the most essential distinction: being content or being contentious

Now, how I am is serene, at ease, at peace, calm, steady, empty, open, pure, content. Perfectly content, I am the witnessing of all perceiving, including the perceptions of all contending and all contentiousness and all contention.

I am the witnessing of the operating of language. I am witness to the contrast between being content and being contentious. However, to say “being contentious” is actually a new labeling of some other distinct activity or process as the contentious activity or process or behavior. The new labeling of something else as contentious is itself a distinct activity or process- the process of labeling. I can witness the arising of the activity of labeling in language, such as the labeling of “contending” and “contentiousness” and contention” and “being content” and “I” and “serene” and so on.

Contending is something that I can witness. Contending is also something that I can do.

How can I do the activity of contending? I can label something as contending or contentious or contention. That labeling of something as contending or contentious or contention could be contrasted with me as the one who claims to be content. However, without the operating of language, is there a labeling of a someone who claims to be content in contrast to some process of contending, some activity of contention, some pattern of contentiousness, some claiming of discontent.

Labeling of different parts of a neuron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Witnessing the operating of language, I am contrasting the labeling of content with the labeling of discontent and contentiousness and contending. When the operating of language is present as the labeling of something as contentious, is there also an operating of language present as the labeling of someone who simply is serene and content?

When the language of contentiousness is present, is there also a contending against that language of contentiousness? Is there a process of claiming to be someone who is content in contrast to the something which is labeled as the contentiousness or the contending?

When I am simply being content, I can be content even with contentiousness. The operating of the language of contentiousness can be or not, and, either way, no one even needs to be claimed as being the one who is content with any of that or not.

When the witnessing of the operating of language is happening without any additional identifying of someone who exists in contrast to that observed operating of language, then perhaps all that is happening is that operating of language. However, when the witnessing of the operating of language is happening including a specific additional distinct identifying of a someone who exists and who labels their existence or being in a stark contrast to a contentiousness that is labeled as external to them, that is still just the operating of language.

Werner Erhard and Associates v. Christopher Cox for Congress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, to paraphrase an ancient Zen koan, consider that when a tree falls in a remote, isolated, abandoned forest, but there is no one there to ask whether or not a tree has fallen, then all that has been happening in the asking of the question is the operating of what? Now, what am I except for the operating of language? Now, the operating of language is serene, at ease, at peace, calm, steady, empty, open, pure, content, contentious, contending, contrasting, labeling, operating, witnessing, simply being.

Be still and know the kingdom of heaven within. Simply remain as you are already.

By the way, faith is the fruit of being in heaven already. Striving to get faith as well as striving to be perceived as having faith or as being faithful is the height of agonizing and vanity and idolatry and heresy and blasphemy. Striving is also required in order to be clear about the absence of the behavior of striving.

the devil’s pitchfork?

Related articles

• Clean Language (erivancamp.wordpress.com)
• The veil in light of Islam and Christianity (dawahcombatkit.wordpress.com)
• Understanding Semiotics. (irishmediaman.wordpress.com)
• Ordinary Language Philosophy (pbmo.wordpress.com)
• Listening for the Absolute (sebastianennis.wordpress.com)
• Contentious hermeneutics (hyperorg.com)
• Lawyer Mind, Judge Mind (ribbonfarm.com)
• Immediate Realization Instruction in Dzogchen, The Great Perfection by Jackson Peterson (standinginanopenfield.wordpress.com)
• “God Is Sound, Part II…” (risinghawk.wordpress.com)
• Rubrics as Dialogue (highered.blogspot.com)
• On the Importance of Plain Language (kylemackiemasters.wordpress.com)
• Demagoguery Not Anarchism (humaniterations.net)
• Essay–What Makes it Authoritative? (imasciencegeek.wordpress.com)
• Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 50, no. 2 (2011) (uhpjournals.wordpress.com)
• Defining polyamory: A Joburg production (ctrlaltsexblog.wordpress.com)
• The Life and Purpose of Text (boringlava.wordpress.com)
• Biblioklept Interviews Stuart Kendall About His New Translation of Gilgamesh, Altered States of Consciousness, and Terrence Malick (biblioklept.org)
• Simplifying Legal Jargon – Alan Siegel Explains Why This Form of Language is Too Complex (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• An Apology on behalf of Intellect (madcapdownsideup.wordpress.com)
• The Ruling on the Language of Laws (costadevault.com)
• Create the Habit of Meditation, & the Zen Habits Premium Membership (zenhabits.net)
• Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Zen-bliss (karingorham.wordpress.com)
• Yoga Unveiled: A User’s Guide to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. ~ Godfrey Devereux (elephantjournal.com)
• Moment to Moment (psychologytoday.com)
• The Zen Habits Sea Change Program (zenhabits.net)
• Understanding babies’ Buddha nature as a key to conscious parenting (lovingearthmama.com)
• “The More the Medicine, the Worse the Sickness.” ~ Tias Little (elephantjournal.com)
• 40 Questions for Fundamentalist Christians (uglicoyote.wordpress.com)
• 2012 The Illusion of this World is our Reality (marlenvargasdelrazo.wordpress.com)
• Letting Go, Stirring It Up (jesuszen.wordpress.com)
• Why I Believe Richard Foster Is A False Teacher: Reason #3- Spiritual Direction: Another Mediator (hearshisvoice.wordpress.com)
• Daily Tidbits 3/8 – God (littleguyintheeye.wordpress.com)
• Returning to the Inner Child (pathfinderscommune.com)
• Beyond Happiness And Unhappiness: An Interview with Eckhart Tolle by Steve Donoso (evolutionarymystic.wordpress.com)
• Emptiness (parenthesiseye.blogspot.com)
• Confession Brings Possession (raymondjclements.wordpress.com)
• Salvation – a study in contrasts (wordsofgrace.wordpress.com)
• Justice Is Meaningless! (hermestable.wordpress.com)
• Is Your Heaven Too Small? – Part 2 (rghernandezpen.com)
• Why do you look for the living among the dead? (3quarksdaily.com)
• Kingdom of God 5 (ptl2010.com)
• enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a little child…K.I.S.S. (johnedoe.wordpress.com)
• Understanding of Evangelical, Prophetic and Apostolic songs: (representers.wordpress.com)
• The Kingdom (just-joey.com)
• Kingdom of Heaven (12itisfinished.wordpress.com)
• Matthew 13:31-58 (wiseasking.wordpress.com)
• Christian Contentment and the Kingdom of God (ofdustandkings.com)
• Letting Go, Saying I Don’t Know (jesuszen.wordpress.com)
• Language – Langue – Idioma (Week 18) (cheerfulappsych.wordpress.com)
• Politics and the English Language (aleksandreia.com)
• 1s Living in States of 0 (themathofgod.wordpress.com)
• Against Taxonomy (enkelkind.wordpress.com)
• Truth and error in J. Marcellus Kik’s preterism (creationconcept.wordpress.com)
• Identity and Ideology (laxaria.wordpress.com)

Tags: being content, contentious, contrast, distinction, essential, kingdom of heaven, labeling, language, most essential, perception