Ozfly: thank you for your beautiful response. Yes, that, in words, is as close as we can get. But, we did get there didn't we (Unsound, do you think that was an "accident"; that my purpose was to satiate my inquiry? It was never about "touches"...). Interestingly, Ozfly, we got there, in the essence of your response, its meaning, only when you responded that we were being circular. I wonder how that happened? Hmm. (Although detlof said something beautiful back there somewhere...)
Unsound, the reason we keep talking around each other - even though, beneath that and tying us together is the journey we agree on - is because we define consciousness and its capacities differently. You say, you can not think about a place absent thinking - which is true - but then go on to assume that because your thinking can't see itself that you can't know anything about its absense. The underlying assumption of this is that only thinking derives truth about non-thinking spaces of the mind. This, essentially, reduces all trans-thinking perceptions into a category of unknowable (hence, my original question asking you if you were sure it was unknowable).
You ask, how can we derive truth about non-thinking spaces, and my answer is, by watching them. The thinking mind says this is not possible because it tells you that there is nothing left to see or to be the seer, but, again, this is a bias of the thinking mind (cognition is objectifying; any space absent objects is categorized as a nothingness, then, as non-existent).
In fact, you can watch your own thoughts, and even discern eventually their arisement in the mind. Yes, you can not "see" this silent watcher with thoughts, but it does exist. Of course, like any searcher for the truth, one must engage the injunctive to prove or disprove its existence. With thought discernment, we can share that knowledge with each other through thought-based language, but the knowledge that is derived by the silent witness to your own thought processing can only be done, that experiment upon your own mind, by yourself. The "what is" has it rigged that way. You experience the truth of the silent space by be-ing it...The beauty of compassion that I talked of is found there.
Which is why I always come back to trans-cognitive levels of perceiving music as a valid perception; because it allows a discussion of these levels in general; music is my foil.
Interestingly, the thinking mind of many can experience the "letting go" of cognitive impulse and the consequent experience of trans-cogitive perception listening to music, but then, when we come to dicussing it, that same thinking mind denies a place beyond itself where truth (especially of itself) can be discerned.
This is, of course, a logical incongruency.
Unsound, the reason we keep talking around each other - even though, beneath that and tying us together is the journey we agree on - is because we define consciousness and its capacities differently. You say, you can not think about a place absent thinking - which is true - but then go on to assume that because your thinking can't see itself that you can't know anything about its absense. The underlying assumption of this is that only thinking derives truth about non-thinking spaces of the mind. This, essentially, reduces all trans-thinking perceptions into a category of unknowable (hence, my original question asking you if you were sure it was unknowable).
You ask, how can we derive truth about non-thinking spaces, and my answer is, by watching them. The thinking mind says this is not possible because it tells you that there is nothing left to see or to be the seer, but, again, this is a bias of the thinking mind (cognition is objectifying; any space absent objects is categorized as a nothingness, then, as non-existent).
In fact, you can watch your own thoughts, and even discern eventually their arisement in the mind. Yes, you can not "see" this silent watcher with thoughts, but it does exist. Of course, like any searcher for the truth, one must engage the injunctive to prove or disprove its existence. With thought discernment, we can share that knowledge with each other through thought-based language, but the knowledge that is derived by the silent witness to your own thought processing can only be done, that experiment upon your own mind, by yourself. The "what is" has it rigged that way. You experience the truth of the silent space by be-ing it...The beauty of compassion that I talked of is found there.
Which is why I always come back to trans-cognitive levels of perceiving music as a valid perception; because it allows a discussion of these levels in general; music is my foil.
Interestingly, the thinking mind of many can experience the "letting go" of cognitive impulse and the consequent experience of trans-cogitive perception listening to music, but then, when we come to dicussing it, that same thinking mind denies a place beyond itself where truth (especially of itself) can be discerned.
This is, of course, a logical incongruency.