I tried to respond
but was i wrong?
Tely, I didn't know exactly what intersubjectivity means, and your link points to this conversation.
I could guess at a couple of possible meanings, but the context of the interesting discussion wasn’t available through that path. I did look it up today and was pleased to find usage in developmental psychology and a reference to Martin Buber’s book, “I and Thou.”
I also found a link to B. Alan Wallace’s paper, on Intersubjectivity in Tibetan Buddhism, which I look forward to reading.
I’m hesitant to try explaining Rinpoche’s words, because I am still involved with learning, and have no direct experience of having a qualified teacher point out the naked awareness of Rigpa. From what I have learned so far, it is only an idea to me, and I cannot speak from a position of strength or knowledge. But, His Eminence, is/was a root teacher to several of the Lamas who teach me. I will ask, but I’m afraid that I will be forbidden to speak about it, or that my interpretation could mislead you.
We have already seen examples where my understanding was not in agreement with another person's interpretation here on TTBF, and this has caused distress. But I digress…
Children do learn by touching and engaging the world. And infants, quite spontaneously, put anything they can grasp into their mouths. However at least one paper asserts that “newborns relate to their mothers in a person-to-person basis,” and that intersubjectivity exists between mother and child from birth. The paper also examines the question of how we can tell if the infant has an awareness of self as separate.
I hope that others look at this line of inquiry and find some areas of agreement which can form the basis for a mindful discussion.
We can find extreme points where intersubjectivity could not be logically possible. Reasonably we could argue that one could not have a sense of self prior to the development of a central nervous system. It has been argued that “life begins at conception,” but where does self begin?
If self could be shown to exist before the development of a body or a set of neural pathways we could wonder what exactly were the dimensions of self, whether it has limits and whether it actually exists separately.
Well, we don’t have to prove anything to “wonder,” do we?
Let me close by inviting you to imagine Dudjom Rinpoche sitting on a Higg’s Boson, which may or may not simultaneously exist in more than one place.
And one of those places is my heart…