The Knowledge That Matters
person
Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
Doug's Dharma has started a series of videos on knowledge recently that I've really been liking. So far he's talked about the disconnect between conviction and valid knowing and this latest one on the deeper kind of knowing that has come up a bit here lately.
He talks about how there's a difference between information, knowing that something is true, and the deep, integrated knowledge that changes behavior. Like the knowing everyone has that we'll die one day and the knowing someone with a terminal illness has. He talks about how in the west Socrates talked about this deeper knowing, but then Aristotle talked about the difference between the intellectual knowing and doing wasn't about knowledge it was about will, and that is what caught on in western thinking.
He doesn't discount study. But says the point of practice is to integrate that information deeply so it becomes this sort of deeper, felt knowledge.
Comments
I just came across this…
I don't get it, is there some relation? Or perhaps its some sort of point about Doug's perspective being silly?
No I just suffered an attack of silliness and left it there for @lobster to discover, nothing to do with Doug’s video. Apologies, but the minions are very funny.
I did watch Doug’s video. I thought his point about the Buddha’s seeing was interesting, that for the Buddha it was enough to see a harmful thought arise in order to have it subside again.
I missed that comment in the video. The ability to not get attached to our thoughts is an important part of the practice though. I hear lots of people talk about how understanding that this was even possible was a major turning point in their lives.
This was the case for me a few months ago while sitting in the waiting room at my neurologist's office. My outcome (which I will find out in a week), will quite literally change my life. I realised in the moments of waiting, that I will not possibly know what to expect or how to feel with the outcome. Why not start letting go now?
Our thoughts are flashing through. popping in and out, zipping all about. Occasionally a stray one gets snagged, lingering. Then a bunch get blocked behind it, a traffic jam of thoughts. And we assume we just had an idea...good or bad.
Sometimes it is the wondrous emergence of the trees, the clouds, the sky, the birds, the flowers and creatures of the glen. Then "POP!" that 10 page check sheet is due in 5 minutes, filled out.
Sometimes it is remembering that a politician is handing over3 million acres (7.413 hectors) of public land to his cronies fof destruction (Development) and accidentally shred those 10 pages.
Most often, the thoughts are mundane, we think, in the moment to be big and important, taking up too much space in that attic we call the mind. Our vessel os filled with the sand and grit of conflicting and random actually meaningless often negative thoughts. So, we end up in constant repeated "house cleaning".
Nothing snaps one out of that like an emergency, or a life changing event, or your child handing you his or her report card.
Seriously, though, we choose to direct our thoughts.
A simple example: On the tube, we just miss the train. First thoughts may be frustration or anger. But, we stop and realize the next train is due in just a few minutes. We can be upset even as we board the following train or we can board that train and enjoy a relaxing ride. Same event, different chosen result.
Peace to all