Like, in the kensho post it was clear that you were afraid of falling into the “I am looking higher on my screen” trap, so it seemed like you had some kind of notion of what that would non-metaphorically look like, which is what I was trying to get at.
Oh! Oh jeez. That makes a lot of sense. I can give tons of examples of that! That’s a very different thing in my mind.
Heh, although, I should warn that giving examples of this is prone to starting arguments. Just tag all of this as “Val’s interpretations of the world” and we’re good. :-)
So with that, here’s a few:
For a few months before my kenshō, ialdabaoth kept telling me that I had a social strategy that was being really annoying to him, something something sexual competition something something. I kept listening to what he was saying and thinking carefully about it, and I tried to do focusing on it, but it felt weird and I kept thinking that he was probably wrong (but as a general policy I kept in mind that I might just be deluded). This contrasts with right after the kenshō: one of the first things I Looked at was my sexual strategy system. If I remember right, I laughed and said something like, “Oh, that poor Valentine creature! It’s like a leg that twitches until it fucks!” I ended up apologizing to ialdabaoth because I could clearly See what he was talking about now. We’ve been great on that dimension ever since. But yeah, I think it’d be fair to say he was trying to get me to Look and I was doing something that seemed perfectly sensible to me in response to that, but it sure wasn’t Looking.
Sometimes I try to convey something one could loosely tag as “sovereignty” but is really about Seeing one’s own existence and what that implies. A downstream effect of it is that there’s now a meaningful difference in my mind between a “decision” that’s about navigating the social web, versus a dedication that will in fact not even flinch in the face of temptation. I totally used to conflate those two, and I now think that most folk around me do too most of the time. I end up saying “No, really, choose. It’s okay.” And what I get back is… someone trying to sound confident or assertive as they strongly say one option, but it’s really obvious that they haven’t done anything different internally and are going to keep doubting themselves.
There’s a tendency in authentic relating practices, or in Circling, where folk will make eye contact and often end up holding it for long periods of time. Many, many times, I’ve seen people then try to don a “loving look”. Sometimes this is sincere, but sometimes it’s something that folk have picked up from the culture as “what ya do, ya know?” I and others who know how to See the relevant thing here sometimes try to point out to such folk that e.g. the point is to attend to their experience rather than to have an effect on the other person. Sometimes they adjust in a seemingly useful way… and sometimes they just switch the strategy they’re using to come across well, seeming to think that they’re following the instruction.
Hopefully that clarifies rather than confuses. It’s just that… in my mind, things you’re likely to see me doing that you’d mistake for Looking is a really different category from things that people are likely to mistake for Looking in themselves.
Oh! Oh jeez. That makes a lot of sense. I can give tons of examples of that! That’s a very different thing in my mind.
Heh, although, I should warn that giving examples of this is prone to starting arguments. Just tag all of this as “Val’s interpretations of the world” and we’re good. :-)
So with that, here’s a few:
For a few months before my kenshō, ialdabaoth kept telling me that I had a social strategy that was being really annoying to him, something something sexual competition something something. I kept listening to what he was saying and thinking carefully about it, and I tried to do focusing on it, but it felt weird and I kept thinking that he was probably wrong (but as a general policy I kept in mind that I might just be deluded). This contrasts with right after the kenshō: one of the first things I Looked at was my sexual strategy system. If I remember right, I laughed and said something like, “Oh, that poor Valentine creature! It’s like a leg that twitches until it fucks!” I ended up apologizing to ialdabaoth because I could clearly See what he was talking about now. We’ve been great on that dimension ever since. But yeah, I think it’d be fair to say he was trying to get me to Look and I was doing something that seemed perfectly sensible to me in response to that, but it sure wasn’t Looking.
Sometimes I try to convey something one could loosely tag as “sovereignty” but is really about Seeing one’s own existence and what that implies. A downstream effect of it is that there’s now a meaningful difference in my mind between a “decision” that’s about navigating the social web, versus a dedication that will in fact not even flinch in the face of temptation. I totally used to conflate those two, and I now think that most folk around me do too most of the time. I end up saying “No, really, choose. It’s okay.” And what I get back is… someone trying to sound confident or assertive as they strongly say one option, but it’s really obvious that they haven’t done anything different internally and are going to keep doubting themselves.
There’s a tendency in authentic relating practices, or in Circling, where folk will make eye contact and often end up holding it for long periods of time. Many, many times, I’ve seen people then try to don a “loving look”. Sometimes this is sincere, but sometimes it’s something that folk have picked up from the culture as “what ya do, ya know?” I and others who know how to See the relevant thing here sometimes try to point out to such folk that e.g. the point is to attend to their experience rather than to have an effect on the other person. Sometimes they adjust in a seemingly useful way… and sometimes they just switch the strategy they’re using to come across well, seeming to think that they’re following the instruction.
Hopefully that clarifies rather than confuses. It’s just that… in my mind, things you’re likely to see me doing that you’d mistake for Looking is a really different category from things that people are likely to mistake for Looking in themselves.