Author Topic: The Third Attention  (Read 843 times)

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #30 on: March 04, 2011, 07:29:35 AM »
Yeah I understand this. I don't like to talk about everything to the detail either. Some things are better to ripen on their own. But yes personal experiences would be much more like food for me than theories. Not like an entertainment, but something to really ponder about.

I guess I want the impossible then. When the personal experiences are so valuable and intimate, that they can't be chared.

There is always a way. Share yours and others will share as well (to a reasonable extent). It might work this way to achieve greater openness than now. If there is a reciprocity, things might change.  ;)

Offline Taimyr

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #31 on: March 04, 2011, 07:32:44 AM »
Well, the thing is that I'm also boring to death, nothing much to tell :)

But I'll try to be attentive, maybe I'll find something to talk about.

There is always a way. Share yours and others will share as well (to a reasonable extent). It might work this way. If there is a reciprocity, things might change.


Jahn

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #32 on: March 04, 2011, 08:13:25 AM »
But how can I take seriously someone who is only talking about theory?

You will have your own 3rd attention, some time in your life.

Offline Nichi

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #33 on: March 05, 2011, 04:00:46 AM »
It is more about when you bought the ticket to the third attention,  I got my ticket in 1978. It took many years to add the experiences back then into my tonal.

That's interesting, Jahn ... I think it happened for me in 1978 too. Though I didn't have the words to articulate it as such, and spent many years questioning my sanity. Until I hooked up with the spiritualists. The spiritualists did not frame things in the Castaneda syntax, however. For them it was all about Spirit.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 04:10:35 AM by Nichi »
Not here, not there, but everywhere - always right before your eyes.
~Hsin Hsin Ming

Offline Taimyr

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #34 on: March 05, 2011, 04:20:21 AM »
What do you mean by getting a ticket to third attention? Can you describe exactly how it happened?

This all just seems like a weird twist in terminology, so could you (and Jahn) just explain what are you talking about?


That's interesting, Jahn ... I think it happened for me in 1978 too. Though I didn't have the words to articulate it as such, and spent many years questioning my sanity. Until I hooked up with the spiritualists. The spiritualists did not frame things in the Castaneda syntax, however. For them it was all about Spirit.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 04:27:24 AM by Taimyr »

Offline Nichi

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #35 on: March 05, 2011, 04:46:25 AM »
What do you mean by getting a ticket to third attention? Can you describe exactly how it happened?

That's Jahn's expression, not mine ... If I understand it, it references the moment when one apprehends and embraces that which is beyond this plane ... but, with an imperative attached that one must work the rest of one's life to bring that beyond into the physical ... to see one's life, body - everything - as manifestation of that place on the other side of the crack.

This congealed for me over several years when I lived on the edge of some woods. "The moment" I recall most - though there were many many such moments - was one very hot day, when I was sitting on the ground, taking a break from clearing out a group of dead saplings. All I could smell was the mixture of my sweat and the soil I'd been digging. The birds were chirping, cicadas were chiming, and there was just enough of a breeze to dry the sweat on my face. I was dizzy from the heat and humidity, and was idly brushing my palms along the tips of grass around me, and thinking about the grass.

Then I realized that I was the grass, and the soil, the birds, the cicadas. And I was able to stalk that realization as well at the time, seeing that most religions would find that "low" and banal - that I could hardly go shouting from the rooftops that I was dirt! That the glory of that awareness was not going to be shared easily. That the whole error in society's perception was that the grass-was-just-grass: instead, it was alive! Sentient. Spirit was everywhere. (And so too God...)

On that same day, I looked at the palms of my hands, my veins therein, and knew them to be rivers.  I was one with everything ... here and there. So was everyone - only separated by perception. It was like a drug-experience, this moment, and there were many more to follow. There still are.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 08:17:44 AM by Nichi »
Not here, not there, but everywhere - always right before your eyes.
~Hsin Hsin Ming

Offline Nichi

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #36 on: March 05, 2011, 04:49:01 AM »
PS - at the time, I did not foresee the difficulty of continuing on, holding up so many worlds. But there really was no choice. Which is what some teachers mean, I think, when they say there is no turning back.
Not here, not there, but everywhere - always right before your eyes.
~Hsin Hsin Ming

Offline Taimyr

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #37 on: March 05, 2011, 05:01:17 AM »
Thanks for the explanation :)

I don't remember having experienced something like this, but there was a very stressful time in my life when i was very ill and no one seemed to notice or care. I was eleven and couldn't ask help either, i just thought i'm a freak and other people also treated me as a freak. So I had some weird shifts, one i remember is i saw some colorful lines connecting everything to everything. I can almost remember how natural this seemed, but when i thought about it later, it seemed weird, like how could these lines connect things to eachother. Also i remeber this certain thought from this periond, that everything is one. I think i must have had some experiences which i have forgotten.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 05:06:20 AM by Taimyr »

Offline Nichi

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #38 on: March 05, 2011, 05:07:26 AM »
PS - at the time, I did not foresee the difficulty of continuing on, holding up so many worlds. But there really was no choice. Which is what some teachers mean, I think, when they say there is no turning back.

I spent a decade or 2 being an utter fool, however, trying to move these peaks into relationships with men. Oh how misguided! I was definitely a case of "stopping at mean-spirited roadhouses," as Rumi would say.  Live and learn...
Not here, not there, but everywhere - always right before your eyes.
~Hsin Hsin Ming

Jahn

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #39 on: March 05, 2011, 07:13:45 AM »

Then I realized that I was the grass, and the soil, the birds, the cicadas. And I was able to stalk that realization as well at the time, seeing that most religions would find that "low" and banal - that I could hardly go shouting from the rooftops that I was dirt! That the glory of that awareness was not going to be shared easily. That the whole error in society's perception was that the grass-was-just-grass: instead, it was alive! Sentient. Spirit was everywhere. (And so too God...)

On that same day, I looked at the palms of my hands, my veins therein, and knew them to be rivers.  I was one with everything ... here and there. So was everyone - only separated by perception. It was like a drug-experience, this moment, and there were many more to follow. There still are.

Great description Nichi. Our experiences may differ but the awareness and connection is the same.

Jahn

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #40 on: March 05, 2011, 07:14:53 AM »
PS - at the time, I did not foresee the difficulty of continuing on, holding up so many worlds. But there really was no choice. Which is what some teachers mean, I think, when they say there is no turning back.

That is the moment of no turning back, indeed.

Offline Michael

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #41 on: March 05, 2011, 11:37:20 AM »
I don't remember having experienced something like this, but there was a very stressful time in my life when i was very ill and no one seemed to notice or care. I was eleven and couldn't ask help either, i just thought i'm a freak and other people also treated me as a freak. So I had some weird shifts, one i remember is i saw some colorful lines connecting everything to everything. I can almost remember how natural this seemed, but when i thought about it later, it seemed weird, like how could these lines connect things to eachother. Also i remeber this certain thought from this periond, that everything is one. I think i must have had some experiences which i have forgotten.

These are 'preliminary experiences'. Typically there are numerous such experiences.

The 'ticket purchasing' however is a little different. Usually there has to be some way to arrange these preliminary experiences in a meaningful way. Finally, we have what I call the 'first enlightenment'. This is a moment, most likely after such an experience, when we realise something switches inside us.

In an instant, we realise there is nothing else we want to do with our life except explore further the mystery that has been revealed to us through these preliminary experiences. At that point, we instinctively dedicate ourselves to the Path - inspite of the fact we know nothing about what that means.

Something deep inside awakens, and we remember who we are and why we are alive. This is all on a 'sensing' level, and it takes many years for our mind to catch up and join in usefully.

It is much like we instantly see ourselves for the first time on a road in a vast landscape. We know that road is our road, and walk it we will, either sooner or later, now or in the future. Once the ticket has been bought, it never expires.

Yet we can choose to waste much time in uneasy false beliefs that satisfaction will come from other paths. Uncooked seeds, that have to be thoroughly recognised as empty and futile. No words can convince us, we have to spend endless precious energy and time in proving to ourselves that there is only one path for us, and the sooner we get to it, the happier we will be.

We are all such idiots, but please don't spend more time than necessary in spiritless roads and roadhouses.

Taimi, you are a grumpy bitch because inside, you know why you have found yourself here, but you refuse to accept your fate. You keep looking to the world to make you happy, and because it can't, you have the arrogance to call yourself bored. There is only one path that will give you satisfaction, and it won't come to you on a plate - you will have to work harder than you have ever worked for anything in your life. There is no room for spoilt brats on this path - when you feel tired and irritable, that's precisely when you have to apply yourself to all the theories and practices that litter this forum.

You shoved your ticket into your back pocket, and tried to buy some others instead. Sorry, it won't work. Get that ticket out of your back pocket and show you can earn the privilege of having received it. Every time you want to complain, reach around to your back pocket and feel for that ticket.

Boredom is sound of spirit knocking - it means stop and sit absolutely still. Don't try to escape it.

Offline Taimyr

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #42 on: March 05, 2011, 08:18:40 PM »
Boredom is sound of spirit knocking - it means stop and sit absolutely still. Don't try to escape it.

Well, if i can't do it then i can't do it also just because you are telling me to do so. 

Offline Michael

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #43 on: March 05, 2011, 08:23:04 PM »
You are superb taimi; you can do anything you want. You just have to want it badly enough.

Offline Taimyr

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Re: The Third Attention
« Reply #44 on: March 05, 2011, 08:35:36 PM »
Yes, I guess I don't want it badly enough yet.

I'll just leave and see what happens then.

You are superb taimi; you can do anything you want. You just have to want it badly enough.

 

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