I also listen to this talk again and again. Today I bursted laughing, it is so obvious and Douglas is like a lion shouting WAKE UP WAKE UP, STOP PLAYING THE OLD PERSONA GAME , IT DOESN'T WORK!!!
@@yeshekrugler209 sometimes. If I'm reading a book for instance. Do you not see words? I think in this context , it would be more accurate to say that all i can see/find when I 'look at myself from zero distance' is the thought 'i am looking at myself from zero distance', or the vague sense of that being my intention. The point being that this is a fairly meaningless and vain exercise.
@@1alopezg But are you the thought 'i am looking at myself from zero distance'? Something is seeing that thought. What is that? Not the though or thoughts themselves, because those are the content of your attention. Thoughts don't notice thoughts, they don't notice anything, do they? Maybe you think it's your body, your emotions, one or the other sens, etc. But all these things are happening in awareness. Whatever thing you identify yourself with, if it can be "looked at/found", then it stands some distance from you. Don't worry about how it fits with what you know or believe, because then you're just comparing conceptions in your linguistic, "left brain", not actually checking in your experience. You can build conceptual analysis onto the experience, but first you must simply experience it. Go and look and let me know what you find :)
You are not your thoughts. How could you be ? For starters if you were your thoughts you wouldn't be a thing but many things. Moreover I think by definition you cannot be things or even a single thing at all, because things only exist within attention (ie focused , discerning awareness). A thing is simply an abstract version of an object : what a physical object is to "extended substance", space, or the universe, a thing is to the space of consciousness more generally. A thing is whatever stands out as one in attention.
@@philodeinos7536 I didn't say I am my thoughts. I don't think I'm anything at all. There is no 'me' other than an imaginary projection. The self as awareness is just another fantasy. Awareness is just an abstraction used to describe the sum total of cognitive functions taking place in a body at any one time. It has no existence other than as an epiphenomenon produced by the body and lives and dies as such- nothing cosmic or transcendent about it. Really, I never actually find this thing called 'awareness' separate from any thought/sensation. There's just thoughts/sensations. I understand that Harding's saying that I am awareness, but I've never encountered 'awareness'.
"What one is depends on where you are looking at one from ... The distance of the observer determines the nature of the observed ... What is perceived to be at the center depends on the range of the observer." - Douglas Harding
If Douglas Harding (1909-2007) was 93 at the time of this talk, was it 2002? Coming Home sounds a lot like the Buddhist term "yoniso manasikara." At the tail end of the talk Douglas Harding refers to Buddhist teachings, and not so much about Zen anymore. In his later years did he get closer to early Buddhist teachings?
It's funny this space also holds some conditioning. It's like everyone around in society is out on a limb, you become the one who is seeing everyone out on a limb. Its hard to connect sometimes :(
