TSK Unit Three - Conducting Time and Knowledge

Dale Chihuly

TSK Online Program 2008-2009
Unit Three:

Theme:  Conducting Time and Knowledge
March 30-May29, 2009

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"A thought arises and then is gone. But its passing leaves a residue like the scent left by a wild animal to mark its territory. Like ripples in oil, like smoke in air, the residue expands, but it does not dissipate.

Although the residue remains cloudlike and insub­stantial, its expansion brings a shift in focal setting. The available ‘field' of awareness has been occupied, and now matters unfold differently. Strong and forceful, the cloud generates patterns of emotional reactions; thick and dark, it reduces the capacity for clear awareness. Whatever is sharp, dynamic, or precise gives way.

The next arising bears the mark of this possession. It appears like a distant sound dimly heard, or like a feeble radio signal, more static than communication. Perception is there, but it is not subject to clear inter­pretation

Structured as the echo of a thought, the coming appearance is the secondary translation of its own aris­ing. Indeed, even the translation is halting. The words come too slowly for meaning to be clear, and it is hard even to pronounce them. The mind grows numb; the numbness collects and builds.

At length the next thought has arrived. Emerging from the miasma generated by earlier residues, nothing in its genesis has prepared for greater clarity or aware­ness. The seed of bad stock, how can it produce good fruit? The echo echoes, becoming muffled. Echo of echo, child of child: Features are duplicated and trans­mitted forward. The string of sameness has formed: Each bead strings itself along, preserving the whole.

If we wish to conduct differently, knowledge must inspire knowledge. We can begin with mind, body, and awareness, our constant companions, conducting knowledge toward their operation. How do body, mind, and awareness contact one another? Who is the follower and who the leader, and how are transitions possible? How are they distributed to give order, to take form, to perceive, to make decisions, to act? Are these structures the same for everyone?

It is not enough to ask clever questions or get satisfy­ing answers. Do we understand what we are doing? Do we know what we are talking about? Do we know how to question? Can we learn by expanding questioning?

In the happening of knowledge in time, the request to know yields the insight that nothing remains exempt from knowledge--not the tracings of sameness, not the echoes of the past, not even not-knowing or non-exis­tence.  We discover this for ourselves when we engage fully the temporal transmission of not-knowingness.

Inquiry born of dedication and sharpened through discipline can go deeper than our present way of know­ing. It can be intrinsically satisfying, because it leads to full comprehension. Since it reaches no end, limits do not limit. The knowledge it invites can be comprehen­sive--truly all-knowing.

In the intimacy of this comprehensive knowledge, substance returns to light and space. Operations of knowledge inhabit space, allowing its openness to shine through. Conducting this intimacy nature, we can open the root of awareness. As awareness goes to light, we discover the nature of the primacy of knowledge, and recognize for ourselves: Knowledge can know."  pp. 258-260,