Would it help us to understand ?

[sky]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

Just because I hit my thumb with my hammer, and *OUCH*, that doesn't mean I can't think the hammer is still a useful tool?

Well if you focused on what you were doing at that moment your thumb wouldn't have gotten in the way
But it does hurt

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by sky

Magical mystery tours can be exciting

yeah i could do with some of that kind of excitement. These horror shows I've got myself into all the time get to be a bit much!

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Molearner

Our attachment to our own reality produces blindness IMO……

so as usual, i think god was playing games... the thing about blindness, to me, is you aren't really blind, there is just so much glare you can't see past it. Kinda like, turning up the radio so loud that you can't hear anything but the sounds coming from it?

So when eastern traditions are saying 'less is more' in all the infinite ways they are saying it... they have caught on to a real thing.... one path being to just turn down the lights, turn down the volume, and maybe quit making myself so warm... all in an attempt to see the things I have been drowning out.

as opposed to trying to acquire more of something I can't even name for myself.

[Altair]

Yes I think you're right there, FallingLeaves.

Although the teaching is there, Asia doesn't look too different in practice, chasing more and more.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

there is just so much glare you can't see past it.

I was thinking how do we know we are not seeing past it? Maybe we are always seeing past it. But then we listen to an idea or thought that says we are not. Does thought or thoughts or any thought really have the power to convince us we are not already there? Maybe at some point thought loses all of the power we give it to tell us what now is. Or what we are.

To live without an idea or a thought. Then what is lacking or missing or not seen? I think some ideas we hold tight... like trying to get a ball we grabbed out of the bottom of a narrow necked vase. Our fist, the holding of the ball, keeps our hand stuck in the vase.

The only place we have ever been is now. In the now we can imagine a past though. But we are never actually in the past. We are only in the now thinking of memories I guess. What is lacking in the now? I think a lot of teachers talk about being here now without any reference to the past or future. It makes sense to me as the only place it is found is now. Introducing a conflict in the now through a thought or idea, like I am not at some arrived spiritual state, is a self fulfilling thing I think. It's not that we are not already there, in perfect union with God, it's just we let an idea tell us we are not.

It's that fist holding on tight to the ball in the vase. Why don't we let go? My answer is we did let go, a long long time ago!

[sky]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

so as usual, i think god was playing games... the thing about blindness, to me, is you aren't really blind, there is just so much glare you can't see past it. Kinda like, turning up the radio so loud that you can't hear anything but the sounds coming from it?

Do we only see and hear what suits us anyway ?

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by sky

Do we only see and hear what suits us anyway ?

i think what we see/hear is a mixture of what we try to make it be, and what others are trying to make it be... if we are lucky others go along with our desires and if we aren't so lucky....

it still isn't what 'is' though, more of a creation than anything else... not that I think that particularly matters any more