Another sobering thing from the retreat: sharing the car with someone fascinated by what he is able to figure out with his mind, to the point of not seeing much beyond that… It is a good mirror for me. This blog, and what I write right here, is a good example of being caught up in fascination of the conceptual mind… one ounce of naked experience, and a pound of conceptualization…
Joel used the analogy of a printing press on this topic: what comes in white paper (naked experience), it goes through the printing press, and comes out as printed paper (conceptualized experience). Usually, we are stuck on the second end of the printing press, noticing only the conceptualized experience, experience filtered through stories. We may even read words on the paper saying “these are just words printed on a paper, and the paper itself is white and has nothing written on it” and still not see beyond the words.
At the same time, all it takes is only glimpse at the other end, and we know, from our own investigation, what naked experiences are. And that may help us not get so caught up in the stories about it. Especially if it happens over and over, so we get familiar with it.