Mastering Relationship/ Freedom From Beliefs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christian Campfield, New York, NY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter,
1. I read in some of the Cheng Hsin papers that if one has mastered this art, one would be a master of relationship. Is that so? If it is, then it would seem that Cheng Hsin has more of a functional value than some other methods of working on oneself.
2. Here is another question, if a person was already free from beliefs, would they understand the physical elements of Cheng Hsin more quickly/readily than one who still was into their beliefs?
Christian

Christian,
1. The Cheng Hsin work has always been concerned with the whole matter of being human -- from body principles, physical skill and the nature of interaction to the workings of mind, communication, and the nature of reality and consciousness. As such, relationship is studied, and the components and challengesof relationship researched. When the dynamics of relationship are understood, and the principles of effective relating grasped, then we are certainly empowered to pursue relating more effectively. However, as with every other pursuit, mastery can be a long way off. And when it comes to human relationships, certainly not an easy task. But any headway made along those lines is immediately useful and worth the effort.
2. At least half the work of Cheng Hsin involves moving people beyond their own beliefs,
misinterpretations, and habits. Personal historical programming is an even more difficult obstacle, and most of our beliefs, misinterpretations, and habits arise, not as superficial affectations, but as expressions of our deeper programming. It is a challenge just to get people to recognize that they are dominated bybeliefs and that beliefs are not the truth. Simply an openness to the possibility of letting go of anything known or believed speeds up the undertaking considerably. But this should not be confused with adoptingwhat would amount to a new set of "Cheng Hsin" beliefs. This is not learning, it is believing once again. Much work still must be done to experience and verify principles and insights for one's self.
Peter

Attend a Seminar
More Info

A Look into Pain

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Hymen
San Francisco, CA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter
Say that pleasure is what we WANT to feel. Say that pain is what we DON'T want to feel. What if we wanted to feel EVERYTHING? If you WANT to feel it, is it still pain?
Jason


Jason,
A good question, and one that involves a very lengthy answer. I recommend the last chapter in "Ancient Wisdom," the one on pain called the "Lollipop Talk" (taken from an ontological study group you may have been in).

But to respond in brief, I would suggest that pain is a concept. Yet not a concept like most of us hold concept. It hurts! That very hurt is the concept pain. This is a difficult thing to understand and so we would need much more background on what I mean when I speak of concepts. Bypassing that background, let's just say that pain is somehow a function of the mind. Here we are making a distinction between the sensations produced by the nervous system and how those become experienced as pain. And when we speak of emotional pain we can imagine there may be no such physical sensation and yet we feel pain nevertheless. Therefore, if pain is somehow an activity of our minds, then it is produced within that domain. If we WANT to feel everything (for real and not just as a good idea) then a very significant change has occurred in our disposition to "everything." Since self depends on distinctions such as good and bad, valuable and threatening, pleasure and pain, to make its way through life, this would suggest either an aberration or a fundamental shift in self's commitment to survive, and so this is highly unlikely.

But OK -- if, in theory, such a shift did take place, we could imagine that there would be no pain. Which is to say "pain" would not be produced or added to any experience. At this point, however, we can also see that the distinctions within our "everything" include the various forms of pain that we could experience and these would no longer exist. Would we have these disappear? Or do we want to experience them? Wanting to experience something that we would normally not want to experience changes the experience, so now it isn't the same. What do we do about that? So you can see we would need to talk further on this matter.

What we are actually talking about is much more likely WANTING TO WANT to feel everything, as in "that would be neat." Although a much more superficial matter, it is still a highly significant one. Whenever we shift our disposition in any way, our experience and reactions are changed. It would be rare indeed to take a stance in the world of wanting to experience everything. Whether we experience pain or not really wouldn't matter, the context would determine the experience and so even if we said something was painful, through our "wanting-disposition" we would embrace it and so relate to it very differently than normal.

Much of what occupies us with a painful experience is not the pain itself but our reactions to it. And given our "wanting-disposition" these would probably be eliminated. But our reaction dynamics are another long story. So let's say in simple, experience is what we say it is. It is pain if we say it is pain. It is not if we don't. But remember, this kind of "saying" is not done with the mouth or intellect, it must be the same as what is experienced as "so."

Hope this has helped, or at least entertained.
Peter

Attend a Seminar
More Info

Introduction

The following Anthology is a collection of past Questions and Answers dealing with the Consciousness or “ontological” aspect of Cheng Hsin. You will find a great deal of knowledge and can receive a valuable education through studying Ralston's accumulated responses to a wide range of questions.

Attend a Seminar
More Info