--- In [email protected], "Alex Stanley" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > You've had witnessing 24/7 for the past several years? > > I think "taste of witnessing" implies that it was neither 27/7 nor > for years. You seem fixated on witnessing as if it's some sort of > absolute benchmark of awakening. However, if you listen to what > awakened people have to say, you'll find that witnessing is not at > all the benchmark that the TMO makes it out to be.
I'm wondering whether there might be a better model for witnessing than a simple binary ON/OFF switch. How about more of a rheostat control? You move the slider on the light switch to its first position and the light clicks on. But you can control how *brightly* the light is on by moving the slider further up the scale. Is it possible that there are varying "degrees" of witnessing, seperate-but-equal levels of appreciation of the same phenomenon? >From one point of view, I have never stopped witnessing since it first appeared one day in Fiuggi, on my TTC. Some part of me has never "gone back" to the pre-realization "me," no matter how dark or light the path has gotten since then. >From another, there have certainly been times when this witnessing, given the intensity of the events of the present, shrank to an almost imperceptible level. And there have been an equal number of times when this witnessing *expanded*, or extended its boundaries, or revealed new levels of itself, so as to almost diminish my first experience of witnessing in Fiuggi to an almost imperceptible level. Doesn't it make more sense to view witnessing as a continuum rather than as the achievement of a goal? In one school of Judo, they have a really cool idea of what a "black belt" is and what it means. To most of us, "having attained a black belt" is looked upon as an awesome thing, a pinnacle attained by few, a certicate of mastery. This particular school of Judo felt that attaining a 1st degree black belt was a good start. It *was* in a sense an achievement -- getting a black belt meant that you had officially attained the rank of beginner. You were now privy to the secret that there is Much To Be Learned before one gets to 10th degree black belt. Anyway, I was thinking that maybe witnessing is a lot like this. You get "tastes" of witnessing early on, long before you even realize that you're getting them, and then one day all heck breaks loose and you get a taste of 24/7 witnessing. And when that sticks around for a while, that's like getting a 1st degree black belt. At this point there may still be Much To Be Learned. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
