A Breakdown of Ontological Terms

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Mark Russell
Atlanta, Georgia
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Peter,
Long ago, I took Pleiades, two Empowering Transformation Workshops, and a couple of Contemplation Intensives. What I am trying to remember and focus on now is the "sequence of encounter."
Something like: It's quite faded in my memory. I would like to identify those distinctions again. Will you provide the missing links?
Mark Russell


Mark,
I thought it might be fun to share this in the Newsletter, mostly for those who have worked with it before, but also to provide a peek for people unfamiliar with the kind of work we do in ontological workshops.

There are two sets of the Sequence of Encounter. The first is:

EXPERIENCE --> PERCEPTION --> COGNITION--> EFFECT

As you might remember, this is not a conventional use of these terms. In our language we don't make these distinctions but blur them as pretty much the same thing, and live primarily at the effect of everything. But that's another story, best told when we're together and can work through what they are "experientially" rather than merely hear about them intellectually.

I use a "camera analogy" to introduce part one:
Experience = subject of photography
Perception = developing the picture
Cognition = see an image of your girlfriend
Effect = excitement, oh joy!

It's not very accurate but gives something for the mind to stand on. The thing to remember is that most of this happens in a place we call "unconscious" which is why we can't easily recognize it.

EXPERIENCE itself is incomprehensible to us. What we commonly call experience is the formation of the meaningless into a specific and useful "perception." But, in terms of our sequence here, Experience is so far back that we cannot even imagine it. This is direct experience at its core -- it is "Being" or Consciousness in the place of the Absolute or Nothing -- before anything is separated and becomes
distinct or known. See how useless that is?

PERCEPTION is simply the phenomena that creates the "possibility" of anything being known. Think of it like the possibility that distinctions can be made, and so something can be cognized as separate from something else. It is the possibility from which perceptive organs are created, and so sight, sound, etc. can become a reality. It doesn't mean anything, and isn't really what people call perception. It is prior to sight, sound, etc.

COGNITION is the phase that turns this perceptive possibility into what we normally call experience and perception; i.e. when something is somehow "known" in one's consciousness or awareness.

EFFECT is our reaction to whatever seems to be coming into our awareness. The operative word here is "seems," because what we are reacting to is an interpretation that's been processed through our own personal "mind factory" and is not what is actually there or true. (This is not to assume that there is some solid reality or anything prior to cognition simply waiting to be known; the knowing itself may well "create" what's known. But that's another story.) The point is that we need not be dominated by unnecessary "effects" that we ourselves create.

The second breakdown starts at Cognition above and breaks it down further into:

Interpretation --> Reaction Sensation --> Meaning --> Reaction Appearance

Reaction Appearance is basically the same as Effect. It is what appears to us as a reaction or what we commonly call our "experience," so you can see how far this is from direct experience. Reaction Sensation is too subtle to grasp here; so we have mainly Interpreting what is perceived (which is a meaningless phenomenon), and giving it the meaning and charge that determines our reaction.

The breakdown in Cognition begins with Interpretation which simply associates what is perceived with all that is remembered and finds matches, thus turning it into something that can be conceptualized and"known" in a very basic sense. But this interpretation is devoid of emotion or charge, it is meaningless and not useful in the normal sense. So we run this interpretation through another process that matches it up with a complex set of data that tells us what it means. This gives it charge, juice, lets us know it as good or bad, dangerous or useful, etc.

This is the first time in this process that something could be useful. It is when an orientation can occur. This process is called Meaning. Prior to this, everything is pretty much in a "detached" place, it ain't personal, it doesn't mean anything. Now that it means something we can react to it -- have a feeling or thought that tells us what to do: run or feed it a biscuit. This is the Effect or this whole Reaction's Appearance in the matter. All of the above takes place faster than light speed, so it's difficult for most people to discern.

How to sum it up? Let's see. The most important parts are: there is whatever is true, and then we somehow encounter it. In this encounter we turn what is true into something we can be aware of and then into something that means something to us personally. We react to this personal meaning, but we are not actually reacting to or knowing what the thing is for itself.

Now here's the good part: When we become aware to any degree of something for itself --before judgment, reaction, etc.-- our relationship to it is more accurate, more appropriate, and more REAL.

Hope this refreshes your memory.
Peter

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