nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 6/3/19 7:49 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/3/19 7:19 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 6/7/19 5:21 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/13/19 10:31 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Matt 6/7/19 6:30 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/14/19 12:17 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Daniel M. Ingram 6/8/19 5:06 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/13/19 11:30 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/19 8:26 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 6/18/19 9:45 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/18/19 11:24 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/20/19 6:15 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/21/19 5:11 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 6/22/19 4:03 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/25/19 6:02 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/25/19 6:08 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/26/19 3:34 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 6/28/19 3:20 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/29/19 3:39 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 7/2/19 4:51 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 7/21/19 5:53 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 8/1/19 3:58 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 8/1/19 12:53 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 8/2/19 1:52 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 8/26/19 8:33 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 8/8/19 1:44 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 8/26/19 8:35 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 9/15/19 9:45 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" terry 9/17/19 3:07 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 8/25/19 5:10 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 9/29/19 10:10 AM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 10/3/19 1:03 PM
RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree" Todo 10/5/19 8:52 AM
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 6/3/19 7:49 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/3/19 7:49 AM

nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

Posts: 87 Join Date: 8/20/18 Recent Posts
I thought "non-attachement" is something we develop,
It's a property of cognizance.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/3/19 7:19 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/3/19 7:19 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
I thought "non-attachement" is something we develop,
It's a property of cognizance.


nada nada limonada...

if it was "a property of cognizance," you could develop it...
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 5:21 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 5:21 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Terry,

When you write "if it was "a property of cognizance," you could develop it.", may I understand that you do not see non-attachement as a property of cognizance and that for you the properties of cognizance can be developed?

Will you be kind to develop your views on this matter?
Matt, modified 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 6:30 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 6:30 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
I thought "non-attachement" is something we develop,
It's a property of cognizance.
I disagree.

I think attachment is a characteristic of normal development, and the goal of practice is to reduce and eventually break the mechanisms of attachment. When successful we experience less attachment and hopefully eventually the actual seeds of problematic experience don't even germinate.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 5:06 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 5:06 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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We develop an appreciation that fundamental non-attachment is a property of clear congnizance.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 10:31 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 10:31 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
Terry,

When you write "if it was "a property of cognizance," you could develop it.", may I understand that you do not see non-attachement as a property of cognizance and that for you the properties of cognizance can be developed?

Will you be kind to develop your views on this matter?

aloha todo,

   By all means...thanks for asking. (btw, at the "kona pure" farmer's market last week I heard a banana seller say to another fruit and vegetable guy, "aloha, amigo" - both were native espanol speakers).


   No, non-attachment is not a property of cognizance. Yes, the properties of cognizance can be developed. 

   In the first case, "non-attachment" is not a thing, not a dharma, but an absence of such, a void. Think of it as like going to sleep. You can't actively "go to sleep," you can only let it happen, nod off. You can practice "non-thought" and this cognitive practice may help you develop non-attachment, but not in any direct way. It is prajna or ultimate insight that leads to non-attachment. The absence of all attachments is nirvana, enlightenment. Freedom from craving. Such liberation is not a power of or product of cognition. Cognition may in fact have to be abandoned before non-attachment can be attained.

   In the second case, the properties of cognizance can certainly be developed. Our primary interest is in mindfulness. Being awake; aware in the generalized sense. The mind wanders; the right-guided developer of cognitive skills brings it to heel through practice. One could call it, "taming the ox."



terry



from "the roaring stream" ed foster and shoemaker, in the "second letter from ta-hui to tseng shih-lang":


Master Yen-t'ou once said, "It is superior to expel things and inferior to pursue things." He also said, one must know "the phrase" in order to govern the basic principles. What is "the phrase?" When no thought exists, that is called the True Phrase. It is also called, "residing at the top," "abiding," "being vividly clear," "being aware," or "at this time." When the mind is "at this time," all distinctions of right and wrong are equally destroyed. As soon as something is deemed positive, it becomes negative. When you are "at this time," positive statement is cut away, negative statement is cut away. Like a fireball that burns anything it touches, there is no way it can be approached.  
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 12:17 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 11:04 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Matt:
Todo:
I thought "non-attachement" is something we develop,
It's a property of cognizance.
I disagree.

I think attachment is a characteristic of normal development, and the goal of practice is to reduce and eventually break the mechanisms of attachment. When successful we experience less attachment and hopefully eventually the actual seeds of problematic experience don't even germinate.


aloha matt,

   We have struggled in the clinical laboratory with the concept of "normal." Tradionally, lab results are reported in a normal range, and abnormal values are flagged. We have found, however, that some body substances are normally present in unhealthy amounts, like cholesterol. Thus there is a conflict between what is the healthy value and the normal value. We now publish the desired values for lipids rather than imply that a normal cholesterol or lipoprotein value is healthy, but the process makes one doubt how healthy any "normal" value is in a fundamentally unhealthy - or even less than optimum - population.

   Applied to attachment being "a characteristic of normal development," it is perhaps not a healthy one. Perhaps "attachment" is both bred into and taught our children, but is nonetheless a disease condition, pathological. A sick society, and a population derived from rapine and genocide. The survival of the most vicious, most attached, and least self-sacrificing and courageous.

   The idea that evolution only provides fit survivors is nonsense. For example, the peacock, dragging around that ridiculous long tail which so impedes his progress. The tail is selected for because peahens like it. Same with innumerable other sexual overdevelopments, from huge antlers to women's breasts. You might say that species with overdeveloped organs and inherited illnesses would not be selected for, but nature produces countless failures for every success, most too brief to even leave a fossil record. Our species has been around a very brief time - though we are spectacularly successful (so far), other species have had their heyday as well, and gone extinct. Our "inability to adapt" that leads to extinction may well be a tendency to overpopulate and grow without restraint. And our selfish need to dominate and take more and more and never be satisfied. In a word, our attachments.


terry




"In ancient times (due to a certain mistake performed by some sacred individuals), humanity developed the negative side of the sexual center, its tenebrous Luciferic aspect. When the electronic sexual fire is directed downwards into the atomic infernos of the human being, it becomes the abominable Kundabuffer organ, the tail of Satan. Fortunately, after its development, the Luciferic organ vanished from humanity; nevertheless, its fatal consequences still remain. It is urgent to know that the disastrous consequences of the abominable Kundabuffer organ remained deposited within the five cylinders of the human machine. It is indispensable to know that the evil consequences of the abominable Kundabuffer organ constitute the lunar ego, the pluralized “I.”

–Samael Aun Weor


further discussion here:  [url=]https://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/Home/the-organ-kuddddndabufferhttps://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/H ome/the-organ-kundabuffer
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 11:30 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 11:30 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Daniel M. Ingram:
We develop an appreciation that fundamental non-attachment is a property of clear congnizance.


   I suspect "clear cognizance" is an oxymoron. Philosphers generally agree that consciousness requries an object cognized; we are always aware of something and it is aware of us.  I would say, "non-cognizance." But then, no one is left around to appreciate it. 

   Also, "cognizance" is a "property" (of mental functioning; a skandha), while non-attachment is not a property of anything, but an absence of relations. Real non-attachment is the void, beyond any cognizance or appreciation. To make a "thing" or dharma of non-attachment is to create a "flower of air." Turtle fur; hare horn. Non-existence is not a thing and cannot be apprehended in any way. As this assertion defines the tao, the Great Way, it is non-trivial.

terry


tao te ching, trans feng


One

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. 
The name that can be named is not the eternal name. 
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth. 
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. 
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. 
Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations. 
These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. 
Darkness within darkness. 
The gate to all mystery.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 8:26 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 8:26 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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The limitations of language are so frustrating sometimes. This is the kind of question where that is very obvious. The more precise we try to be, the more elliptic it gets, and we get further and further away from bare sensate awareness the more we try to stay close to it in our translation. When I manage to let go of the frustration, I can appreciate the humor in it, and the beauty of the poetry that sometimes appears as a result from the limitations.
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 6/18/19 9:45 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/18/19 9:45 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Which words do you find frustrating here?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/18/19 11:24 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/18/19 11:23 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Cognizance, for instance, or develop, or basically any word that is generally associated with a doer or a perceiver. They can be used without that association being intended, of course, but it’s hard to tell from looking at the language only whether such an association is implied or not. The answers yes and no to your question can mean the same thing, and it could be either one meaning or the opposite meaning.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/20/19 6:15 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/20/19 6:15 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Cognizance, for instance, or develop, or basically any word that is generally associated with a doer or a perceiver. They can be used without that association being intended, of course, but it’s hard to tell from looking at the language only whether such an association is implied or not. The answers yes and no to your question can mean the same thing, and it could be either one meaning or the opposite meaning.


aloha linda,

   Your observation is quite accurate that a doer or percever does not need to be associated with an activity, such as cognizance. However, the act of cognizance still implies something cognized, an object of cognizance. Language can be slippery, even deliberately ambiguous, and yet the misuse of language is another thing entirely. And quite common. People often use phrases in their own peculiar way, which can lead to misstatements and misunderstandings. Frequently, people are confused or haven't thought thihgs through. Sometimes people cling to outmoded or outdated formulations out of habit and/or being too enamored of their own philosophy to realize they need to constantly rethink their ideas. Ego likes to think, I have this down and can teach it to others on my own authority. Such thinking creates pitfalls and trips us up every time.

   
terry



from "rinzairoku":

Encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha;
Encountering a Patriarch, killing the Patriarch;
Encountering an Arhat, killing the Arhat;
Encountering mother or father, killing mother or father;
Encountering a relative, killing the relative,
Only thus does one attain liberation and disentanglement
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/21/19 5:11 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/21/19 5:11 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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I get what you are saying. Still, in the phenomenological reality of most people, cognizance does occur. There are thoughts and perceptions. There is what appears to be material stuff that affects us. That matters too, even though it’s empty. If I were to slap you in the face, that would probably hurt. That would be very unkind of me. If somebody was burying a loved one and I were to laugh and say ”Hey, they didn’t exist anyway so it doesn’t matter”, that would be cruel.
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 6/22/19 4:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/22/19 4:03 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Finger pointing to the moon...

Many see only the finger...
A few see the moon...
Fewer see both the finger & the moon...
Fewer still see the finger, the moon & the seer...
...
The wise one knows all this is a magician's show.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 6:08 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 5:59 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I get what you are saying. Still, in the phenomenological reality of most people, cognizance does occur. There are thoughts and perceptions. There is what appears to be material stuff that affects us. That matters too, even though it’s empty. If I were to slap you in the face, that would probably hurt. That would be very unkind of me. If somebody was burying a loved one and I were to laugh and say ”Hey, they didn’t exist anyway so it doesn’t matter”, that would be cruel.

aloha linda,

   This is a broad subject, cognizance of material and immaterial stuff, the reality of being slapped in the face and human cruelty, and it also goes back to individual identity and the question of the role of generalizations in perception and cognizance.

   The role of generalizations goes back to the platonic forms. The "human form" is an organizing principle of matter which takes inert materials and assembles them into a thinking, feeling, living human being: the essence of a human being is the perfect form of which each of us is a variant. Qualifiers such as beautiful, tall, thin, rich, and so forth are also forms. To "know" something (cognize) is to know its form(s). Here is a beautiful, tall tree, distinguished by virtue of its forms. Without forms there is no memory, no understanding; knowledge of forms (names; the logos) is knowledge of objects.

   These forms are not an exclusive property of the so-called individual mind. Ramakrishna (from "sayings of ramakrishna") said:

"23. The idea of an individual ego is just like enclosing a portion of the water of the Ganges and calling the enclosed portion one's own Ganges."

   Avicenna advanced the idea that the human intellect is entirely collective, and that each of us participates in it to the extent that we do. A form of neo-platonism derived from plotinus, who saw "intellect" as the godhead, and bequeathed this view to the sufis, among others. The light of knowledge is thought, rationality, knowing the names. We are enabled by intellect to perceive the existence of things. The sufis saw "existence" strictly in terms of "the manifest"; that is, what is known, "what is," or "being" in the sense of cognizable objects. Of course this implies "the unmanifest"(non-existence) as the realm of what is not, but holds all that is potentially "real" (existent), from which all emerge and to which all return.

   Confusion arises by thinking of this intellect and the world of cognizable objects as our personal world. In truth, we have no thoughts which are not generalities, no thoughts not thinkable in the context of what is known. Our individual mind is strictly a form of social conditioning, conditioning which may be erased or changed, and entirely different points of view set up. Any group has its own identity, no more or less real than the self we identify with. In passing, I might note than no form of spirituality has any value for a person who does not have an integrated individual self. Pursuing "annihilation" or nirvana or ego-death before actually becoming a real self attempts to skip a lot of necessary steps and cannot work out well. Most actual sufi work involves remedial training in being a real person and recovering the natural abilities of a child. They call it, "learning how to learn."

   Plotinus distinguished two worlds: the sensible world of perceptions and the intelligible world of understanding. The worldly have their being mostly in the perceptible world, naively ascribing their own feelings and prejudices to external objects and events. The spiritual see more of the intelligible world of love, spiritual development, and the timeless, selfless agency of god, which plotinus called "the one." We all live in both worlds, they are two aspects of the same being.

   We can be attached to things of this world, and we can be attached to things of the other world. We can be attached to money and fame, and be dominated by ramakrishna's unholy trinity of lust, greed and wrath. And/or can be attached to grace and love, peace and quiet, and become bitter and resentful when deprived of them. Wthout ego there is no attachment. No expectations, no demands, no self-pity. Just trust, generosity, forgiveness, love.

   See clearly, be awake, be free.


terry



I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
(Nina Simone)

And I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holdin' me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say
Say 'em loud say 'em clear
For the whole 'round world to hear
I wish I could share
All the love that's in my heart
Remove all the doubts
That keep us apart
I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Then you'd see and agree
That every man should be free
I wish I could give
All I'm longin' to give
I wish I could live like I'm longing to live
I wish I could do all the things that I can do
And though I'm way over due
I'd be startin' a new
Well I wish I could be
Like a bird up in the sky
How sweet it would be
If I found out I could fly
So long to my song
And look down upon the sea
And I sing because I know yeah
And I sing because I know yeah
And I sing because I know
I would know how it feels
I would know how it feels to be free
I would know how it feels
Yes, I would know
I would know how it feels, how it feels
To be free, no no

Songwriters: B. TAYLOR / D. DALLAS
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 6:02 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 6:02 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

Posts: 2426 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Todo:
Finger pointing to the moon...

Many see only the finger...
A few see the moon...
Fewer see both the finger & the moon...
Fewer still see the finger, the moon & the seer...
...
The wise one knows all this is a magician's show.

   I'm reminded of the sufi story of four students who entered a mosque. The first said, "Look! There is a sign that says, 'no talking in the mosque.'" The second student said, "That means you shouldn't have talked." The third said, "You are talking just by pointing that out." And the last student concluded, "I am the only one who has not talked."

(wink)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/26/19 3:34 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/26/19 3:34 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Terry, would you say that it is possible for things to matter to someone, or to the collective, without attachment being involved?
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 3:20 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 3:20 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Terry, would you say that it is possible for things to matter to someone, or to the collective, without attachment being involved?

aloha linda,

   Wonderful question! You see to the heart of the matter.

   If everything is perfect, then nothing in itself matters. If nothing matters, why would anyone care about anything? And if no one cares, what keeps the world together?

   So, does caring in itself imply attachment? Can we live in the world of karma incurring no karma? Live "in the world and not of it" as hadith has it? "Be passersby" as prophets say?

   
   "Attachment" is pathological, it is disease, illness. Freedom from attachment is good health and natural to all sentient beings.

   It is clear that "attachment" as a general condition in society is the key problem. Not war, overpopulation, or whatever; these are symptoms. So the natural human being obviates and negates attachment wherever it is found, in whatever ways are available, as a simple matter of balance (not choice).  One tries to avoid creating karma, dissolve and forgive old karma, and do this in the non-ego sense of dissolving all human karma without trying to assign personal responsibility. Working in a general way to bring about unity and harmony.

   Take a practical situation, perhaps a person is grieving for a close friend who is suffering unto death. Assume we know beyond any doubt that this human frame is of no more value than that of a dung beetle's. The grieving person is clearly attached. Whatever help or advice we might offer this person depends entirely on the context. A warm hug, a fresh lei and murmured aloha might ease attachment, ease karma. On a spiritual forum where all involved want to see in the light of the truth, the reality that our bodies are like straw dogs or those of dung beetles might carry the power of disinterested truth. Similarly, what might be a slap in the face in a social situation might be a normal corrective when it is truth that is at issue. Or simply open debate.

   Does anything really matter? Only in the secondary sense that it is all grist for the mill. Whether as a hero story or as a cautionary tale. 

   
terry


"The superior man sees the transitory in the light of the eternity of the end."
~yi jing
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:39 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:39 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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I think I understand what you are saying. Thanks!
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 4:51 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 4:51 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I think I understand what you are saying. Thanks!


de nada...

(one special smile just for you)
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 7/21/19 5:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/21/19 5:53 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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The illusion of "solidity" is utterly compelling...
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 8/1/19 3:58 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/1/19 3:58 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Proliferation of fabrications:

1. Fundamental cognizance
2. Judgments
3. Attraction/ Aversion
4. Reality check
5. Happiness OR Suffering
6. Reality check
7. Only suffering.

Feedback most welcome
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 8/1/19 12:53 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/1/19 12:53 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

Posts: 2426 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Todo:
Proliferation of fabrications:

1. Fundamental cognizance
2. Judgments
3. Attraction/ Aversion
4. Reality check
5. Happiness OR Suffering
6. Reality check
7. Only suffering.

Feedback most welcome



"In the ignorance that implies the impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality.” 

― James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 8/2/19 1:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/2/19 1:52 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Terry,

English is my 3rd language and I never learned it properly in a classroom setting.

Could you kindly unpack the James Joyce quote and provide comments, explanations...
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 8/8/19 1:44 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/8/19 1:44 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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The map is not the territory...
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 5:10 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 5:10 AM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Slowing down,
The answer, my friend, is in slowing
For cognizance to be suffused with knowing
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 8/26/19 8:33 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/26/19 8:33 PM

RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
Terry,

English is my 3rd language and I never learned it properly in a classroom setting.

Could you kindly unpack the James Joyce quote and provide comments, explanations...


aloha todo,

   Unpacking james joyce is a fool's errand. Still, I thought the quote had obvious similarities to buddhism's 12 links, as did the comment of yours that I was responding to.

   Joyce says:

"In the ignorance that implies the impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality.” 

   As a poet he uses alliteration, but he would appear to be riffing off of something like this, from buddha.net:




    
Dependent Origination (12-links of Dependent Arising) - (PaticcaSamuppada in Pali and Pratityasamutpada in Sanskrit) 

#
Pali (Sanskrit)
Usual Translation
Other Reference
Remarks
1
Avijja (Avidya)    Ignorance         Lack of wisdom, which is the root of all evils. Obscuration as to self of persons and self of phenomena.
2
Sankhara (Samskara)    Karma formations    Compositional action    Wholesome or unwholesome thoughts, speech and bodily deeds.
3
Vinnana (Vijnana)    Conciousness         Normally 6 consciousnesses but is taken as 8 in the Yogacara School.
4
Nama-rupa    Name & form    Corporeality & mentality    Mental & physical existence. 4 mental aggregates and one physical body.
5
Ayatana (Shadayatana)    Six bases    Six sense organs/spheres    Eye, ear, nose, tongue, touch and mental faculty.
6
Phassa (Sparsha)    Sense impression    Contact    A mental factor and period in which the objects, sense power/organ and conciousness come together, causing one to distinguish an object as pleasurable, painful or neutral.
7
Vedana    Feeling    Sensation    
Posited as a mental factor that experiences pleasure, pain and neutral feeling. Pleasure leads to a strong desire for more while pain generates an avoidance desire.

8
Tanha (Trishna)    Craving    Attachment    A mental factor that increases desire but without any satisfaction.
9
Upadana    Clinging    Grasping    A stronger degree of desire. 4 basic varieties: desired objects, views of self, bad system of ethics and conduct; and other bad views.
10    Bhava (Bjava)    Process of becoming    Existence    A period lasting from the time of fully potentialised karma up to the beginning of next lifetime.
11    Jati    Rebirth          
12    Jara-marana (Jaramaranam)    Ageing & Death    Decay & Death    



terry
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 8/26/19 8:35 PM
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
The map is not the territory...

map and territory are not two...
Todo, modified 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 9:45 AM
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Terry,

Cognizance is the process that transforms the territory into a map. All we could ever know is the map, the territory is beyond knowing for all eternity. We suppose the existence of a territory because we have a map. Apart from that, we don't even know anything..

These days everything seems to bring me back to Cognizance. So, I agree with you (map & territory are not 2): only the map is known with certainty, the territory is pure speculation.

Salam.
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terry, modified 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 3:07 AM
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Todo:
Terry,

Cognizance is the process that transforms the territory into a map. All we could ever know is the map, the territory is beyond knowing for all eternity. We suppose the existence of a territory because we have a map. Apart from that, we don't even know anything..

These days everything seems to bring me back to Cognizance. So, I agree with you (map & territory are not 2): only the map is known with certainty, the territory is pure speculation.

Salam.


aloha todo,

    To say "not two" is to say that the idea is dualistic, that the concepts are related necessarily, that they make no sense without each other. A map is not a map unless there is a territory. The territory is only thought of as "territory" in relation to a "map."

   To say that we cannot know the "thing-in-itself" apart from our perceptions involves two errors. First, it postulates a realm of real things beyond anything we can know. A realm truly beyond anything we can know is, by definition, non-existent. Pure specuation, as you admit. Thus the perceived world is the "real" world. Secondly, there is an underlying assumption of an observing subject who is attending to an external objective world, whether of objects or percepts.

   The world we perceive is both subjective and objective. We see what we know, we know what we see. We write, enact and produce reality as a product of society. But we don't make it up. It is what it is. Life adapts to its environment; the map changes to reflect the territory. Life and environment are not two. (the atmosphere is 20% oxygen...where did that oxygen - so unlikely to finduncombined - come from?)

   That we perceive our world with the senses and desires of living beings does not make that world somehow unknowable, quite the contrary: we are intimates.


terry



from "does consciousness exist?" by william james

 http://fair-use.org/william-james/essays-in-radical-empiricism/does-consciousness-exist

For the thinkers I call neo-Kantian, the word consciousness to-day does no more than signalize the fact that experience is indefeasibly dualistic in structure. It means that not subject, not object, but object-plus-subject is the minimum that can actually be. The subject-object distinction meanwhile is entirely different from that between mind and matter, from that between body and soul. Souls were detachable, had separate destinies; things could happen to them. To consciousness as such nothing can happen, for, timeless itself, it is only a witness of happenings in time, in which it plays no part. It is, in a word, but the logical correlative of "content" in an Experience of which the peculiarity is that fact comes to light in it, that awareness of content takes place. Consciousness as such is entirely impersonal — "self" and its activities belong to the content. To say that I am self-conscious, or conscious of putting forth volition, means only that certain contents, for which "self" and "effort of will" are the names, are not without witness as they occur. 

Thus, for these belated drinkers at the Kantian spring, we should have to admit consciousness as an "epistemological" necessity, even if we had no direct evidence of its being there. 

But in addition to this, we are supposed by almost every one to have an immediate consciousness of consciousness itself. When the world of outer fact ceases to be materially present, and we merely recall it in memory, or fancy it, the consciousness is believed to stand out and to be felt as a kind of impalpable inner flowing, which, once known in this sort of experience, may equally be detected in presentations of the outer world. "The moment we try to fix our attention upon consciousness and to see what, distinctly, it is," says a recent writer, "it seems to vanish. It seems as if we had before us a mere emptiness. When we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue; the other element is as if it were diaphanous. Yet it can be distinguished, if we look attentively enough, and know that there is something to look for." [Moore (1903) ¶ 31] "Consciousness" (Bewusstheit), says another philosopher, "is inexplicable and hardly describable, yet all conscious experiences have this in common that what we call their content has this peculiar reference to a centre for which 'self' is the name, in virtue of which reference alone the content is subjectively given, or appears .... While in this way consciousness, or reference to a self, is the only thing which distinguishes a conscious content from any sort of being that might be there with no one conscious of it, yet this only ground of the distinction defies all closer explanations. The existence of consciousness, although it is the fundamental fact of psychology, can indeed be laid down as certain, can be brought out by analysis, but can neither be defined nor deduced from anything but itself." (Essay I § 1, n. 3: Paul Natorp: Einleitung in die Psychologie, 1888, pp. 14, 112.)


"Can be brought out by analysis", this author says. This supposes that the consciousness is one element, moment, factor — call it what you like — of an experience of essentially dualistic inner constitution, from which, if you abstract the content, the consciousness will remain revealed to its own eye. Experience, at this rate, would be much like a paint of which the world pictures were made. Paint has a dual constitution, involving, as it does, a menstruum (oil, size or what not) and a mass of content in the form of pigment suspended therein. We can get the pure menstruum by letting the pigment settle, and the pure pigment by pouring off the size or oil. We operate here by physical subtraction; and the usual view is, that by mental subtraction we can separate the two factors of experience in an analogous way — not isolating them entirely, but distinguishing them enough to know that they are two. 

Figuratively speaking, consciousness may be said to be the one universal solvent, or menstruum, in which the different concrete kinds of psychic acts and facts are contained, whether in concealed or in obvious form. 

II

Now my contention is exactly the reverse of this. Experience, I believe, has no such inner duplicity; and the separation of it into consciousness and content comes, not by way of subtraction, but by way of addition — the addition, to a given concrete piece of it, of other sets of experience, in connection with which severally its use or function may be of two different kinds. The paint will also serve here as an illustration. In a pot in a paint-shop, along with other paints, it serves in its entirety as so much saleable matter. Spread on a canvas, with other paints around it, it represents, on the contrary, a feature in a picture and performs a spiritual function. Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of "consciousness"; while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing known, of an objective "content." In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, in another group as a thing. And, since it can figure in both groups simultaneously we have every right to speak of it as subjective and objective both at once. The dualism connoted by such double-barrelled terms as "experience," "phenomenon," "datum," "Vorfindung" — terms which, in philosophy at any rate, tend more and more to replace the single-barrelled terms of "thought" and "thing" — that dualism, I say, is still preserved in this account, but reinterpreted, so that, instead of being mysterious and elusive, it becomes verifiable and concrete. It is an affair of relations, it falls outside, not inside, the single experience considered, and can always be particularized and defined. 
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Body IS mind...
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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Universe IS mind..
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RE: nada nonsense: just say "I disagree" or "agree"

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The one IS the many...
Vice versa.

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