Notes on Jan Cox Talk 3189 by Cfish
/Jan Cox Talk # 3189 - 20 August 2004
Copyright Jan Cox, Jan’s Legacy 2018
Notes Cfish - March 2018
Suggested Title: A Pleasure Based on an Annoyance
Begin: If someone asked me about this stuff (ex. awakening, enlightenment, etc.) and after asking them what they have heard about awakening, etc., I would tell them that they did not understand what it is. And that the person who wrote about it did not understand it either.
And if they did not walk away , maybe thinking I had insulted their teacher, I would tell them the same way I keep trying to tell you guys. (Not knowing if it has meaning to you) And that is to continually try to come up with a better and better explanation to yourself of what it is you are trying to do.
And if you get on this path (ex. observing what your consciousness is up to day and night, and not just taking my words) you are not trying to answer some great metaphysical question. I’m thinking that it may have been hard for any of you to think about this without thinking about it thru my words.
That is the nature of consciousness. The first decade or more that I thought I was involved with this, I could only think about it and see it thru another man’s words. Some of you involved with this in longer terms, there are some simple ways of just looking at your consciousness, maybe driving home tonight.
05:00 And assuming you are alone, just you and your consciousness in your head, and you just look at consciousness. (You are suppose to be looking as much as you can, at least since you have known me. I still do it.) And ask, based on what consciousness does naturally, what is it I am trying to do?
Never mind “I’m trying to wake up” though that is OK but the term “trying to wake up” does not answer the question “what is it I am trying to do?” There are better explanations than “I am trying to wake up” and when you get there on your own, it makes the other efforts seem like kindergarten.
The “method of methods” is finding a better description than “trying to awaken, achieve enlightenment, etc. (assuming that is the method chosen) There is a better explanation/description than the conventional “trying to wake up/achieve enlightenment.” And only “you” can find it.
10:00 The fastest way to achieve the reality of waking up/enlightenment is for “you” to find a better description. It’s not like a task. It’s a pleasure based on an annoyance. The last few weeks, a primo description/method for the struggle to awaken is a sentence in quotation marks.
“There is one brain here and there are two of us.” You have to find your own description but that one made me run my car into a ditch. Metaphorically, because I was sitting in the garage at the time. The sentence is a description of what we are trying to do in some way.
15:00 It could not be cruder. It’s consciousness trying to do something with consciousness. Consciousness is not trying to do anything with my muscles, my feelings, or my fears. All the thought of awakening is, is a man’s consciousness wanting to do something to and with itself.
And it’s nearly impossible, because “there is one brain and two of us.” Whatever description you have had access to, (ex Buddhism, Tantric disciplines, Awakening, etc.) and spending your entire life doing the practices and then, never getting close enough to personally understanding it.
It’s consciousness (my consciousness) looking at the situation (I’m asleep, trying to awaken) and the best description I have come up with, personally, these last several weeks is “There is one brain here and two of us.” That is the situation that gave rise to a few man thinking I’m living in a dream.
20:00 It’s part of every human being. And it is what makes most humans want to improve themselves. (ex religion, psychology) You can find the situation in you and it is manifested in sane and normal people everywhere. No one is satisfied with themselves.
Waking up is becoming aware of “one brain here and there are two of us.” That’s the situation and in a few people like us, one consciousness does not like the other consciousness. Ordinary people may say stuff like “I’m working on my anger issues.” But you know that’s just bullshit.
No ordinary person, including you when you are ordinary is trying to improve themselves consciously. Ordinary people can do easy stuff like lose weight but not so much personality stuff like looking on the brighter side. Ordinary people have two consciousnesses.
One consciousness’s main job is not liking the features of the second consciousness. And it only shows up for a split second and it has no power. (ex. I am sorry I am late again. It will not happen again.) The one consciousness whose main job is not liking the features of the second is the basis of guilt.
25:00 And internally, the one consciousness that does not like the other consciousness (“One brain here, and there are two of us.”) the only time it will show up is when it has to excuse “what’s going on.” (ex. I’m sorry about my anger issues, I will get a counselor.)
Ordinarily, the one consciousness’s job of disapproving of the other consciousness internally, mentally, rarely shows up and when it does it’s only for a moment and it has no power. Because ordinary consciousness/the main consciousness comes stomping back in.
People trying to awaken have the same situation but slightly different. It’s one consciousness saying, "Ok, We got one brain here, and there are two of us.”
If you work on it, and you see it, even if I were dead and gone - you run to the cemetery and dance on my grave, with a party hat, and confetti, and I will try to get up and join you.
END 29:14
