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David Filippone replied to the topic INQUIRING INTO SPACE - in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:53:51 -0700

Hi TSK Study Group,
Just received the following in an email from the Center For Creative Inquiry (CCI), regarding how to question without getting tied up with searching for an answer. I wanted to highlight it for the TSK Study Group, because it deals with the same subject the Group is exploring with the 60-questions in Visions of Knowledge (VOK).…Read more

David Filippone started the topic INQUIRING INTO SPACE - in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:24:26 -0800

‘Black Hole’ – Image by Bjørn Bråthen from Pixabay
INQUIRING INTO SPACE –

As a facilitator, I recently shared this post with the Monday-TSK Study Group, because we have just finished a two-year deep-reading of ‘Knowledge of Time and Space‘ (KTS), and now we’re studying, ‘Visions of Knowledge‘ (VOK), both books by Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche. I am p…Read more

David Filippone started the topic Recognizing Knowingness in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 20:41:51 -0800

Yugen Series – Liminal Landscapes, by Bruce Alderman

Recognizing Knowingness

I wanted to share these passages, [sent to me from Eric Lichtman and Oda Lindner [two advanced TSK students]. They are ‘pointing-out’ passages that may be helpful to others who are interested, particularly our Monday—TSK Study Group, that has been practicing Ex, 23…Read more

David Filippone started the topic Welcoming Each New Arising in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:56:27 -0800

‘ Opening’ – Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/photos/ocean-sea-water-blue-view-scene-164630/

“Though we encounter limits wherever ‘something’ has been established, we are free to look instead toward ‘nothing’—toward the ‘nowhere’ of nonpositioned Space, the ‘nothing happening’ of invariant Time, and the ‘nothing to kn…

Michael Gray started the topic Time beyond Stories in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:02:16 -0800

“How you engage and appreciate time shapes the way you narrate your life.” “Gesture of Great Love” by Tarthang Tulku.

Living as I do, inside the story that time is a sequence of fleeting present moments—each one wedged between an inaccessible past on one side and a future that never shows up on the other—I have to wonder if there is a greater ti…Read more

David Filippone started the topic The 'giving point' of Time in the forum Nature and the Environment

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 21:04:33 -0800

Image – Into The Wild

Video – Into The Wild by Garry Saunders: https://www.facebook.com/reel/25065421819816851

Click on the video link to view the clip on Facebook.

Hoping you will be able to view the short video clip. Love how… if you focus on the tiny instants ‘just BEFORE’ the swan becomes visually defined, and you begin to realize wh…Read more

Michael Gray replied to the topic The Elusiveness of Feeling in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:58:12 -0800

Hayward Questions

Michael,

I struggled with your blog as I had a different take on the issues.
In the sentence “I am sad“, I thought sad was an adjective
It seems that as such “sad” can erroneously be “identity” describing how or what “I am”.
If, however, we add ness we get sadness. Ness added to any word (I thought) meant “the quality of“.

So…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic The Elusiveness of Feeling in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 14:52:02 -0800

If you’re like me, you’re never entirely sure how much your feelings and perceptions reflect the circumstances in which you find yourself and how much of your experience is dictated by the moods and expectations you bring with you into that situation.

I’m presently reading a chapter in a book (Keys of Knowledge, by Tarthang Tulku) that is explo…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic One Word, Many Meanings in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Tue, 27 May 2025 14:49:33 -0700

Image by Toby Parsons from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/passing-place-sign-place-pass-2975664/

We speak of the future as if we know what we mean; most often envisioning a place where events wait until they “come to pass”. That entails passing through the present and quickly disappearing into the past. Appearance in the pres…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Living in Time in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:22:05 -0700

We may have noticed that we only experience what is already past, since it takes time for sensations and perceptions to be recognized, identified and assigned their places in our inner map of the world. When it comes to the larger cosmos, there’s an even larger discrepancy between our view of distant galaxies, whose light has taken billions of y…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Recognizing & Dwelling in 'Knowingness' in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 20:13:21 -0800

I was asked to post a description of what I often do while reading the TSK books. It’s very similar to actually using or engaging TSK Ex, 29 – Awareness as a Reflective Surface, p. 257. In this practice we observe what arises, something like watching clouds, or waves rolling in at the beach… without naming, judging, or narrating to yourself wh…Read more

David Filippone started the topic APPRECIATION GROWS… in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 19:28:06 -0800

Giving Thanks ~ Image by Joshua_seajw92 – Pixabay https://pixabay.com/…/autumn-fall-leaf-leaves-tree…/

APPRECIATION GROWS…

In light of the season… Thanksgiving… I’ve been considering the following passages, within an overall feeling of gratefulness… in spite of a year of devastating pain and suffering for many near and far. Despite…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic TSK Ex. 28 - Cycle of Seeing [practice notes] in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 17:29:26 -0800

TSK Exercise 28 – A Cycle of Seeing…

“Select ten ‘things’, including objects, qualities, and other common contents of experience, such as a car, an orange, a piece of music, a tactile quality, etc. Once you have formulated a specific and ordered list of such items, contemplate the first one until you ‘see’ it quite concretely. Then go on to t…

David Filippone started the topic TSK Ex. 28 - Cycle of Seeing [practice notes] in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 17:00:24 -0800

TSK Ex. 28 – Cycle of Seeing [practice notes] from 2009…

The Cycle of Seeing exercise demonstrated for me, many of the elements we’ve been learning for the past seventeen or so weeks. Selecting the ten ‘things’ put a focus on ‘how’ I model experience to ‘short-hand‘’ each ‘thing’ from a countless selection of choices, in order to refine and…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Strong Feelings in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 14:55:35 -0800

My emotions have undergone a process of dilution similar to the hot water and milk I add to my cups of coffee, which let me drink them all day without getting caffeine-overload. Similarly, having less intense feelings helps me to feel more balanced; although I still sometimes fall into the sinkholes that surround certain images from the…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Flying Leaves in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 17:23:23 -0700

It’s not just that I am stardust from an exploding supernova that cloaked our planet with a tapestry of living beings.

It’s not just the discovery of language and fire, and the gathering of our forebears into tribes, villages and cities.

It’s not just that I was born on this planet, recapitulating in the womb the evolutionary journey of our a…Read more

David Filippone started the topic Diving Into Time in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 20:11:23 -0700

Image – ‘Spacious Sound’ by Wounds and Cracks – Pixabay https://tinyurl.com/yca2klj7

DIVING INTO TIME…

In class… a student was having some difficulty with the invitation to… ‘Dive Into Time’, to question the status and identity of our emerging (various) ‘selves’, as we observe moments passing… The student asked, “How do I look into a memo…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Moonlight at the Center in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 20:52:12 -0700

I wanted to post the introduction to Michael’s post above that appeared on the Center for Creative Inquiry Facebook page here. See as follows…

“Author Michael Gray has written a new Blog on the Center for Creative Inquiry Forum, entitled: ‘Moonlight At The Center’. It’s a brief and lovely story from his past. He begins by saying…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Moonlight at the Center in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 20:24:38 -0700

Whether we actually practice being at the center of our experience, or simply try to pay attention to our feelings and thoughts as they pass on by, we are probably hoping to be in touch with our own being. But when we use our thoughts to navigate, and use concepts and judgments as our oars, we soon find ourselves outside experience, looking…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic This Time Around in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 21:36:22 -0700

I like to think that it’s possible to carry along what we have learned from previous explorations so that, as we shift into new ground and fresh interests, we can more effectively fathom each new situation. Behind this hope, lies another: that I will recollect what I originally wanted to learn in this lifetime.

I guess there is a tone of…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic A Drop of Water in the forum Nature and the Environment

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 21:44:09 -0700

I have no memories of my own, because I have nowhere to store them, no heart or brain or library that could keep my experiences within reach. Yet by some miracle, I now remember that I’ve been a drop of water for millions of years. I even remember being broken up into constituent atoms and then, as soon as I was reassembled into a drop of water a…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Recognizing & Dwelling in 'Knowingness' in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 19:43:51 -0700

I wanted to add another quote about the question that came up about: ‘Where is knowledge located?’ The inquiry IS deep, and can well extend ‘beyond all grammar’. This excerpt by Rinpoche seems to touch on this question…

Excerpt From ‘Knowledge of Freedom‘: Chapter 9, Breaking Through the Known:

In moments of wonder and great humility, human b…

David Filippone replied to the topic Recognizing & Dwelling in 'Knowingness' in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Sat, 23 Mar 2024 20:17:45 -0700

Came across this when I was thinking about how would one go about locating knowledge in an individual, or even if knowing is even relocatable at all? Positioning of a knower may have nothing to do with it. Beginning on page page 55 of ‘Keys of Knowledge.’ Rinpoche asked:

So at what point does knowing occur? If I point to a point called ‘the point…

Michael Gray started the topic Synchronicity again in the forum Systems Thinking

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 19:19:46 -0700

I wasn’t quite sure of the meaning of “synchronicity”, until I looked it up and read about events with no visible causal connection that seem to have meaningful relationships to each another. I knew of the word but had never used it to express my own thoughts; it was the title of a book I’d never opened.

In her book, “World as Lover, World as…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Recognizing & Dwelling in 'Knowingness' in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 20:28:48 -0700

I wanted to add this quote to the discussion… recognizing ‘knowingness‘ day to day in our experience, seeing through that clarity. And how once recognized, continuing to notice the immediacy of Knowingness, and the ongoing memory of that maturing recognition, seeds our future read-outs through time. Rinpoche writes:

“Once we develop more…

David Filippone started the topic Wisdom, NOT about what you Know? in the forum Time Space Knowledge

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 21:09:59 -0800

Image: ‘Maple leaves’ by gregovish – Pixabay
Wisdom may NOT be about what you know…

“We live in a world that we consider to be real. That may seem self-evident, but… our conviction is mostly based on certain kinds of evidence. For instance… the working of cause and effect: if the cause produces an effect it must be real… More generally, we c…

David Filippone replied to the topic How Did I Get Here? in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 21:26:34 -0800

Here is the introduction to Michael Gray’s post from the CCI Facebook page…

Author Michael Gray has penned a new Blog that seems to fit with an ending year, and tracking back in time asking, “How Did I Get Here?’ What a sobering question! How beautifully written is his Blog… it seems like a dream to the character speaking… life… time slipped…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Why Wait? in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 21:20:27 -0800

Here is the introduction of Michael Gray’s post from the CCI Facebook page…

Author Michael Gray has written a new Blog at the link below. He is considering fundamentally, quite important questions:

–What do I actually imagine will happen when I die?
–Do I experience an inner life that I feel can continue after I die?
–Am I failing to hear…

David Filippone replied to the topic Into the Light in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 21:14:34 -0800

Here is the introduction to Michael Gray’s post above, from the CCI Facebook website:

Author Michael Gray has written a Blog entitled “Into the Light’, in which he reveals: “When I was two years old, I drowned in Lake Ontario, and I sometimes wonder if I had something like the experience that adults the world round have reported… I wonde…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic My Friend the Sun in the forum Nature and the Environment

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 20:53:25 -0800

Here is the introduction to Michael Gray’s post from the CCI Facebook page:

Author Michael Gray has written a new Blog, or might I say, an ‘allegory’ for our time. He begins: “If I was a river, and I’m not saying I’m not, I would thread my way through all obstacles. Without them, I could not continue my journey.” Later, he relates:

“…

Michael Gray started the topic My Friend the Sun in the forum Nature and the Environment

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:59:03 -0800

If I was a river, and I’m not saying I’m not, I would thread my way through all obstacles. Without them, I could not continue on my journey. In my heart, I’m still in Egypt, flowing over cobblestones, where a donkey is pulling a heavily-laden cart; before I am then once more caught up in a stream making its way back to the sea. That was a diffe…Read more

Erin OConnor became a registered member

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 05:58:54 -0800

Michael Gray started the topic Into the Light in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:25:47 -0800

The question on everyone’s lips is: “Did I run into the light or did the light run into me?”

This question takes different forms depending on our interests and orientations. For an astronomer or physicist, the predawn light has been streaming out into the solar system and beyond, in all directions and without a moment’s interruption, for four bi…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Why Wait? in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 15:27:20 -0800

A friend who has a Christian perspective gave me a copy of a book that I have been reading. Very near the end now, I came upon a statement about three ways of viewing life and death:

“There are essentially three philosophies of man, three philosophies of life. Eastern mysticism, Western secularism, and Biblical theism. The first simply denies t…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic How Did I Get Here? in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 14:54:48 -0800

Waves are lapping against the gunnels of a rowboat that isn’t familiar to me. I see that I’m a good mile out from the coast and that the waves have suddenly become higher, as if I must have moved out past the protection of a projection in the shoreline. Then, with something like a shock, I notice that there must be a leak in the bottom of this row…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic A Deep Silence Beckons in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 15:29:33 -0800

I wanted to post here the introduction on CCI Facebook to Michael’s post above entitled, ‘A Deep Silence Beckons’:

Author Michael Gray has written another Blog, which in this case is a bit different. He writes as if from a deaf perspective. And when he first shared it I couldn’t help but think of the silence between all the ‘things’ that music i…

Michael Gray started the topic A Deep Silence Beckons in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 13:38:56 -0800

I’ve been deaf since birth but have been able to make my way in the world of the hearing well enough, with the help of braille, sign language, and the always improving technology for translating spoken speech into printed text.

Of course, I miss a lot and there are experiences I can only represent with analogies woven from the senses that r…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Seasonal Milestones in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 15:09:50 -0800

Have you ever felt that you need to recognize that something important for your happiness has gone missing before your eyes, and that you must learn to grieve for that loss before you can reenter life as a wiser person? That’s what I am trying to work on these days. Surprisingly, this time it’s not a personal loss that has invoked this awa…Read more

David Filippone started the topic ALL TIME IN THE PRESENT in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:31:22 -0800

Image: ‘Dawn’ by jonathansautter – Pixabay
https://tinyurl.com/y8am5bbo
Rinpoche writes…

“[One’s] entire personal history is present within each moment of time. By opening to the space, time, and knowledge available within the moment you can… instantly transform all of the ‘past’ moments preserved ‘there’. The psychotherapeutic approac…

David Filippone started the topic Ah in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:07:26 -0800

Image: ‘Dawn’ by jonathansautter – Pixabay
https://tinyurl.com/y8am5bbo
Dawn dances in the mind; a perception of an instant that can lift our entire embodiment, buoyed by a blink of the eye. Everything graceful and delicious flows through the senses: ‘Ah’, the humble moment:

Ah
by Ken McKeon

Walked the field of stars,
Walked through the mind…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic A Path Forward in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 21:57:44 -0800

I think one of the most important questions for an individual living in these current times is whether we see a path forward for ourselves.

If the path we are following is that we continue doing what we have been doing, we may feel that this is our best way of protecting ourselves and our community from the kind of terrible losses we see playing…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic TREES in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 20:39:24 -0800

Reading ahead in KTS, Chapter 18, Motion of Time, p. 83, regarding Time’s ‘different knowing’, Rinpoche uses a couple of helpful descriptors that might help us to recognize this different knowing when it suddenly appears. In a TSK Group meeting I desperately trying to describe sitting under the maple trees reading SDTS, just sitting with a…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic The Little Engine in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:55:23 -0800

“Until now, I have not been treated well, not by myself and not by the circumstances and conditions I have chosen to accept as real.” Caring, page 196

This sentence jumped out at me this morning. Or rather, something in how I was listening took a step closer, as when a phrase at a nearby table catches our attention and our ears “perk up”. Probabl…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic Rivers I have known in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 23:27:22 -0700

“We care about the lakes and the mountains and the sky, for we know that they are our progenitors.” Caring, page 150.

This unfamiliar perception caught me by surprise, when I recognized a seldom-honored truth in my life. I’ve been aware that times and places from my earlier life regularly replay in my mind–as if they are permanent resid…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic TREES in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:26:25 -0700

Several months ago I posted on this forum about our TSK Study Group discussions regarding noticing the seemingly simple, humble moments, and the importance of appreciating them, as a way into that ability to dwell in knowingness. I quoted a section from the book, ‘Keys of Knowledge,’ in which Rinpoche points out How. It is a simple, but profo…Read more

David Filippone started the topic TREES in the forum Poetry and Narrative Fiction

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:48:59 -0700

Image: October Glory – by 피어나네 from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/photos/leaves-maple-tree-autumn-leaves-4392723/

My friend Eric Lichtman shared this poem with me, it seemed to go right to the heart of the matter…

TREES
by Howard Nemerov

To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one’s own place;
To stand for the constant presenc…Read more

David Filippone replied to the topic Me and my Wall. in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:54:27 -0700

I wanted to post here the original CCI Facebook intro to Michael’s post above, from this link:
https://www.facebook.com/CenterforCreativeInquiry/posts/pfbid02NmNyPJskTvJZjF8FNfaD7ca2tJwhCJBGDF51YkmMXpsEExZ3XeT6zmpcup6aEjp4l

THE WALL AND ME…

“We do know that on some level and in some way time passes; that present will pass into past; that mem…

Michael Gray started the topic Me and my Wall. in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 13:30:49 -0700

Am I standing or floating in the stream of time?

“We do not let satisfaction be a reality. We try to achieve it in the future, to capture it and tie it down, making it a ‘present’. Under such circumstances, we experience great tension and pressure.” Time, Space, and Knowledge, Page 128.

I look at the brick wall in front of me and realize that I…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic When Two or More Gather in the forum Other (non-Buddhist) teachings by Tarthang Tulku

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 22:14:46 -0700

I’m on the outside looking in when it comes to practicing any religious orthodoxy. I suppose I picked that up from my mother, who once told me—when I asked her why she didn’t come to church services on Sundays with my father, sister and me—that if she wanted to be in touch with her spiritual being she preferred to do it on her own.

One day I a…Read more

Michael Gray started the topic “Good Greens” in the “Field of Space” in the forum Standing Out in the Field

Sun, 25 Jun 2023 22:11:30 -0700

While pondering how everything arises “together” in space, I was reminded of a poem I wrote while I was still living in Canada, which was published in “Wascana Review”:

Good Greens

Brown streaks slash the rough grey boards;
the old barn creaks under the drumming wind.
A rusty barrel plangs once—takes 2 bars on the run—
and then shifts into…Read more