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inquiry based practice
December 2009 
Painting and Transcendence of Pointings (continued)
Davidu
As a result of further practice and some TSK class work I've done some fine tuning to the way I've been observing time at different levels. I've returned to the activity of painting a watercolor to dive deeper into time to observe how the referential activity of back and forth 'pointings' between past objects (memories), and future imaginings of how my painting will develop, if 'I the self' (a consolidating tendency) in this moving present, take certain actions with color, water and brushstrokes on paper.
I've previously described the 'Painting as Practice -- Transcendence of Pointings' as when the self gets out of the way and 'dissolves' as process takes over. The dictionary indicates the use of the word 'dissolves' means the self would fade away gradually and disappear, but on closer investigation, and after my teacher, Jack Petranker's questioning: "...does the self perhaps go into hiding when it gets out of the way? Are there different levels of being aware of the flow of time?" I'm considering that the self may not just disappear, but may in a sense, 'get out of the way' as a dominating influence.
On a conventional level, the self as a 'tendency to consolidate' just seems to revert to a more subtle level, which does not subordinate objects and emphasize dominance of position or distance, even while knowing seems to continue to differentiate and refer, and that from a first level time perspective appears to simply 'hide'. It seems that from a second level time perspective the self operates, but in a non-dominating and more inclusive way, where linearity is not a groove that must be adhered to, and where the first level linear groove of past-present-future seems to open up. The point is that there does not have to be a complete transformation, or transcendence of pointings for the self to grow more inclusive (open) and thus, result in a more satisfying experience.
I'm reminded of the following quote:
'Lower time' amounts to an attempted taming and appropriation of Great Time for egoistic purposes. We have borrowed from Time all our energy and capacity for measuring, predicting, discovering, controlling, and communicating. These are all distorted versions of Great Time's intimacy with Great Space and its evocation of Space's vastness. But we have allowed ourselves such limited access to Time's dynamism that our little structures are continually blown away. Great Time exhibits something --thus showing the openness of Great Space which permits 'being' and 'happening' -- and then breaks it down to exhibit something further. This series (of what from one point of view are misfirings) is the only pattern we know. In fact, this pattern is what we are, so we 'go along with it' even if it can sometimes seem quite threatening.
It is not, however, a necessary condition, or even one that is ultimately true. But given our 'knowing', it is the only way 'lower time' can express more of the infinity that is 'here', since what we can perceive of it -- moments -- are small and 'cannot hold much at a time'.
If we did not take time quite so much for granted, and were less object-oriented, it might occur to us to try to control time itself according to our desired ends. TSK p. 137
Access: Public
Hi, brother D,
Thank you for continuing this series. I'm really enjoying it!
Can you say more about what you perceived that allowed you to see that the self might not be disappearing so much as hiding or getting out of the way? In other words, what did you perceive that led you to say, “Oh, the self is still here!” What is “the self” that is being identified?
I'm asking, in part, for further phenomenological description. But I'm also wondering about the theoretical or “translational” aspect of the process you engaged in.
Best wishes,
Bruce
Hi Brother B,
Thanks for the probe that helps to further inquire and clarify. I was trying to 'point' to the experience of self as 'object-organizer around itself' while structuring time into discrete moments at one level, which is my dominant way of beginning a painting. (organizing a memory or photo of a scene and imagining how it will lay out on paper, etc.)
An then, when a shift in perception or focus happens (as work on the painting progresses and involvement deepens), I open up to a broader sense of self, that is still aware of itself, which is not dominating or overlaying its preferred colors, values or form, but allowing what has already built up to define what shapes and colors come next in an integral way. I no longer want a specific desired end or look to the future for it in my painting. This lets the resulting painting draw together as a whole. Of course, I'm not saying I'm a great artist turning out great art either. :-) …just enjoying the process. Who's enjoying the process? Sometimes I don't know.
I wasn't saying the self can never disappear, for I have had experiences where the self-position is relinquished into the openness of what arises. But what is relinquished seems to be dominance, position and distance; where I'm no longer 'doing' the painting, but 'am painting'.
Below is a TSK quote of what 1st level self usually entails.
Best to you,
David
“…the self lives toward the future. Its actions ‘now' are governed by a concern for the future's ‘then'. Intent on what might be but is not yet, it shifts from mood to mood, reinterpreting the past, reassessing the present, responding more or less consciously to the rhythms of wanting. The self wants to become a certain way or attain a certain state. It wants to be happy, to be in possession of something, to be finished, or simply to endure. Cravings, wishes, and hopes induce a self-propelled acceleration that draws the self forward. The force of the self's desire unfolds as the momentum of linear time. [TSK p.149]
Hi Bruce,
I don't know that commenting further here will muddy the water, or over work the painting, as it were, but I thought maybe I would try to explain a little further what I was experiencing to perhaps better answer your question. Of course, when you look (inquire) with TSK it's never really the same, it's ever fresh and revealing, which is what I love about it.
I could describe the process of painting to further describe the process of the transcendence of the self. For example, the sky in the painting above has at least three types of blue – low on the horizon there's cerulean blue, higher in the sky there's ultramarine blue with some ultramarine violet, all with a touch of sepia mixed in. Once I'd roughly laid out the land, sea, and sky forms of the painting in light pencil, I laid down sky colors first. That dictated that the sand and grass (shades of raw sienna and sepia) would also contain those three blues in various shades. There are dozens of blues I could have used, but I wanted to integrate sky and land, and thus create an integrated 'atmosphere,' throughout the whole of the painting so that a kind of 'fresh blueness' pops. Minimizing and integrating the number of colors helps do this.
Of course, painting is a process and the lower level self as described above is very much in control of how and what appears on paper based on intent and desire of a future result that is imagined in the distance. But I was describing a point at which this controlling effort shifts away from intent, desire, position, and distance to engagement, and embodiment of what is happening.
In my previous response to you I used a TSK quote about the self and attributed it to ”1st level self”, which would imply there was a 2nd or 3rd level of self, and I really didn't mean to do that. I only meant to point to a lower level of self that the quote explains, which is a mode we are used to employing and relying on. It's a pretty clear explanation of an egoic purposeful mode of activity. On the other hand, when this mode relaxes, what is there? A knowing not defined by staking out a position, a knowing not owned by the one who knows. Could this be a self of a different order?
Best to you brother,
David
Hi, David,
Thank you for explaining your insights so clearly. I understand the shift you are describing – from a kind of intentionality, which bears its own temporal and spatial distance, to a more intimate engagement. The only artistic practice in which I have experienced this is music. Back in my band days, before I knew about TSK or Integral or any of this stuff, we called it “crossing the line.” I've also experienced it more recently while playing flute by myself, though for me it has been stronger when I've been forced (in a group) to tune in and respond to others musically. There is a kind of lively suspension in the “moment” of creativity, full of spontaneous energy and responsiveness. Like the “flow state” described by Csikszentmihalyi.
I was asking you these questions because I was curious about what you observed (or saw, upon analysis, later) that led you to agree that “going into hiding” was a better description than “disappearing” for the “place” of the self in this shift to second-level experience.
When you witness these sorts of shifts in the experience of “self” and “time” (this correlates with observations with many traditions that the two are intimately related), is there a way this impacts you outside of the artistic encounter? Does it translate to other aspects of your life?
Best wishes,
Balder
Hey Brother B,
I appreciate you staying with this until we get at what you were digging for. I think I have a better feel for what you're probing for. ”Hiding” seemed a word that deserved a closer look, (probably because my teacher used it), than my original use of the word ”dissolve”, because 'dissolve' would mean the self gradually fades away. There's an implication of permanency to it, and that isn't what I experience. The self, as a tendency to consolidate returns, it picks up memory as an object, founding a position in apposition to what is currently appearing creating distance, and starts it's typical operation through linear time structures all over again - a sort of 'hide and seek' positioning. There are the emotive structures of intent, the descriptive structures of language that refer to the past, and the deeper polar alternative decision points from which meaning is built. This seems to be the self's domain.
There are a couple of ways to look at the use of the word 'hide'. I saw it as a better word to use in the context of the process of painting a watercolor, but also for living, where the ”dominance” of a lower level self seemed paramount, and then shifts to a less dominating mode of relinquishing position - a relaxing of consolidating - only to return, but in a less dominating way.
What does it mean for the self to return in a less dominating way? Perhaps that it returns to a greater awareness in a more even way, with less urgency. I haven't found that there is a way to live without the self, even though there are periods when it disappears – goes away (into 'hiding'?). My first Blog entry below, points to some of those moments in my life that seem to transcend self.
I think the point is, and I hope you will correct me if I'm off on this, is that we are an awareness which includes a consolidating tendency (self), and we normally live in that consolidating activity. But by becoming aware of this activity, we gain a wider more encompassing perspective, which need not solely rely on the self's activities to live, for it is a narrow and myopic mode of living.
Best to you,
David
Hey Bro!
Thinking a little more about the 'hiding' of the self, maybe this is a better way to express it: perhaps the self can be experienced at different levels, and awareness of its activities may depend on how encompassing is our focus; the narrower the more myopic; the more open the more inclusive, even transcendent. Experiencing the transcendence of pointings while painting a watercolor seemed to me to include a little more than the “flow state” described by Csikszentmihalyi, unless his flow state also included being self-aware while transcending some self-activities. I found an interesting quote on such levels of the persona of the self, which tends to consolidate in certain ways in our experience, for the sake of illustration:
• First is the ‘objective self', subject to history and conditioning, to birth, life, and death. This is the aspect of self that gives self-identity its content: a personal history and a personality, a set of goals and purposes, a physical locatedness and an embodied nature. But this self-the self as object, with an identity and characteristics knowable by others-is part of the world ‘out there'. It lacks the unique capacity of the self to occupy the ‘here', which sets it apart from the rest of existence.
• Second is the self as ‘perceiver', active ‘here and now' in the present. Confined to the moment, this self lacks the power to shape, define, and organize experience.
• Third is the self as ‘interpreter'. This is the self as subject in a world of objects, defining, naming, and labeling: the self of descriptive knowledge, knowing on the basis of the past. But we have seen that interpretations lack the power to found themselves. A self reliant on them is in the end only another interpretation.
• Fourth is the self as ‘narrator', the self of intentional knowledge… The narrator gives meaning to events by directing them toward the future. The structure of this unfolding remains to be investigated.
• Fifth is the self as ‘owner' and ‘witness', validating experience and reality in validating its own identity: the self that underlies and guarantees the perceiver, interpreter, and narrator. This is the ‘core self' whose existence is the key to all temporal knowing.” LOK pp. 170-1
In light of those levels of self 'activity' it might be better to focus on specific activities that 'hide', or get out of the way, and thus it might be better to say the self is usually there performing at some level, even when it attempts to falsely impersonate the most fundamental witnessing. What are your thoughts?
Best,
David
Hi, David,
I want to think about this a bit and try to check it against my own experience, but one thing that raised a question mark for me – not necessarily a disagreement – with the use of the word “hide” is that it seems to give the self a constancy which is independent of time. But that may not be the case. If self is understood as a “tendency toward consolidation,” I just wonder what it means for such a tendency to “hide” instead of just be inactive. It really all depends on what we mean by “self,” doesn't it? And as Tarthang Tulku illustrates in LOK, there are many different levels and ways in which self-activity manifests… So, I agree … it may be better to talk about certain activities going into abeyance…
More later, bro!
Best wishes,
Balder
Hi, David,
I've been doubting whether my line of questioning is really very helpful. It seems a lot hinges on definitions – and, of course, from different perspectives, one or another description might be found to be more “accurate” or reflective of the experience. I appreciate your concern that “dissolves” sounds too permanent and doesn't match your experience of what happens; my concern was that “hiding” also carries connotations of permanency (of the self, instead of the absence of self) that also is not really accurate. Really, both ways of talking are still somewhat object-oriented and miss the subtlety of the timing-out of these enactive patterns of division and opening.
But I feel that concentrating on this is a bit too “picky” – and detracts from the beauty of the overall process you are describing by focusing too closely on a fine point.
Sorry if I took this blog a bit astray!
Best wishes,
Bruce
No apologies required my friend. It's all about inquiry, and there's no one more fun to inquire with than you, Bro! :-)