UnbornTao

Hey, leave God alone! It seems to me that experience always happens now, so this relates to what you said regarding experience being outside of time. What now is may not be a point in time. So, we could say that experience already is outside of time. What is it?

That sounds incredibly abstract. How do you see experience?

How you approach something determines the range of outcomes you can achieve. Who are you being? How are you relating to the situation? Instead of seeing the event as a fixed reality, consider how your relationship to what’s occurring shapes the event in the first place.

Start with who you are.

One could say that taking a position is a "doing", as in thinking a certain way and placing attention on this or that. But I get your point.

That’s more consistent with the original definition of "to handle skillfully." Every thought you have is a manipulation. Emotions, for example, are self-manipulations--they are internally generated activities meant to produce an effect (in this case, motivating you to act in alignment with your own agenda). I wouldn't include being in that, but perhaps "selfing", existing as a person.

@Aaron p So what did you write?

Already use "--" often.

@Natasha Tori Maru Sounds good, thank you.

Perhaps, but also be open that it might not be entirely how you think it is.

@Sucuk Ekmek @Anton RogachevskiLet's keep going in that direction--toward deeper presence--as it seems appropriate. Insight is the goal.

"You're a good man, Arthur Morgan."

Regardless of all that, actually observe and notice. You are being intellectual. This kind of looking is experiential. For example, whether feeling like it or not, there's a reason behind our every action. The first step is to acknowledge your experience as it is, not as you think it is. So be as honest with yourself about that as you can.

@Natasha Tori Maru What if manipulation is more fundamental? Originally, it meant to handle skillfully. So, as you implied, the work of a teacher (steering people in the direction of learning and growth), for example, could be considered a form of manipulation. Yet with that definition, it doesn’t carry a negative connotation--it might even be beneficial to the student. It could be framed as generating an effect on another or on something, such as inspiring someone or moving a chair in order to sit on it. The kind of manipulation that’s typically seen as bad is the social, sneaky kind--deceptive and selfish in nature. Sorry, just a half-baked consideration.

The first sentence could be said of everything. Yet we can imagine, for example, that when the body dies, perception for that entity ends--so in that sense, it could be said to be limited. We “know” this as fact. We already make these distinctions; otherwise, we’d find no use for different terms. This means that each thing exists as that thing--not as everything else. A word represents a distinct experience. You don’t call your feet your hands, and yet this act doesn’t imply that they are separate. You seem to think that something being distinct implies that it’s separate (i.e., awareness isn’t perception). Hence my point above. I think you might be wrong here: what is not perception defines it just as much as what it is. That's what creates the distinctiveness in the first place. You can say what it is--or define it--even though that assertion isn’t itself coming from perception nor is it something perceived. Therefore, you establish the distinction “perception" while being outside of it, so to speak. Okay, we’re bringing a lot to the table now: perception, difference, awareness, language, experience. I’m overwhelmed.

@Aaron p Can't see your pictures.

@Xonas Pitfall Take a look at a simple object. You can begin to see things that are applied to it--its name, what it is used for, etc. Without this activity, what is a direct experience of what's there? What is there? Is your perception of it the same as what is there?

Okay, that sounds reasonable. Will take some time to look into it. In the meantime, you could share what you have in mind. --- What is your experience of that? For example, unless it is done as a mere intellectual exercise, it is likely that we live within a solid world and experience, that is, our current experience is in fact "we are here, perceiving objects out there."

What, in our encounter with something, isn't a conceptual or mental activity of ours? For example, when you speak of 'experience', we can distinguish between activities like interpretation, sense-making, and perhaps others. These wouldn't qualify as "direct experience." Say you dislike seafood--so whenever you think about or encounter any kind of seafood, your dislike, your emotional disposition, tends to arise as a single, vague experience, that is, we fail to make a distinction between our relationship with it and our activities and what could be said to be there for itself. What's actually there/here? And these distinctions have to be made experientially, not just intellectually, which makes it all the more challenging.

We really are starting to contemplate everything. Let's keep the focus on experience.

This is a story. The question is: What is experience? For example, in your experience right now, can you see that you encounter things? You see an object. And within this experience, you can, as if, subtract its name, value, use, which are activities done by you, and so might be called conceptual and are different in nature from a direct experience of the object itself.

I didn't include someone who perceives, by the way, but the act of perceiving. That relates to self which is not the topic at hand. "Perceives what?" Good question. In our experience we perceive things, so that's hard to deny. Whatever the senses provide is perceived -- what that is, I don't know. Seem to be more primal or primary than sensation. For example, sensing your body might be slightly different than perceiving it. That's the dilemma. We're asking what experience is, and from that, whether it precedes perception. We could question what the experience of Helen Keller would be like, who lost her sight and her hearing. That might point us in the right direction regarding experience. Perhaps that's the case, and we can have insight into its nature. Besides that, this is a tricky subject -- experience, perception, concept. Again, the point with this thread is mostly to promote contemplation. We could start by refining "perception", which is a mere sensory encounter through the senses. We need to work out this distinction in our experience. By taking a simple object and setting aside all our knowledge about it, we might have a more present and unvarnished encounter with it -- that might be called "perceiving the object."

Can you make a dent in the idea that something external - like achieving a significant goal, having circumstances go your way, or getting what you want - must happen in order to cause or justify happiness?

Manipulation deserves its own thread.

Nice, congratulations 👏