I guess we will start hearing from everybody about their explorations of the epoche, during the last two weeks?
[14:08]  Pema Pera: (and thanks a lot, Rachel, for posting all the questions!)
[14:08]  Rachel Esharham: You're welcome! It was fun rereading the transcripts!
[14:08]  Carlos Cornelius: Sure
[14:09]  Carlos Cornelius: I would actually like to talk about the explorations of epoche in terms of questioning
[14:09]  Carlos Cornelius: But I would like to hear what people have to say about this
[14:09]  Rachel Esharham: I found it very hard! Those pages are pretty well stuck together.
[14:10]  Lucien Robespear: I agree
[14:10]  Rachel Esharham: I think I only managed once or so to really conciously notice when I was making the assumption that something was real
[14:10]  Pema Pera: :)
[14:10]  Rachel Esharham: and that was when I was reaching out for a glass of water...
[14:10]  Carlos Cornelius: Good
[14:10]  Rachel Esharham: something about the touch helped me separate the pages.
[14:10]  Carlos Cornelius: Let's talk about why it is so hard
[14:10]  Carlos Cornelius: Touch?
[14:11]  Rachel Esharham: Touch the glass of water
[14:11]  Rachel Esharham: rather than looking at it.
[14:11]  Rachel Esharham: (touching!)
[14:11]  Carlos Cornelius: Yes, we highly visual creatures tend to visualize everything
[14:12]  Rachel Esharham: I didn't have too much trouble stopping questions. Maybe because I've dabbled in meditation before.
[14:13]  Carlos Cornelius: Yes, but i thinkg stopping questions is still a form of questioning
[14:14]  Lucien Robespear: how so?
[14:15]  Carlos Cornelius: it is still a way of not fully believing something
[14:15]  Carlos Cornelius: so a good question is, what could not fully believing be without questioning
[14:17]  Rachel Esharham: We would just accept that we didn't fully believe and be okay with it. (This sounds more psychological, though).
[14:17]  Zen Arado: doesn't it take some effort to make ourselves believe something?
[14:17]  Zen Arado: so don't make the effort?
[14:18]  Carlos Cornelius: for example, i can believe that what I am seeing is not real
[14:18]  Carlos Cornelius: this is actually the right thing to do when watching cartoons
[14:18]  Carlos Cornelius: but i cannot believe that what i am seeing is a bunch of hallucinations
[14:18]  Carlos Cornelius: there are practical consequences to that
[14:18]  Carlos Cornelius: like going to a hospital
[14:19]  Rachel Esharham: You mean taking that what other people consider to be real as a hallucination?
[14:19]  Carlos Cornelius: no, what you see as a hallucination
[14:19]  Carlos Cornelius: that would have consequences that a mere questioning would not have
[14:20]  Carlos Cornelius: a questioning like a 'bracketing'
[14:20]  Rachel Esharham: So, you run into a wall because you thought it's a hallucination?
[14:20]  Carlos Cornelius: but maybe i should let other people say what they think about this
[14:21]  Pema Pera: Rachel and Carlos, if we can return to the first epoche report: as for it being hard, Rachel: what was hard, the idea of how to separate the pages, or the attempt to actually do so?
[14:22]  Rachel Esharham: Both, Pema. It was hard to remember to do it. But when I remembered to do it, I could see an item but I did not notice whether I made the assumption
[14:22]  Rachel Esharham: that the item was real or not.
[14:22]  Rachel Esharham: I basically thought "I am making the assumption that it's real" or something like that
[14:22]  Pema Pera: that's an important first step!
[14:22]  Rachel Esharham: but I never actually noticed when that assumption happned (except when I was touching the glass of water...
[14:22]  Pema Pera: what was different when you touched the glass?
[14:23]  Rachel Esharham: ...which was somewhat like seeing; I noticed that I was making the assumption that it was real just before I lifted it up...
[14:23]  Rachel Esharham: ...to take a sip of water).
[14:23]  Pema Pera: :-)
[14:23]  Yo Haiku is Online
[14:23]  Wol Euler smiles in recognition.
[14:23]  Pema Pera: perhaps it would be good to add a bit of explanation to the exercise:
[14:23]  Rachel Esharham: So, something about using another sense must've helped me to separate those pages.
[14:24]  Pema Pera: we don't have to immediately "succeed" in separating "seeing an object" and "realizing that we believe it is real"
[14:24]  Pema Pera: rather
[14:24]  Pema Pera: we can just spend many short times a day
[14:24]  Pema Pera: looking around and askings ourselves "is this a dream?"
[14:24]  Pema Pera: a very concrete and innocent questions
[14:24]  Carlos Cornelius: that's my point about hallucination
[14:25]  Pema Pera: nothing deeply philosophical, let alone "existential doubt"
[14:25]  Carlos Cornelius: i don't think it is innocent
[14:25]  Vendy Walpole: if we bump into the wall, the pain is dream then too?
[14:25]  Carlos Cornelius: it may be very interesting, but not innocent
[14:25]  Pema Pera: and little by little you get better at it
[14:25]  Pema Pera: how so Carlos?
[14:25]  Yo Haiku: my big apologies--had to bring my sick son to sleep
[14:26]  Pema Pera: welcome, Yo!!
[14:26]  Carlos Cornelius: because if i find that i am hallucinating i would not think i am dreaming
[14:26]  Pema Pera: perhaps bringing in hallucinating is going one step too far
[14:27]  Pema Pera: the challenge is to separate what is similar to hallucination in normal observation from what is different
[14:27]  Pema Pera: without actually telling ourselves "I might be hallucinating"
[14:27]  Pema Pera: a subtle point . . .
[14:27]  Pema Pera: we can ask "what would be different if I were dreaming right now?"
[14:28]  Pema Pera: "what would be different if I were hallucinating all this"
[14:28]  Carlos Cornelius: can you explain more slowly why hallucination would be too far?
[14:28]  Pema Pera: Descartes used a kind of doubt
[14:28]  Pema Pera: and Husserl used a very different approach
[14:28]  Pema Pera: doubt would be: perhaps I am hallucinating
[14:28]  Zen Arado: do we ask questions when we are dreaming?
[14:29]  Pema Pera: but suspending judgment means: I don't care really whether I am hallucinating, that's not the point
[14:29]  Pema Pera: I want to see what part of normal perception is similar to hallucination
[14:29]  Pema Pera: and what part is different
[14:29]  Pema Pera: so no danger of running into walls or jumping of cliffs :-)
[14:29]  Pema Pera: we don't take it that literally
[14:30]  Carlos Cornelius: so the apperance is the same
[14:30]  Carlos Cornelius: and for a moment we don't judge what is different
[14:31]  Pema Pera: the one trick is to learn to separate "what you actually see" and "how your reality belief is soaked into it"
[14:31]  Pema Pera: the page of what you see is wet with "reality belief"
[14:31]  Pema Pera: (sorry, a slightly different page metaphor :-)
[14:32]  Wol Euler: :)
[14:32]  Pema Pera: can we become aware of the pageness and the wetness of the wet page, separately?
[14:32]  Pema Pera: but perhaps some others can report on their exploration, the last two weeks? Lucien? anyone?
[14:33]  Lucien Robespear: yeah, its difficult
[14:33]  Pema Pera: what happened?
[14:33]  Lucien Robespear: its difficult to even talk about, it borders on the absurd while I'm doing it and while we are talking about it
[14:34]  Pema Pera: so we're entering something really new!!
[14:35]  Carlos Cornelius: I think that the point of the absurd is that it doesn't "feel" new
[14:35]  Carlos Cornelius: it just "feels" weird
[14:35]  Lucien Robespear: take two statements 'there is a cup' and 'the cup really feels real'; I honestly have a hard time telling whether or not I actually have the second. It seems obvious in relfection that I must, but I don't know if I do while see the cup.
[14:36]  Rachel Esharham: Yes! Exactly! Are there even two pages? That's where the absurd comes in, imo, which indeed is what feels weird.
[14:36]  Lucien Robespear: it takes effort have that second belief while I am seeing the cup, it doesn't strike me as a given
[14:37]  Pema Pera: but you're convinced the cup is real, normally -- something that is different from when you see the exact same cup in the exact same way while watching a movie, as part of the movie
[14:37]  Pema Pera: the "sheer seeing" and the "believing it's of course real" are two different things
[14:37]  Carlos Cornelius: but I agree with Lucien that these are "standing" beliefs
[14:38]  Carlos Cornelius: we are not "actively" believing things about reality
[14:38]  Pema Pera: normally mixed together so intimately, we can't see the separation -- but we can learn to see
[14:38]  Carlos Cornelius: we just see the world
[14:38]  Pema Pera: yes!
[14:38]  Lucien Robespear: yeah
[14:38]  Pema Pera: that's the "natural attitude", Carlos, and the epoche takes a lot of work
[14:38]  Lucien Robespear: thats a great way to put it; i am not actively believing things about reality
[14:39]  Pema Pera: it's tacit, but you can learn to catch it, like mice :-)
[14:40]  Carlos Cornelius: but then why the contrast with dreams?
[14:40]  Carlos Cornelius: in dreams we also just look at stuff
[14:40]  Pema Pera: yes, very similar
[14:41]  Rachel Esharham: And somehow we assume that dreams aren't "real" - so there are two different pages stuck together.
[14:41]  Rachel Esharham: The seeing and the "it's not real" pages
[14:41]  Pema Pera: so we can ask, after we wake up, when we realize "it *was* a dream" about our ordinary reality: are we mixing up seeing and believing here too? And of course, we do!
[14:42]  Rachel Esharham: Now, I think I am beginning to understand how that is different from hallucination because somehow there, this process breaks down.
[14:42]  Pema Pera: in retrospect, yes, Rachel, but not while we're dreaming
[14:42]  Pema Pera: Yo, may I ask, did you try the epoche?
[14:42]  Yo Haiku: yes now and then
[14:43]  Yo Haiku: (but I have done it so often for quite some time)
[14:43]  Yo Haiku: so for me the distinctions are not so very difficult
[14:44]  Yo Haiku: a shift in my "eye"
[14:44]  Yo Haiku: and the toy on the floor is a "toy on the floor"
[14:44]  Yo Haiku: as well as "my seeing of that toy in that way on the floor"
[14:45]  Eliza Madrigal: :)
[14:45]  Yo Haiku: as well as "for now it's real in that way, this toy on the floor"
[14:46]  Yo Haiku: as well as "I am seeing it this way"
[14:46]  Yo Haiku: or I close my eyes even and repeat similar observations
[14:46]  Yo Haiku: but I do see the difference etween "believing it is real"
[14:47]  Yo Haiku: and simply taking it as real
[14:47]  Yo Haiku: and even taking a look at how I can actually shift back and forth
[14:47]  Yo Haiku: and still a toy is on the floor
[14:48]  Pema Pera: it takes at least a few months, getting/seeing/noticing what you just described, wouldn't you say, Yo, from the first day you try this kind of epoche?
[14:49]  Yo Haiku: I thiink, yes, it takes a long time, or, one day it just happens!
[14:49]  Pema Pera: *after* trying a long time :-)
[14:49]  Yo Haiku: and then, you say, oh ha, it was there all along??
[14:49]  Yo Haiku: weird, this "seeing"
[14:49]  Pema Pera: couldn't be simpler, yes :-)
[14:50]  Yo Haiku: but it certainyl could be practiced
[14:50]  Pema Pera: Carlos, can you describe how it was for you, to try it?
[14:50]  Yo Haiku: to frst "see" then to "see the seeing in action"
[14:50]  Carlos Cornelius: Is this seeing something that can be intelligibly communicated?
[14:51]  Pema Pera: what do you think, Yo?
[14:51]  Yo Haiku: yes i think
[14:52]  Pema Pera: please do -- I've talked too much already :-)
[14:52]  Yo Haiku: but the feeling of the shift is something subtle
[14:53]  Yo Haiku: et me think of an example--had to get the kid again
[14:54]  Yo Haiku: so i am typing with one hand
[14:54]  Yo Haiku: i hear the kid cry
[14:55]  Yo Haiku: and then immediately shift to
[14:55]  Yo Haiku: iam experiencing that i hear the kid cry
[14:57]  Yo Haiku: perhaps adding this step of "that i am experiencing x" may help?
[14:57]  Carlos Cornelius: sorry, i have an appointement at 3 and have to leave
[14:57]  Rachel Esharham: Bye, Carlos!
[14:57]  Pema Pera: would it help if we all would do the same very simple exploration, for next time?
[14:57]  Zen Arado: bye Carlos
[14:57]  Yo Haiku: must bring the kid back to sleep
[14:58]  Lucien Robespear: bye carlos
[14:58]  Zen Arado: I better go too
[14:58]  Eliza Madrigal: :) Thank you everyone
[14:58]  Zen Arado: bye
[14:58]  Rachel Esharham: Trying to separate out the experiencing?
[14:58]  Pema Pera: rather than trying to do an epoche with the whole world at once, trying to take one object in front of us
[14:58]  Pema Pera: Bye Carlos!
[14:58]  Yo Haiku: yes good idea pema
[14:58]  Lucien Robespear: ok sounds good, pema
[14:58]  Pema Pera: like a glass of water, as Rachel strarted with
[14:58]  Calvino Rabeni: Can you sumarize it for a newcomer?
[14:58]  Pema Pera: sure
[14:58]  Pema Pera: okay, let me try
[14:58]  Calvino Rabeni: brief is fine :0
[14:58]  Pema Pera: and then Yo can try in her way, is that okay, Yo?
[14:59]  Yo Haiku: yes
[14:59]  TR Amat: Might help? : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9
[14:59]  Pema Pera: I look at a cup in front of me, and I notice how I normally see the cup
[14:59]  Lucien Robespear: bye everybody
[14:59]  Carlos Cornelius is Offline
[14:59]  Pema Pera: but then I can learn to separate that there are at least two different things going on
[14:59]  Pema Pera: 1) I see an image that I interpret as an image of a cup
[14:59]  Lucien Robespear is Offline
[15:00]  Pema Pera: 2) I am completely convinced that the cup is real, exists right here
[15:00]  Pema Pera: (note that 1) can be further subdivided in many many pages, but that's anotehr exercise)
[15:01]  Pema Pera: so the challenge of the epoche is to learn to separate 1) and 2), to see them as being different, rather than leaving them blended together
[15:01]  Pema Pera: as we normally do in the "natural attitude"
[15:01]  Pema Pera: Yo, your turn!
[15:01]  Yo Haiku: i see the cup
[15:01]  Yo Haiku: then,
[15:02]  Yo Haiku: i see that i see the cup
[15:02]  Yo Haiku: then
[15:02]  Yo Haiku: how do i see the cup?
[15:02]  Yo Haiku: 1. the cup is real
[15:03]  Yo Haiku: 2. oh, but this is one of many things one can say about it
[15:03]  Yo Haiku: 3. how else
[15:04]  Yo Haiku: 4. and what about my seeing
[15:04]  Yo Haiku: the try the "normal seeing" and see the difference
[15:05]  Yo Haiku: how one could separate these two stances
[15:05]  Yo Haiku: 1. absorbed in the world and seeing (natural a)
[15:06]  Yo Haiku: and 2. suspended seeing
[15:06]  Yo Haiku: something along these lines
[15:06]  TR Amat: Is this a voluntary form of the mental state that can be induced by tiredness, where the world desn't seem quite real? And, a definite mental effort is needed to engage with the world and treat it as real?
[15:08]  Yo Haiku: it is voluntary, to the extent that one can "enact"
[15:08]  Yo Haiku: but it is more like a seeing than a mental state
[15:09]  Yo Haiku: and in a way sometimes the world may seem unreal
[15:09]  Yo Haiku: or at least not the way i normally know it
[15:09]  Calvino Rabeni: Disruptive and slightly stressed or broken states of consciousness might be used to advantage, but aren't at the center of it - IMHO
[15:10]  Yo Haiku: no effort to treat the world as real as that is the default mode
[15:11]  TR Amat: Is the idea of 'real' related to things you are concerned with in the environments, because they are persistent, as opposed to 'unreal' things like dreams?
[15:11]  Pema Pera: thanks a lot, Yo! I'm sorry I have to go now, but please feel free to continue, anyone!
[15:11]  TR Amat: Concerned because if you don't treat the tiger as real, you may be eaten?
[15:11]  Pema Pera: and thank you all -- another fun session!
[15:11]  Eliza Madrigal: Again, thanks everyone, bye for now :) Wonderful session!