robdl

I'm talking about deep unconscious self interest. Your example involves brazen conscious self-interest.

The criteria of the SD scale was put together by human thought --- thought that could be inherently biased/politically identified, and so on. Right?

It gets tricky because a liberal might feel like life will be better/more beneficial for them in a more egalitarian society. Conservatives may feel like life will be better/more beneficial for them in a society that stresses individual responsibility. So on the surface, one is more community-minded than the other, but the underlying impulse/self-interest is the same. It's a lot more subtle and nuanced when you go deeper into it.

Will a person who identifies as liberal ever concede that liberals and conservatives are on equal footing on the spiral dynamic scale? Of course not. Their very self-image is at stake here (which is based on favourable comparison to conservatives).

So essentially thought is (inwardly) focusing until it exhausts itself or collapses in on itself?

There is the de-focusing on objects of attention indeed, but could you say there's another form of focus --- on the pure subject-feeling?

It's interesting the contrast between self-inquiry/retracting awareness from objects of attention and say, the "total attention" or observation that Krishnamurti spoke of, which emphasized that any attention that excludes/focuses/directs is the perpetuation of thought/effort. Can the two be reconciled?

Conditioning of self-improvement "The religions that we have do not help us to understand that which is the real because they are essentially based, not on the abandonment of the self, but on the improvement, the refinement of the self, which is the continuity of the self in different forms. It is only the very few who break away from society, not the outward trappings of society, but from all the implications of a society which is based on acquisitiveness, on envy, on comparison, competition. "This society conditions the mind to a particular pattern of thought, the pattern of self-improvement, self-adjustment, self-sacrifice, and only those who are capable of breaking away from all conditioning can discover that which is not measurable by the mind. "So, everywhere society is conditioning the individual, and this conditioning takes the form of self-improvement, which is really the perpetuation of the 'me', the ego, in different forms. Self-improvement may be gross or it may be very, very refined when it becomes the practice of virtue, goodness, the so-called love of one's neighbor, but essentially it is the continuance of the 'me', which is a product of the conditioning influences of society. "All your endeavor has gone into becoming something, either here, if you can make it, or if not, in another world; but it is the same urge, the same drive to maintain and continue the self." -Krishnamurti

Indeed. Thinking's inherent nature is to project the past/future --- it can do so either through fear or desire, as both fear/desire depend upon recalling the past or projecting the past onto the future. So the mind loves both! Mind escapes/resists (fear) or mind seeks (desire), but in either case mind gets to self-perpetuate.

Rational mind is still mind. There is no rational mind apart from mind. Rational mind may understand the value of being in the moment and the issues with dwelling on the past/future, but only as concept/memory/experience/knowledge, i.e. the past. Mind runs on the past and rational mind runs on the past, because they are one and the same.

That's the thing --- there actually is no do-er. Thought projects a thinker/doer.

Be As You Are (edited by David Godman) might be the best book I've seen that breaks down self-inquiry in a detailed and understandable way.

Does a thinker experience thoughts, or does thought experience a thinker? Does an "I" have fear, or does fear conjure an "I"? Are fear and that-which-fears two different and separate things? Or one and the same thing-activity?

What's the point of life? What's the secret to happiness? What's the way to enlightenment? Different manifestations of ego-thought seeking knowledge-authority; thought depending upon further thought -- to sustain itself. Questions perpetuating the questioner; knowledge perpetuating the knower.

The mind's trick is the "my"/"me". To sense that there's a "me" apart from mind, on which the mind is playing tricks, is mind's trickery.

Indeed. Need for knowledge being desire for knowledge, and desire (knowledge) being an operation/cloak/veil of fear. "Fear" = thought escaping (itself). "Desire"/knowledge = thought seeking (itself). Seeking and escaping in thought being one and the same identification-attachment process. Thought seeking security in its own movement --- a self-feeding loop.

Thinking creates the sense of an "I" that is apart from anxiety --- a separate "thinker" or locus of awareness that is subject to anxious thoughts. Most of the advice given may only validate/reinforce this illusory division between a thinker and its thoughts.

All true -- even then, Mike Tyson could have some serious issues trying to work a punch in against an MMA guy going for an ankle pick, let's say. To go from uppercutting a guy standing up to uppercutting a guy who's coming in for an ankle pick would be unusual for Tyson to counter.

^ this is a romantic notion, but in hard reality, a man who's done boxing for 30 years but has no grappling or ground game would likely get taken down by a half-decent wrestler and pounded/submitted. The boxer is gonna have zero takedown defense and will be helpless on the ground. I believe 7 of the 8 men's ufc division champs come from a wrestling background -- Usman, Jon Jones, Khabib, Cormier, Whittaker, Cejudo, and Dillashaw. There's a reason for that. If a guy can take you to the ground and control you at will, you're relying on a puncher's chance of ending the fight before that happens --- except if you're a boxer, you're not used to throwing punches at a wrestler who's coming at you waist high for a single/double leg shoot; orthodox boxing technique will have limited application. Daniel Cormier would tackle a prime Mike Tyson to the ground and beat him to a pulp or choke him out.

It's tricky. Lying down can make you sleepy, but sitting formally can strengthen/reinforce the sense of a "meditator" or "I," as you exert the will/effort/intent to maintain the correct posture. "Doing nothing" becomes doing something.

Btw, anything I say about ego was/is also true of “my” ego. I see this group identification action take place quite mechanically within myself.

Did I insult you? That was not my intent. I just see how potentially enticing these stages-classes are for ego to attach to/identify with.

What spiral stage do I belong to? What seeker class do I belong to? Ego indeed loves its conceptual systems, categories-distinctions, and group identifications.

Beautifully said.

Indeed. It's like someone talking about what life is like outside of prison, and when you actually get into discussion as to the nature of prison and prison life, they give a lot of confused and conflicting answers, and start getting antagonistic toward you for even talking about it. Your learning-understanding of what prison is seems to threaten their cultivated ideas about being free from it.