Spirituality
23 Nov 13
What is going on here between blackbeetle and I is called mondo, a Zen dialectical exchange whose brevity comes from the fact that we are both familiar with the exercise.
To put it mundanely, I have accused blackbeetle (for the fun of it) of being too abstract and straying from just here-now: the melting lake-snow really is here where I am. He challenges my emphasis on the external phenomenon, directing attention to the “inward” (home), as well as implying that the snow-covered lake outside my window has no more nontransient substance than the Dark Lake of his mind—something like that, anyway.
I press him, whilst conceding that he is also correct. Of course, he knows this—it is a game. A kind of Zen-mind fencing—and if I am sloppy, which I often am, he’ll score a hit.
My “here-now is demonstrated equally”, while correct, is pretty weak tea. I compensate with a Zen shout across the web. ¡Ho!. But . . .
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In any event, while explaining does spoil it to some extent, maybe others reading it can take the example itself as an illustration; and fencing is perhaps an apt analogy for something that is more learned by watching and doing than by explanatory commentary. That is just how I was taught tai chi (how well or badly I learned is another matter).
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26 Nov 13
Originally posted by vistesdI like and appreciate this post.
What is going on here between blackbeetle and I is called mondo, a Zen dialectical exchange whose brevity comes from the fact that we are both familiar with the exercise.
To put it mundanely, I have accused blackbeetle (for the fun of it) of being too abstract and straying from just here-now: the melting lake-snow really is here where I am. He ch ...[text shortened]... mentary. That is just how I was taught tai chi (how well or badly I learned is another matter).
Thankyou.
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26 Nov 13
Originally posted by vistesdI will [probably] address more of this later, and I do agree with a lot of it.
[b]Um, I think you are rather miss-characterizing the argument that goes on between atheists and theists.
If I intended that as a generalization, I would be, no doubt. I think I left you with the impression elsewhere that I was accusing you of that error—my fault for not being clear; I apologize. But I have both witnessed and participated i ...[text shortened]... ne sources that I can recommend; so my reading suggestions may not be as accessible as others’.[/b]
But I want to address this...
Well, actually, then, I read too much into a question that was there: “How is that so hard to imagine?”.
Yeah, I read that as a snarky put-down to someone you later claimed was rude for not wishing to respond to you. I take your word that I was mistaken, and apologize. Aside from that, it seemed that I was clearly implicated in your accusation of rude behavior, based on how and when I might choose to respond (or not respond) to any post—I attempt to explain my disagreement with your understanding of rude behavior on a site such as this one below.
Looking at it I can see how it was misinterpreted, but I was using the phrase used in the post
I was responding to. The original post said that "It's difficult to imagine..." and I simply re-quoted the same phraseology. I wasn't giving much consideration to tone, which may well have been a mistake, however I was in quite a playful mood when writing it... hence the "¿qué?" at the top, quoting Manuel from Fawlty towers.
Manuel's "¿qué?" of bemusement and questioning I thought summed up my confusion and lack
of understanding of the meaning of Bosse de Nage's post. All I wanted was a little clarification
and explanation.
There was absolutely no snark in my first post, at all.
Now I am the first to admit, I do administer snark in liberal helpings to certain poster on these forums.
But I would say its generally earned and it's also unambiguous, If I'm being unflattering or rude
towards someone you generally know about it.
The rest of the time, it's probably safe to assume I am being genuine, and probably friendly and light hearted.
You have to post something fairly Dasa~esq to earn ire strait off the bat.
And you are in fact one of the posters I look for and generally like. Even If I still consider it rude to
hold highly technical conversations in public spaces where n00b's are not welcome.
As a note, I enjoy and am fascinated by all kinds of myths and legends, and don't get nearly enough
time to spend on them with all my other interests and commitments.
I don't like the myths of the bible, I think they're too boring and nonsensical, but there are many other
myths legends and pantheons out their that are interesting and fun as stories.
But this isn't a myths and legends discussion forum.
It's a spirituality forum where what is generally under discussion is whether the myths are true or not,
and what that means.
And I am not sure how you tackle that question without applying strict logic and reason to the issue.
If you consider the bible to be written by many authors over centuries or millennia thousands of
years ago, people for whom myth and stories and reality were very blurred around the edges and
ran into each other then you should view it as myths and legends and folk history (and propaganda)
If you consider the bible to be inspired by god then it should be literally true.
Otherwise you have to believe that god decided to tell us what is right and wrong by the least
efficient methods possible (or close too) with the greatest scope for mistake, misunderstanding,
and abuse. Which, if you genuinely believe in a universe creating god just doesn't make sense.
Those who believe that the bible should be viewed literally actually have a less contradictory and
more logical position than the majority of Christians who manage to believe that the bible is the
word of god while also not being literal or even largely true.
How you view the books, and what methods you use depend on what you're trying to do.
And this is not generally a literary analysis, or myth studies forum.
Anyhow, I do appreciate that you DID respond to my questions.
So thank you for that.
26 Nov 13
Originally posted by vistesdADDENDUM to my general explanatory post above (second one down on page 6)—
What is going on here between blackbeetle and I is called mondo, a Zen dialectical exchange whose brevity comes from the fact that we are both familiar with the exercise.
To put it mundanely, I have accused blackbeetle (for the fun of it) of being too abstract and straying from just here-now: the melting lake-snow really is here where I am. He ch ...[text shortened]... mentary. That is just how I was taught tai chi (how well or badly I learned is another matter).
Blackbeetle accepted my “web-shout” as a nonverbal expression of the directness that we attempted to embed in our mondo. I think that he let me off the hook a bit (maybe he could tell that I am physically tired today, and perhaps could not sustain the whole-heartedness demanded by the game much longer).
His mention of “own treasure” is a bit difficult to explain briefly (or maybe I am just too tired right now) in terms of psychology. Maybe I can peruse my bookshelf a bit later and find something worth citing on it.
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The point, simplistically, is to use words (because that’s what he have on here; in person there might be a lot more nonverbal stuff) to demonstrate the non-dual nature of our existential immersion, so to speak, in a reality that is prior to our conceptual map-making, including our own pre-conceptual awareness, and hence the essential recursiveness —[as I think that Douglas Hofstadter put it In his book Gödel, Escher, Bach] of our attempts to represent and understand that reality of which we, inescapably, are. Our consciousness is no more separate from the reality that we try to cognize, than is the gulfstream from the ocean.
That does not mean that our conceptual-map-making is useless—that would be a silly and easily refuted claim. And we have to set aside that fundamental recursiveness to make them. It is just that all of our maps are conditioned and partial. But we don’t test the accuracy (or the usefulness) of our maps by comparing them to other maps.
But some people seem to behave as if they live within the folds of their various and favorite maps (including Buddhists). Or, to use another familiar metaphor: they insist that the world is (must be?) as it appears looking through their particular conceptual glasses.
So, we have before raised the question, for example: is there a reality called the Self (the ego, the “I” ) that then thinks (including that thought “I” )? Some ground of consciousness that then becomes conscious? Is there first an organism that then observes, cognizes, etc.? Or are those just more or less useful ways to talk about physical processes going on? Or is it all just process going on (as in process philosophy). Do we have a tendency to assume substantives in reality because we rely on substantives as linguistic artifacts? Blackbeetle and I have both weighed in on that elsewhere. Here I’ll just leave them as open questions.
But, to reiterate, what blackbeetle and I were doing is a kind of game, where we practice using words (concepts) to point beyond the conceptual maps.
I’ll just drop in the following references as food for thought; then I’m gone to cook lunch and have a nap . . .
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Language Predicts the Conclusions We Reach
As we translate ideas, which are pre-verbal, into language, which is not, half our decisions are made for us by the nature of the language into which we organize our thoughts.
Thoughts are whole. Language is partial, an abstraction from the whole. This is all right; it is the nature of things. But, as with many other aspects of life, we will become the innocent victims of this truth to the extent we fail to understand it.
Awareness genders immunity.
European languages in general are noun-dominated. This is especially true of English. Naming is everything, or at least close to it. European languages encourage category-dominated thinking, from which we are not supposed to stray.
Many other languages do not function this way. Native American languages, for instance, are verb-dominated. In fact, Hopi has no nouns at all. (Try that on your Funk & Wagnalls!)
Perhaps you can immediately see how this difference would affect thinking. Verb-dominated languages have an inexorable focus on process. What something or someone is called is not nearly as important as describing the flow of energy through that circumstance. "How things work" is closer to the thinking engendered by verb-dominated languages.
—http://www.ratical.org/ratville/future/economics.html
And here is a deconstruction of substantive-based language in the context of understanding Native American god-concepts: http://hilgart.org/enformy/dma-verb.htm
26 Nov 13
2 edits
Originally posted by googlefudgeAnd you are in fact one of the posters I look for and generally like.
I will [probably] address more of this later, and I do agree with a lot of it.
But I want to address this...
[quote]Well, actually, then, I read too much into a question that was there: “How is that so hard to imagine?”.
Yeah, I read that as a snarky put-down to someone you later claimed was rude for not wishing to respond to you. I t ...[text shortened]...
Anyhow, I do appreciate that you DID respond to my questions.
So thank you for that.
The feeling is most definitely mutual. And I’m sorry that I misread you. On the other score, maybe our difference on the “rude factor” is a matter of degree. But maybe we just disagree.
All I’ll say on the myth question is that I do not know how to read what appears to me as myth including religious myth—or to analyze it—anyway other than mythologically. Myth/story, like poetry, often has layers of meaning—or at least symbols that attempt to point to meaning.
As a bit of an aside, but also relevant to what blackbeetle and I were just doing, is that different cultures have different understandings of what constitutes “truth”. I think that some of this is a linguistic artifact.
For example, the English word truth is cognate with such words as trust, troth and even tryst. And in our western philosophy (at least in the Anglo-American stream) we speak of a “correspondence theory of truth”—in other words, a true statement is one whose tryst with reality is trothful. [Ugh!]
Buddhism originated in a culture where the words that we render in English as “truth” are cognate with the words for being/existence/reality. Hence there tends to be a “reality theory of truth”, so to speak. It is in this sense that a Zen master, asked “What is the ‘truth’?” might respond by pointing at any object at hand—and even when words are used, they are used more akin to such an ostensive definition. And if one gets caught up in the words/concepts, the Zen master might say that it is as if she pointed to the moon, but the other is focused on her finger.
And that is why Zen often uses deliberately paradoxical sayings (called koans): as ways of pointing outside the conceptual maps (the metaphor that I used in my previous, verbose post).
And so, there is a point where explanation and commentary becomes counter-productive from a Zen point of view. I took the time (really in response to the fact that some of your criticism is undoubtedly fair) to explain our activity—but I think that my second post on it (the “Addendum” ) probably crossed into the counter-productive, speculative area.
As I noted elsewhere, my introduction to Zen (with or without the “Buddhist” modifier) was a book by an American analytical philosopher named Paul Wienpahl called Zen Diary. Although his lengthy philosophical introduction was, at the time, over my head, I suppose that I might have thought that it lent some intellectual credibility to the zaniness that followed. Anyway, it hooked me (I no longer have a copy; maybe I need to track it down and revisit it).
James Austin’s Zen and the Brain (he is a, pretty well-known I think, research neurologist as well as a Zen Buddhist) weighs in at over 800 pages, and there are chunks of it that I’ve never read. That’s where I want to find some stuff on what goes on in the movement from awareness to conceptualization—later.
Now I do have to pack it in for awhile.
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26 Nov 13
Originally posted by vistesdGet a room the pair of you 😛
What is going on here between blackbeetle and I is called mondo, a Zen dialectical exchange whose brevity comes from the fact that we are both familiar with the exercise.
To put it mundanely, I have accused blackbeetle (for the fun of it) of being too abstract and straying from just here-now: the melting lake-snow really is here where I am. He ch ...[text shortened]... mentary. That is just how I was taught tai chi (how well or badly I learned is another matter).
27 Nov 13
Originally posted by vistesdEdit: “His mention of “own treasure” is a bit difficult to explain briefly (or maybe I am just too tired right now) in terms of psychology.”
ADDENDUM to my general explanatory post above (second one down on page 6)—
Blackbeetle accepted my “web-shout” as a nonverbal expression of the directness that we attempted to embed in our mondo. I think that he let me off the hook a bit (maybe he could tell that I am physically tired today, and perhaps could not sustain the whole-heartedness dema ...[text shortened]... context of understanding Native American god-concepts: http://hilgart.org/enformy/dma-verb.htm
No complexity; A Black Tiger stole a Heart, a Green Dragon crossed the River (I merely said: “No complexity”, instead just awareness herenow –action/ reaction, inhale/ exhale, yin/ yang etc. In fact, “The Black Tiger steals the Heart” and “The Green Dragon crosses the River” are parts of Wong Kiew Kit’s “Dragon in Ch’an” kung fu set).
And then, of course, under attack I had to stop being cryptic and explain myself! Since “therethen” (during that specific herenow, that is) I was anyway dancing into our Two Truths mondo, I told you that your mind (a specific foal made of clay) hijacked you; and when you acknowledged that I, like you, was really living the “here and now”, I replied that your treasure (your Buddha nature) is always inside you, therefore you don’t have to worry constantly that at a given time you may become too abstract and stray from the Way; for there is nothing to be added or removed: when one has the deep gnosis that one is an organic part of the cosmic reality, why would one ever want to start searching for the cosmic reality outside? And, when one’s dualism is thus destroyed, how “inside” and “outside” aren’t together a Gankyil with one’s Clear Light in its middle as a catalyst?
“Ho!”
Yes vistesd, the words are abandoned once the map is used and the territory is found😵
Originally posted by googlefudgeBlah blah blah blah
I will [probably] address more of this later, and I do agree with a lot of it.
But I want to address this...
[quote]Well, actually, then, I read too much into a question that was there: “How is that so hard to imagine?”.
Yeah, I read that as a snarky put-down to someone you later claimed was rude for not wishing to respond to you. I t ...[text shortened]...
Anyhow, I do appreciate that you DID respond to my questions.
So thank you for that.
words
words words
words words words
words words words words
words words words words sword
sword sword sword sword
sword sword sword
sword sword
sword
🙂
...........LISTEN
🙂
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
27 Nov 13
1 edit
Originally posted by Pianoman1Ha ha ha.
Blah blah blah blah
words
words words
words words words
words words words words
words words words words sword
sword sword sword sword
sword sword sword
sword sword
sword
🙂
...........LISTEN
🙂
An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.
For your frog, a fly:
Long Legged Fly
That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand upon his head.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.
That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding resides
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
W.B. Yeats