“Now this sounds a bit like your “loosing faith in opposites” and gaining “faith in mysterious sameness”. What do you think about that?”

Yes, I see it that way. I find that we are attracted to the point-of-view that best reflects how we need to see the world at that time. For a time the Bhagavad Gita served as my perceptual cornerstone. As my needs changed, its usefulness waned. Although, it reflects one way of seeing things that still appeals to me – just not as deeply. The Tao Te Ching grew to be my perceptual cornerstone. Then along came the ‘day and night mare’ of correlations.

That set my mind adrift and it ain’t getting any better. Does that mean ‘blowing your mind’ with correlations is a bad thing? That’s unanswerable now because good and bad have become a blur in mysterious sameness. My perceptual cornerstone seems to have no corners or stone.

It is interesting that I can neither recommend nor caution against moving into a mental space which is ‘indistinct and shadowy‘. Perhaps because the question is irrelevant. The mental space we occupy is the one we need to occupy. No will, free or otherwise, is involved as far as I can tell. In each moment, we end up where we need to be. I blame gravity.

Maybe I see a difference between your approach of placing less trust in opposites, and the “model” I have, which I think is a Zen one. Although as I write this down, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe the differences are just in the terminology:

I have noticed that there is more than one way my mind can work, and it is only in one mode that all these opposites exist. This is the one that uses words to think, most of the time about itself in relation to the world. And it seems like the regular way, not least because it’s the only one that speaks up for itself.

But sometimes if I try or if something happens, it can switch off, or at least move into the background. What replaces it is another kind of thinking, that brings with it a view of the world which I don’t think sees things in terms of opposites.

I don’t think it sees things in terms of similarities either though. It just doesn’t have time for comparisons.
(I wonder if I can make a comparison without using words in my head. I ought to try and see.)

One noticeable effect this has is that I act and come up with ideas in a spontaneous fashion. I don’t seem to get in my own way.

Now this sounds a bit like your “loosing faith in opposites” and gaining “taith in mysterious sameness”. What do you think about that?

I can see ways in which they may be different.

(By the way, thanks for sorting out the wysiwyg editor Luke)

You ask,

If one’s mind were different, in such a way, might it be possible that to that mind, the world is not made up of opposites?.

I find that to be the case, though it is not that the mind is different. Rather, it is the emotional trust one places in what the mind ‘thinks’ it perceives and knows. The less you trust this, the less “opposites” dominate perception. As trust in the mind’s certainty wanes, faith in mysterious sameness waxes. Trust, faith? Put another way, when trust shifts away from seeing reality in opposites, it must (by default I suppose) shift towards seeing reality in similarities. It all boil down to which you trust, opposites or similarities. With trust in the later, contentment in how things are become easier, for even if things change, they are still the ’same’. It is odd, but that’s another story.

What about the Tao’s yin and yang, the prototype of opposites – is that talking about the same dualism in our head, or in Taoism do those opposites have an objective existence of their own, outside of the mental realm?

It’s difficult to think about reality stripped of all discussion of our own conception of it. So, to put my question another way: If one’s mind were different, in such a way, might it be possible that to that mind, the world is not made up of opposites?

Or is that impossible or nonsensical from a Taoist point of view? Is the world really full of opposites, and any conscious mind will always discern that?

Watching myself, being self-conscious, is not necessarily what I would call “worrying”.  The reason for wanting to wind down the watching is that it is the antithesis of spontaneity. For me, wanting to spend some time being spontaneous, being “in the zone”, not watching myself, and not watching myself watching myself,  is not worshiping an “ideal”.

Did I say worship? It not an issue of “worshiping”; it is the issue of seeking  an “ideal”, which sounds in your case like the ideal of spontaneity. As for “worrying”, call it concern, an urge to seek a solution. All animals feel this and react to fix whatever problem they feel they have. The difference is they don’t “think” they have a problem. However, they “feel” they have a problem. It is in the “feeling” that the angst resides, not in the thinking that accompanies it in the case of our species. We just “think” we are different from other animals.

…There is no other side that beckons.  The grass is not greener anywhere else, because all comparison ceases.

All animals experience the ‘grass is greener’ instinct/syndrome. It is what keeps life on the move seeking the ‘greener pastures’ that promise enhanced survival. Zen is simply another of humanity’s myths that mirror the ‘grass is greener’ instinct. In Zen’s case, the ‘greener grass’ is spontaneity. It is a very appealing hoodwink I’ll admit, especially for those of us for whom the God hoodwink falls flat.

Hmm. I guess Papa went in and stuck some paragraph breaks into your post. The problem lies in the edit plugin program. It offered some better formatting but fails in other ways. So back to the original plain text editor.

Luke

It is eminently practicable and brings with it an entirely different result than simply seeing another side of things. It is not like attaining other goals: Once there, since I’m not watching myself, I am no longer interested in the goal, how well I’m doing, what goal to seek next. There is no other side that beckons. The grass is not greener anywhere else, because all comparison ceases.(*) When I am able to be spontaneous I find I am more capable, more alive (the only way I can describe it) and fun to be around it would appear. And when I’m back to being self-conscious, I find I that I am self-conscious in a more muted and altogether more relaxed and helpful way.

(*) Is that too Zen? The first near match I can find in the Tao Te Ching is in Chapter 2:Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practises the teaching that uses no words.”no action” I take to mean acting spontaneously, not acting with a conscious purpose. And “using no words” is exactly what I’m writing about (sic – LOL)

But swimming in the river, there’s no watching

What makes you think that? Perhaps you are holding onto an ideal paradise where “there’s no watching”. How is this any different from the widely held ideal of a Heaven where there’s no suffering. I sense such fantasies arise from what we feel to be missing, and so hunger after.

This is curious in that if you were truly missing something, like starving to death, freezing to death, dying of thirst, etc., you would likely have no thought of anything missing other than food, warmth, or water, etc.

This brings me to suspect that we inherit ‘potential worry energy’, the degree of which varies between individuals. Our emotion will find a suitable something to focus that energy on. When we are relatively safe and comfortable what is that innate ‘worry’ emotion going to do? Find something ‘wrong’! Does not this “watching” fill the bill for you? Ironically, for another, “not watching” would be the ‘wrong’ to fill their bill.

Perhaps to put it another way: It is as though you’re a butterfly wishing you could “watch”, if as a butterfly you could “watch” such a wish. Butterflies fly; minds “watch”, and naturally so.