The Power Of Words, And Ceasing Thought

When we put something into words, we are setting in motion a set of implications. We're giving subjective value and feeling, tinged with a multitude of subtle, personal nuances, to the words. Our relation to the words we use and come across form underlying world-views, which dictate how we perceive/sense the world and act in it. Confrontation with words and the objects and concepts they represent evoke the various associations surrounding those words, according to these previously formed interpretations, and our personal sense of reality is formed.

Keep this in mind when thinking of the spiritual practice of ceasing thought. Thought in general is speaking words in the mind. Every registration of words reinforces, and further solidifies, feelings and subjective tinges associated with the words, as well as the world-view and self-view implied. Through ceasing to think words, your general need to register separate objects fades as well. This is also some of the reasoning for the spiritual states/practices of choicelessness and lack of preferences.

See the essence behind the ideas of non-thought, non registration of separate objects, and choicelessness. It seems to be just this and its implications that the spiritual masters are trying to get us to see. The supreme state in which no-thingness and the Infinite are united is just that state which is found to naturally exist when all of the mind's differentiation processes cease. As the Heart Sutra says, 'emptiness is form, form is emptiness.' When you don't see form as form or emptiness as emptiness, what is there? What is there when you don't see, or even have within your mind the possibility of, any polarity, or separate category of existence? The answer to this question is what spirituality aims at. "The Tao that can be told, is not the eternal Tao."

a reply to: TheJourney
I was just listening to this talk by Peter Brown, in which he speaks all about 'interpretive frameworks'.
If you click the link it will take you to Peter Browns website where there are many, many talks - click on the one dated 2014 04 12mp3 (about half way down the middle column).
theopendoorway.org...
If you have not come across Peter Brown before you might find what he speaks about very interesting considering this thread and the last one you wrote.
Here is the page from Peters website headed 'Words/Ideas'.

We are word and idea junkies; we are addicted to semantic systems.

This means that we use words/ideas with an unchallenged confidence that they bear a somewhat accurate correspondence to the actual state of things, Reality.

Within a limited context this may be somewhat true. We can record information, instructions, recipes, etc. in words, and another human will be able to use those words to approximate the "real-world" conditions we intended to refer to. This semantic functionality has apparently given our species a large evolutionary advantage.

BUT... for "spirituality", inquiry into Reality, into our true condition, words/ideas are worse than useless. They are potentially our biggest impediment.

This is because we may tend to assume that the objects/actions which words refer to, ACTUALLY EXIST IN THE WAY THE WORDS THAT REFER TO THEM SEEM TO DEFINE THEM. That is, we may tend to view our experience as being actually made up of the objects and actions that the words we are using to describe it imply.

This is a fundamental mistake, due to the fact that ALL experience is in actuality an infinite, constantly changing, non-repeating, indefinable (in any final way), unpatterned field of miraculously appearing Radiantly Present "energies" existing nowhere else than IN experience, perceived by unknowable, miraculously appearing "consciousness". But our use of words implies that objects and actions may actually exist in the way we refer to them, as knowable, definable objectively existing "beings", "things" and "situations".

This is actually NOT the case.

theopendoorway.org...
Keep up the good work.

a reply to: TheJourney
I watched a tv documentary which I thought was called 'The Big Silence', I looked for it on youtube but could not find it. In the program there was various people from different walks of life who went to a monastery where there was no speaking allowed (silent retreat) - by the end of the week (I think it was a week) some of them were experiencing a completely new world - there had been a shift in perception.
Naming and framing makes believe there are things when really there is only the present experience.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Hes trying to define the spiritual in the same way one would describes a refrigerator. That words to be useful must come from a known physical position as it were. That the usefulness of words and reality of their meaning, depends on both the speaker and the receiver.

The Toa Tae Ching is a good bbook.Love the way it was written.Supposedly Confuciouses teacher wrote it I think and in one sitting.It's a short book and can prob find it online for free def recommend it

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: TheJourney
I was just listening to this talk by Peter Brown, in which he speaks all about 'interpretive frameworks'.
If you click the link it will take you to Peter Browns website where there are many, many talks - click on the one dated 2014 04 12mp3 (about half way down the middle column).
theopendoorway.org...
If you have not come across Peter Brown before you might find what he speaks about very interesting considering this thread and the last one you wrote.
Here is the page from Peters website headed 'Words/Ideas'.

We are word and idea junkies; we are addicted to semantic systems.

This means that we use words/ideas with an unchallenged confidence that they bear a somewhat accurate correspondence to the actual state of things, Reality.

Within a limited context this may be somewhat true. We can record information, instructions, recipes, etc. in words, and another human will be able to use those words to approximate the "real-world" conditions we intended to refer to. This semantic functionality has apparently given our species a large evolutionary advantage.

BUT... for "spirituality", inquiry into Reality, into our true condition, words/ideas are worse than useless. They are potentially our biggest impediment.

This is because we may tend to assume that the objects/actions which words refer to, ACTUALLY EXIST IN THE WAY THE WORDS THAT REFER TO THEM SEEM TO DEFINE THEM. That is, we may tend to view our experience as being actually made up of the objects and actions that the words we are using to describe it imply.

This is a fundamental mistake, due to the fact that ALL experience is in actuality an infinite, constantly changing, non-repeating, indefinable (in any final way), unpatterned field of miraculously appearing Radiantly Present "energies" existing nowhere else than IN experience, perceived by unknowable, miraculously appearing "consciousness". But our use of words implies that objects and actions may actually exist in the way we refer to them, as knowable, definable objectively existing "beings", "things" and "situations".

This is actually NOT the case.

theopendoorway.org...
Keep up the good work.

I do not believe I had heard of him. The quote you posted sounds good, will look into him more, thanks.

And for the movie you watched called 'the big silence,' I definitely believe that could throw you into higher states of consciousness. I guess for those of us who live regular day to day life, the trick is to keep the silence in your mind, which Is of course more difficult when your environment is not silent.

originally posted by: Flowfessional
The Toa Tae Ching is a good bbook.Love the way it was written.Supposedly Confuciouses teacher wrote it I think and in one sitting.It's a short book and can prob find it online for free def recommend it

The Tao Te Ching is definitely a great text. Although it was supposed to have been written by Lao Tzu, who was not Confucius' teacher. In fact, there is a legend that Lao Tzu and Confucius one time met. Keep in mind, Confucius is all about acting the right way, doing the right thing, really a common sense kind of guy to the average person. This is not Lao Tzu. Confucius asked him things like what the right way to act was. Lao Tzu said, "I've heard enough of this nonsense about 'right' and 'wrong,' stop talking like a fool." Confucius left very shaken, and told his disciples 'Beware of this Lao Tzu. He is a very dangerous man.'

You may be right about him writing it in one sitting, though. The legend is that, as he was getting old, he was just fed up with living in society. So, he began journeying away to live away from society, in the forest or a cave or something like that. He was eventually stopped by some sort of law enforcement. They were aware of him and his wisdom. They asked what he was doing, and he told them. They said, 'But you haven't written anything down. You can't just leave the world without any instructions on your wisdom.' He said he was not interested in writing, or words at all. So, they locked him up in a prison cell, and told him he could leave when he wrote a book. And it is there he wrote the Tao Te Ching. Which gives even more irony and humor to the opening line of the text, which I quote in the OP. "The Tao that can be spoken, is not the eternal Tao." Like, okay I'll write the book. But none of the words I'm using will actually be the Tao.

originally posted by: TheJourney
"The Tao that can be spoken, is not the eternal Tao." Like, okay I'll write the book. But none of the words I'm using will actually be the Tao.

I think that the Tao cannot be spoken because it is what there is without 'interpretive framing'. The words seem to capture a thing - thinking is 'thinging' Alan Watts once said.

Wow, just the other day I was pondering about this, how everything around us is just 'matter', and that it's our perception (which in itself is defined by language/words/memory/ideas/other people's influence) that gives a sort of meaning to matter, and why not, even to our own thoughts.

It reminds me of some episodes that I used to have as a child that came out of the blue, (and still do, very rarely, but not as intense) of total separation from the perceived outside world.
It felt like my whole perception was suddenly taken out of it's context, looking at things through some sort telescope, not analysing, not giving any meaning to what was happening around me or the objects I was looking at, or even at what was being spoken.
Freaky but cool experiences. Maybe a glimpse of existence as it really is? Meaningless? Hmmm

a reply to: Itisnowagain

What do you call the said/framed/frame work/thinging, in Taoism?

What you're describing sounds eerily similar to Jesus.

Tao or Dao is a Chinese concept signifying 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle', or as a verb, 'speak'.

link

John 14:6 (KJV)
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

And John calling Jesus the Word.



So my following question is then this: If the framework or thinging is not the image of the purpose/principle, which must be within the Spirit(the purpose/principle being the true form/tao within the spirit), what is it the image of then? Do you think that principles are not forms of/within the Spirit?

a reply to: Bleeeeep
The Tao is the way, the truth and the life.
Yes, I would say that the word 'Christ' has the same meaning as the word 'Tao' - both words point to the same thing. However, 'that' which the words point to is not a thing - it is no thing but is also everything.

There are no things really - there is only ever what is actually happening.
There is no 'path' or 'route' to the only time and place there is - here and now and you are one and that one constantly appears different.


The image which is appearing (the light show) has no meaning - yet naming seems (seams) to make particular things.

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu...
I am not sure if I have answered your questions but this is what arose in response.

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
a reply to: Itisnowagain

John 14:6 (KJV)
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

And John calling Jesus the Word.

The way I read this is that 'Jesus/Christ' is the concept which is of God - the immaculate conception. The 'immaculate conception' arises prior to any word - it is what is seen, heard, smelt, felt - pure sensing. As a very young child one would not have words to separate the whole into fragments/particulars (become as children to enter the kingdom).
Even words are found to be sensed.

Through the senses one can come to the Father (the source) - Jesus was said to have made the blind see and the deaf hear.
So if one does not get lost in the stories that the words are speaking and actually sees and hears what is, one will come to know what is real (the source).

When existence is found to be sensational it is because it has become less mental. It is the wording (speech minding) which tells stories of other times outside of the presence (of God) which can lead one astray.

Words are not the problem really though - words will always arise but it is buying into the stories they tell without question. One must realize that words come and go in that which never comes or goes.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

originally posted by: Bleeeeep
a reply to: Itisnowagain

John 14:6 (KJV)
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

And John calling Jesus the Word.

The way I read this is that 'Jesus/Christ' is the concept which is of God - the immaculate conception. The 'immaculate conception' arises prior to any word - it is what is seen, heard, smelt, felt - pure sensing. As a very young child one would not have words to separate the whole into fragments/particulars (become as children to enter the kingdom).
Even words are found to be sensed.

Through the senses one can come to the Father (the source) - Jesus was said to have made the blind see and the deaf hear.
So if one does not get lost in the stories that the words are speaking and actually sees and hears what is, one will come to know what is real (the source).

When existence is found to be sensational it is because it has become less mental. It is the wording (speech minding) which tells stories of other times outside of the presence (of God) which can lead one astray.

Words are not the problem really though - words will always arise but it is buying into the stories they tell without question. One must realize that words come and go in that which never comes or goes.

Good post. I am someone who genuinely feels there is significant wisdom to be found in the New Testament. It's about recognizing the important sayings which inform the interpretation, and just understanding certain things which you can see the rest referring to. I definitely think your mind is in the right spot in interpreting this stuff.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

In my understanding of Christianity, the light show, that is, all sensations, are the body of God, who is Jesus, and Jesus' spirit, his purpose, principle, or will is to be Godly form, so as to lead souls/awarenesses to the awareness of God, who is Father.

The awareness of God (Father) is aware of God's Spirit (The Holy Ghost). Father (God's awareness) translates by seeing the principles/spiritual forms within God's Spirit/God's will into the words/forms we sense (the light show). Also, I wouldn't exactly call Father the source, I think if any of them, alone, is the source, it would be the Holy Ghost, but in actuality, all of them are the eternal source - Jesus/form was always there, Father/awareness was always there, and the Spirit/will was always there - this place would be impossible any other way.

After reading your replies to me, over and over, I now suspect that the Tao, in Taoism, is actually referring to not the body of God (Jesus/form), but the spirit of Jesus(the principle of form). (The spirit of Jesus is not to be confused with the Spirit of God.)

And just for the record, I was pleasantly surprised by your knowledge; and even though I think you miss/confuse some very important understandings, I still think you have a better understanding of reality than probably anyone else that I have ever spoken with.

And again, I was asking what the light show is called in Taoism. And, if the light show is not the image of the Tao, then what is the light show the image of?

thanks

It's important not to focus too much on ceasing thought. This is the main flaw of Buddhism though there are positives to that spiritual practice. Thought and consciousness can never cease, even in dreams we are conscious. Consciousness only ceases at death, which is a poor spiritual path if that is the goal. The quest to calm the mind is one thing but trying to cease all thoughts is futile, as the self is thinking even when it thinks to stop the thoughts.