral awareness of the enfolding background.
Although one may see a tree and that tree may exist under its own power, it is illogical that the intrinsic power of that tree can be known to the seer except through the seer’s own experience. That experience may include any or all of: direct perceptual awareness of that tree, visual, aural, nasal; it may include memorious antecedents of tree ness, multiple recognitions or partial memories; it may include scientific reduction of the tree to species, age and condition; it may include artistic or photo patterning of some aspect or part of the tree; it may include some mystic or psychic connections to the isness of the tree itself, and very likely it will include things which I have either forgotten or never known. But what all of these occurrences, whatever their patterns, have in common, is being part of experience: present, past, future or timeless.
I see the tree and the tree is seen. In the realm of separation, it requires both myself and tree, coming together in awareness, for that awareness to be. There is a symmetry of cobeing, of tree and me, about that awareness. From my point of view, it would seem that, as the tree enters my consciousness, so is that reality extended into the tree. As I see the tree as real, so is the tree real. And, perhaps, as the tree’s reality presents itself to my awareness, so does my consciousness of that presenting engage the structure of the tree’s reality and, since the awareness itself is the primary, or at least prior, reality, why should I choose one side of the awareness as relatively prior over the other? Are not myself and the tree equally entered into the connection which I perceive as my awareness of the tree?
When I look at the tree, being in a reflective state of mind, I also look at my perception of the tree. It then came to me that whenever I had, whether presently or in the past, followed the path of self reflection, at each stage of observing myself observing I found behind that another stage of observation. I never found any place where the reflections stopped; I never found any key or kernel which was the final observer, the place with no refraction.
While we live as personal beings in the realm of separation, our awareness is finite and, being finite, has boundaries. These boundaries are also, like all boundaries, connections between what is enclosed and what is outside. Such connections imply change and transformation, because the connection is like a crossing, a motion of our awareness going forth. Therefore our perceptions are not always limited to the still and the instantaneous.
Awareness can be described as a boundary. It is the boundary between the subject, that which is aware, and the object, of which the subject is aware. In perception of the external world, awareness is the boundary between self and world. In self reflection, awareness is still a boundary between self as subject and self as object. Although, with regards to individual self, awareness has a fixed attachment, its always varying content shows awareness as a moving boundary in flux and change. Boundaries divide and they also connect. Awareness is a moving flowing connection between subject and object, between self and other, between self and world. If someone looks at a cloud, the content of awareness is a visual image of a white shape against a blue background; what naive realism projects is that there is a self on one side of the image and some exterior object, something we call a cloud, on the other side of the image. In accord with the priority of experience, the image itself is most directly real and prior to either the self or the cloud. Yet, if we accept the naive viewpoint, then the image is the connection between the self and the cloud. The point of the last said is that the connections themselves are the prior reality, what we actually experience, what we can and do directly know.
In form, we may conceive of awareness as a boundary between observed and observer.
The form of separation and connection being the same as the form of awareness, a question arises as to whether the form of separation and connection which we have described is experienced, is felt, has the substantive quality of awareness. If so, awareness happens whenever any distinction or separation occurs; separation is then sufficient of itself to account for awareness. If not, then there is more to awareness than separation connected across a boundary. If there is that more to awareness what is it? I suspect that there may not be any such more. Through awareness, separation is identical with connection. Awareness is the connection of separation; awareness may be called the connecting boundary between the separated, and if directed, between the observer and the observed. Separation induces awareness, like an elastic connection between the separated parts.
Any interaction between two entities, such as two people, is a connection between them, and thus shares the form of awareness. That connection, in its most immediate reality, either is, or is akin to, unitary awareness, especially in the sense of being the meeting place where the entities are conjoined, and in that place the experiences of each are equal. In what might commonly be seen as an event, wherein one person causes pain to another, that pain must be equally felt, although in forms dependent upon the separate identities of the individuals, on both sides of the equation of pain, so that one who causes pain must, by the nature of reality, feel an equivalent pain. The same must also be true of pleasure and love, also of teaching and learning.
What courses of action unfold from this description of awareness, of separation and connection? You might, if you find these texts of value, wish to communicate them to others, the ideas or even the words themselves. More generally, you might act in conscious knowledge of both the separation of the individual and eventual reunion with all. It is to be expected that many people are at least partially uncomfortable with their identity and know loneliness in isolation. Perhaps you do yourself. They may not know their connectedness with all or, even while knowing it in mind, may not feel its comfort. It would be well to respect that reality and yet also to encourage their confidence in being an essential complement and part of all being.
Looking outward to the general society, these understandings give us another perspective on the course of events and interactions, both of conflict and of communication. Whoever we are, other people are different from us, in our separation of identity, but other people are also the same as us, in our mutual convergence. This is old knowledge, but we can now reconceive it from a simple basis. When the differences oppose one another and come into conflict, that is also a boundary of connection, a mutual awareness, and that gives an opportunity, especially if viewed in the context of unitary awareness, for a redeployment of those interacting forces. Force against force can produce some degree of linear motion in the direction of the stronger force or, rarely, produce stasis for equal forces, but the natural and common result of force against force is sideways slippage. Perhaps, with insight, we can enlarge and clarify the field of possibilities open to such motion, hopefully into more congenial avenues of connection and mutual awareness.
Suppose I am looking at a tree with grass and bushes scattered about and other trees, mostly alive and some dead, bounding the horizon across a several acre field. It is mid September and the sky is mile high blue with a few distant white cumuli. That tree in front of me is a long leafed green ash about twenty feet high, looking healthy but with a few spider webs and an occasional dead branch.
In the normal way of speech I am looking at the tree, or I was, then, earlier in the morning, when I thought these ideas which proceeded to the words that I am now writing. In the normal way of discourse, I am, or was, a human entity looking at a tree entity with some peripheral awareness of the enfolding background.
Although one may see a tree and that tree may exist under its own power, it is illogical that the intrinsic power of that tree can be known to the seer except through the seer’s own experience. That experience may include any or all of: direct perceptual awareness of that tree, visual, aural, nasal; it may include memorious antecedents of tree ness, multiple recognitions or partial memories; it may include scientific reduction of the tree to species, age and condition; it may include artistic or photo patterning of some aspect or part of the tree; it may include some mystic or psychic connections to the isness of the tree itself, and very likely it will include things which I have either forgotten or never known. But what all of these occurrences, whatever their patterns, have in common, is being part of experience: present, past, future or timeless.
I see the tree and the tree is seen. In the realm of separation, it requires both myself and tree, coming together in awareness, for that awareness to be. There is a symmetry of cobeing, of tree and me, about that awareness. From my point of view, it would seem that, as the tree enters my consciousness, so is that reality extended into the tree. As I see the tree as real, so is the tree real. And, perhaps, as the tree’s reality presents itself to my awareness, so does my consciousness of that presenting engage the structure of the tree’s reality and, since the awareness itself is the primary, or at least prior, reality, why should I choose one side of the awareness as relatively prior over the other? Are not myself and the tree equally entered into the connection which I perceive as my awareness of the tree?
When I look at the tree, being in a reflective state of mind, I also look at my perception of the tree. It then came to me that whenever I had, whether presently or in the past, followed the path of self reflection, at each stage of observing myself observing I found behind that another stage of observation. I never found any place where the reflections stopped; I never found any key or kernel which was the final observer, the place with no refraction.
While we live as personal beings in the realm of separation, our awareness is finite and, being finite, has boundaries. These boundaries are also, like all boundaries, connections between what is enclosed and what is outside. Such connections imply change and transformation, because the connection is like a crossing, a motion of our awareness going forth. Therefore our perceptions are not always limited to the still and the instantaneous.
Awareness can be described as a boundary. It is the boundary between the subject, that which is aware, and the object, of which the subject is aware. In perception of the external world, awareness is the boundary between self and world. In self reflection, awareness is still a boundary between self as subject and self as object. Although, with regards to individual self, awareness has a fixed attachment, its always varying content shows awareness as a moving boundary in flux and change. Boundaries divide and they also connect. Awareness is a moving flowing connection between subject and object, between self and other, between self and world. If someone looks at a cloud, the content of awareness is a visual image of a white shape against a blue background; what naive realism projects is that there is a self on one side of the image and some exterior object, something we call a cloud, on the other side of the image. In accord with the priority of experience, the image itself is most directly real and prior to either the self or the cloud. Yet, if we accept the naive viewpoint, then the image is the connection between the self and the cloud. The point of the last said is that the connections themselves are the prior reality, what we actually experience, what we can and do directly know.
In form, we may conceive of awareness as a boundary between observed and observer.
The form of separation and connection being the same as the form of awareness, a question arises as to whether the form of separation and connection which we have described is experienced, is felt, has the substantive quality of awareness. If so, awareness happens whenever any distinction or separation occurs; separation is then sufficient of itself to account for awareness. If not, then there is more to awareness than separation connected across a boundary. If there is that more to awareness what is it? I suspect that there may not be any such more. Through awareness, separation is identical with connection. Awareness is the connection of separation; awareness may be called the connecting boundary between the separated, and if directed, between the observer and the observed. Separation induces awareness, like an elastic connection between the separated parts.
Any interaction between two entities, such as two people, is a connection between them, and thus shares the form of awareness. That connection, in its most immediate reality, either is, or is akin to, unitary awareness, especially in the sense of being the meeting place where the entities are conjoined, and in that place the experiences of each are equal. In what might commonly be seen as an event, wherein one person causes pain to another, that pain must be equally felt, although in forms dependent upon the separate identities of the individuals, on both sides of the equation of pain, so that one who causes pain must, by the nature of reality, feel an equivalent pain. The same must also be true of pleasure and love, also of teaching and learning.
What courses of action unfold from this description of awareness, of separation and connection? You might, if you find these texts of value, wish to communicate them to others, the ideas or even the words themselves. More generally, you might act in conscious knowledge of both the separation of the individual and eventual reunion with all. It is to be expected that many people are at least partially uncomfortable with their identity and know loneliness in isolation. Perhaps you do yourself. They may not know their connectedness with all or, even while knowing it in mind, may not feel its comfort. It would be well to respect that reality and yet also to encourage their confidence in being an essential complement and part of all being.
Looking outward to the general society, these understandings give us another perspective on the course of events and interactions, both of conflict and of communication. Whoever we are, other people are different from us, in our separation of identity, but other people are also the same as us, in our mutual convergence. This is old knowledge, but we can now reconceive it from a simple basis. When the differences oppose one another and come into conflict, that is also a boundary of connection, a mutual awareness, and that gives an opportunity, especially if viewed in the context of unitary awareness, for a redeployment of those interacting forces. Force against force can produce some degree of linear motion in the direction of the stronger force or, rarely, produce stasis for equal forces, but the natural and common result of force against force is sideways slippage. Perhaps, with insight, we can enlarge and clarify the field of possibilities open to such motion, hopefully into more congenial avenues of connection and mutual awareness.
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