Here is the quote from “Challenging Journey, Creative Journey”, by Tarthang Tulku, that Michael referenced in his above post, regarding the need for a much wider awareness of the transitions that occur between thoughts… Rinpoche writes:
“Caught in the regime, we are bonded to the structures that frame us, entangled in ropes and nets of our own making. The words that point toward another possibility, are simply words, lacking all depth. [T]he fabricated constructs that facilitate our [bondage], our subject-object world, we circle in spirals of desire, negativities, and anxieties. The patterns in which we move have no substance. They are an illusion that we craft for ourselves by spinning faster and faster. We see only the illusion of substance, the claim of reality. These patterns are subtle. We walk where we wish, but somehow we always walk the paths that have been laid down in advance. We are free to pursue our own interests, but not free to question whether being selfish is the best choice. We are free to decide what is bad and what is good, but not free to ask whether our understanding of good and bad is distorted from the outset. I live my life as I always have, and I find myself where I’ve always been.”
“Unless we look into this, we are not free. If we want to look beyond this kind of automatic behavior we need to look at The Transition Between Thoughts. If we don’t experience the transitions, we don’t experience our lives. We are not connected. If we want to change how we know, we need to question these kinds of structures. The more we see, the closer we get to being free. When we release ourselves of having to follow our past ways of thinking, we can look at the transition between thoughts, and we can make choices. It all starts with questions.”
…’Challenging Journey, Creative Journey,’ by Tarthang Tulku, p. 69-80 [Emphasis added]