GENIUS FORUMS

Selfing is then the project.
self-defense and self-expansion.

The difference between submitting and submitting the ego

Once in a while Nature proffers us a kiss. It might happen on a vast plain, or in a towering forest, or on a beach at sunset, with the stars turning on overhead and the waves crashing against the shore. As if for the first time, we see the splendour of Nature, its wonder, magnificence, and infinite complexity. Overawed by the sheer power and scale, we perceive our own insignificance. We collapse, thankfully, under its weight, following the age-old dictum: if you can't beat them, join them.

This particular submission is empowering, as Nature is a powerful thing. We are temporarily relieved of our insufficiency through an emptying out and a subsequent refilling to the brim. The resultant joy is described as coming from "within", conveniently ignoring the fact that Nature fast becomes a drug, which one grows to depend on, and suffer for, as we would with any drug. Such peace comes from without, and is as fleeting and unstable as all such peace can be.

Because of the relative rarity and power of this experience with Nature, it is often described as "God". In this way God can be reconciled with the drug-taking mentality in an attempt to make the ego impregnable. Conveniently, one does not require any wisdom to know this God: any fool can lose themselves in the beauty of a sunset!

In contrast, the sage, having penetrated to the truth of things, sees neither complexity nor simplicity. Nor does he see power or weakness, great or small, beauty or ugliness. He has seen to the heart of Nature, and is no longer in awe. Never again can he feel wonder in Her company. Now, rather than merely submitting to Her, he submits his ego to Her - his own self. This is called dying the Great Death.

The fool is intelligent enough to see the immensity of Nature, but not enough to see that he is a part of it, and is it.

Only the courageous can know the meaning of the profound teaching: "You are that". Only they can fathom the meaning of Jesus' words: "Cleave the wood and I am there, raise the stone, and you will find me." (The gospel of Thomas)

The fool is intelligent enough to see the immensity of Nature, but not enough to see that he is a part of it, and is it.

In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

The Symbolic comprises a linguistic register without fixed relations between signifier and signified (stuff sort of just floating around in deep space, going nowhere); words are therefore always “pointers” and have no inherent meaning. (I argue a lot with my brother over this, who has reduced it to “words have no meaning—they are “empty”. Of course, as far as my understanding goes, this is the case for egoism. What do you think?)

Leyla Shen wrote:

The fool is intelligent enough to see the immensity of Nature, but not enough to see that he is a part of it, and is it.

So the fool experiences awe and beauty and the sage himself. Is that right?

Cahoot wrote:

Leyla Shen wrote:

The fool is intelligent enough to see the immensity of Nature, but not enough to see that he is a part of it, and is it.

So the fool experiences awe and beauty and the sage himself. Is that right?

Well, every love song on the radio and every word written here is written to Self, though foolish ego's intent may obscure this fact, so when Self reveals so powerfully that it cannot be ignored, as through nature, foolish ego feels humbled and the illusion of separation gets a jolt ... he said. (;

Lacan's business was to train psychotherapists in a method to cure mental disorders.
It's very Zen-like in conception as a cognitive behaviour therapy tool.
except that Zen uses zazen and koan.

It's a generator for producing 'beginner's mind', an experience of emptiness.

Your brother sounds cool too.
gratitude for him.
what a joy.

the reasonings apropos to enlightenment are outlined in Nagarjuna's and Candrikirti's studious revelation of the 'trick' of consciousness that imputes inherent existence.

the whole business of enlightenment is based on a single, simple observation that it's impossible for phenomena to exist separately.

most of buddhism is 'nuts'.

What would be your position of this observation being expressed as raw sensuous experience, an absence of egoist imagery as a via, be? By that, I don’t of course mean to limit sensuousness to sexual activity, but I certainly wouldn’t exclude it.

refer to Quinn, nothing exists.

use it or lose it.

what's on the menu?

is there another possibility?

Great poetry?