All of Brain’s Conscious Functions Are Made Within, and of, Itself
The following recordings are from Jan’s final years, when his voice was diminished and he spoke in a low whisper. Some listeners may find these tapes hard to listen to, or difficult to understand. Thus, as another option, transcripts are being made and will be posted.
Otherwise, turn up the volume and enjoy! Those who carefully listened to Jan during this period consider that he spoke plainly and directly to the matter at hand, “pulling out all the stops,” as he understood that these were to be his last messages to his groups, and to posterity.
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Summary
7/5/04:
Notes by TK
The metaphor of consciousness as a dog; an unruly dog incessantly chasing cars zooming by on the road outside its yard. But what is the yard in this metaphor? The brain? If so, how does the dog ever get out of the yard? All the brain’s conscious operations are made from and of itself: within itself.
Nothing in the brain is controlling consciousness; it can’t wander uncontrolled, nor can it be reined in: it slips from one state to the other—entangled with its ‘objects’ or (rarely) acutely concentrated on its naked background-ness, according to some unknowable inherent phase-functioning. (41:24) #3169
Notes by DR
Jan Cox Talk 3169 The conscious operations of the brain is where everything exists, not only the answers but also the questions and that’s the answer. Everyone would agree their consciousness is like an unruly dog chasing after anything. What does the yard symbolize? Can consciousness get out of your brain? Consciousness at its most unruly doesn’t get out of your brain. Consciousness can picture things that it has never experienced. Your dog (it’s not your dog, it’s your thoughts) is out of your control. There is nothing in your brain controlling your consciousness. Your consciousness cannot ever leave your brain. The unruly dog never leaves the yard. It is not leaving a place. What is the ‘out of control’ if it doesn’t leave your brain?
Jan’s Daily Fresh Real News (to accompany this talk)
IMPRISONED THOUGHT NEVER EATS A LAST MEAL
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Serving The Few Their Special Mental Menu
JULY 5, 2004 © 2004: JAN COX
One man wished he was a bird –
then wished he was a worm – then a bird again –
then he wished he was a cat – then a cloud – then a worm, and finally
wished he could stop wishing he was something other than he was.
The grand prize was the right to have the front porch of your house removed,
the place from which your consciousness normally watches the endlessly
passing traffic and is captured thereby.
A man wrote the city’s Transportation Director:
“Dear Sir: Should I be more concerned about the type of traffic going by my house,
or my porch’s particular position in relationship thereto?” and the Director wrote back to say that his biggest concern should be that traffic doesn’t run through his house,
(but in line with the bureaucratic attraction to clichés he went on to say that
this information was probably, “too little and way too late.”
[“Isn’t everything!” mused the man’s dog as it lunged once again, blindly into traffic.])
The attraction of alcohol and drugs – in spite of common claims to the contrary –
is that they reinforce the confines of consciousness and encourage
the distracting rambling of congenital thought.
(Would-be consumers might note that such drugs need not be purchased
inasmuch as lower areas of the nervous system can provide them quite nicely.)
After you have awakened to what life is really about,
whenever you lapse back into taking it personally you then dream within a dream.
Man’s ordinary consciousness can act like an open cut that will infect itself.
(In one sense it is shabby to describe consciousness in words such as these,
but without it being limned in striking terms it is extremely difficult to gain even
a brief glimpse of this most elusive, and self camouflaging creature.
(Plus there’s the fact that it doesn’t take it personally anyway. [“Yeah! — not much it don’t!”])
Silence is to certainty as speech is to stupidity.
(“Who said that?”
To help support the desired appearance of wisdom, its author declines to be identified.
[“Sad to say but we can all understand that.”])
Talk (as practiced by ordinary men and their minds)
is like a fabulous train that is going nowhere.
Life In Prison.
When things aren’t going well in their cell,
men are wont to label god the warden.
Ordinary men cannot live an ordinary life without having a premise,
or believing there is some special purpose to theirs.
Send For The Tailor.
No thought – no guilt;
no thought – no moral outrage — such situations would however,
be unacceptable tears in the fabric of man’s collective civil reality.
One Man’s Interim Attempt At Being Enlightened.
“I have never stumbled or screwed up but my consciousness was responsible –
not ME mind you – but my consciousness.”
(“Where do you get this ‘my’ crap?!” said something in the skull.)
Told In Toto: The Fruits Of Man’s Ordinary Mental Life:
More & more about more & more.
(“Pa pa: is there such a thing as low fat snoozing?”)
One day one man’s consciousness said to him:
“Why have you singled me out for all of your intellectual criticism?” –
the answer to which is self evident
(unless you let your self get in the way of its evidentness).
“Why I would never do that.” Who said that?
There was once a people who had, throughout their history, been haunted by something unknown, but felt and assumed to be of great magnitude and complexity;
then one day, one man saw it – and it was actually quite simple,
but when he described it – no one believed him –
so he had to make it sound more complicated than it really was.
Silence is to certainty as talk is to standard confusion.
Irrational (But True) Health News.
When treated by a Bodhi tree or the like,
some people get better – even if they weren’t sick.
Silence is to the thrill of freedom as talk is to the comforting safety of confinement.
A man full of complaints, criticisms, personal problems and pressing questions
went to consult a sage who, after hearing him out, told him he was worrying about
the wrong things, and the man asked him to identify which ones he was specifically talking about, and the wise one could only shake his head in disbelief.
Overheard at a party:
“What will we do when the drugs run out?”
“Huh?”
“What will we do when our fears run out?”
“What?”
“What will we do when our dreams run out?”
“Huh?”
(Late into the party.)
“What will we do when our thoughts run out?”
(And someone mumbled something about it couldn’t come too soon.)
Only consciousness can throw a shindig with an endless open bar and enough police
all over the premises to make sure no one has too much fun — or leaves.
To shut up requires that you have no interest in collective man’s incorporeal reality, or you will bark and snap forever at the passing invisible traffic.
Now Leaving On Track Nine!
The man who knows what is going on is like the last guy in line to board
The Yammer Express.
J
Consciousness that is actually conscious is a front porch of still & quiet.