Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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David Quinn
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

skipair wrote:As far as the rocket analogy goes, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is ALL ABOUT the booster stage. That is the meat and the everything. Any talk of the end, whether it be a free flying freedom, unthinking heaven, or anything that objectifies the understanding will lead minds astray into fantasy building. There is ONLY intense fascination in honest knowledge, going step by step through the issues, or there is nothing of philosophical value. True stuff.
No, there is much more to it than that. Opening up to your true nature, which is neither subjective nor objective, is what it's all about. The booster stage melts away into nothingness in the face of this.

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

RobertGreenSky wrote:
[You are] ... rubbishing the process of abandoning delusions, kicking spiritual concepts, mocking great truths, undermining the value of reason ...

- David to Unidian

What a fine description of Zhuangzi that would make.
The difference is that Zhuangzi (or Chuang Tzu to us mortal folks) did it with intelligence, compassion and skill. He promoted wisdom with this activity. He didn't set about trying to make it harder for people out of spite.

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by RobertGreenSky »

The difference is that Zhuangzi (or Chuang Tzu to us mortal folks) did it with intelligence, compassion and skill. He promoted wisdom with this activity. He didn't set about trying to make it harder for people out of spite.

- David

I prefer Chuang Tzu to Zhuangzi, and Lao Tzu to Laozi, and Tao to Dao, but times are changing - 'Ch' is easier to type than 'Zh', too.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

RobertGreenSky wrote:I prefer Chuang Tzu to Zhuangzi, and Lao Tzu to Laozi, and Tao to Dao, but times are changing - 'Ch' is easier to type than 'Zh', too.
I guess this means that there is a push to standardize the phonetic spelling of Chinese sounds. What does Huang Po become, I wonder?

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

RobertGreenSky wrote:I certainly agree that as you wrote, 'reasoning and discriminating thought does indeed play a vital role in the process of awakening.'
Good. I'll remember that.

RobertGreenSky wrote: Nagarjuna pointed out in 'Awakening', MMK 24:

The dharma taught by buddhas
Hinges on two truths:
Partial truths of the world
And truths which are sublime.
Without knowing how they differ,
You cannot know the deep;
Without relying on conventions,
You cannot disclose the sublime;
Without intuiting the sublime,
You cannot experience freedom.

(- Stephen Batchelor, Verses From The Center, p. 123)
Nagarjuna is speaking some sense here. Note the, "Without knowing how they differ, You cannot know the deep", bit - this is the application of A=A in a nutshell. And the last bit is true as well - "Without intuiting the sublime, You cannot experience freedom." That is, without understanding and being aware of nirvana (not just in a second-hand conceptual sense, but in a direct sense as well) one cannot enjoy its freedom.

Laozi relied on convention to 'disclose the sublime' but intuiting the sublime is the 'opening up to the Dao [involving] going beyond all thought'. Intuiting the sublime is the meditative discipline and not the study and analysis preceding the discipline.

Yes, that is certainly true. However, the meditative process doesn't involve pushing away concepts and trying to achieve a blank mind, as is popularly believed. Rather, it involves the natural falling away of concepts (and desires) as the meditative mind ceases chasing after enlightenment in the realization that neither enlightenment nor the mind really exist. Meditation is the art of dismantling deluded behaviour in the mind, and is as much an intellectual process (wherein false concepts of the Tao are exposed) as it is a process of observing and paying close attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.

Writing about the Tao is not conceptualizing the Tao in the sense of having 'intuited the Dao directly' (Unidian, above). 'The Tao is hidden and without name' means the Tao is beyond conceptualization. 'The nameless' is 'the sublime' and it must be intuited rather than conceptualized. 'The Tao cannot be conceptualized' is by necessity a concept, but it is true (conventionally) nonetheless.
These are easy, vague words which could be true or could be false, depending on what is meant by them. I personally agree with them, but then I probably have a very different interpretation of them than what you have.

Let me ask you this: Does "intuiting the Dao directly" depend on the cessation of all thought? And by the same token, if a person does engage in thought does it automatically mean that he has stopped intuiting the Dao directly?

What do you think?

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Talking Ass »

Skipair wrote: "As far as the rocket analogy goes, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is ALL ABOUT the booster stage. That is the meat and the everything. Any talk of the end, whether it be a free flying freedom, unthinking heaven, or anything that objectifies the understanding will lead minds astray into fantasy building. There is ONLY intense fascination in honest knowledge, going step by step through the issues, or there is nothing of philosophical value. True stuff."

The nature of this place, this zone of consciousness where we are located, and about which we know so little, and in relation to which we are quite 'powerless'; into which we come and out of which we exit, is such that everyone gets an opportunity to live out their values, their understandings, both what they have received and what they have 'cobbled together'. You, Skip, just like me, are going to develop your understanding based on various factors (one of them in your case apparently the time you spent on GF and your meetings with Kevin and Dan and David), and you are going to cobble together an ethic for yourself, and perhaps for you you see yourself or your processes of recent years of being like a 'booster rocket': great activity and energy to break old established patterns (given to you by the preceding generations), great upheavel in the mind, a period spent alone, in nature, where you could sort through things before heading back into 'the fray'.

And you are going to live your life and then you are going to die and pass out of existence. Everything that you built or strived for will be simply ripped away from you. The same for all of us. In the end, we surrender everything, and in the face of that it seems to me that we don't really decide a great deal, and somethimes I think that a great deal of our surety, at some point, loses a great deal of its force.

The issue or the question of 'fantasy building'---that is if I understand you correctly and grasp what you mean by 'fantasy'---is quite apt, I think. What if it turns out that the surety that we are now constructing, and by that I mean all of us here, is a false surety, or a partial surety, meaning incomplete? Or just one aspect of surety? Commenting on that, when I try to translate what you mean by 'rocket booster' to my own life so far, I don't see the 'rocket booster' phase as the stage of activity that really teaches us much, except insofar as we see that it can lead to a great deal of error and muddle, and that certainly we learn from that. I have seen and experienced the upwelling of different and quite new 'levels of understanding' about life and the living of life that, in terms of metaphors of description, are not at all like the 'rocket booster' metaphor.

The problem with 'rocket boosters', if you will permit me to inhabit the metaphor a little, is that a rocket is a man-made construct, the quintessential emblem for man's will and man's doing. It is a physical construct, defined by mathematical and physics principals, and is exclusively a construct of the rational mind and will. I am not at all certain in spiritual life---whether nirvana or salvation or a merely physical promised land or the inspiring goal of one's existence, the Great Idea that motivates each of us---that we make progress exclusively with our will, or in any case that ASPECT of our will (I wouldn't deny the role of the will).

But, each person gets the chance, or is offerend the chance, to devise their own plan, assemble their own ideas, and be the helmsman of their existence. And they also get the opportunity to take responsibility for it, down to the last detail, in that cycle of time when they are beginning to exit this world.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by skipair »

David Quinn wrote:No, there is much more to it than that. Opening up to your true nature, which is neither subjective nor objective, is what it's all about. The booster stage melts away into nothingness in the face of this.
Describing emptiness gives people new age spirituality. Saying nothing about it and focusing on opening up pockets of unconsciousness is the way.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by RobertGreenSky »

David Quinn wrote:
RobertGreenSky wrote:I prefer Chuang Tzu to Zhuangzi, and Lao Tzu to Laozi, and Tao to Dao, but times are changing - 'Ch' is easier to type than 'Zh', too.
I guess this means that there is a push to standardize the phonetic spelling of Chinese sounds. What does Huang Po become, I wonder?

-
Huángbò Xīyùn

I guess in simple English Huangbo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbo_Xiyun
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Kelly Jones »

skipair wrote:
David Quinn wrote:No, there is much more to it than that. Opening up to your true nature, which is neither subjective nor objective, is what it's all about. The booster stage melts away into nothingness in the face of this.
Describing emptiness gives people new age spirituality. Saying nothing about it and focusing on opening up pockets of unconsciousness is the way.
One can be silent and be ignorant. One can speak and be saying nothing literally.

So it's not speech, or the use of words that anyone should be concerned about.

All one needs to do is understand words. See the Absolute.


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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Unidian »

Nat is only posting because Robert is here.
True. We've been discussing the thread in chat.
That's an attachment that Nat has yet to deal with.
Like I said, we've been discussing it in chat. I felt like weighing in.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by RobertGreenSky »

Nagarjuna is speaking some sense here. Note the, "Without knowing how they differ, You cannot know the deep", bit - this is the application of A=A in a nutshell. And the last bit is true as well - "Without intuiting the sublime, You cannot experience freedom." That is, without understanding and being aware of nirvana (not just in a second-hand conceptual sense, but in a direct sense as well) one cannot enjoy its freedom.

- David
I'm not sure that understanding the difference between 'samvriti' and 'paramartha' implies somehow that A = A is permanently validated. If A = A is useful in ascertaining conventional truth, observe however that as we saw today in the quote on catuskoti, or as it is known in the west, tetralemma, 'What Nagarjuna wishes to prove is the irrationality of Existence, or the falsehood of reasoning which is built upon the logical principle that A equals A....'

Also, 'nirvana' is such a problematic word, given 'nirvana = samsara', given also that people want to make a goal of it, that I like to avoid using it. I also don't like 'Buddha', 'Bodhisattva', and a lot of other words in these areas.
... the meditative process doesn't involve pushing away concepts and trying to achieve a blank mind, as is popularly believed. Rather, it involves the natural falling away of concepts (and desires) as the meditative mind ceases chasing after enlightenment in the realization that neither enlightenment nor the mind really exist. Meditation is the art of dismantling deluded behaviour in the mind, and is as much an intellectual process (wherein false concepts of the Tao are exposed) as it is a process of observing and paying close attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.
'Blank mind' could suggest 'lifeless mind' or 'quietistic mind' and that is certainly not desirable, nor is any enforced silence. I do not consider meditation an intellectual process. I characterize this area of human endeavor not as 'rational' but as 'hyperrational'. Unidian recently used 'transrational'. We don't give up thinking and we are not irrational, but ordinary rationality is too limiting and Nagarjuna, etc. consider ordinary rationality a part of the problem. Nagarjuna wrote, 'The pacification of objectification is peace', although I can't remember which of the translations that's in - Garfield, I think, which I no longer have.
These are easy, vague words which could be true or could be false, depending on what is meant by them. I personally agree with them, but then I probably have a very different interpretation of them than what you have.
I didn't think I wrote vaguely. How about, 'you can talk about the Dao but the talking about the Dao is not the meditative penetration of the Dao and which is necessary for real psychological transformation'.
Let me ask you this: Does "intuiting the Dao directly" depend on the cessation of all thought? And by the same token, if a person does engage in thought does it automatically mean that he has stopped intuiting the Dao directly?

What do you think?
The flash of insight, satori, does suggest a la the sudden school of enlightenment that one is not caught up in thinking at that moment, but one obviously was thinking before the fact and one was obviously thinking after the fact. We don't give up thinking, we just reorder its significance.

'Emptiness does not entail abandoning the dualities of thought and language, but learning to live with them more lightly.' (Batchelor, Verses, p. 166)

More lightly, enlighten, lighten up. In this light thinking is not the end purpose of human consciousness but instead a tool for our use. The meditative state is Zen, Ch'an, dhyana, and which is the life itself.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Unidian »

This is how I see the situation. You do have some insight (and Robert too, although he constantly obscures it with his emotionalism and defensivess), which means that you did once board the rocket booster at some point in the past and shot upwards to some degree.
Does this mean we get a merit badge? Or perhaps a cool fake beard?
However, it wasn't long before you quickly jumped off the rocket again (long before the stage of liberation) because the journey was scaring you too much.
Nope. It's only in the heady QRS-land that any departure from Quinnological doctrines indicates that one fears to rise to the Lofty realms in which you dwell.
Since then, you have endeavoured to fashion a kind of half-and-half life - one that is neither spiritual nor worldly - wherein some of the minor insights that you picked up early in the flight (e.g. that reality is purposeless and godless) were comfortably married to your long-standing attachments (e.g. your aversion to work, your fundamental aimlessness, your girlfriend, etc), all of it blessed by a lazy, populist interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. And that is the sum total of your achievements to date.
My goodness, where to start? I do not assert reality to "purposeless" or "godless" - nor purposeful and godful. My aversion to work has little or nothing to do with my spiritual values. My "fundamental aimlessness" is the title of a chapter in Zhuangzi. My "girlfriend" is a relevant issue in the minds of no one other than QRS. My "lazy, populist" interpretation of the TTC is the one generally favored by people who do things like write (published) books, speak Chinese, study Eastern philosophy, etc.

But hey... it's not the first time you've trotted out this tired old psychoanalysis against me.
This being the case, it comes as no surprise that you are quick to speak against any kind of real spiritual work at every avaliable opportunity
I certainly do. For Muslim fanatics, radical Islam is "real spiritual work." For the Christian fundies of the 15th century, it was witch-burning.

I don't care much about "real spiritual work," and neither would Zhuangzi or the Zen masters, I'd wager. They'd be more likely to smack anyone speaking such nonsense.
- rubbishing the process of abandoning delusions, kicking spiritual concepts, mocking great truths, undermining the value of reason, and so on. Anything to soothe that troubled conscience of yours and put your own cowardly laziness in the best possible lght.
Mmm-hmm. That's what Linji must have been doing when he wrote this:
Those who have fulfilled the ten stages of bodhisattva practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the fifty-first and fifty-second stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and pratyekabuddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys.
What would Linji have thought of "Genius Forums?"
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by skipair »

Talking Ass wrote:....
The zone of consciousness and the mystery about it you mentioned. . . I personally might make a distinction between Life/Experience and consciousness, and by that I mean that consciousness is that particular depth and space a person gets specifically with more comprehensive understandings of self-applied logic. The ability to distinguish the difference between focused imagination (emotionalization) and structure.

The booster as a mechanical sort of thing, regarding this anyway, I think is at least half right on. The ability to make black and white distinctions, to dissect and whittle your way down to the bare-boned specifics is definitely a cold and even assholish practice. It has absolutely nothing to do with socializing or extracting whatever pleasure might be possible from any given situation. If it weren't so fucking powerful and interesting to do this, the Siberian snow desert left over I'm sure would be completely pointless and unbearable. So it depends what advantages a person is able to get out of it...intellectual pleasures, discovery nostalgias, emotional dominance, business pragmatics, etc.

True that everything will be ripped away. I think that fact will likely be the least problematic for whoever has an eye on non-attachment and the real meaning of belief. I don't remember who it was, maybe Animus, but in the Objectivity Exercises thread he mentioned death as a tool for non-attachment, which I think is right on, and which Marcus Aurelius had great frames with.

The other half of the booster analogy that I agree with you on and that doesn't have much to do with strict logic, and so may or may not apply to the analogy at all, is that the mind's emotional highlights reel is always churning. The rational process gives pause to the intensity of each picture, but every time physical action takes place, it is because some picture is loaded with enough urgency that it becomes reality. So, in another sense, desire is the root of all things. Desire spawns intellectual progress. Even after the spirit-cleansing of self-applied reason, desire is there. The question is for what, and how you can get more of it.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

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David almost wins the stuffed wart hog here:
... the meditative process doesn't involve pushing away concepts and trying to achieve a blank mind, as is popularly believed. Rather, it involves the natural falling away of concepts (and desires) as the meditative mind ceases chasing after enlightenment in the realization that neither enlightenment nor the mind really exist.
Which is quite correct. However, he pulls defeat from the jaws of victory with the following:
Meditation is the art of dismantling deluded behaviour in the mind, and is as much an intellectual process (wherein false concepts of the Tao are exposed) as it is a process of observing and paying close attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.
Nope. Meditation is simply direct awareness. What distracts from direct awareness? Nothing other than thought.

Without understanding what meditation is, one understands absolutely nothing of significance about Zen, because Zen IS mediation.

Concepts, thoughts, and desires naturally fall away as a result of practice.

Practice is what can begin when the mind finally exhausts itself through intellectual tail-chasing - the achievement of this self-exhaustion being the only valid application of the intellect in mysticism. For some of us, this process of using the mind to get beyond the mind takes many years. For others, such as those who believe that any spiritual or psychological value can be had in clinging to conceptual baubles like "enlightenment," "ultimate reality," and "A=A," it never ends.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

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Unidian wrote:I don't care much about "real spiritual work," and neither would Zhuangzi or the Zen masters, I'd wager. They'd be more likely to smack anyone speaking such nonsense.
Why are you referring to external authorities? Even if you're wrong, which you are, what someone else says is true cannot prove anything. One has to rely on one's own understanding.

Concepts, thoughts, and desires naturally fall away as a result of practice.
Desires, yes. But concepts and thoughts are naturally part of consciousness. If one tries to empty the mind of thought, one ends up believing wrongly that the mind is empty, all the while clinging to the concept of emptiness.

Things do exist, and the mind naturally makes contrasts. There is no need to pretend that there aren't such contrasts. These contrasts are the Tao. It's not like they're unreal.


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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by skipair »

Kelly Jones wrote:So it's not speech, or the use of words that anyone should be concerned about.
The meaning of your communication is the response you get. If you are looking to elicit a particular response, words do in fact matter.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

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Then why did you say that "Saying nothing about [emptiness] and focusing on opening up pockets of unconsciousness is the way." ? Evidently, you realise words are effective in communication, as well as in letting one's own mind speak with itself.

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

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Kelly Jones wrote:Then why did you say that "Saying nothing about [emptiness] and focusing on opening up pockets of unconsciousness is the way." ? Evidently, you realise words are effective in communication, as well as in letting one's own mind speak with itself.

...
When you name the philosophical matrix to someone, it takes their mind away from the next step they need to take (whatever they are working on) and makes it build a fantasy category. Better to talk about what they're working on.
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

RobertGreenSky wrote:
David Quinn wrote:Nagarjuna is speaking some sense here. Note the, "Without knowing how they differ, You cannot know the deep", bit - this is the application of A=A in a nutshell. And the last bit is true as well - "Without intuiting the sublime, You cannot experience freedom." That is, without understanding and being aware of nirvana (not just in a second-hand conceptual sense, but in a direct sense as well) one cannot enjoy its freedom.
I'm not sure that understanding the difference between 'samvriti' and 'paramartha' implies somehow that A = A is permanently validated.
It's the other way around. It is because A=A is permanently valid that 'samvriti' and 'paramartha' can be distinguished.

If A = A is useful in ascertaining conventional truth, observe however that as we saw today in the quote on catuskoti, or as it is known in the west, tetralemma, 'What Nagarjuna wishes to prove is the irrationality of Existence, or the falsehood of reasoning which is built upon the logical principle that A equals A....'

I'm not sure what that guy is trying to say, but it sounds dubious. Nagarjuna would be performing a miracle if he could somehow prove things without using reasoning based in the principle of A=A. He was a clever man, but he wasn't a magician.

Entering into nirvana doesn't require one to break the rules of logic, or to reject reason, or to otherwise become irrational.

Also, 'nirvana' is such a problematic word, given 'nirvana = samsara', given also that people want to make a goal of it, that I like to avoid using it. I also don't like 'Buddha', 'Bodhisattva', and a lot of other words in these areas.

They're useful words. If they don't cast a spell on you, then you don't need to avoid them. They do help in making visible to others, and to oneself, what is required to reach nirvana and become wise, which is important.

None of the scriptures around the world avoided spiritual words and concepts, or refrained from talking about goals. Lao Tzu, for example, talked about how the greatest virtue is to "follow the Tao and the Tao alone". Nagarjuna regularly utilized spiritual concepts, such as samsara and nirvana, and constantly focused his attention on the goal of abandoning illusion and realizing truth. If these two men can use spiritual concepts, articulate goals and employ reasonings without losing sight of the Tao, then it is perfectly reasonable that you and I can do so as well. And speaking from experience, I certainly don't have any problem doing it.

Regarding nirvana and samsara, they are not really the same thing, even though in another sense they are. Yes, nirvana is none other than the world we live in, but ordinary people don't experience this nirvanic world as nirvana. They experience it as samsara. Thus, it is perfectly valid and correct to talk about the need to strive for nirvana, even though it remains true that we are already steeped in nirvana in every single moment of our lives.

RobertGreenSky wrote:
... the meditative process doesn't involve pushing away concepts and trying to achieve a blank mind, as is popularly believed. Rather, it involves the natural falling away of concepts (and desires) as the meditative mind ceases chasing after enlightenment in the realization that neither enlightenment nor the mind really exist. Meditation is the art of dismantling deluded behaviour in the mind, and is as much an intellectual process (wherein false concepts of the Tao are exposed) as it is a process of observing and paying close attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.
'Blank mind' could suggest 'lifeless mind' or 'quietistic mind' and that is certainly not desirable, nor is any enforced silence. I do not consider meditation an intellectual process. I characterize this area of human endeavor not as 'rational' but as 'hyperrational'. Unidian recently used 'transrational'. We don't give up thinking and we are not irrational, but ordinary rationality is too limiting and Nagarjuna, etc. consider ordinary rationality a part of the problem. Nagarjuna wrote, 'The pacification of objectification is peace', although I can't remember which of the translations that's in - Garfield, I think, which I no longer have.

That's interesting. What are the similarities and differences between "ordinary reason" and "hyper-reason"? Can you articulate them?

RobertGreenSky wrote:
David Quinn wrote:
RobertGreenSky wrote:Writing about the Tao is not conceptualizing the Tao in the sense of having 'intuited the Dao directly' (Unidian, above). 'The Tao is hidden and without name' means the Tao is beyond conceptualization. 'The nameless' is 'the sublime' and it must be intuited rather than conceptualized. 'The Tao cannot be conceptualized' is by necessity a concept, but it is true (conventionally) nonetheless.
These are easy, vague words which could be true or could be false, depending on what is meant by them. I personally agree with them, but then I probably have a very different interpretation of them than what you have.
I didn't think I wrote vaguely. How about, 'you can talk about the Dao but the talking about the Dao is not the meditative penetration of the Dao and which is necessary for real psychological transformation'.

Well, that's rather stating the obvious, but my concern was more about the role of thought and reason in becoming conscious of the Dao and the accompanying transformative process.

RobertGreenSky wrote:
Let me ask you this: Does "intuiting the Dao directly" depend on the cessation of all thought? And by the same token, if a person does engage in thought does it automatically mean that he has stopped intuiting the Dao directly?

What do you think?
The flash of insight, satori, does suggest a la the sudden school of enlightenment that one is not caught up in thinking at that moment, but one obviously was thinking before the fact and one was obviously thinking after the fact. We don't give up thinking, we just reorder its significance.
So does this mean that if a person engages in thought he automatically stops intuiting the Dao directly?

RobertGreenSky wrote:'Emptiness does not entail abandoning the dualities of thought and language, but learning to live with them more lightly.' (Batchelor, Verses, p. 166)

More lightly, enlighten, lighten up. In this light thinking is not the end purpose of human consciousness but instead a tool for our use. The meditative state is Zen, Ch'an, dhyana, and which is the life itself.
I more or less agree with that, but this is what makes your reaction (and Nat's) to the use of reason so very curious. You guys seem to treat reason not as a tool for our use, but as some kind of mortal enemy that has to be obliterated. I'm talking about your general behaviour here, and not what you like to claim to be the case.

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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by David Quinn »

Unidian wrote:David almost wins the stuffed wart hog here:
... the meditative process doesn't involve pushing away concepts and trying to achieve a blank mind, as is popularly believed. Rather, it involves the natural falling away of concepts (and desires) as the meditative mind ceases chasing after enlightenment in the realization that neither enlightenment nor the mind really exist.
Which is quite correct. However, he pulls defeat from the jaws of victory with the following:
Meditation is the art of dismantling deluded behaviour in the mind, and is as much an intellectual process (wherein false concepts of the Tao are exposed) as it is a process of observing and paying close attention to what is actually happening in the present moment.
Nope. Meditation is simply direct awareness. What distracts from direct awareness? Nothing other than thought.
Sorry, that's just a case of trying to live in the moment. A false Zen. It's good for easing the anxiety levels of aimless people, and can trigger some altered states every now and then, but it isn't the great wisdom that Lao Tzu and Huang Po talked about.

It's not enough just to be aware of the moment, one also needs to have the penetrative insight to see into the nirvanic fabric of the moment. And for that to arise, one needs to learn how to stop oneself being absorbed into false understandings of reality.

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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Unidian wrote: I felt like weighing in.
Funny statement, as if gravity has anything to work on here? Ultra light feather weight weighing in!While praising the superior minds of fellow floaters, at least one has the appearance of mass.

And right on cue, Alex Jacob comes ballooning in wearing his Ass costume, one week after giving his goodbyes and requesting his account to be disabled (yet again). All the continuing to suggest something "pathological" is at work at the forum! Irony galore.

There's no need for a rocket with all these Mr. Mackies, m'kay? Already floating a few feet from the ground, in any direction the breeze will take them: they are liberated and safely removed from all that seems too grave, too stiff, too thoughtful and too serious. But before any concept of "First Stage" might get hold, one has to land on the ground again first, both feet on it. Even Alex, who likes to preach this idealized state of normality, is not able to land anymore, but talks down from the clouds, scoffing at any attempt of those clumsy moving earth dwellers to construct their engines. Although it has to be said, the disconnect from actuality is the new normal these days, drowned as we moderns are in actualities and narcissist dreams.

Discussion of spiritual ideas in this case is a dead end. First get real, ground, drop whatever imagined position is keeping you afloat and perhaps an actual conversation might happen. This can be a near impossible landing for those having made their home in the clouds already.
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Shardrol
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Shardrol »

I think part of what leads to these disagreements (thought is good v thought is bad) is that in English we only have this one word 'thought' to mean several different things. There is the compulsive discursive mental blathering that sifts & categorizes experience as a method of bolstering the ego & then there is focused penetrative insight.

Certainly a Buddha would have no reason to engage in the former, but the latter would naturally be part of a Buddha's communication with other beings. A Buddha remains in awareness of nirvana all the time, including while making up grocery lists, sitting on the toilet, & writing comments on internet forums. There's nothing poisonous about thought that suddenly bumps one into a dualized state. If it's not possible to communicate anything about nirvana in dualized language why did all those people write all those books that are forever being quoted here?

'Knowledge' is another one of those vague English words. In Tibetan one of the words for the enlightened state is 'rigpa', which literally means knowledge. This is obviously not the same kind of knowledge as that possessed by London taxi drivers who have memorized the map of the city & the shortest route between any two points (which is actually referred to as 'the Knowledge'). Sometimes I think some people deliberately misunderstand each other's use of these vague words just to have something to argue about.
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Kelly Jones
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by Kelly Jones »

skipair wrote:
Kelly Jones wrote:Then why did you say that "Saying nothing about [emptiness] and focusing on opening up pockets of unconsciousness is the way." ? Evidently, you realise words are effective in communication, as well as in letting one's own mind speak with itself.
When you name the philosophical matrix to someone, it takes their mind away from the next step they need to take (whatever they are working on) and makes it build a fantasy category. Better to talk about what they're working on.
Why not just use words to point to Reality? That covers all bases, and leaves them to sort out their own personal situation alone. That's the way it ought to be, I think.

If the understanding of Reality is imperfect, nothing else will be right.


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RobertGreenSky
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by RobertGreenSky »

It is because A=A is permanently valid that 'samvriti' and 'paramartha' can be distinguished. ... I'm not sure what that guy is trying to say, but it sounds dubious. Nagarjuna would be performing a miracle if he could somehow prove things without using reasoning based in the principle of A=A. He was a clever man, but he wasn't a magician.

- David
We can say A = A is relatively (or perhaps relationally) valid but in the end logic is only a function of naming. Every A arises in the ten thousand things but the Tao is the nameless. As I quoted, '... ultimate reality [paramartha] is just as empty as conventional reality [samvriti]. Ultimate reality is hence only conventionally real!' (- Garfield and Priest, Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought, cited above.)

Laird shared with us last night this link: http://www.thelogician.net/3b_buddhist_ ... ter_01.htm wherein an individual with his own website (!) believes he takes Nagarjuna to task. It's possible that from a Western perspective he's accurate (although Nat indicates he isn't) but your problem is that you've claimed accord with Nagarjuna - I believe I quoted you on that matter during the debate. I could care less what are the man's conclusions - I'll nimbly jump across the fence to the Daoist yard and chuckle about 'naming' - but how is it you can reconcile yourself to what Nagarjuna was actually doing?
The law of identity “A is A” is a conviction that things have some identity (whatever it specifically be) rather than another, or than no identity at all. It is an affirmation that knowledge is ultimately possible, and a rejection of sheer relativism or obscurantism. Nagarjuna’s goal is to deny identity.

- Avi Sion, very impressively self-styled 'The Logician', Buddhist Illogic, http://www.thelogician.net/3b_buddhist_ ... ter_01.htm
That's two sources on Nagarjuna and A = A, one admiring and one not, but both agreeing that Nagarjuna actively disputed the law of identity.

You are however correct about this: 'They're useful words. If they don't cast a spell on you, then you don't need to avoid them. ...' I don't have to avoid them, but I prefer not to use them. Note how brief and free of esoterica was the first line of Tao te Ching, in transliterated Chinese, 'Dao be dao not Dao'.

Your 'Regarding nirvana and samsara ...' was a well-written contribution.
That's interesting. What are the similarities and differences between "ordinary reason" and "hyper-reason"? Can you articulate them?
No; it's too good for your readers. I'll only note today that what I am getting at by the label is that one can be touched by the radical conclusions in Daoism (Dao is beyond naming) and Nagarjuna (ultimate reality is only conventionally real) and Zen (mu!) and carry them with us as we live and as we reason.
... my concern was more about the role of thought and reason in becoming conscious of the Dao and the accompanying transformative process.
Your concern is misplaced.
I more or less agree with that, but this is what makes your reaction (and Nat's) to the use of reason so very curious. You guys seem to treat reason not as a tool for our use, but as some kind of mortal enemy that has to obliterated. I'm talking about your general behaviour here, and not what you like to claim to be the case.
You're full of baloney on that one. I try best as I can to well present a position that is very difficult to argue, and not only do I write it well but I also go to trouble to well support it. Observing the limitations of reason is in this area making best use of reason. We never said don't well learn Buddhism, Zen, and Daoism, and observe that again and again we bring our knowledge of those subjects with us and that we reason from our understanding and from significant authors. Pointing out the limitations of reason is exactly what Buddhism, Zen, and Daoism themselves do and your readership should know it - you underemphasize it, from our position, and then you accuse us of being unreasonable when we point out what Buddhism, Zen, and Daoism actually say.
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guest_of_logic
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Re: Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

Post by guest_of_logic »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:Laird, you are being a tad idealistic
Far more than a tad, Ryan! But is it any less idealistic than the ideal of the total cessation of all emotions? More to the point, isn't it a lot more realistic?
Ryan Rudolph wrote:The rational mind is more neutral by default
The rational mind is a calculating machine, whose parameters are set primarily by our values, but also often informed by our emotions. "Neutral" is an odd word to describe it given that it caters to the input and value/emotion-bias to which it is asked to apply itself. In the absence of input, perhaps it could be described as "neutral"; otherwise it is as "neutral" as its input is.
Ryan Rudolph wrote:Moreover, in defense of logic, logic prevents one from becoming overly hateful, callous and resentful towards the masses. And logic is compassionate because it implies a mental concern towards the other.
Logic does no such thing. Values do. Logic can be used, as it was in the development of the atomic bomb, to wreak utter devastation on the masses.
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