Men commit actions; women commit gestures

[RobertGreenSky]

Might as well do the other two terms as well, Dan. My scan of the debate shows me characterizing your 'enlightenments' as being tainted by Weininger with regard to 'sexism' and 'racism', and Weininger is reasonably characterized as both sexist and racist (antisemitic). None of you were personally characterized as 'sexist' or 'racist' or as 'Nazis'. How did the enlightened man get it so wrong, Dan?

[Dan Rowden]

Robert: You can pretend you have no responsibility, but how will you argue it?

Dan: You can pretend that I pretend to have no responsibility, but how will you argue it?

Robert: If honesty toward me doesn't matter, where does it matter?

Dan: What do you know of honesty? Don't talk to me about things you don't really value but simply use as weapons against others, Robert. I have no time for your pomposity.

And how I will argue it is by pointing out that again you quibbled, you could not write a real answer to a simple question. Would the Buddha have quibbled, distorted, or lied? Would the Buddha have said that anyone does not deserve an honest answer?

Your questions are dishonest and ridiculous and designed to cast aspersions, Robert. Your apparent belief that they deserve serious responses is profoundly laughable. I'm frankly running out of staples for my sides.

[RobertGreenSky]

... I'm not saying that Robert is on the same level as Hitler (Robert is far too timid for that), but there are striking similarities in their psychology.

- David Quinn, debate, last rebuttal.

Four years later both Rowden and Quinn claim that statement is true but neither of them have ever reasonably established any truth to it. If you say it is unimportant, why is that? Should it be unfairly said of any human being, that he is like a Hitler?

[Dan Rowden]

You not only linked Weininger to Hitler, and by the extension method you adopted, me, you labeled a link to a Weininger quotation anthology translated by Kevin Solway and Martin Dudaniec: "Nazis on the Net". Am I mistaken that you labeled it thus? Or was that one of your jokes that I am constantly misinterpreting?

Where is your name in that, Rowden? Now a link to Weininger is not a link to Solway proper, but your name isn't even mentioned.

What? What constitutes a link to someone "proper", then? I suppose the pluralization of "Nazi" was a Freudian slip of some kind or a mere typo. <rolls eyes>

You are arguably the most dishonest and hypocritical person I have ever met, Robert. Your talents in these areas are truly remarkable. You spent at least half of that entire debate making a case for guilt and identity by association. It doesn't matter that you won't own up to it or that it isn't a matter of interpretation - because it was precisely the method you adopted in the debate - people can see the reality for themselves.

[Dan Rowden]

Might as well do the other two terms as well, Dan. My scan of the debate shows me characterizing your 'enlightenments' as being tainted by Weininger with regard to 'sexism' and 'racism', and Weininger is reasonably characterized as both sexist and racist (antisemitic). None of you were personally characterized as 'sexist' or 'racist' or as 'Nazis'. How did the enlightened man get it so wrong, Dan?

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

[RobertGreenSky]

Robert: You can pretend you have no responsibility, but how will you argue it?

Dan: You can pretend that I pretend to have no responsibility, but how will you argue it?

Robert: If honesty toward me doesn't matter, where does it matter?

Dan: What do you know of honesty? Don't talk to me about things you don't really value but simply use as weapons against others, Robert. I have no time for your pomposity.

And how I will argue it is by pointing out that again you quibbled, you could not write a real answer to a simple question. Would the Buddha have quibbled, distorted, or lied? Would the Buddha have said that anyone does not deserve an honest answer?

Your questions are dishonest and ridiculous and designed to cast aspersions, Robert. Your apparent belief that they deserve serious responses is profoundly laughable. I'm frankly running out of staples for my sides.

Would the Buddha have said that the question 'does anyone not deserve an honest answer?' is laughable? You know the Buddha would have answered the question.

[RobertGreenSky]

Might as well do the other two terms as well, Dan. My scan of the debate shows me characterizing your 'enlightenments' as being tainted by Weininger with regard to 'sexism' and 'racism', and Weininger is reasonably characterized as both sexist and racist (antisemitic). None of you were personally characterized as 'sexist' or 'racist' or as 'Nazis'. How did the enlightened man get it so wrong, Dan?

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

Just as you were not called a Nazi, neither were you called a racist or a misogynist. You lied, Dan. And your answer here is another form of dishonesty.

[Dan Rowden]

... I'm not saying that Robert is on the same level as Hitler (Robert is far too timid for that), but there are striking similarities in their psychology.

- David Quinn, debate, last rebuttal.

Four years later both Rowden and Quinn claim that statement is true but neither of them have ever reasonably established any truth to it. If you say it is unimportant, why is that? Should it be unfairly said of any human being, that he is like a Hitler?

It's an opinion. Do you know what an opinion is? In the context of the tenor and method of the debate David likened your style and the psychology thereof to Hitler's method of crowd fever whipping-up. I have to agree, within the limits of the analogy (i.e. it doesn't extend beyond that context). In my opinion you do debate with either the conscious or unconscious intent of whipping up a moral frenzy. There was probably a thousand other person's David could have picked to make that analogy, but I imagine he chose Hitler because you'd put Hitler in his mind by bringing him and the Nazis into the debate in the first place.

[RobertGreenSky]

You not only linked Weininger to Hitler, and by the extension method you adopted, me, you labeled a link to a Weininger quotation anthology translated by Kevin Solway and Martin Dudaniec: "Nazis on the Net". Am I mistaken that you labeled it thus? Or was that one of your jokes that I am constantly misinterpreting?

Where is your name in that, Rowden? Now a link to Weininger is not a link to Solway proper, but your name isn't even mentioned.

What? What constitutes a link to someone "proper", then? I suppose the pluralization of "Nazi" was a Freudian slip of some kind or a mere typo. <rolls eyes>

You are arguably the most dishonest and hypocritical person I have ever met, Robert. Your talents in these areas are truly remarkable. You spent at least half of that entire debate making a case for guilt and identity by association. It doesn't matter that you won't own up to it or that it isn't a matter of interpretation - because it was precisely the method you adopted in the debate - people can see the reality for themselves.

The fact that Weininger was coupled with Hitler and you all with Weininger does not mean a parallel was being drawn between you and Hitler. Yours is a cheap argument relying in the end on mind reading. Is an honest answer entirely beyond you, Dan?

[Dan Rowden]

Your questions are dishonest and ridiculous and designed to cast aspersions, Robert. Your apparent belief that they deserve serious responses is profoundly laughable. I'm frankly running out of staples for my sides.

Would the Buddha have said that the question 'does anyone not deserve an honest answer?' is laughable? You know the Buddha would have answered the question.

I don't give a flying shit what the Buddha would have done. I'm calling you on your crap. For example, your question about responsibility implies that I don't know what it is and/or don't feel that I carry any such burden. Those implications are not worthy of being pissed on let alone responded to seriously.

[RobertGreenSky]

... I'm not saying that Robert is on the same level as Hitler (Robert is far too timid for that), but there are striking similarities in their psychology.

- David Quinn, debate, last rebuttal.

Four years later both Rowden and Quinn claim that statement is true but neither of them have ever reasonably established any truth to it. If you say it is unimportant, why is that? Should it be unfairly said of any human being, that he is like a Hitler?

It's an opinion. Do you know what an opinion is? In the context of the tenor and method of the debate David likened your style and the psychology thereof to Hitler's method of crowd fever whipping-up. I have to agree, within the limits of the analogy (i.e. it doesn't extend beyond that context). In my opinion you do debate with either the conscious or unconscious intent of whipping up a moral frenzy. There was probably a thousand other person's David could have picked to make that analogy, but I imagine he chose Hitler because you'd put Hitler in his mind by bringing him and the Nazis into the debate in the first place.

That's another evasion, Dan. There are many possible associations with Adolf Hitler, and given the fact David had accused me of being the kind of man who would have killed Jesus and Socrates, I do not believe it is reasonable to assume David was commenting purely on that one isolated aspect of Hitler's history. While Hitler was brought into the debate via Weininger, none of you were compared to Hitler and you must admit there is a profound difference in my linking Hitler to Weininger and David's (and your subsequent) linking of me to Hitler with all the monstrous associations, including murder.

Beyond that, if he didn't mean Hitler he wouldn't have used Hitler. To have used Hitler for that one aspect would have been rather a bad mistake, risking severe character assassination to make a point far more safely made with another analogy. And 'striking similarities in their psychology' does suggest mutiple similarities, doesn't it?

Thus, too little too convenient too late, Rowden. The Buddha would not have done it, would he?

[Dan Rowden]

Might as well do the other two terms as well, Dan. My scan of the debate shows me characterizing your 'enlightenments' as being tainted by Weininger with regard to 'sexism' and 'racism', and Weininger is reasonably characterized as both sexist and racist (antisemitic). None of you were personally characterized as 'sexist' or 'racist' or as 'Nazis'. How did the enlightened man get it so wrong, Dan?

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

Just as you were not called a Nazi, neither were you called a racist or a misogynist. You lied, Dan. And your answer here is another form of dishonesty.

The causal observer cam make up his own mind who the liar is. You can't spend an entire debate labeling by association and then pretend you didn't call anyone anything.

Anyway, I'm done with this now. We'll just go round in circles from here.

[RobertGreenSky]

Your questions are dishonest and ridiculous and designed to cast aspersions, Robert. Your apparent belief that they deserve serious responses is profoundly laughable. I'm frankly running out of staples for my sides.

Would the Buddha have said that the question 'does anyone not deserve an honest answer?' is laughable? You know the Buddha would have answered the question.

I don't give a flying shit what the Buddha would have done. I'm calling you on your crap. For example, your question about responsibility implies that I don't know what it is and/or don't feel that I carry any such burden. Those implications are not worthy of being pissed on let alone responded to seriously.

The Buddha is a terrible mirror for you, isn't he, Dan? If you carry the burden you think I accuse you of not shouldering, then why all the evasaion? The Buddha is a fine example, Dan, because he was so little like you are.

[RobertGreenSky]

The causal observer cam make up his own mind who the liar is. You can't spend an entire debate labeling by association and then pretend you didn't call anyone anything.

Anyway, I'm done with this now. We'll just go round in circles from here.

Whether I was trying to label by association would require my mind be read, and it was four years ago, and so that's a tall order. How will the text show it? Apparently that by labeling a Weininger webpage 'Nazis on the Net' with Solway and whomever nearby the link, that somehow I called Dan Rowden a Nazi. The text shows it only by wishful thinking, and no, the Buddha would not have claimed I had called Dan a Nazi. I don't believe the Buddha was given to wishful thinking and to my knowledge his ass was never in a sling in an argument anyway. I will grant that Dan might not have been lying and that instead he remembered it mistakenly. Ironically, he isn't liable to accept that since it would imply he was human rather than divine. Having labeled me Hitler-like, they are forced into contorted reasoning to justify it four years later rather than just apologizing for it. 'Heat of the moment, Robert; sorry.'

[RobertGreenSky]

My last. If Sue hadn't bullshitted I could have spent the night posting pictures of cats:

This was Hitler's special skill, in fact. He used to whip up crowds into a frenzy by adopting self-righteous poses and snarling at the "despicable" members of humanity. It is hard to see the difference between Robert's frothing-at-the-mouth torrent of invectives and Hitler's frothing-at-the-mouth speeches at rallies. In both cases, a group of people are demonzied, painted as retarded and mentally ill, and virtually told that they barely deserve to live - all for the sake of trying to win a popularity contest. It's pitiful. I'm not saying that Robert is on the same level as Hitler (Robert is far too timid for that), but there are striking similarities in their psychology.

- Quinn, ibid.

The real point of it is that Quinn got desperate and wrote some horrible things about his opponent. There was no frothing-at-the-mouth invective, although arguably David was frothing a bit at that point. I don't believe I was demonizing anyone, nor did I tell or virtually tell anyone they barely deserve to live (not even Jesus and Socrates), and I was certainly aware that I would never win a popularity contest at TPG, and for god's sake how much less so here? I was debating rather than seeking frenzy, cheap characterizations about moral outrage notwithstanding. Yes, Genius Forum outraged me; it still does. I cannot get over how people could have sold out the integrity of their minds in order to participate in a fantasy in which David Quinn - who wrote the above - is enlightened. The Buddha would have written none of it and every one of you knows it. I wish I could sit down to dinner with Dan and David and I suspect they would be good company, but contextually we are opponents.

[Leyla Shen]

divine focus:

J: The simple reason for this is that maleness or femaleness are primarily physiological qualities. The psychological differences between the genders are dependent on (and secondary to) the physiological differences. If it were not so, one's physiological configuration would change as a result of having psychological qualities more consistent with the opposite gender, instead of the way it really works (the reverse).

DF: He was saying that if physiological differences were not responsible for psychological differences, then nonsense would follow.

Then it necessarily follows that males and females are two mutually exclusive categories, since any posited psychological difference that isn‘t ultimately rooted in either of the two physiological configurations must be nonsense. Yet, somehow, at the very same time, we all seem to want to agree that both sexes have the capacity to think despite the psychological differences brought about by their physiological differences.

Surely that can’t be right!

[Laird]

Leyla and Sue, I don't claim to speak for either Nat or Robert, but here's my take on the physiological versus psychological debate. As David noted earlier in this thread, Weininger "demonstrates how the sharp physical differences between males and females is an illusion. He describes how everyone possesses "male" and "female" physical characteristics to varying degrees." Whilst I certainly don't recognise Weininger as an authority, I do recognise the (at least partial) truth in the argument that David describes him making here. What I'm trying to say is that physiology probably does, as Nat claimed, largely lead to psychology, it's just that physiology is not so very clear-cut. It's possibly to have part of the physiology of a woman (female genitalia and breasts) and part of the physiology of a man (a masculinised brain). In the case of the example that I've just given, it's clear which part of the physiology is most responsible for psychology.

I wrote that physiology probably does largely lead to psychology, but I also agree with what I think that Sue was trying to communicate, and that is that psychology can also to some extent be trained. An excessively emotionally-driven person can indeed train him/herself to become more rationally-driven.

[Leyla Shen]

Let me get this straight: you are still not willing to concede there is a contradiction, in favour of your "probablies"? Or was that some kind of long-winded way of half-ish doing so?

[Laird]

Put, in the tersest terms that you can, the two sides of what you see as the contradiction to me and I'll tell you whether I acknowledge it or not. I have read your posts to this thread several times and I don't quite understand what you see as being contradictory in Nat and Robert's positions. Nat said that physiology determines psychology. I'm saying that I agree in the main (although psychology can also be trained), but that physiology in terms of masculinity and femininity is fuzzy, not discrete, and can apply differently to different aspects of a person (e.g. body and mind might have differing physiologies, or even within the mind there may be differing physiologies at play).

[Leyla Shen]

How can physiological differences be primarily male or female and, at the same time, be fuzzy and non-discrete, applying differently to different “aspects” of a person?

(e.g. body and mind might have differing physiologies, or even within the mind there may be differing physiologies at play)

What the heck is that incoherent soup of ideas supposed to mean? You mean body and brain? Or body and psychology? Looks to me like you‘re begging the question, again.

[sue hindmarsh]

We know that physiology impacts on psychology, but we also know that not all males, or all females possess just the stereotypical psychology of their sex. If they did, we would have no reason to judge males and females against those stereotypes. That society does, means there exists a mix of both psychologies in most people. But this knowledge doesn't stop most people using those psychological-stereotypes to define themselves, and others.

Which is exactly what Unidian did when he wrote:

So, Sue, given that you haven't yet been able to philosophize your physiology out of existence, shall we ignore your "gesturing?"

He was responding to this thread’s title: “Men commit actions; women commit gestures”, and to my discerning some GF posters as “gesturers” due their “love of gossip, posturing, and the regurgitation of common old tattle”. I never mentioned who those people were. I never described them as being female, or male. What I did was describe some of the characteristics of the feminine psychology - naming it gesturing. Yet Unidian immediately felt it referred wholly to females.

Unidian’s response shows that there exists in him the notion that all females possess only the feminine psychology - and because I am a female, he feels that I must be of that same mind-set. This, of course, is plainly false - but it is interesting that it comes from a chap who considers my work on the feminine to be sexist in nature - though I have never said that all females possess only the feminine psychology. It is true that the feminine mind-set is populated mostly by females, but it also includes an ever growing number of males.

Anyone who is serious about developing their mind, and has spent time here on this forum with that as their main aim, would have some idea of what The Feminine, or Woman is referring to. Unidian’s profound lack of understanding was made clear by his comment to me. But his blindness in this matter is extremely common. He, along with most people, render all females as possessing a different potential than the one they imagine they themselves have, enabling them to define themselves through those relationships with females. By so doing, people have mindlessly created the circumstances that all sexism and chauvinism is based upon. If Unidian, and the rest of the herd stopped their parasitic use of females, such crass discriminations would stop. The only discriminations then would concern the psychology of the masculine and the feminine - and then only in the cause of truth - which Unidian and others might recall, is the main purpose of this forum.

[Alex Jacob]

I just did a preliminary reading of this debate of 2004. Very good to have it, because in this debate all the relevant issues were brought up. In that sense, it is all there to be seen.

David starts with a sort of textbook description of enlightenment. It is nicely written out in paragraphs 4 5 6 and 7. The view, as it is described, concurs with many others I have read over the years in various yoga books. For example, one could read Yogananda's description of his samadhi experience in Autobiography of a Yogi and find a great deal in common with the description offered by David. To me, without going back and searching the records, it is standard. It is also 'reasonable', insofar as it makes sense; that it appears possible. Sure, why not?

But then, it seems, he employs an odd manoeuvre: he makes an assertion of what enlightenment is, and what happens to one who has the experience, but then backs away from 'ownership' of that experience, saying it would be petty to discuss himself. But, anyone could make a statement about 'ultimate reality', including myself. All I would need to do is cut and past those paragraphs and present them to other people as 'absolute values' worthy of attainment, without ever really answering the question: Well, that may be true, but have you realized that state yourself?

The problem is pretty clear: there is absolutely no way to verify David's experience. There is no way to measure it. To defend an 'abstract thing', an intangible 'thing' is as easy as pie. Pick the wildest assertion, assert it in cogent/sophistical language, and then sit back and watch the fireworks. Anybody can make grand assertions about unverifiable things, and as David does imply that he has this level of realization. All the rest of us, myself included, though I have had certain (inner) experiences that alluded to a state of mind that I though of as 'enlightened' and at least have some little thing to go on (or think I do), have no other means at our disposal but to analyse David's claim of enlightenment through a process of analysis of his behavior, and sets of other values and attitudes that he (and his school of thought) has embraced.

And this, it seems to me, is the line pursued by Robert, and the specific line he uses is some 'reference texts' (from specific schools of Buddhism) which, according to those texts, describe a platform upon which (logically and ethically) enlightenment---if it is 'true enlightenment'---rests. Again, he does it through a comparison to scriptural references, whereas I would not pursue this line myself.

His other line of revelation---revealing, opening up to view, taking the lid off---is to question David's connections with the doctrines of Weininger, and this opens up a vast can of worms. Now, this 'enlightenment', if you will, is 'playing in a theatre near you' whereas, in fact, it never played in our Occidental towns, if you get my drift.

The whole notion of Enlightenment is oriental, is Indian, in fact (and is a branch of a wide and full doctrine, cohesive at times, rife with internal conflict at others). So, now we have a Western man, handling an experience of (Eastern) enlightenment, claiming it as a universal state, and locating the 'symptoms' of enlightenment in certain Western figures. This tremendously complexifies the whole spiritual undertaking. If once it might have been neutral, it is no longer neutral at all.

(Some of this reminds me of long-ongoing discussions I have had with Jungians, who have asserted that the 'individuated' person will do thus-and-such in society, will support one thing (say democracy) while condemning another (socialism, etc.).

While no one seems to claim that Weininger is 'enlightened', nevertheless one must deeply consider the implications if an enlightened man refers to the ideas and the work of a specific and modern figure. Acutely modern. Acutely involved with some extremely modern issues with profound bearing on the immediate present, on our now. So, to take an extreme example, what if Ramana Maharshi, along with his Bhagavad-Gita kept also a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf? (I am deliberately playing a little unfair, but the overall point is valid). If I say I am 'enlightened' but then refer to all kinds of questionable gender issues; or issues that hinge dangerously into racial issues, political issues, not to mention the whole Jewish issue, it tends to cast my 'enlightenment' in a certain light, or certainly tends to complicate it. It is not unheard of: Pahamahansa Yogananda 'condemned' the French to historical irrelevancy for their 'effeminacy'.

(It is interesting to note that as a form of Protestantism this peculiar conflation of Eastern 'enlightenment' doctrines with Christian doctrines is not far fetched, not at all. Christianity really has to take a stand on the Jewsih question, and in Luther it certainly did. What is new here is this melding of enlightenment doctrines with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Weininger---Whoe Nelly one might exclaim!)

But the main point here is that along with a thoroughly unverifiable assertion (no more than a description, even a fantasy if you wish) of an 'enlightened state of mind' (which you might get from a strong dose of ayahuasca too...), one also gets with QRS-H some very charged politics; some very definitive statements about the modern condition, etc. And look at some of the people who gravitate toward the site. True, that is associative culpability, but one can stand back and take a look at it. My first posts on GF took place on a thread dedicated to anti-semitic diatribes. I don't have a problem per se with that, because I know that anti-semitism is a real thing and exists. But you do have to wonder: Why would such threads be supported? I.e. supported in the sense that they weren't deleted? Compare Laird's embryonic emotionalism (according to QRS) and his being asked to leave with all that has not been asked to leave. When the cleanup occurs, look at what gets swept away.

Do we have other examples of 'enlightened men' (or women) who have taken sides on contentious issues? Paramahansa Yogananda loved Gandhi, for example, so he chose a pretty neutral vehicle. Other than that, he kept his doctrines free of politics, at least mostly.

In any case, back to the subject at hand. I see the angle Robert is taking, and I see why he takes it. I can't go that route 1) because I am not 'enlightened' and so can't make statements about it, and 2) because I am not a Buddhist.

Yet, my arguments are quite akin to Robert's. I am extremely leery of these people and their core and 'orbital' doctrines. It's like Madeline's mother in the children's storybook (French children's story). She wakes up in the middle of the night with this feeling that 'something is not right'. I am of course playing on the (loathsome) idea of a woman's intuition, ha ha ha.

So, when you get enlightened, according to David, 'you spontaneously do God's will', and so one assumes that David, because enlightened, is 'doing God's will' in all he says and does---and in all the ancillary ideas that are presented, too?

What else might GF sponser?

;-)
___________________________________________________

Not related to anything at all, just came across it...

[RobertGreenSky]

... there exists a mix of both psychologies in most people. But this knowledge doesn't stop most people using those psychological-stereotypes to define themselves, and others.

Which is exactly what Unidian did when he wrote:

So, Sue, given that you haven't yet been able to philosophize your physiology out of existence, shall we ignore your "gesturing?"

He was responding to this thread’s title: “Men commit actions; women commit gestures”, and to my discerning some GF posters as “gesturers” due their “love of gossip, posturing, and the regurgitation of common old tattle”. I never mentioned who those people were. I never described them as being female, or male. What I did was describe some of the characteristics of the feminine psychology - naming it gesturing. Yet Unidian immediately felt it referred wholly to females.

Unidian’s response shows that there exists in him the notion that all females possess only the feminine psychology - and because I am a female, he feels that I must be of that same mind-set. This, of course, is plainly false - ...

You're still at it, Sue, mischaracterizing Unidian's obvious irony, a woman framing a topic in which men act but women only gesture; your own language.

... Sue - you should let David and Dan handle this whole gender issue, as well as that of "enlightenment" and such. You did the two of them no favors with your performance here, nor did you do yourself any. While I wouldn't dream of arguing that your thinking lacks substance because you are female, I'd have no problem asserting that it lacks substance simply because you ain't the sharpest tool in the QRS shed. If you're writing for the benefit of the world (as you quite probably feverishly imagine), then you might consider doing the world a favor and saving your fingertips the effort, because as Robert quite rightly points out, handing you your Hindenburg is just too easy.

And if that was harsh, consider it a deferred karmic payment on the Faux News hatchet job you tried to pull on me.

Give it a rest, Sue. Only a moron would think your endless reiteration proves anything.

... If Unidian, and the rest of the herd stopped their parasitic use of females, such crass discriminations would stop. The only discriminations then would concern the psychology of the masculine and the feminine - and then only in the cause of truth - which Unidian and others might recall, is the main purpose of this forum.

Doesn't your ongoing inability to properly understand a simple irony suggest that your ability to discern truth must be limited? The ironies of life - like this thread - must leave you a very confused individual. As Unidian points out, the problem is not that you are a woman ...

[RobertGreenSky]

... this, it seems to me, is the line pursued by Robert, and the specific line he uses is some 'reference texts' (from specific schools of Buddhism) which, according to those texts, describe a platform upon which (logically and ethically) enlightenment---if it is 'true enlightenment'---rests. Again, he does it through a comparison to scriptural references, whereas I would not pursue this line myself.

I see the angle Robert is taking, and I see why he takes it. I can't go that route 1) because I am not 'enlightened' and so can't make statements about it ...

The problem is pretty clear: there is absolutely no way to verify David's experience. There is no way to measure it. To defend an 'abstract thing', an intangible 'thing' is as easy as pie. Pick the wildest assertion, assert it in cogent/sophistical language, and then sit back and watch the fireworks. Anybody can make grand assertions about unverifiable things, and as David does imply that he has this level of realization. All the rest of us, myself included, though I have had certain (inner) experiences that alluded to a state of mind that I though of as 'enlightened' and at least have some little thing to go on (or think I do), have no other means at our disposal but to analyse David's claim of enlightenment through a process of analysis of his behavior, and sets of other values and attitudes that he (and his school of thought) has embraced.

Relating material from several threads, the gist of Should I stay or should I go? is that Genius Forum is not an ordinary message board community because it is devoted to education. That is true but that is no assurance the education is all good. Too much of it is the creation of 'enlightenment myth' or 'enlightenment fantasy' in which unverifiable experience is claimed and sometimes potentially harmfully so, as when Dan Rowden uselessly contradicted Nagarjuna on the distinction between the conventional and the ultimate in order to claim an unverifiable experience.*

Does it do the student any good to 'learn' about the unverifiable experiences of the supposedly enlightened? It might give the student amusing fantasies - some people think that is the chief point of Genius Forum education - but getting to this supposed enlightenment arguably isn't anything that can be fantasized. Bodhidharma gave us method rather than his experiences. When Nagarjuna wrote about the distinction between the conventional and the absolute, he did not finish it up with 'I am myself beyond all that'. Devotion to education is wonderful but not if you spend too much time at recess.

When Hui-neng and Nagarjuna are used by individuals claiming enlightenment, then Hui-neng and Nagarjuna are the mirrors for those claims and they can be effective ones. Even when westerners claim enlightenment they rely in the concept itself on eastern views; look to Daoism, Zen, and Buddhism to evaluate claims in which those pursuits are necessarily implied, and particularly when those who claim enlightenment also claim agreement with the major figures of those pursuits. It is reasonable to do so, the RobertGreenSky Rule notwithstanding.




*That might have created in the 'student' the impression that what Nagarjuna held wasn't valuable since Dan claimed he was himself beyond it, and this despite Dan's supposed agreement with Nagarjuna. When Dan was challenged to find in Nagarjuna an agreement with Dan's view, Dan got very bothered and asked for a debate in which Nagarjuna couldn't be used, again despite Dan's supposed complete agreement with Nagarjuna. The mirror for that supposed complete agreement is Nagarjuna, yet Nagarjuna has been made 'silent' in Genius Forum debate rules.

[sue hindmarsh]

Alex wrote:

The problem is pretty clear: there is absolutely no way to verify David's experience. There is no way to measure it.

There is. All that is needed is that you yourself understand Truth, and then you can judge his understanding against your’s.

...have no other means at our disposal but to analyse David's claim of enlightenment through a process of analysis of his behavior, and sets of other values and attitudes that he (and his school of thought) has embraced.

Without having a solid understanding of Truth yourself, you are left judging David’s “behavior”, “values and attitudes” only through your own ignorance.

There are many examples in life where you have to first become an expert in something before you can judge, or understand others. What you are suggesting by your idea of “analysis of his behavior” is akin to a non-Russian speaker attempting to understand a native-speaker by just watching him speak. You may pick out a word or two, but that won’t be enough to understand the whole of what the native-speaker is saying. And your ignorance will continue until you yourself begin to learn the language.

It's the same with enlightenment. First discover for yourself the never-changing-truth about things, then with this as your base, explore the nature of enlightenment, and anything else that takes your interest.