Dear Cynthia: I was schooled by Jesuits which led me to Rinzai Zen as a late teenager. Nearing 30 years of daily zazen, my path winds back to Hugo Enomiya-Lasalle. His writings brought me to Jean Gebser. I’ve read Ever-Present Origin twice now. It’s insight into Consciousness, Time and nonduality sends shockwaves through me. When I settle into those shockwaves, I slip into seeing from the Aperspectival, but am rebounded right back to common dualism. How might I more fully incorporate these heart-mind openings from the (uncommonly seen) aperspectival into meditations and daily layperson life?
Hi Ian,
I am thrilled to hear of the route you’ve traversed to get where you are…. from Zen to Gebser on a steady, slow traverse—and I agree that Gebeser’s teachings on time and nonduality send shockwaves through one’s being. Believe it or not, the best bridge I’ve found is actually G.I. Gurdjieff, particularly his brilliant teaching on “three-centered awareness.” The big challenge I’ve found with Gebser’s breathtaking aperspectival roadmap is that people try to possess it in their heads, where it just defaults into another “spatialization of time,” another concept. Gurdjieff’s teaching on the moving center as the seat of a particular kind of integrating intelligence, as well as his practices for becoming aware of the more subtle circulation of currents within the body and between the body and more subtle realms of being have been absolutely gamechanging to me in being able to sustain an asperspectival comprehension of Gebser’s teaching. I also believe, synthesizing their respective teachings on attention and “intensification of time” that a case can be made—and experientially validated—that in aperspectival dimensionality, attention is the new time. Then the whole picture begins to come together. All best, Cynthia
