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Genpo Roshi
September 2008 
A New Earth - Oh not now dear, I am in the Now!
Posted on Apr 5th, 2008
by 
Sanjuro
Sanjuro
First: like you I am a learner. I’d like to breath easier, be a better human, and I don’t have a big beef with Eckhart. But I think his work is partial to our life, it is not the whole thing. I do not intend to diminish anything he posits, because his perspective is almost entirely spiritual, except we are humans, and we are not entirely spiritual. And this is what I am exploring. I am open to feedback on all this – what do I know?
I love Eckhart dearly and sincerely. He has us tuned in, and our left-brain switched off, and here were are in the ever present Now. Now is where it is at, make no mistake, if you don’t know what Now is you better find out now. Otherwise you won’t have a clue, you’ll be thinking about sex, or food, or a nice glass of Brunello. Yum. And there, I just lost it, I was thinking sincerely pleasant thoughts, and here I am in the pain-body again, where did Now go? What is this pain-body thing? Where did my fantasies go? My desires?
My actual problem with Eckhart and sex, is that making love is a lovely thing to anticipate. But anticipation is not in the Now. You see the problem. Eckharts book leaves us out to dry on this horny question. Ahem.
But to begin my story, have you read ‘A New Earth’? In it, Eckhart Tolle makes a brilliant and mostly eloquent drilling down and expose of our one dimensional unconscious life, and following the Buddhas path, takes us through our pain barrier. He trains us for the great trek out of the wilderness of our empty life, and, and…Except just as we get to the punch line, there is no sense of what to do next, or rather now, except be in the Now.
And that’s my problem, and probably yours too and perhaps for similar reasons. The path that our lives have taken - where I am writing this and you are reading it, is that we have suffered and tried to overcome the suffering, at some point recognizing that we are our own agents consciously and unconsciously and are getting mixed messages about what the best way out of all the shit is. But that is not my problem with ET, he does point the way, and he is beautifully on the mark with the approach and method - Get out of your own head. But what do we do when we need our own head. Its not just there for decoration!
What do we do when Now is not a good time, like when we have to actually do something like plan, think or take action. Planning your meals for the week, what car to buy, whether to chat with the cute girl at the party?
But being all in the Now, leaves something out, something lively, something earthy and sucks the fizz, sparkle and life-force kind of right out of us. It all becomes too serious, too utterly demanding, and too friggin boring if you ask me. There is a pithy statement: he has the stink of Zen. You know your gonna smell spiritual and compassionate if you take this book directly to heart. And you will want to wear the t-shirt too. And I will avoid you at a party. I would avoid me, if it was me.
‘A New Earth’ ejects us out the other end of our pathological Ego, unborn, in beginners mind, where Ego is seen as a bad thing, a painful thing, something you DO NOT WANT anymore. That’s repression that is – help, help I’m being repressed! That just becomes Shadow, as C.G. Jung called it. ET explains that the Ego as the cause of suffering. Or is it. Its not that ET has gotten it wrong, he hasn’t, he just doesn’t point anywhere past the Now with as much clarity as he did exposing the Ego’s corrosiveness in the book.
We need, after this books main point of stressing the mind of ‘Now’, to go to the next phase of our journey. To the non-pathological Ego. As C.G. Jung stated, to build our ‘Container’. Or as Genpo Roshi would say to become a ‘Human-Being’. The cause of suffering is also our cause of salvation. Our Egoic mind needs to be seen as our friend but only after serious effort at studying the Ego and it’s many ways (voices and shadow). Our Ego that is, not anyone elses. This is what zen practice seems to be all about, as the goal. This is what Jungian analysis is also all about. To build up the strength to seemingly surrender the Ego, allow the Self to be the Big Boss, and then come down off the mountain to daily life, where the Ego knows its way around. But back to Eckharts demand for Now.
For example, with the Now perspective, there is no later. Think about trying that when you get off the phone with your new hot lover whom you will see later that evening. In the Now there is NO anticipation. No anticipation of making love with your partner. Or even anticipating an cold drink after a game of sports, having an ice-cream at the beach, or trekking up a hillside and watching the sun come up. With Now, there are no love songs, no where the fuck have you been its two o’clock in the morning!, no tears at death. Now is alert, Now has no fear. It is beautiful, but it’s not a passionate lover who wants to get hot and sweaty with you. It is passive. It doesn’t need to do anything.
Now is not Home. Now is essential. It is not the essence. The essence is to bring the Now together with the Ego and holding them in unison and learning how to do that. This is Home. This is being a human being. This is understanding the Power of Now, and washing dishes. This is not needlessly worrying about your partner being late, until perhaps you should make a phone call. Its not the Now that makes the phone call. It’s the human being, it’s the part that IS attached to your partner (Now is NOT attached). The Ego actually would care very much if she got hit by a bus. Now sees it as an energy in the firmament.
So this question and answer from Eckhart’s website, takes a specific perspective to a specific question. He does not answer the question, he maintains the perspective of Now. This is fine for a spiritual teacher to do, because he is pointing in order that we figure out our own answers. But it would be nice once and a while to see what he would do too, I am from Missouri, don’t tell me, show me! Telling us that we ‘may find sex enjoyable’, is a bit funny. May find? Oh my word. Lets just say that sex in general is enjoyable. But if you have a dysfunctional perspective, it’s not just affecting your sex life. The question has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with who you are, and to a great degree, how well have you practiced understanding yourself. The question is about discipline.
Thus if you read A New Earth, realize that its job, like that of the first phase of zen practice, is to bring you to a first enlightenment. That you are not just Ego.
There is an alternative practice called BigMind that I feel goes further than ‘A New Earth’. What BigMind does extra, is to very quickly in the space of a day give you the pleasure of a Kensho experience (a first brief enlightement, or epiphany, in the moment of Now) and then deflating the Now, and then presenting the Ego back to you, to take home with you floating on a cloud of Now. But that doesn’t last, as Genpo Roshi will say. You have to live with the Ego again
…except you have been awoken - you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…
This Zen Koan
First there is a mountain (ego - self)
Then there is no mountain (BigMind, No Self)
Then there is a mountain (integration of both self and No Self)
My point in the end is that I have made all these mistakes myself, and I’d rather point them out, like pot-holes in the road to a fellow cyclist. Not so much suggesting you avoid the experience of doing all this yourself, but not getting stuck focusing on some misinterpretation of a glorious and timely book.
As my favourite zen teacher Doen Sensei would say ‘Have fun, be a little nicer, appreciate your life, dont be afraid, we are all just passing through’.
I love Eckhart dearly and sincerely. He has us tuned in, and our left-brain switched off, and here were are in the ever present Now. Now is where it is at, make no mistake, if you don’t know what Now is you better find out now. Otherwise you won’t have a clue, you’ll be thinking about sex, or food, or a nice glass of Brunello. Yum. And there, I just lost it, I was thinking sincerely pleasant thoughts, and here I am in the pain-body again, where did Now go? What is this pain-body thing? Where did my fantasies go? My desires?
My actual problem with Eckhart and sex, is that making love is a lovely thing to anticipate. But anticipation is not in the Now. You see the problem. Eckharts book leaves us out to dry on this horny question. Ahem.
But to begin my story, have you read ‘A New Earth’? In it, Eckhart Tolle makes a brilliant and mostly eloquent drilling down and expose of our one dimensional unconscious life, and following the Buddhas path, takes us through our pain barrier. He trains us for the great trek out of the wilderness of our empty life, and, and…Except just as we get to the punch line, there is no sense of what to do next, or rather now, except be in the Now.
And that’s my problem, and probably yours too and perhaps for similar reasons. The path that our lives have taken - where I am writing this and you are reading it, is that we have suffered and tried to overcome the suffering, at some point recognizing that we are our own agents consciously and unconsciously and are getting mixed messages about what the best way out of all the shit is. But that is not my problem with ET, he does point the way, and he is beautifully on the mark with the approach and method - Get out of your own head. But what do we do when we need our own head. Its not just there for decoration!
What do we do when Now is not a good time, like when we have to actually do something like plan, think or take action. Planning your meals for the week, what car to buy, whether to chat with the cute girl at the party?
But being all in the Now, leaves something out, something lively, something earthy and sucks the fizz, sparkle and life-force kind of right out of us. It all becomes too serious, too utterly demanding, and too friggin boring if you ask me. There is a pithy statement: he has the stink of Zen. You know your gonna smell spiritual and compassionate if you take this book directly to heart. And you will want to wear the t-shirt too. And I will avoid you at a party. I would avoid me, if it was me.
‘A New Earth’ ejects us out the other end of our pathological Ego, unborn, in beginners mind, where Ego is seen as a bad thing, a painful thing, something you DO NOT WANT anymore. That’s repression that is – help, help I’m being repressed! That just becomes Shadow, as C.G. Jung called it. ET explains that the Ego as the cause of suffering. Or is it. Its not that ET has gotten it wrong, he hasn’t, he just doesn’t point anywhere past the Now with as much clarity as he did exposing the Ego’s corrosiveness in the book.
We need, after this books main point of stressing the mind of ‘Now’, to go to the next phase of our journey. To the non-pathological Ego. As C.G. Jung stated, to build our ‘Container’. Or as Genpo Roshi would say to become a ‘Human-Being’. The cause of suffering is also our cause of salvation. Our Egoic mind needs to be seen as our friend but only after serious effort at studying the Ego and it’s many ways (voices and shadow). Our Ego that is, not anyone elses. This is what zen practice seems to be all about, as the goal. This is what Jungian analysis is also all about. To build up the strength to seemingly surrender the Ego, allow the Self to be the Big Boss, and then come down off the mountain to daily life, where the Ego knows its way around. But back to Eckharts demand for Now.
For example, with the Now perspective, there is no later. Think about trying that when you get off the phone with your new hot lover whom you will see later that evening. In the Now there is NO anticipation. No anticipation of making love with your partner. Or even anticipating an cold drink after a game of sports, having an ice-cream at the beach, or trekking up a hillside and watching the sun come up. With Now, there are no love songs, no where the fuck have you been its two o’clock in the morning!, no tears at death. Now is alert, Now has no fear. It is beautiful, but it’s not a passionate lover who wants to get hot and sweaty with you. It is passive. It doesn’t need to do anything.
Now is not Home. Now is essential. It is not the essence. The essence is to bring the Now together with the Ego and holding them in unison and learning how to do that. This is Home. This is being a human being. This is understanding the Power of Now, and washing dishes. This is not needlessly worrying about your partner being late, until perhaps you should make a phone call. Its not the Now that makes the phone call. It’s the human being, it’s the part that IS attached to your partner (Now is NOT attached). The Ego actually would care very much if she got hit by a bus. Now sees it as an energy in the firmament.
So this question and answer from Eckhart’s website, takes a specific perspective to a specific question. He does not answer the question, he maintains the perspective of Now. This is fine for a spiritual teacher to do, because he is pointing in order that we figure out our own answers. But it would be nice once and a while to see what he would do too, I am from Missouri, don’t tell me, show me! Telling us that we ‘may find sex enjoyable’, is a bit funny. May find? Oh my word. Lets just say that sex in general is enjoyable. But if you have a dysfunctional perspective, it’s not just affecting your sex life. The question has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with who you are, and to a great degree, how well have you practiced understanding yourself. The question is about discipline.
Thus if you read A New Earth, realize that its job, like that of the first phase of zen practice, is to bring you to a first enlightenment. That you are not just Ego.
There is an alternative practice called BigMind that I feel goes further than ‘A New Earth’. What BigMind does extra, is to very quickly in the space of a day give you the pleasure of a Kensho experience (a first brief enlightement, or epiphany, in the moment of Now) and then deflating the Now, and then presenting the Ego back to you, to take home with you floating on a cloud of Now. But that doesn’t last, as Genpo Roshi will say. You have to live with the Ego again
…except you have been awoken - you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…
This Zen Koan
First there is a mountain (ego - self)
Then there is no mountain (BigMind, No Self)
Then there is a mountain (integration of both self and No Self)
My point in the end is that I have made all these mistakes myself, and I’d rather point them out, like pot-holes in the road to a fellow cyclist. Not so much suggesting you avoid the experience of doing all this yourself, but not getting stuck focusing on some misinterpretation of a glorious and timely book.
As my favourite zen teacher Doen Sensei would say ‘Have fun, be a little nicer, appreciate your life, dont be afraid, we are all just passing through’.
Access: Public
Sanjuro - I love this. This is great.
My favourite line is: “The essence is to bring the Now together with the Ego and holding them in unison and learning how to do that.”
Thanks!
Thanks James, it's my favourite too. The hard parts friggin well doing it! :)
very good review sanjuro - yea these are problems i have with ET too… not really a fan. he seems like a milquetoast transcender recovering from a vaguely dissociated spiritualized psychotic experience with no cajones and very little chi pulsing through him…
for my money the point has always been that the ego gets a bad rap and part of this is due to the word itself meaning different things in spiritual and psychological circles - i am with joe campbell when he says that what we really mean when we say 'ego” in the eastern sense is “id” in the western sense….
ego strength is good - the healthy ego is important. without an ego you are not enlightened, you are psychotic! it is ego strength that helps you get a handle on the id and it is the ego you are strengthening when you learn how stay in the now and not be at the mercy of all those monkey-mind distractions…but (as you rightly suggest) this is just step one of spiritual practice - and its the ability to maintain awareness that then allows step two which is doing the work with the content that comes into that stabilizing awareness field and cultivating the kind of compassion and insight that is not about getting away from life - au contraire, its the recognition that there is NO ESCAPE!
its the ego defenses (that i would suggest are something else altogether and the proper subject of deconstructive meditative and psychoanalytic work) that shoot us in the foot and ironically those have to do with having too weak of an ego and so erecting defense mechanisms - not with having too strong of an ego!
of course this then means inquiring into how the ego or sense of self has gotten wounded enough to need to erect defenses and having COMPASSION for that process in all of us - entirely natural and entirely necessary until it outlasts its usefulness and we want to be more free and aware.. this is step three - feel the pain and learn to sit with it the vulnerability, the meaninglessness, the emptiness, the fear, process through the old traumas that give the go-defenses so much power and then they will fall away more easily, because you have respected them - inquire into the nature and genesis of your issues so as to have both compassion and insight into your unique but universally human predicament…. replace your ET books with some pema chodron and jack kornfield pragmatic emotionally savvy compassionate grounded material that helps with the real work that most of us avoid like the plague… you cant just transcend this stuff and say its not in the now - which is what many non-dual teachers and students like to think is possible. this is a very bad mix of cog b psyche and bad mysticism dumbed down into an attempt to be enlightened by some kind of jedi mind trick - where being enlightened means not suffering anymore, when really i think dealing with your suffering with compassionate presence is the real enlightened now that has substantive meaning! a “now” that has expanded to include the shadow material, to include the vulnerability, to include awareness of the spiritually materialistic posture and pretense and the pain it attempts to deny!
unfortunately this part is usually not addressed by these types of transcenders and they encourage a kind of self-attacking kill the ego approach that does not work to free or heal the practitioner/reader, but does work to create a captive audience who always feel that the nice sounding freedom you are talking about is always just beyond their grasp and if they were to only attend one more satsang, read one more book etc… maybe they could become free from that nasty ole “ego” forever….. and surely it is their own damn egoic fault that this hasnt happened yet - not the fault of the very incomplete and ineffective philosophy and technique being offered..
always also ironic to me how blatantly dualistic just about all of these supposedly non-dual teachers are when it comes to the central problem they postulate viz a vis “ego”….. not a lot of nuancing, not a lot of understanding the sacred nature of our emotions, compassion, the psyche and the intellect, the body, eros, energy etc…certainly not integral or even integrated.
boring and repressed in my opinion - and thats after being really captivated by it for a few years…
Julian,
This is exactly the point, thank you for being annoyed as much as I was! And if I am not mistaken more annoyed than I was! But I specifically wanted to be soft on the first aspect, his Now work is good. But it is partial (and as you succinctly skewered) DUALISTIC, if viewed in the context of it being presented as a meta-theory. Which I think ET is doing, and should not. Yes, its dangerous if placed out of context, yes it should be advertised as such. Step 1 only! More to come!
I think what people could do as a real practical exercise, if they cannot attempt 'When things fall apart' Pema Chodrans classic, is really do something that will bring them right to the face of death in a more in-yer-face way (other than hospice volunteering).
Read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'.
It'll take you 95% of the way there… screwed me up for a couple of weeks…! It is I found a lot more visceral than reading Pema. Pema is good for those of us who want some help and are almost ready to 'get it', or we are forced into the situation of looking after a dying friend. No one wants to face death as a voluntary!
I speak from having done both these things in the past year…
yes i have heard it is very good.
i am often struck by the reality that good art that makes no claims on spirituality is often way way way more spiritual in the true sense than the fare we find in the spiritual section of the bookstore - and most especially the video shop!
i read all the pretty horses and found his tough writing revelatory and succinct.
aint done any hospice work, but dated someone years ago who had watched around 80 elderly people die as part of the job she worked - through high school! yowza..
pema and jack are speaking to the real need that i think stuff like ET's flubs..
Julain
Your description of Eckhart Tolle here: “a milquetoast transcender recovering from a vaguely dissociated spiritualized psychotic experience with no cajones and very little chi pulsing through him…” had me a-coughing and a-spluttering and a-grinning. You have a way with words.
Ah know watcha mean, and I also agree with Sanjuro that his Now work is good. It certainly helped me. It's just imbalanced and incomplete.
And to be fair to him there are more extreme transcenders out there, in the sense that he does try to put focus on the body. In Practising the Power of Now he has sections on “going deeply into the body”, feeling the life “in your abdomen and chest”, and of energy “giving vibrant life to every organ and every cell”.
He also has sections on illness and suffering, and even talks about sitting and confronting your own fears “…if you don't face it,… you will be forced to relive it again and again.”
Wow, could even be mistaken by some for Pema Chodron in The Places That Scare You in the section on Learning to Stay: “Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Discursive mind? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What am I doing here? Stay!”…” (I like to quote myself the bad sergeant in Platoon holding his hand over the mouth of one of his recently shot foot soldiers “Take The pain! Take the pain!”)
However, despite seeming similarities that can be found in individual quotes, the key difference as Julian pointed out is with the contextual attitude towards the ego. In Tolle's books the word ego is often used with negative connotations, a kind of moral judgement. The quote given above is prefixed with the following: “The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness.” Yuck . There's a strange whiff of the puritanical preacher here that feels a bit like “Lest ye come out of the darkness of the ego…” Now I see what Julian means when he used the word “repressed”.
Whereas Pema Chodrons' whole tone is far more human, sensitive and encouraging, and moreover she makes the specific point that:
“It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that mediation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralising, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of old patterns. Without maitri, renunciation of old habits becomes abusive” and “if this process of clear seeing isn't based on self-compassion it will become a process of self aggression.”
As Julian said, we need to have a healthy ego - to be capable of feeling self-compassion - in order to do this kind of work.
Sanjuro: ”The hard parts friggin well doing it! :)” Absofrigginlutely!
Ok so were all smokin what everyone else is rollin. It is good to Grok!
And lads you really do want to read 'The Road', honest, its quite the experience. Um, I double dare ya!
San-J: You are so with the hard sell on The Road! I'm still working up the nerve to hit Outer Dark, but okay okay I hear you.
Thanks for going back to the text to remind how the Now work works, James, and that it is subtly embodied and not exactly escapist.
Do I detect in this thread the sense that the visceral-primitive-sexual sensibility/sensation (for shorthand–the world of the lower chakras) is more REAL than the heady stuff? That McCarthy is somehow a return to authenticity?
Ok Tolle is without cajones, something lost to the drugs perhaps, but his impishness is full of heart. The claim that his energy is sleepy is a strong one, and I'm not sure it's true (maybe we'd have to see him work?) He does not take it to the limit, like McCarthy, like Pema, but he smiles devilishly on our mindchatter kinds of suffering and illustrates that there IS an option to turn that off. It takes an imp to laugh in the face of SERIOUS THINKING (or SERIOUS LUSTING), and that's the role he plays. He does this in a way that's accessible at different levels–to the New Age people, the western Buddhist people, the tough-minded empiricist yoga people, self-consciously Integral people. And, lately, the Oprah market. Hmm….
As Sanjuro and i discussed, it's the latter that has me disturbed. “Live in the now! Drop your problems!”: pretty much a message the consumer-debtor masses have re-appropriated according to the perverse logic of present-day capitalism. Not one they need reinforced by a “spiritual” figure, I would guess.
But otherwise, he is not really advancing a “self-attacking… approach.” The whole joke with Tolle is that he has no method (though maybe New Earth is more systematic?). There's this body-scanning stuff, which is just the equivalent of pinching you in the ass. Hey! Wake up! (OR at the very least: Look at me! Ha ha I have no beta waves! Or something. God knows I'd like to get a read (i.e. brain-scan) on the guy.)
Anyway, I don't want any teacher to be a be-all end-all. And considering how many of the modern professors of wakefulness pack first and second chakra baggage by the ton (as well as a whole lot of religious narrative that isn't always useful) into their work, I'm not too worried that he seems to be a eunuch, doesn't have a method, and only really whets the appetite of seekers would would find the same glimpses into themselves through Big Mind or Spacious Awareness or whatever.
But to this question of whether being in the now (or “The Now (TM)”) extinguishes desire. Hmmm…. Ok. A lot of desire comes from role-play and narrative. That's time bound, right brain whatever, and I'm not really looking to drop it. But what about “being in the now” with that phone call to your hot lover? Doing a little bodyscan on that? Enjoy your desire, find its roots inside yourself (again, lower chakras) not just in the story and the plan for climax. It's a misuse of Tolle to revel in that, but might be good for one's own cajones.
Oh… a tangent which re-illustrates the partial-ness and self-deception in this whole privileging of the now thing: I remembered that others in this thread may share my annoyance with the “Stroke of Insight” TED talk that everyone else I know just loves. (Google 'TED 'stroke of insight'”.)
It's so astonishing and beautiful in a sense, but on a second watch the interp here annoyed me a lot. The “lesson” is post-hoc. Alternative explanations for her experience abound, and the one she chooses sounds strangely like it was arrived at in dialogue with some other set of interpretations. Possibly the Advaita-flavored Theravada that thrives, (often beautifully), in the Bay Area.
I mean seriously: don't tell me to shut down half my brain and that doing so will bring world peace. Lobotomy can't be the only way!
Hey BatGirl, I'm a gemini! Hard sell one minute, integral softness the next. btw have you read 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy? You know its quite the read, maybe when you read it you can discover what chakra is imploding?? I cannot, My body sense is being revealed to me through my physio - kind of like Neo 'Why do my eyes hurt' 'Because you've never used them'!
I would love a one-stop shop teacher, are you kidding, I'd be finished by now, all that time listening to the wrong things and ideas! :)
Now that brain thing is another thing… I liked the simplicity of her explanation, and it is rare for anyone as left brained as her to have an epiphany with so much FEELING. The poor darlin' I don't think embellished her memory of the experience. The freudians call it an 'oceanic' feeling, and attempt to medicate with diazapam. Those guys were not smacked enough by their mothers!
But yes, all these little bastards interconnect! Our brains, the now, our lusts, our chakras, our intention, our shadows, and when you eat cheese at night and get technicolor dreams of high symbolic value. Two year old cheddar I have found is very very good.
But most importantly. Have you read The Road?
sanjuro on a fine tear…. OvO rockin out too…
i'm off to see the TED talk - it comes highly recommended by many suspiciously Pollyanna peeps to me too…
Oh Julian, I like what you just did. Will sit back and observe with interest.
Sanjay, the thing is you got to hold us ”poor darlin's” to the same standard as the boys no matter how much FEELING is coming through. Otherwise we'll just leave this whole GAIA big idea talkin' to those with the cajones (which is sort of what's happening in this neighborhood?).
Sweet technicolor dreams tonight, my dear.
Hi (OvO),
Yes I like Tolle's impishness. Thanks for the reminder of the value of that.
I've been re-reading Practising the Power of Now and that is full of instructions and practises, so I'll disgaree with you that he doesn't have a method.
I would agree that to describe Tolle's work as having a “self attacking approach” maybe be a bit strong. And I know I'm choosing to make specific comparisons here, but his writing certainly lacks the humanity and warmth of say Chodron's work. I guess a lot of it comes down to styles - I just prefer someone saying “yes we're all in this together” rather than an imp smiling knowingly at me from a distance.
What the hell - I'm grateful to both of them that they are out there doing their stuff. They've both helped to open me up in different ways.
Julian has produced another monster blog attack with his left-brain handed diamond cutter!
0v0, I don't think of picking on folk who have strokes, and come through the other side with what is obviously a very personal, and yet enlightening experience, for them. But I am glad you lot feel better about that than I do. :)
James, I'd really like to know what Julian and 0v0's personality types are, we seem to be the only Feelers and those Thinkers always beat us up! :)
Having said that, I should be clearer about my perspective, since my shorthand can be more humourous than concrete. But then again I am basically an INFP, and logical analysis will never be my strength. But I seem to have good friends with that. :) I love you all!
Jills path has and will lead her onward, she has had the door opened, and she is examining whats inside. Whatever we take away from it has become ours, and off we go with that bundle. Balance changes as we go through our own life and context, so for me what is very important is her (like Eckharts) great personal endeavour. They allow people to think beyond their perspective. And we all know we cannot jump from integral idiot to integral smarty very quickly. I am seriously concerned about the other problem that we have in making sure that the shift from subjective to objective has a sense of both, as I said, being held in suspension. Like a nice vinaigrette…
And as I said, the trick is balance, our balance.
and I think I will dump that onto Julians blog with more thingys since he has gotten all excited, and we have no more time for poor old Eckhart and his cajones.
Ouch! Sorry. I don't want to pick on her and do find this talk amazing. The first watch was entirely about emoting with her. Her stroke of insight is not unlike Tolle's on the parkbench–though neurologically I suppose the experiences were vastly different. I love the idea of a scientist taking RH sensibility and turning it to LH inquiry in the final coup de grace and then coming back to share a mindblowing near-death story… but is it really a RH story then in the end?
So yes, my first impulse is always F. INFJ all the way, baby (heavy on th N, more balanced on the F–testing out that way for years).
0v0
There should be no ouch? I put a smiley!
Its bad enough I bring up personality types with people, never mind the integral map! So it doesnt get much practice. I tend to stick with Me, You, We and Us to start the ball arolling. Metaphor is my own can-opener, not unfortunately critical thinking - so not intuitive-feeler! I don't know how you do it, its abnormal, and stop it right now!
Mind you I have a thinking-sensation job, and am good at it. Its all a bit too complex, Oh to be a flower child again!
Hello Sanjuro and everyone here!
Before commenting, I will say that I have not finished 'A New Earth' yet, but I am in the process of reading it while also watching the classes on Oprah.com.
I share the sentiments of frustration as to, “So what happens after NOW?” and how to balance the self (ego/individual) with the Self (God/Essence/Oneness) during this amazing life.
But when I begin to feel frustration creep up about Eckhart and how he seems to leave us hanging after getting us into the NOW, the question seems to arise from the witness within: “Why should Eckhart lead you anywhere beyond the NOW? Perhaps this is not his purpose; perhaps his purpose is to demonstrate and present to you this one piece of the glorious puzzle of your experience as a human being on planet Earth.”
Then I think, “Wow…this witness voice has a point!” If Eckhart were meant to explain to us every aspect of our experience and provide every tool to understanding ourselves, he would have to write THOUSANDS, perhaps MILLIONS of volumes of books.
Eckhart can only provide one piece, one link to understanding the Self, and his information will only speak to some individuals. For others, there are other spiritual teachers who will put forth the same information, but in a way that resonates better for those individuals.
So to those who are weary and frustrated at the lack of arrows pointing the way after reading 'A New Earth', I suggest this simple idea: perhaps one should integrate the information which resonates and look for arrows elsewhere. Being in the NOW is essential before any real change can begin, so Eckhart's book is a GREAT place to start, but perhaps not finish.
We never stop learning or growing. Even when we reach the top of the mountain, we keep on ascending; so enjoy your process and everything that this beautiful life has to offer, appreciate and love it all, and try not to get stuck on the little details along the way.
Bless Love and Light everyone!
~Vanessa
thanks for reminding me of the TED taylor piece oVo - i have done a thorough critique of it here…
Amen to that Vanessa, thank you!
I am very glad you questioned your own 'what now'. Do you think that would have been easy for you 10 years ago? It would not have been for me I think. I guess we all want to get 'there' quicker, even after we understand the Now. :)
Absolutely Sanjuro!
I'm always trying to get 'there', wherever 'there' is…(which, when you really think about it, where the hell are we trying to get! LOL!) As my friends art teacher points out, “it's the process Stupid!” I believe this sentiment not only speaks to how great works of art are created, but to how a great life is created as well. It's in the living where we reap the rewards and taste the sweetness of life, not the destination.
And although Eckharts teachings are not all-encompassing, (because really, there is no one teacher that teaches the all encompassing…who can do that!?), I love what he teaches and agree full-heartedly with the NOW. I feel great compassion, respect and appreciation for that man :).
***As for for your question to me Sanjuro about if it would have been easy for me 10 years ago: 10 years ago I would have been 12 years old, so NO….I don't think it would have been possible for me to question this ten years ago, even though I was a rather inquisitive and perceptive child. LOL!!!!!
Now, imagine questioning all this NOW stuff at the age of 22 in your JUNIOR year of COLLEGE where everyone lives in a heigtened state of EGO…yeah, this process has been hell at times, LOL!!!! :) :) :) :) But I'm still SMILING! (Even if it's though my teeth every now and then.) :)
Hi Sanjuro
Yes - “Mummy! Big Thinkers came along and shouted at us. Boohoo.” ;-)
Actually I don't know much about personality types but am interested in finding out more.
What does INFP or INFJ stand for?
vanessa, isn't that funny. 12. You sounded older! haha. Good for you, the planet can look forward to an even more brilliant mind by the time you are my age!! very cool and nicely humbling!
And don't let the egos get you down, they can be a pain in the arse (as we say in scotland!).
There is no one teacher - except eventually yourself, but that takes lots of time…!
James.
A brief history of personality types:
C.G. Jung created a system to help him differentiate certain (obvious to him) patterns or tendencies that his patients exhibited. The system was not supposed to become widely available to the public domain because of oversimplification, and misuse.
To that extent it has become a little more public through the Myers-Briggs personality test, which is a little faulty, but if taken with a pinch of salt, can point out some good indicators of your own personality types.
Here are a few links, that will explain things better, the main point is that you should get yourself tested by a Jungian Analyst, not by the Myers Briggs, or some other even less thorough online creation. This is because it is a clinical test, and is done from the source concepts of Jung. Which to this day, have not been surpassed or improved on to any great degree. It is nuanced, and not so quick to be revealed…
This is a quick, not so accurate, but basic test. It will lead you to results and links which give you a common public rendition of your type.
You can look up common definitions of the 16 types here. This is based on the Myers Briggs types which have four letters. like INTJ.
Or you can explore this great statement and the stuff in the links beyond with many good observations.
Have fun… I am sure you will approach it with faith and skepticism, it is extremely useful in the end for working with yourself and for understanding and connecting well with others, especially of other typologies…
and lastly quickly…
INFP
Introverted (as opposed to extroverted)
iNtuitive (as opposed to Sensation - what is tangible)
Feeling (value as opposed to Thinking which is rational)
Perceiving (as opposed to Judging which is more decisive)
okok finally
As we get older and develop toward individuation, as Jung described psychic maturity - with dropping of the egos control of life, and surrendering to the path (the Self). Very much like but very differently understood way that is like Zen. But not. We mature in this way as our personality functions also mature in our least strong functions…
but thats a discussion for another time!
Thanks Sanjuro
I'l follow the link and take the test, and hold it all very lightly as you suggest. (I think I've actually done it before and it was a bit “easy come easy go” so I didn't retain any of it… maybe I was holding it too lightly!)
Now this makes real good sense to me:
As we get older and develop toward individuation, as Jung described psychic maturity - with dropping of the egos control of life, and surrendering to the path (the Self). Very much like but very differently understood way that is like Zen. But not. We mature in this way as our personality functions also mature in our least strong functions…”
So that's how this life experience thing works. OK, thanks!
Wow Sanjuro, those links are great. I need to revisit there a lot to let it all sink in.Thanks.