Where Buddhism and Existentialism *don't* overlap:

[jupiviv]

WARNING - MAY CAUSE TL;DR.

I think this may be a better way to compare the two philosophies. First I want to make it clear that I don’t think of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as existentialists, at least not in the sense in which that term is used in academia. Their philosophies have far more in common with the philosophy of the Buddha than those of some depressed Frenchies.

I think it's safe to say that both philosophies have the goal of resolving the problem of the suffering self. Buddhism negates the self in order to negate suffering, while existentialism accepts the self for what it is and therefore seeks not to negate its suffering but rather overcome it (or failing that, come to terms with it.)

At least, that is the opinion of the forum privatdocent from what I could gather. I will assume for the moment that this is the opinion of a great many other existentialists as well, since I see no reason why the opinion of the former should diverge from the academic consensus du jure on this matter.

Let us investigate whether Buddhism negates the self or not. Consider this passage from the beginning of the dharmapada:

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. If a man speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart.

Clearly, this is an affirmation of self-existence. There would be no mention of a mind, life and actions belonging to “us” if the person/s writing this wanted to negate self-existence.

Now consider this passage from the end:

He who is powerful, noble, who lives a life of inner heroism, the all-seer, the all-conqueror, the ever-pure, who has reached the end of the journey, who like Buddha is awake - him I call a Brahmin.

Again, there would be no mention of a “he” living a life of inner heroism etc. if the point of this text was to negate self-existence.

Now let us move on to another popular Buddhist text, the questions of Kutadanta:

Kutadanta: You believe that beings are reborn, that they migrate in the evolution of life, and that subject to the law of karma we must reap what we sow. Yet you also teach the non-existence of the soul! Your disciples praise utter self-extinction as the highest bliss of Nirvana. If I am merely a combination of the sankharas, my existence will cease when I die. If I am merely a compound of sensations and ideas and desires, where can I go at the dissolution of the body?

Buddha: […]There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of a self. Your thought-forms reappear, but there is no ego-entity transferred. The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the student who repeats the words. Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream that their souls are separate and self-existent entities. Your heart, O Brahman, is still cleaving to self; […] This body will be dissolved and no amount of sacrifice will save it. Therefore, seek the life that is of the mind. Where self is, truth cannot be; Self is death and truth is life. The cleaving to self is a perpetual dying, while moving in the truth is partaking of Nirvana which is life everlasting.

Is the self being negated here? Again, no. Rather a misconception regarding the self – that it transmigrates after death – is being recognised. Note that a misconception about transmigration isn’t limited to literal reincarnation. It can be any idea/notion of a self that necessarily retains certain properties for a period of time and that must be distinguished from other things within that context, or a self that is a special and/or isolated cause or effect of some other particular thing, or simply a self that necessarily includes/entails certain things. This is the “cleaving” to self.

In reality, we are dying every second, every week, every day, every jiffy, and being reborn in the next nanosecond, year etc. But that is not what is being meant when it is said that the self is death in the last stanza. I believe it should be interpreted to mean that the idea of a transmigrating self is a nonsense born of ignorance and is therefore the “death” of reason and thought.

Moving on:

Kutadanta:[…]Tell me, O Lord, if there be no atman, how can there be immortality? The activity of the mind passes, and our thoughts are gone when we have done thinking.

Buddha: Our thinking is gone, but our thoughts continue. Reasoning ceases, but knowledge remains.

This reply points out the simple fact that the truth (if any) in a thought never becomes untrue, regardless of whether a conscious mind that thinks it exists or not. Note the reference to a self that possesses those thoughts, so self-existence isn’t denied here either.

Now let’s go to the end of the text:

Buddha: […]the flame of today is in a certain sense the same as the flame of yesterday, and in another sense it is different at every moment. Moreover, the flames of the same kind, illuminating with equal power the same kind of rooms are in a certain sense the same.

Kutadanta: Yes, sir.

Buddha: Now, suppose there is a man who feels like yourself, thinks like yourself, and acts like yourself, is he not the same man as you?

Kutadanta: No, sir.

Buddha: Do you deny that the logic which holds good for yourself also holds good for the things of the world?

Kutadanta: (hesitates) No, I do not. The same logic holds good universally; but there is a peculiarity about my self which renders it altogether different from everything else and also from other selves. There may be another man who feels exactly like me, thinks like me, and acts like me; he may even have the same name and the same kind of possessions, but he would not be myself.

Buddha: True, Kutadanta, he would not be yourself. Now, tell me, is the person who goes to school the same person when he finishes his schooling? Is it one who commits a crime, another who is punished by having his hands and feet cut off?

Kutadanta: They are the same.

Buddha: Then sameness is constituted by continuity only?

Kutadanta: Not only by continuity, but also and mainly by identity of character.

Buddha: Very well, then you agree that persons can be the same, in the same sense that two flames of the same kind are called the same; and you must recognize that in this sense another man of the same character and product of the same karma is the same as you.

Kutadanta: Well, I do.

Buddha: And in this same sense alone are you the same today as yesterday. Your nature is not constituted by the matter of which your body consists but by your sankharas, the forms of the body, sensations, and thoughts. Your person is the combination of the sankharas.[…]

Here the Buddha points out that the self is nothing but a category that includes various things (sankharas), which can be memories, character, possessions, thoughts, sensations, emotions etc. All things, and not only the self, are categories. Categories can be filled with anything we want, they can grow or shrink (birth, death, continuation), or be filled by something else(change). Thus no finite category is absolute. The only absolute category is Reality itself, since there is nothing that is not included in it, which is why it is also the greatest continuation (eternity).

Finally:

Buddha: Think of a man who is ill-bred and destitute, suffering from the wretchedness of his condition. As a boy he was slothful and indolent, and when he grew up he had not learned a craft to earn a living. Would you say his misery is not the product of his own action, because the adult is no longer the same person as was the boy?

Thus, I say to you: Not in the heavens, not in the midst of the sea, not if you hide yourself away in the clefts of the mountains, will you find a place where you can escape the fruit of your evil actions.

At the same time, you are sure to receive the blessings of your good actions.

As is evident, there is no negation of self-existence in this text, only of delusions/misconceptions related to it.

Now that Kutadanta has seen the light, let us move on to the issues of the four noble truths and dependent origination, an issue that has recently caused a lot of philosophical wind-breaking on this forum.

First, the four truths(paraphrased from the Samyutta Nikaya via buddhanet.net):

1. What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.
2. What is the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering? It is craving which renews being and is accompanied by relish and lust, relishing this and that: in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being. But whereon does this craving arise and flourish? Wherever there is what seems lovable and gratifying, thereon it arises and flourishes.
3. What is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering? It is the remainderless fading and cessation of that same craving; the rejecting, relinquishing, leaving and renouncing of it. But whereon is this craving abandoned and made to cease? Wherever there is what seems lovable and gratifying, thereon it is abandoned and made to cease.
4. What is the Noble Truth of the Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering? It is the Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

“Suffering” here simply means anything that is despised by a wise man. What is happiness to the deluded is suffering to the wise. Thus in the eyes of wise men ignorant and deluded people suffer in everything they do, and corrupt everything they touch. The eightfold path is whatever path a wise man follows in his life.

How someone interprets the four truths is a great way of reckoning how enlightened they are. Buddhists of all stripes invariably take suffering to mean “afflictive emotions” (looking at you, Dennis) or even just any emotion at all, and the liberation from suffering as some kind of altered state of mind that is characterized by “oneness”, “practical spirituality” or whatever else that somehow magically makes one invincible against those pesky afflictive emotions. By doing so they cause even more suffering, i.e, ignorance and confusion.

The truth is that being wise and following the eightfold path doesn’t provide one with any shield against what ignorant people call suffering. At best, the eightfold path is itself the shield against that which is deemed wrong. The more diligently one follows it, the stronger the shield. However, it is no shield against the whims of the Lord, who may decide to transform a Bodhisattva into a giggling imbecile if He so desires.

Also, it is not helpful, albeit valid, to define ignorance/unconsciousness of any kind whatsoever as “suffering”. It’d be better if we narrowed the definition of “suffering” to only include certain types of ignorance prevalent amongst human beings, which prevent them from being more conscious than they are(which is very little.)

“Craving” and “clinging” are two such kinds of ignorance, and they basically imply our deep, genetic, unconscious urge for sexual reproduction, which often takes on many absurd forms which are not necessarily a direct extension of our purely biological sexuality. The suffering of birth, aging and sickness do not refer only to the physical phenomena but also to mental ones. For an example, just take a look at academia, especially the humanities. Ideas are constantly being born there, in order to provide work and livelihood to all the scholars and privatdocents. These ideas age as more and more versions and interpretations of them are invented. They also mingle with other ideas and sire children. Finally, when all minimally sane interpretations and permutations of them, and hence sources of income, recognition and respect for scholars are exhausted, they die.

Sometimes they come back to life however, when some maverick scholar thinks up an interpretation or permutation containing the winning formula of blatant nonsense thinly veiled by superficial but consistent reasoning – like a voluptuous she-vampire in a see-through burkha.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand - the four truths clearly don’t negate selfhood. At best one could say that they disparage the ignorant, deluded self. On to dependent origination. From Nagarjuna’s “Sixty verses on Reasoning”:

Whatever originates dependent upon "this" and "that" does not originate in its intrinsic being. How can what is not originated in its intrinsic being be called originated? Therefore, nothing at all originates and nothing at all ceases.

If the whole universe is divided into ‘A’ and ‘B’, then it logically follows that B causes A. However, it also logically follows that A also causes B at the same time as B causes A, which means that A is indirectly caused by itself, since A’s direct cause - B - has A as its own direct cause. Thus the cause/origin of either A and B individually is both A and B - the All/Emptiness. Thus the nature of both A and B is also the same as the nature of the All.
However, since any finite thing is necessarily caused by the All, what is the problem with saying that A is caused by B, or even by itself? We’ll still be saying that it is caused by the All. As long as we put our whole faith in God, we can think about causation/origination in any way we want to. From Nagarjuna’s “Seventy verses on Emptiness”:

The ultimate is none other than this Emptiness. The Blessed Buddha, relying upon conventional usage, imagined all possibilities.
The doctrine of the world is not destroyed. In reality, no factor at all is demonstrated. Not comprehending the proclamation of the Tathagata, ordinary people are consequently afraid of the unsupported and unimaginable truth.

The way of the world, "dependent upon this, that originates", is not negated. What is interdependently originated is without intrinsic being, so how does it exist? This is perfect certitude.

One who has faith, who diligently seeks the ultimate, not relying upon any demonstrated factor, inclined to subject the way of the world to reason, abandoning being and non-being attains peace.

Having comprehended apparent conditionality, the net of false views is swept aside. Consequently, abandoning attachment, delusion and anger, without stain, one surely reaches Nirvana.

And again, the self is clearly not negated in any of these two quotes.

Finally, on a somewhat related note, here is a quote from Hakuin that is very relevant to a few members of this forum:

The Zen priests of today are busily imparting a teaching to their students that sounds something like this:

"Don't misdirect your efforts. Don't chase around looking for something apart from your own selves. All you have to do is to concentrate on being thoughtless, on doing nothing whatever. No practice. No realization. Doing nothing, the state of no-mind, is the direct path of sudden realization. No practice, no realization - that is the true principle, things as they really are. The enlightened ones themselves, those who possess every attribute of Buddhahood, have called this supreme, unparalleled, right awakening."

People hear this teaching and try to follow it. Choking off their aspirations. Sweeping their minds clean of delusive thoughts. They dedicate themselves solely to doing nothing and to making their minds complete blanks, blissfully unaware that they are doing and thinking a great deal.

When a person who has not had kensho reads the Buddhist scriptures, questions his teachers and fellow monks about Buddhism, or practices religious disciplines, he is merely creating the causes of his own illusion - a sure sign that he is still confined within samsara. He tries constantly to keep himself detached in thought and deed, and all the while his thoughts and deeds are attached. He endeavors to be doing nothing all day long, and all the while he is busily doing.

But if this same person experiences kensho, everything changes. Although he is constantly thinking and acting, it is totally free and unattached. Although he is engaged in activity around the clock, that activity is, as such, non-activity. This great change is the result of his kensho. It is like water that snakes and cows drink from the same cistern, which becomes deadly venom in one and milk in the other.

Bodhidharma spoke of this in his Essay on the Dharma pulse:

If someone without kensho tries constantly to make his thoughts free and unattached, he commits a great transgression against the Dharma and is a great fool to boot. He winds up in the passive indifference of empty emptiness, no more able to distinguish good from bad than a drunken man. If you want to put the Dharma of non- activity into practice, you must bring an end to all your thought-attachments by breaking through into kensho. Unless you have kensho, you can never expect to achieve a state of non-doing.

That is all about Buddhism. Now, since I started off this post by disqualifying both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche from being existentialist philosophers, I’ll have a hard time writing about existentialism since I don’t know much about any other people categorised as existentialists (perhaps our privatdocent can help me out?) But I’ll have a go anyway.

What is immediately apparent to me about existentialism is that, unlike Buddhism, it doesn’t start out by adopting a sceptical attitude towards the self but rather makes the self its primary premise. The problem with doing this is that unless one defines exactly what the self is, it is extremely foolish to base anything around/upon it, let alone a whole philosophy. Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche for example had very clear definitions of the self, as evidenced by these two quotes:

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.

In the relation between two, the relation is the third term as a negative unity, and the two relate themselves to the relation, and in the relation to the relation; such a relation is that between soul and body, when man is regarded as soul. If on the contrary the relation relates itself to its own self, the relation is then the positive third term, and this is the self.

Such a relation which relates itself to its own self (that is to say, a self) must either have constituted itself or have been constituted by another.

If this relation which relates itself to its own self is constituted by another, the relation doubtless is the third term, but this relation (the third term) is in turn a relation relating itself to that which constituted the whole relation. – Kierkegaard in “The Sickness unto Death.”

And:

“Body am I, and soul”—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?

But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.”

The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.

An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest “spirit”—a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity.

“Ego,” sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing—in which thou art unwilling to believe—is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not “ego,” but doeth it.

What the sense feeleth, what the spirit discerneth, hath never its end in itself. But sense and spirit would fain persuade thee that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.

Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit.

Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego’s ruler. – Nietzsche in “Zarathustra”, chapter: “Of the Despisers of the body.”

What is a relation that relates itself to its own self? Any finite thing has its self in the Infinite, but also in what it calls its own self and the self of other things, since those things have their self in the Infinite as well.

Man imagines himself to be a unique synthesis of countless factors, without realizing that all other things are such unique syntheses as well, and it is precisely their uniqueness that makes them uniform. Or conversely, he imagines himself to be a self-carved block in a perfect continuum, without realizing that other things are self-carved blocks as well, and that it is precisely the continuum that carves them out of itself and separates them. Thus he ends up as a negative unity of finite and infinite(or infinite and finite) – a God of the gap that is his own self.

Kierkegaard says that Man is Spirit. Nietzsche says that Man is body. Are they saying anything different? It seems to me that both of them define the self to be the All, and the finite human self as a piece of it that it neither separate from it nor united with it. That to me is a clear definition.

Now let’s see what Jean-Paul Sartre has to say about Man’s self:

There is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

Ah, I see. Man simply wills, therefore Man simply thinks, and therefore Man simply is. This is in contradistinction to “Man simply thinks, therefore he simply is.” Thousands of generations of human beings would be grateful to this Frenchman for making this great progress in thought from where another Frenchman left off.

The first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.

So existentialism is about being responsible for what you are, which is…..what?

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is. These are the three characteristics which the preliminary examination of the phenomenon of being allows us to assign to the being of phenomena.

That clears it up!

So as I said at the beginning of this massive post, while both Existentialism (as it is commonly called) and Buddhism have the goal of resolving the problem of the self, the former skips the very first step in such an endeavor, which is to understand what the self actually is, and what self-existence is. Instead, it charges on to explaining why it is important, what it entails, what its essence is, and so on. As a result, existentialism has become comical. It is like a mime pretending to be burdened by something very heavy upon his shoulders, when it is apparent to everyone that there is nothing there. Or it is like the man in this parable by Kierkegaard:

In case a man going into a dark room to fetch something were to reply to my advice that he carry a light by saying, "The thing I am seeking is only a trifle, therefore I carry no light"---ah, then I could understand him perfectly. On the other hand, when the same man takes me aside and confides to me in a mysterious manner that the thing he went to fetch was of the utmost importance, and therefore he could do it blindly-ah, I wonder how my poor mortal head might be able to follow the high flight of this speech. Even if for fear of offending him I might refrain from laughter, as soon as his back was turned I could not help laughing.

So where Buddhism and Existentialism definitely don’t overlap is a clear definition of the self, or just clear thinking in general. On the other hand, in terms of ideas/notions, they can be said to overlap in plenty of places if one is creative enough in one’s interpretation.

Philosophy students hoping to make their mark by writing a paper or speech marrying Buddhism and Existentialism as part of some multicultural ideas jamboree should not focus on the actual content(or lack thereof) of either philosophy, but should rather let their imaginations run wild(within the limits of political correctness). They should enthusiastically break apart the barriers between western and eastern philosophy and let them mingle with each other, while being careful to filter out any actual thought present in either. Thought doesn’t mingle, so it is irrelevant.

[Dennis Mahar]

How someone interprets the four truths is a great way of reckoning how enlightened they are. Buddhists of all stripes invariably take suffering to mean “afflictive emotions” (looking at you, Dennis) or even just any emotion at all, and the liberation from suffering as some kind of altered state of mind that is characterized by “oneness”, “practical spirituality” or whatever else that somehow magically makes one invincible against those pesky afflictive emotions. By doing so they cause even more suffering, i.e, ignorance and confusion.

Categorically, I can 'have' and 'do' afflictive emotions.
that is 'hold' them, 'act' them out.

What I'm talking about is the recognition of their emptiness, dependently arisen.

Then I can make the move to contextual thinking.
A place to come from.
There is no reason for them to 'hold sway'.
If they 'hold sway', what pans out is a construction for a nightmare to live in to.
These philosophies are for 'personal transformation' and by extension environmentally, 'transformative universally' in the conversations we have.

The soil is the conversation, germination.
The sapling is the steady cognitive growth, generation.
The fruit is Satori, abiding realisation of the empty nature of all things.

one can take in the multivarious concepts involved in 'riding a bike'.
that doesn't cut it.
getting on the bike and pedalling the bike, falling off, tending to bruises, preparing to get back on bike, going forward, falling off the bike, checking the actual bike for worthiness...
all that that entails.

As to my worldly interactions, they have a design to them that completes them then and there or soon enough, they are 'voided' so that the possibility of lingering sourness is eliminated.
nothing to 'hold' onto.
The possibility of a minty fresh way of being is what's at stake.

There is nothing to 'hold' on to.
Groundlessness.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

abiding realisation of the empty nature of all things.

What I'm talking about is the recognition of their emptiness, dependently arisen.

"Maya, however, is not an unreality because it only has the appearance of reality; all things have the nature of maya. It is not because all things are imagined and clung to because of the multitudinous of individual signs, that they are like maya; it is because they are alike unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing. Being attached to erroneous thoughts they confuse and contradict themselves and others. As they do not clearly grasp the fact that the world is no more than mind itself."


You don't realize or 'see' 'empty of inherent existence', you think about it.
What you realize and see is "unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing".

Names and pointers aren't 'self-realization'.

[Dennis Mahar]

Print that off and use it as toilet paper.

Search engine 'Bodhichitta'.
Work on that.

[ewil]

I should of taken heed to your warning!

[Dennis Mahar]

funny.

[Leyla Shen]

jupiviv:

WARNING - MAY CAUSE TL;DR.

Quite the contrary for me.

Your arguments are relevant (actually about something), clearly expressed and supported. What a relief not to have to establish what is being said before you know what is being said!

Thank you! More of this, please.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

So far Dennis, you've said, don't sweat the small stuff, work on the loving kindness I've got.

[jupiviv]

What I'm talking about is the recognition of their emptiness, dependently arisen.

This recognition is only useful if it is the result of an uncompromising love of Truth. All too often, it is merely a way of mentally blocking out things one doesn't like. That's a construction for a nightmare as well. In that case it is in fact psychologically no different from an assassin going to his happy place before killing someone. Taken by itself, this recognition is no more or less important than the recognition of l*u*x=b.

Then I can make the move to contextual thinking.

The "move" is very rarely, if ever, that tidy. Sometimes your brain must think rationally despite being under the sway of emotions, be they pleasant or sorrowful. In fact, if you are serious enough about enlightenment, chances are that not only your own but other people's emotions as well have an enormous influence over your mind.

It takes years, perhaps decades of work(that virtually no one would even consider to be work, and thus praise or reward you for doing) to weaken that influence in a rational way, i.e, in a way that doesn't create a problem in order to solve another. And then something might just go wrong, or you may take this work unfinished to your deathbed. Actually, it's rarely even as tidy as that. You may be doomed to cycle through periods of genuine detachment, life-coach detachment, cynical attachment, grudging attachment and plain old attachment for a long time, or even unto death.

In the meantime, it is extremely easy to fall by the wayside and make yourself believe that you've reached the end. That's what I think you and a few others on this forum are doing in your own ways.

As to my worldly interactions, they have a design to them that completes them then and there or soon enough, they are 'voided' so that the possibility of lingering sourness is eliminated.
nothing to 'hold' onto.
The possibility of a minty fresh way of being is what's at stake.

Why should worldly interactions be completed "then and there"? Why can't they last for as long as possible? Why should they always lead to lingering sourness? And even when they do, how can you be sure of eliminating the possibility of it? May it not be a necessary by-product of a prudent action? Anyways, these things are all "voided", so what difference does it make?

There is nothing to 'hold' on to.
Groundlessness.

That's fine by itself, but it could so easily be something out of the diary of a varsity girl who slits her veins because her boyfriend wouldn't agree to spank her dressed in her mom's lingerie.

Unless this realisation comes from an untainted source, it is useless, or rather, irrelevant to the goal of enlightenment. If they do come from an untainted source, you may as well have said the opposite of that and yet meant the same thing.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

As to my worldly interactions, they have a design to them that completes them then and there or soon enough, they are 'voided' so that the possibility of lingering sourness is eliminated. Nothing to 'hold' onto. The possibility of a minty fresh way of being is what's at stake.

Why should worldly interactions be completed "then and there"? Why can't they last for as long as possible? Why should they always lead to lingering sourness? And even when they do, how can you be sure of eliminating the possibility of it? May it not be a necessary by-product of a prudent action? Anyways, these things are all "voided", so what difference does it make?

Yeah, this is strange. As if no longer running "worldly" big plans or obsessions would ever be needed. To achieve anything let alone achieve something profound! Now Dennis might easily mean something very intricate and psychological as completing some action by inner release before starting fresh again with picking it up next morning. But it could be too easily explained as a premature cancellation of any higher goal or just even any medium long term one. In that sense, for most people I know it would be a bad advice, the way it's stated here and elsewhere. For that reason, some Nietzsche here to clean the air as well as to add to the topic overall:

• Ah, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And then they slandered all high hopes. Then they lived insolently in little pleasures, and beyond the days they hardly cast any goals. "Spirit is also desiring" -- this is what they said. Then the wings of their spirit broke: now it crawls around and besmirches what it gnaws. Once they thought to become heroes: now they become lechers. The hero becomes to them like a suffering and terror. But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw the hero in your soul away! Hold sacred your highest hope! -- Thus spoke Zarathustra (I:8).

[Dennis Mahar]

I'm just talking about ordinary/everyday stuff where I can be misunderstood.
Being open to that possibility and being very clear in interactions.
Clean as a whistle.
Understood.
No grounds for later immersion in justifiers.
Impeccable so to speak.
Minty fresh.
Comportment.

Mandala,
whole and complete.
not riven.

Hard as granite.
Soft as water.

in order to for the sake of

[jupiviv]

I'm just talking about ordinary/everyday stuff where I can be misunderstood.
Being open to that possibility and being very clear in interactions.
Clean as a whistle.
Understood.

If posting on this forum is included in that then you've a lot of room for improvement.

[Dennis Mahar]

6 outta 10,
up,up,up
or
south o' 6

I can take it Doc.