experience IS patterning of attention

from an exchange on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1386656665#/profile.php?

Words

Words (Photo credit: sirwiseowl)

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…

Cynthia Pendery
more madness. nothing more than words. empty words.
Yesterday at 4:52pm

Gabi Bliss
words are as full as you imagine them to be and as empty as you invite them to be also. x
5 hours ago

J.r. Fibonacci
Of course, words are “nothing more than words” and yet nothing less. We can use words to cultivate the madness of anger (If only you would have…, then this could not have…) or the sadness of shame (if only I would not have…, then that could have…) or the gladness of gratitude (if there is only “what would have,” then there is no “what only is,” and if there is only “what only is,” then there is no “what would have,” … unless sayings of “what would have” and resulting experiencings of madness and sadness and gladness could all be present as “what only is.”)

[Confusing? Well, consider that anger and sadness- and worry- may actually be… forms of confusion. I think the Buddhists and Hindus use the term “Maya.” Could it be that millions of people for thousands of years… might be “on to something” with that?]

Thank you all for participating in the interplay of attention and energy (including language of course). Where there is mutual appreciation, there is mutual investment.

Notice what shows up as experience, for present-moment experience may be the mirror of attention. The mirror is not the source of experience, right? Patterns of attention… may be the only thing we ever experience, though of course no sooner than….

Wait… until not quite yet! Then, what a relief it can be suddenly to know that words are empty- just sets of sounds and letters, just patterns of noise and shape! People who believe in words may say things like “evil is the opposite of good.” That is so silly! Look closely at the letters: clearly, evil is the opposite of… “live.”

But isn’t that just as silly? Yes, evil and live are opposite letter sequences. On the other hand, about good and Eve….
6 minutes ago

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6 Responses to “experience IS patterning of attention”

  1. jrfibonacci Says:
    November 8, 2009 at 6:48 pm | Reply

    JR adds: Laurence, I thought of you and that old exchange of ours (not shown here) as I just published this blog, titled: “experience-IS-patterning-of-attention.”

    [Laurence Platt, who was quoting Werner Erhard, had written “Experience is evidence that I am here.” Mr. Erhard is the founder of “e.s.t.” which evolved into http://www.LandmarkEducation.com]

    I still find “evidence that I am here” to be impractical… as in useless. “So what?”

    Patterns of attention, though, THAT is the what of the “I” … the what that is being evidenced as experience. Unless we let the inquiry into LANGUAGE go all the way to the “I” itself, then would we ever notice that not only is experience merely the patterning of attention, but it is merely language that patterns the attention? THIS is something practical!

    Language is the above of “as above, so below.” “Word => world” [a reference to something on a “$425 handout” from a Landmark Education course] is presented explicitly as an “alternate model” in the [Landmark Education] Communication courses. If it was “clean,” wouldn’t people have the direct experience that the “new model” INCLUDES the “old one?” People [some at least] still exit those courses with “here are these two models that are mutually exclusive,” speaking of crystallization of evil…. 😉

    [“Crystallization of evil” is a reference to something Werner Erhard said about one of the primary challenges of operating through organizations and institutions- basically that they begin to be rigid and obsolete from the moment they begin to be useful.]

  2. jrfibonacci Says:
    November 8, 2009 at 7:06 pm | Reply

    On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Laurence Platt wrote:

    Thank You for your e-mail.

    I got you create it as impractical, useless, and so what – for yourself.

    And I apreciate you sharing it what you create for yourself like it’s your opinion and not like it’s “the truth”.

    Best.

    My reply to Laurence:

    You’re welcome. I get that you create whatever you read- whether written by me or not- as however you create it. Words form attention into experience.

    Then, perhaps just for a little variety, words form attention into experience now. Ah, but doesn’t attention also form words into experience? Of course! So what? Which one is PRACTICAL?

    Either words/sharing give access to “a new world” …or not, sure- only moment by moment and one by one. Did you ever notice the internal inconsistency of something like “there may be no such thing as IS” and “Experience IS evidence that I am here?” (Well… maybe You have now and maybe had before, too…!)

    “Words form attention into experience” is not an alternate model to me. It’s a what’s so, a true opinion, a declarative description and descriptive declaration, words that fit for me with experience- when so many other words may not have… and so what?

  3. jrfibonacci Says:
    November 8, 2009 at 7:21 pm | Reply

    more from JR:

    “Attention” is the primordial, fundamental, pre-existing resource or “building block.” Words stack up attention into patterns- then experience is the result of how attention is stacked up by words.

    Some of us may get all personal about this- like the saying “experience is evidence that I am here.” Who is here, though? Isn’t that “I” just an experience of a certain pattern of attention?

    I did not say “only my own words form my attention into my experience.” That is egocentric narcissism, miserable delusion, new age “I create my own reality so fuck off” denial.

    Words- all of them- form attention into experience. By the way, yes, your words are also words. The words that some “I” calls “mine” just may not be the only ones!

    With an attention pattern of “us versus them,” conflict and suffering is the inherent resulting experience. With an attention pattern of “language directs attention into experience,” suffering and conflict are entirely valid possibilities… among an entire realm of possibility!

  4. jrfibonacci Says:
    November 8, 2009 at 9:13 pm | Reply

    4 more notes

    1)
    On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Laurence Platt wrote:

    You’ve been gracious enough to share your opinion…

    Here’s mine:

    My opinion is you may be on to something, but you don’t realize you’re on to something.

    You say “so what” like it’s making something irrelevant.

    “The truth” is obviously “what’s so”. Not so obviously, “the truth” is also “so what”.

    My opinion is this: you say “so what” but you don’t really get – yet – the profundity of what you’re saying.

    Laurence
    __________

    2)
    My reply:

    ”
    LOL

    May we all get the simple profoundity of the so what of what’s so, not as something irrelevant, but as just another “nothing special” forming of attention into experience. 😉
    ”

    ____

    3)
    On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Laurence Platt wrote:

    Exactly.

    May we all …

    Laurence

    ____

    4)
    extra note: my experience had been that Laurence had dismissed something I had shared with him a few months go, so this response of his is ironic to me. My response to “experience is the evidence that I am here” of “so what?” was not to MAKE it irrelevant, but to imply that I already get that- okay, perhaps only intellectually, though in the realm of Jnana Yoga, there may be no integrity in a statement that is NOT self-referential to the use of language. (i.e. including the “purely intellectual” realm).

    In the beginning, “WORD!” Without being explicit about “word,” how can there be a practical relevance to a fundamental statement about how this is just like this? Meaning MUST be linguistic. We can say that language is like the trunk of a tree that forms meaning out of the pre-linguistic, but in that model, we can’t SAY anything relevant about “the pre-linguistic.” That is not dismissive of any pre-linguistic roots, but considerate of the (limited) relevance of… language! (Yes, Wittgenstein said that before I did, and probably many others before him….)

  5. jrfibonacci Says:
    November 8, 2009 at 10:52 pm | Reply

    Tony then JR:

    Anthony Michael Johnson to JR: What importance do you place on instinct forming attention into experience? Does the Antelope talk to the Lion before running away? Are you saying all meaning must be linguistic? Surely there is something greater than our words that give us meaning. Fun conversation…Word.

    JR replies:

    lol

    From the reply right above yours, in item “4,” there is this:

    “Meaning MUST be linguistic. We can say that language is like the trunk of a tree that forms meaning out of the pre-linguistic, but in that model, we can’t SAY anything relevant about “the pre-linguistic.”
    ”

    So, Tony, the roots that I reference are “instinct,” and while we can label it various things like instinct or God or “the pre-linguistic” or the Tao or “the non-linguistic,” and while we can notice that the words come up from “somewhere”- from “nothingness” – we cannot find any meaning in the nothing. We make up the meaning… yes, with words. [From Werner Erhard/landmark education: “life if empty and meaningless and it is empty and meaningless that your life is empty and meaningless!”]

    Instinct (if you like- or “nature”) forms neurological networks called humans and then spontaneously language arises and words and only then is there any meaning- the infant has no experience of meaning- and that meaning IS experience. Do you get that there is no functional distinction between experience and meaning? I only get that just now in conversation with you, so thank you!

  6. gabi bliss Says:
    November 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm | Reply

    You just explained why people like you and me never shut up ! 🙂

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