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The 7 Senses

Seven Outer Senses and Seven Inner Senses?


The seven outer senses enable us to look to outer space at creation.

The seven inner senses enable us to look to inner space at the creator.

We are familiar with the operation of some of the outward-facing senses more than others.
The following is an attempt to explore the operation of both inner and outer senses.
Does our experience show that when we are looking inward there are a different set of inner senses and inner sense doors operating?

The diagram below is a model of the senses: the physical sense doors and the feeling and mind counterparts:

Propiception (or 'proprioception') is the sense that enables you to know where you are (e.g. which way up you are),
and is not the same as the sense of balance.

 

Dependent Origination


The above diagram can operate on very different scales - large scale, moment-to-moment - and shows creation depending upon two processes.

The clockwise process arises as a result of will-to-be, at either the universal or the individual level. The anticlockwise process arises from the inherent tendency of passing away to be followed by arising (persistence/replication) and hence organisation. This can be considered as Mind.

The third element necessary to prevent a mechanical universe is randomicity. The interactions of the first two processes in themselves can generate unpredictable results at the smaller end of the scale. An example would be genetic mutation. Also the play between each individually created universe/ person and every other 'oneness' produces randomicity.

Weakening the links in the chain of causation and maximising oneness/uniqueness i.e. turning away from will and ignorance to unity increases randomicity.This is what is more mundanely thought of as decreasing identification. Why is the mind 7-based?

We may consider the All as the totality of impressions and the One - the universe/individual as the processor of them.

External impressions are derived in a process able form from the body. An individual body itself is selective according to its type and the maturity of its sense organs. They are processed by mindbase. The interaction of mind and body sets up an intermediary processor me /ego which increase selectivity.

Internal impressions are derived from the initial clockwise process which is used to set up the means of comparison (mindbase). Once formed, it is both maintained by and is selective (on the basis of its own structure) towards new impressions it receives.

We can see that impressions, both external and internal, are used to construct processors which in turn modify and select future impressions. Mindbase and ego feedback to body and modify it (see the way your face reflects your experience). Mind enables the experience of time/space and deeper to be organised.

Looking either outwards to the creation (material elements) or inwards to the creator (primordial elements) increases the range of impressions received which alter the established processors. Body and psyche can be changed through the agency of the ego and mindbase processors i.e. they in turn become a source of impressions.

 

Why observe? Observation opens up input from the outer world.

Why meditate? Meditation opens up the mind door.

Both provide food for growth and change.

 

The origin of form is 7-fold: ● ● ● ●● ●● ●● ●●●

Why is mind 7-based?

 

7 senses document - If you would like to download the above as a Word document on to your computer then: right-click on this link if you have a PC, or press 'alt' while you click if you have a Mac, and then select 'Save Target as' from the pop-up menu that appears.)
 

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Very interesting diagrams.
First I'll discuss the 'fruition of the hidden agenda' taken from
the Buddhist wheel of dependent origination..

Do you accept the notions of 'suffering' and 'freedom from
suffering'?
I ask because without the notions of 'good and evil', 'high and
low', 'skilful and unskilful' there would be no reason for the
existence of this wheel at all.
The wheel of dependent Origination as I understand it is a
description of what is already taking place now in our material
plane of existence where we human beings live. The Buddha used it to
explain how and why one state of being gives rise to another state
and also how these came into being in the first place. So in
simplistic terms it shows the mechanics and laws that rule us.
According to the Buddha we are all caught on this wheel of eternal
suffering but it is possible to transcend it and become free first
by becoming aware of its linking processes and then to stop spinning
the wheel and generating future Karma by continuous
detachment and purification (destruction of the defilements fuelling
these twelve segments), so that one finally becomes free from it.
(Shattering the wheel's ridgepole as the Buddhist scriptures say)

The question I want to raise is whether all of the wheel's twelve
spokes are of equal 'value' or not. Because it seems to me
that 'ignorance' and 'will' are just as much responsible for
spinning this wheel as are 'craving', and 'clinging'. Therefore the
wheel does not show a hierarchical structure (like the tree of life
does) but instead it merely identifies the culprits.

It would also seem therefore that transcending the wheel is not
merely a process of working backwards i.e. less clinging to become
aware of the process of craving and then instigating less craving to
become aware of the level of feeling and then again instigating less
feeling to become aware of the level of perception etc.
Because although this exercise would definitely be great for raising
one's awareness higher and for making one understand the mechanics
of suffering it would not of itself be sufficient to make one free
from suffering. (This is the goal of Buddhism).
Isn't something extra needed for this, something outside of the
wheel of suffering?
What does Buddhism say on this? I think it says that no outside
agency is necessary and that merely by seeing the truths
of 'suffering', 'no self' and 'change' in all things one transcends
the wheel. And what do you think?

I guess that in meditation one momentarily transcends this wheel not
only by becoming aware of all its simultaneous workings no matter
what form these take at any given moment but also by the
intervention of some outside mysterious force or agency.
Is the will for freedom or enlightenment subject to suffering too?
Perhaps this is what provides the si-do shock in the ascending
octave.

In both Eastern and Western systems we read of the creation of a
higher body. Some call it the 'body of light' and others refer to it
as the 'embryo of sage hood (as in 'The Secret of the Golden
Flower': the product of union between the 'higher and lower' selves.

But, by what process does this happen? By the same laws that rule
the wheel of dependent origination? If that were so then such work
would also be subject to suffering wouldn't it? Or is there good
creation and bad creation?!
Both mystics and shamans talk about being instructed at a different
level of awareness by a higher intelligence.
So paradoxically perhaps there are a different set of secret laws,
not subject to those of the wheel, which make it possible to become
free from suffering and transcend the wheel of dependent origination
by first becoming enlightened just like the Buddha did.

Regarding the diagrams of the senses:

I can see the one to one correspondence between the 'body'
and 'feeling' diagrams but I would like to point out that any of
the 'mind' diagram's seven functions could become associated with
the body and feeling senses.
In other words at a time of danger such as that of an accident or
fight all of the body's senses wake up because mind needs
both 'security' and 'protection'.
At other times though such as when doing art the body's senses
(seeing, hearing, touching etc) may be very actively linked to
imagination.

Looking at the wikipedia articles on the net it would seem that
today scientist are not sure about how many senses there are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception


Here is an experience I had about five years ago. It may or may not
be propiception though.
I was on a lunch brake from work in the countryside. As I was
relaxing leaning on a fence I became aware of the trees in the
distance on a hilltop. Something in me also knew at the same time,-
as if being told by an outside voice- 'I am in Northern Europe'.
It was as if I knew where I am in space in relation to a larger
objective frame of reference (the earth?) and it made an impression
on me.

It also reminds me of what Archimedes said upon discovering the laws
of levers:
"give me a place to stand and I shall move the whole earth".

So propiception or proproception may be a sense that tells us where
we stand or are, independent of what we read on the road sign, or
the subjective spatial markers we have created to identify our
surroundings.
Perhaps that is one reason why people on the whole enjoy travelling
so much. They get a chance to exercise their sense of propiception

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On reflection

The Icosahedron and the Dymaxion operating in the evirons of Dependent Origination.

Much was made in the article of the extension of the internal and external impressions and data.

Already we have polarity.

Six polarities:

Becoming-Time and Space
Birth-Mind base
Death-perception
Ignorance/wisdom-feeling
Will-Craving
Consciousness-Clinging

Six polarities – the six polarities of the Icosahedron.

Traditionally in the twelve divided circle, the top six slices are considered as the external world, the bottom six slices the internal.

Taking the realm of virtual reality (Icosahedron) as the three dimension form that it is, if you take hold of any one of the balls that make up it’s form, this becomes a centre, an identity (a twelveness being of the realm of identity.) To assist this visualisation, holding this one ball, it sits atop and at the centre of a circle of five other balls of the same size. Behind this circle of five, sitting in the gaps of the first circle is another circle of five balls. At the back so to speak and sitting atop and at the centre of this second (behind) circle is the polar opposite of the ball you still have hold of.

What we have here is the axis of the Earth with the two circles of fives expressing the two directions of flow as seen when witnessing the water going down a plug hole in opposite directions in the North and Southern hemispheres

This is not just an analogy but at expression of the nature of the awareness of Dependent Origination.

Stop looking just through the eyes of me! You’re more than you think you are.

Breath Psyche Ego Watcher
This fourness is not part of the twelve based diagram. Not of the level of identity.

This four originate each in one of the spaces created by the four tetrahedrons of the Dymaxion, the inorganic world of Reality. The Lau Buru.

Player on the other side.
Realm of Fruition of the hidden agenda - realisation in totality - operation in and of the unknown. Dymaxion-reality.

Implanting of the hidden agenda - apparent random arising, through and of aspect of the Earths expression and the being of that place.

Not forgetting the gap between the Worlds.
Personal expressions in the midst of the impersonal. Dependent origination.
Saros.
Toad in the hole and onion gravy.
King on the mountain.

When something is unfolding before your very eyes, the trick has to be not to kill it off.

When Saros began, with the various lines of work coming together, there was a sense of being part of something of import. Something important for our time. There was a sense of privilege, to be part of a vitality which of itself was pleased to see a reflection of itself. A reflection, reflected by those present in that time, in that place. For us the privilege was in our ability to make that connection to the Spirit. Glyn was our navigator but there was never the sense of him as “the someone in charge.” There was certainly the sense of one in tune with the essence of what was present of the unknown and of someone able to make the right moves at the right time. Always one step ahead.
Toad in the hole and onion gravy.
Yesterday as I sat in the afternoon doing some Basque, more or less going where the fancy took me. There was a sense of engagement, ease, enjoyment. Of being right here right now, doing just what I should be doing. A thought forcefully cut through the moment. It was as though the part of me so happily engaged was hit by a blow. The thought carrying so much “authority” was one of those “I must do” imperatives. In this case it was, I had to get dinner, it’s dinner TIME! I felt dejected but psychologically pulled myself up by my boot straps and told myself to get on with it! But I didn’t move, my body kept me in place and I drifted back to that place of ease and enjoyment as if there had been no interruption, much as you would if drifting back into sleep. But now I had the realisation that this sense of well being and of being and doing as I should, was no ordinary awareness. I was awake, alive, at ease and free. I was the girl I was at the age of tree or four, when there was no separation between me and what is out there. Life. Alive and aware. Having the ability to see and to be part and not apart from that vast fluidity of the awareness of life of this our beautiful Earth.

I did in my own time close my book and what was to have been, me making the best of a chore, was transformed to a new experience, affording new possibilities. Food was good and not tired for a change.

King on the mountain.
On 12th August 2007 Eiran, Gila and Talia arranged to release Glyn’s ashes in a stream in Wales. At the same time something was happening in the Basque Country:

At the foot of Txineoki.

“I opened the chart but in so doing didn’t for one moment lose touch with what and all that was present and neither did what was present lose touch with us. As I began to read to speak everything of that place of that moment was included. The Lady of the House brought out the food and placed it on the table. She looked at the chart, I sensed she knew what it was, who we were and why we were there. There was no interruption in her placing the food, seeing the chart and returning to the house. As there was no hesitation in the doing of which we were all involved. The moment was timeless, inclusive and fluid.

There was a timbre to my voice and an awareness that though this was an act of one individual to another, the actuality was something different. It was the moment that was speaking and it was of the moment of which it spoke. It spoke of freedom, of askatu. About not being caught by our individual and collective acts. About not clinging to forms but allowing what’s out there to come into being, allowing it to touch and take on life yet retaining it’s breadth and fluidity. Being part of it’s larger journey. In moments such as these, as we all sat at the foot of Tineoki, we listened ever so carefully to the voice. The voice of the King on the Mountain. We heard all those things of which he spoke. And became aware of the silence as he took yet another step on his journey into infinity.

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In response to the first comment, elsewhere on this website there is a diagram of the other 'extra' process described: Transcendent Dependent Arising, which details the 12 steps of liberation, the first of these being 'suffering' on the wheel.

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EARTH: contact, will, becoming - ACQUIRING SOLIDITY
WATER: feeling, birth, consciousness - WAVES OF INEVITABILITY
FIRE: craving, death, time and space (name and form) - BEING FORGED
AIR: mind base, ignorance(wisdom), clinging - EFFECTED BY MANY TINY MOVEMENTS (ELECTRICITY? BROWNIAN MOTION?)

what do you think?...

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Stop looking just through the eyes of 'me'! You’re more than you think you are.

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