Sanatan Dharma - Dhee
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:55 am
Cheltenham group meeting report - 26/01/2012
The meeting started with a discussion of last week's exercise, and sharing experiences. An account can be seen here posted as a reply to last week's meeting report on Shaucha.
This week's topic was Dhee - use of the intellect to find out causes of things and use them as necessity may arise.
Can the scientific method really be applied to work on oneself? Obviously, it can’t be applied directly, but there seemed to be parallels. Perhaps it is another example of the subtle world being reflected in the material world – ‘as above, so below’?
There were differing views on whether understanding the causes of negative characteristics in oneself would really dissolve them. One person believed that it would not help – you can’t trace back all the causes anyway, because some characteristics are just things that you are born with. The only way is to change one’s attitude. Another person disagreed. She felt that it was not possible to permanently change one’s attitude. Attitudes are governed by the ‘I’ that is present – different ‘I’s have different and contradictory attitudes. Self-observation and understanding the causes are what seems to work for her. She had come to see that negative characteristics were simply habitual ways of behaving that had become established at an early age and then occurred throughout her life. James Austin’s explanation about pre-attention helped her to see that these habits had established subconscious pathways that are activated before the conscious mind has a chance to intervene. So having understood this, she realised that the remedy is just to try to maintain impartial self-observation as much as possible, and this does indeed seem to reduce, and perhaps will eventually eliminate, the ways of behaving that are ‘not useful to the Atman’. The first person commented that everything that happens is fine just as it is – so there is a paradox here.
There was much interest in the idea that “the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing”. The group particularly liked the quotation from Thich Nhat Hanh about everything being contained in a sheet of paper. One person remarked that she had enormous numbers of pieces of paper on her desk at home representing a rather large amount of work she had to do. She would now be able to see it differently – sunshine in every sheet.
A question was raised: are the ‘holes in the net’ the natural Samadhi that arises between desires? One person was worried about this week’s exercise, as he felt that some desires just don’t go – particularly the ones that don’t get fulfilled. We will have to wait until next week to find out ...
The meeting started with a discussion of last week's exercise, and sharing experiences. An account can be seen here posted as a reply to last week's meeting report on Shaucha.
This week's topic was Dhee - use of the intellect to find out causes of things and use them as necessity may arise.
Can the scientific method really be applied to work on oneself? Obviously, it can’t be applied directly, but there seemed to be parallels. Perhaps it is another example of the subtle world being reflected in the material world – ‘as above, so below’?
There were differing views on whether understanding the causes of negative characteristics in oneself would really dissolve them. One person believed that it would not help – you can’t trace back all the causes anyway, because some characteristics are just things that you are born with. The only way is to change one’s attitude. Another person disagreed. She felt that it was not possible to permanently change one’s attitude. Attitudes are governed by the ‘I’ that is present – different ‘I’s have different and contradictory attitudes. Self-observation and understanding the causes are what seems to work for her. She had come to see that negative characteristics were simply habitual ways of behaving that had become established at an early age and then occurred throughout her life. James Austin’s explanation about pre-attention helped her to see that these habits had established subconscious pathways that are activated before the conscious mind has a chance to intervene. So having understood this, she realised that the remedy is just to try to maintain impartial self-observation as much as possible, and this does indeed seem to reduce, and perhaps will eventually eliminate, the ways of behaving that are ‘not useful to the Atman’. The first person commented that everything that happens is fine just as it is – so there is a paradox here.
There was much interest in the idea that “the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing”. The group particularly liked the quotation from Thich Nhat Hanh about everything being contained in a sheet of paper. One person remarked that she had enormous numbers of pieces of paper on her desk at home representing a rather large amount of work she had to do. She would now be able to see it differently – sunshine in every sheet.
A question was raised: are the ‘holes in the net’ the natural Samadhi that arises between desires? One person was worried about this week’s exercise, as he felt that some desires just don’t go – particularly the ones that don’t get fulfilled. We will have to wait until next week to find out ...