Instead of abandoning God

Originally posted by vistesd
Because tathata is pre-/non-conceptual (including all “I-concepts” ), any words that I use (including these) can be no more than “fingers pointing to the moon.” Tathata itself is ineffable, and that word itself is just a label.

Isn't this a "concept" in itself, painting the world with (Buddhist/Zen) paint so to speak? Why look at the world and think there is something pre-conceptual there?

Originally posted by Sepia Tint
Isn't this a "concept" in itself, painting the world with (Buddhist/Zen) paint so to speak? Why look at the world and think there is something pre-conceptual there?

Hello, Sepia Tint. How are you?

The key is in your second question. Concepts do not exist in the world; concepts are how we think about the world. We make concepts. [Note: I distinguish between concept and percept.]

If one, as you say, looks at the world and thinks there is something pre-conceptual there, then that is what one is doing: thinking. To get behind the conceptualization is the point of meditation: to get to the basic experiential ground of simply being aware, before laying concepts on it (what I once called “bedrock”; but you convinced me that was not such a good term; basic ground may not be much better).

As for your first question: that is partially true. As soon as I use words, I am using concepts—or at least, as darthmix points out, even if I am using a word as merely a label, a pointer, it is likely to have conceptual connotations; even such a phrase as “just-so-suchness.” That is inescapable if one is rash enough (as I am) to try to use words as pointers.

I also tried to make clear that my non-dualism is a philosophical conclusion, and, as such, certainly falls in the thinking/conceptualizing domain. As such, it is arguable. What is not arguable is that basic experience: one either knows (or remembers) it, or one does not. In that simple being-aware, there are no concepts; once there are concepts, you have left that simple awareness and started thinking. You conceptualize the content of your perceptual experience—or else you are conceptualizing about other concepts about... And what we argue about, discuss, debate about, is our concepts. What does the word “god” mean? What conceptual content do you associate with that word. Can it be used just as a pointer to what is itself ineffable, or has the word itself become too concept-laden?

As a start, one can simply notice how thoughts arise in the mind, how one relates them to one another, how they pass away. One can begin to notice that simply being aware precedes conceptualization (developmentally as well as in terms of everyday experience: I have finally gotten a ways into that big book).

What is actual? What is conceptual? When we conceptualize (and think and reason) what are we conceptualizing about?

Originally posted by vistesd
Hello, Sepia Tint. How are you?

The key is in your second question. Concepts do not exist in the world; concepts are how we think about the world. We make concepts. [Note: I distinguish between concept and percept.]

If one, as you say, looks at the world and thinks there is something pre-conceptual there, then that is what one is do ...[text shortened]... is conceptual? When we conceptualize (and think and reason) what are we conceptualizing about?

Very well thank you, as I hope you are too... 🙂

I have always liked the (I believe Sufi) quote "There are 70,000 veils between man and God but none between God and man."

I do not believe that you need mountain top monasteries or the blue cliff record et al to understand that you are either "in the moment" or thinking about something (else). Whilst I agree that meditation may be used
to get behind conceptualisation, actually I think it may be used for other things such as: breaking cycles of habitual thinking which may lead to more skilful handling of contentious situations and thus "spiritual growth" This may be a debate for a different thread.

My suspicion is that as much as Zen tries to pare down to the bare metal there is still a thin layer of paint (a veil) there. . .

Originally posted by Sepia Tint
Very well thank you, as I hope you are too... 🙂

I have always liked the (I believe Sufi) quote "There are 70,000 veils between man and God but none between God and man."

I do not believe that you need mountain top monasteries or the blue cliff record et al to understand that you are either "in the moment" or thinking about something (else). Whils ...[text shortened]... es to pare down to the bare metal there is still a thin layer of paint (a veil) there. . .

I’m well, too, thanks.

I like the Sufi quote: the question is, “What is the Sufi’s God concept?”

I agree with what you say about meditation. There are different kinds. The Western Christian tradition distinguishes between mediation and contemplation, the latter being almost synonymous with what, say, a Soto Zen Buddhist would call meditation, which is how I tend to use the word.

Yeah, I think there is often a thin layer of paint. The point then is to work on that, and not get hooked into “I’m a Buddhist”, “I’m a Taoist” kind of stuff. One of the reasons why I have tried—with help from folks such as you and Palynka and Starrman and Epiphenehas—to experiment with non-sectarian language. Neverthless, Zen is my principal form of expression, as a personal matter. (A year or so ago it was not.) Zen Buddhism is for me useful means.

The other thing we have not mentioned is aesthetics. Zen is pretty stark there. Sufi poetry, say, is much richer. I have found that I need to be particularly careful about getting caught up in the metaphors and symbolism, wonderful as I find them—our very attempts at understanding and expression can become veils.

A poem from Hafiz (a Sufi):

A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.

That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered

And did some serious binge drinking.

They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.

Then the “night candle” rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
Said to his friend—for no apparent
Reason,

“What should we do about that moon?”

Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music

Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.

Hafiz (from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master, Daniel Ladinsky, translator)

Originally posted by vistesd
Hello, Sepia Tint. How are you?

The key is in your second question. Concepts do not exist in the world; concepts are how we think about the world. We make concepts. [Note: I distinguish between concept and percept.]

If one, as you say, looks at the world and thinks there is something pre-conceptual there, then that is what one is do ...[text shortened]... is conceptual? When we conceptualize (and think and reason) what are we conceptualizing about?

Very erudite and enlightening.

I believe that the reason I still stick with the word God is that I don't want to turn my personal beliefs into buddhism. I want them to be more all encompassing, inclusive, and ecumenical.

Originally posted by Red Night
Very erudite and enlightening.

I believe that the reason I still stick with the word God is that I don't want to turn my personal beliefs into buddhism. I want them to be more all encompassing, inclusive, and ecumenical.

And the only reason I don’t use the word is because I don’t want my personal beliefs to get confused with supernatural theism / dualism. 😉

Really, though, although my principal expression has become in terms of Zen Buddhism, the “perennial philosophy” is found in all the major religions—although, as you say, it is often considered heretical (it’s actually a major river running through Judaism, and is not really considered heretical; or, at least it would seem to be a minority that would see it so). It’s probably best to think of my Zen Buddhism as no different from someone being a poet rather than a sculptor, or a physicist rather than a musician, etc.

Nevertheless, I do see dualism/non-dualism as the great spiritual divide. And, on the one hand it gets confusing when the word “God” is used on both sides of that divide; but, on the other hand, one cannot avoid it if one reads the literature and studies the various religious expressions. It’s rather like the word “mysticism” in that regard: that word has come to have an occultic connotation in many quarters, though that is not its basis (or, rather the way in which “Kabbalah” has come to have certain new-agey connotations, when it is, in fact, in the main theological stream of Judaism).