INQUIRING INTO SPACE –

[David Filippone]

‘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 posting here fore easy reference for the group’s benefit, and for anyone interested in exploring the subject.

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Hi Group,

This week’s homework was to work with these VOK Questions …

VOK, Part One, Question #6 – The Existence of Space, p. 17

If we trace back the materials that go into building the house, we always come to a beginning…For something to originate, it seems that it must originate ‘into’. There must be a ‘pre-existent’ place. For physical matter, we call this place ‘space’. Does pre-existent space itself exist? If so, we would be caught in a loop: What pre-existed the pre-existent? But how can what does not exist accomplish or allow anything at all?

VOK, Part One, Question #7 – Matter Into Space, p. 18

Suppose that matter does enter into space, as suggested in the previous question. Can we speak of matter existing before it enters space, or does existence require space? If matter does not exist ‘somewhere else’ before entering space, how does it perform the act of taking form?

In Jack Petranker’s book, ‘When It Rains Does Space Get Wet’, regarding how to approach the 60-Questions in VOK, he writes, “…let these questions become the gateway to others; to stimulate what ‘Love of Knowledge’ (LOK), calls a ‘rain of questions.’ Then the link between questions and inquiry might be activated in a more comprehensive way.”

So, it might be helpful to review KTS Chapter 29 – Occupying Space, p. 137. The chapter preceding this one tells us we can open to SPACE simply by inquiring, while not fixating on answers. [Just like these VOK 60-questions] You let the questions percolate… It’s all about, wondering… the world is far more vast than our narrow concepts about it. Through questions or inquiry, space opens. Rinpoche writes in Chap. 29:

“If we choose to focus on space more directly, [such as through inquiry] the shape and form that matter takes on becomes significant in a new way. Without in any way losing their substantiality, shape and form appear as ‘structurings’ of space, partitions that function almost like ‘blueprints’, determining how space will manifest. We might say provisionally that by giving space structure, ‘shape and form’ allow us to communicate with it.”

“This way of understanding the relation between our selves and space is associated with making a clear distinction between space inside the body and space outside the body. A certain space is ‘ours’… Physical sensations occur within this space, and perhaps thoughts do also.”

In KTS Chap. 40 – Owned by Space, p. 142, Rinpoche points out:

“Caught up in our own concerns and claims, strongly identified with the seeming capacity of the self to know, we consider ourselves the owners of experience. But from another perspective, we might say that we are owned by space. Without space, entities could not manifest, nor could our world enter into being… Though we partition space in accord with our wants and wishes, the partitions depend on space as well. Could we experience space directly? It might be helpful to approach this question through comparing ‘space’ and awareness…

Like space, awareness is somehow ‘endowed’ with the capacity to accommodate. As space might be considered the ‘field’ for objects, so awareness could be considered the ‘field’ for mental events… What is the relationship between awareness and space? Though the awareness we call ‘mine’ may not depend on space, its arising would be impossible without some sort of link to the structures of space. Awareness ‘experiences’ what happens in space, and experience takes shape through an interaction between awareness and its ‘objects’ that space somehow accommodates.”

For me, the VOK questions, and the KTS text regarding space, embrace imaginative wonder, and penetrating analysis. What the Time, Space, Knowledge Vision brilliantly evokes.

Warm regards, 

David

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