d'autre

Ecology, Anyone?

2011-09-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

a thought provoking post, Don't Mess with Mr. In-Between Part 2, from Professor Timothy Morton

Buddha Was Not a Pragmatist

2011-09-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

Levi Bryant writes,

It is shameful whenever the philosopher, theorist, or artist bow to the exigencies of the “pragmatic”. When I evoke pragmatism here I am not referring to the philosophical school known as pragmatism, but rather to the term “pragmatism” as it functions in contemporary party politics in the United States. This variant of pragmatism celebrates the necessity of “being reasonable”, compromise, surrender, or bowing to what is possible within the current constraints of the situation. This sort of pragmatist makes the argument that “we can only get x number of votes from Congress so we shouldn’t even bother having the debate, publicly making the argument, or pushing for this particular cause.”

To Buddhist...or Not to Buddhist?

2011-08-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

This is totally for the comments section of the program:

What is it that makes you a 'Buddhist'?

...and then?

2011-08-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

No, '...and then'!

What?

2011-07-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Are You an AmeriCAN or an AmeriCAN'T?

2011-07-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

Here's helpful anonymous comment from a helpful sight-

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water supply. After that, I turned the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined what the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log onto the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the Government can't do anything right.

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/07/08/half-of-us-social-pr.html

DEMOCRACY

2011-04-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Field of Dreams

2011-04-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

We Are Still Mere Naturals, No Better Than Fools And Madmen. Anonymous sermon (1680), cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "natural"

And then...

2011-04-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

Alex Genkan Rudinsky
(February 4, 1957-April 21, 2011)

To All My Friends Who Are Teachers

2011-03-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Levi over at Larval Subjects put up a post that seems to need to be added to as many blogs as possible, so here's one more-

Death Be Not Proud

2011-03-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,1
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,2
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest3 our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave4 to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well5
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?6
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/DeathBe.html

oui

2011-02-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

Kakudo- Certains moines feraient mieux de se taire et laisser oeuvrer le dharma.

I Want You, to Change the World!

2011-02-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day. ~ Sartre

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me!

2011-02-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Jake Shimabukuro plays "Bohemian Rhapsody" | Video on TED.com

"The Power of Money" -Karl Marx

2010-11-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

If man’s feelings, passions, etc., are not merely anthropological phenomena in the (narrower) sense, but truly ontological [41] affirmations of being (of nature), and if they are only really affirmed because their object exists for them as a sensual object, then it is clear that:

1. They have by no means merely one mode of affirmation, but rather that the distinct character of their existence, of their life, is constituted by the distinct mode of their affirmation. In what manner the object exists for them, is the characteristic mode of their gratification.

2. Wherever the sensuous affirmation is the direct annulment of the object in its independent form (as in eating, drinking, working up of the object, etc.), this is the affirmation of the object.

3. Insofar as man, and hence also his feeling, etc., is human, the affirmation of the object by another is likewise his own gratification.

4. Only through developed industry – i.e., through the medium of private property – does the ontological essence of human passion come into being, in its totality as well as in its humanity; the science of man is therefore itself a product of man’s own practical activity.

5. The meaning of private property – apart from its estrangement – is the existence of essential objects for man, both as objects of enjoyment and as objects of activity.

By possessing the property of buying everything, by possessing the property of appropriating all objects, money is thus the object of eminent possession. The universality of its property is the omnipotence of its being. It is therefore regarded as an omnipotent being. Money is the procurer between man’s need and the object, between his life and his means of life. But that which mediates my life for me, also mediates the existence of other people for me. For me it is the other person.

“What, man! confound it, hands and feet
And head and backside, all are yours!
And what we take while life is sweet,
Is that to be declared not ours?

“Six stallions, say, I can afford,
Is not their strength my property?
I tear along, a sporting lord,
As if their legs belonged to me.”

Goethe: Faust (Mephistopheles)

Shakespeare in Timon of Athens:

“Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?
No, Gods, I am no idle votarist! ...
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
... Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed;
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: This is it
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put’st odds
Among the rout of nations.”

And also later:

“O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
‘Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
Of Hymen’s purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian’s lap! Thou visible God!
That solder’st close impossibilities,
And makest them kiss! That speak’st with every tongue,
||XLII| To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!”

Shakespeare excellently depicts the real nature of money. To understand him, let us begin, first of all, by expounding the passage from Goethe.

That which is for me through the medium of money – that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: ‘is’. – Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation? It is the coin that really separates as well as the real binding agent – the [...] [One word in the manuscript cannot be deciphered. – Ed.] chemical power of society.

Shakespeare stresses especially two properties of money:

1. It is the visible divinity – the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things: impossibilities are soldered together by it.

2. It is the common whore, the common procurer of people and nations.

The distorting and confounding of all human and natural qualities, the fraternisation of impossibilities – the divine power of money – lies in its character as men’s estranged, alienating and self-disposing species-nature. Money is the alienated ability of mankind.

That which I am unable to do as a man, and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money. Money thus turns each of these powers into something which in itself it is not – turns it, that is, into its contrary.

If I long for a particular dish or want to take the mail-coach because I am not strong enough to go by foot, money fetches me the dish and the mail-coach: that is, it converts my wishes from something in the realm of imagination, translates them from their meditated, imagined or desired existence into their sensuous, actual existence – from imagination to life, from imagined being into real being. In effecting this mediation, [money] is the truly creative power.

No doubt the demand also exists for him who has no money, but his demand is a mere thing of the imagination without effect or existence for me, for a third party, for the [others],||XLIII| and which therefore remains even for me unreal and objectless. The difference between effective demand based on money and ineffective demand based on my need, my passion, my wish, etc., is the difference between being and thinking, between that which exists within me merely as an idea and the idea which exists as a real object outside of me.

If I have no money for travel, I have no need – that is, no real and realisable need – to travel. If I have the vocation for study but no money for it, I have no vocation for study – that is, no effective, no true vocation. On the other hand, if I have really no vocation for study but have the will and the money for it, I have an effective vocation for it. Money as the external, universal medium and faculty (not springing from man as man or from human society as society) for turning an image into reality and reality into a mere image, transforms the real essential powers of man and nature into what are merely abstract notions and therefore imperfections and tormenting chimeras, just as it transforms real imperfections and chimeras – essential powers which are really impotent, which exist only in the imagination of the individual – into real powers and faculties. In the light of this characteristic alone, money is thus the general distorting of individualities which turns them into their opposite and confers contradictory attributes upon their attributes.

Money, then, appears as this distorting power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be entities in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence, and intelligence into idiocy.

Since money, as the existing and active concept of value, confounds and confuses all things, it is the general confounding and confusing of all things – the world upside-down – the confounding and confusing of all natural and human qualities.

He who can buy bravery is brave, though he be a coward. As money is not exchanged for any one specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to exchange every quality for every other, even contradictory, quality and object: it is the fraternisation of impossibilities. It makes contradictions embrace.

Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune.|XLIII||

Waiter, There's a Woman in My Soup!

2010-11-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Dogen Zenji was a character made up by a Medieval Princess of Court who used her writings to criticize the Emperor and Buddhism in what is now Japan. (discuss)

Back to the Basics

2010-10-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

My Baby Boy!

2010-09-19T23:44:00.000-07:00

The Three Jewels

2010-05-31T12:20:00.000-07:00

The nature of the lack in the Real is symbolic and the object of the lack is imaginary.

The nature of the lack in the Imaginary is real and the object of the lack is symbolic.

The nature of the lack in the Symbolic is imaginary and the object of the lack is real.

Why Not Let Others Speak For You?

2010-03-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

An intelligent comment from David Bell, someone I consider to be an intelligent person;

"There are several problems with "scientism," which is the view that "science" somehow represents a way of knowing that is superior to all other ways of knowing. One problem is that is posits what it calls "reason" as the only human faculty that can perceive "reality," and that it should therefore be privileged over all other faculties. Immanuel Kant destroyed this notion in 1781. When he did, scientists stopped trying to be philosophers and began observing phenomena and making predictions and tentative conclusions based on their observations. But too many contemporary scientists today forget that bifurcation and now try to come back and once again assert, always without having studied or thought about the fatal flaws in their approach, "truths" they claim to have discovered about "the real," through their use of reason. It's not much different from people trying again toturn lead into gold. Reason is great in its sphere, but it can never know "the real."

A second problem is that they do not even remain faithful to their protocols. Their reasoning is usually quite sloppy when they venture into the philosophical realm. For example, they might claim to base their conclusions solely on "empirical" evidence, that is, evidence they can observe. But they never use their reason to inquire into the nature of perception. The Suringama Sutra and the profound writings of Nagarjuna, let alone the writings of Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, all deeply rational, are completely unknown to these people. And they never even realize or admit that the very philosophy of empiricism is itself unempirical, completely made up by reason. Or they "prove" their theories using mathematics, the most purely rational, unempirical field of all. This is Boy Scout level stuff in philosophy, and these guys are barely Cub Scouts.

A third problem is that they conflate all nonrational human faculties with "belief, which usually means something like asserting somethig you cannot "prove." They dismiss the kind of truth that can come from myth and the mythic level of human consciousness. And they make the mistake of assuming faculties of consciousness that are capable of wider, deeper and more complex and integrated kinds of knowing, but which are nonrational, are simply unworthy of consideration. They have no experience of it, therefore there must be nothing to it. This is both ignorant and arrogant. It's like a 5th grader who has no training in mathematics trying to say that quantum physicists are all full of it. It's just pathetic.

These problems and others lead people who are smart and who have achieved certain kinds of distinction in their fields, to make truly amateurish claims about matters that are outside their realms of competence. That's why I find them uninteresting: they are shallow thinkers. And they all seem to be terribly angry, too. Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and the truly idiotic Bill Maher, are all currently popular purveyors of "rational" atheism. All are intensely arrogant about their claims. All are entirely ignorant (except Harris, who is just dishonest) of how and why their philosophies are merely reassertions of long-failed philosophies of centuries ago. All are really, really angry that not everyone agrees with them. And all have absolutely no curiosity of what may lie outside their own experience in this field."

Nuff said.

Get Over Thinkin' You'll Never Look Stupid in front of Others

2010-03-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Goodbye

2010-03-22T10:21:00.001-07:00

Lens Flare

2010-02-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

The Akedah (The Binding of Isaac) Genesis 22:1-13

and

The Sacrifice of Ishmael, Qur'an 37:99-111

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_flare

Tweet Tweet!

2010-01-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

IntegralHack@mujaku as Huang Po said, "You cannot use Mind to seek Mind, the Buddha to seek the Buddha . . ." :)

mukyo:@IntegralHack So one uses Not-Mind and Not-Buddha. ;)

RT @mukyo: @IntegralHack So one uses Not-Mind and Not-Buddha. ;) | yes & "Not-Self." "Not" in this context does not mean "anti"

mukyo:@IntegralHack Right. As in, "the name is not the thing named". So, he's referring to using Language.

IntegralHack@mukyo I think you mean "not with" instead of "not without" here?

mukyo:@IntegralHack "not without" would mean, "without, but not."

IntegralHack@mukyo Yes, that's true if you include conceptual thought as language. Mind exists, but seeing it isn't possible via the concept of Mind.

mukyo:@IntegralHack Language is the medium for conceptual thought.

IntegralHack@mukyo there are schools which think there are some differences between language & thought, but I'm fine with the def for our purposes.

mukyo:@IntegralHack I'd have to say the difference is between thought and speech as both use Language but are not the same as it.

mukyo:@IntegralHack What we would be saying, then, is, Mind exists but not without seeing it through conceptual mind which is Not-Mind.

mukyo:@IntegralHack Speech being "supplied" by a "storehouse" or "body". That "body" is thought, both conscious and unconscious. Very Yogacara.

mukyo:@IntegralHack ...And Lacanian! ;)

IntegralHack@mukyo I'll buy that. Probably why "discursive thought" is frequently used in Buddhist texts. Don't know what the diff would be. "Symbolic?"

mukyo:@IntegralHack We can tackle that later. Family calling, gotta go. Lovely conversation, thanks!

IntegralHack@mukyo Sorry, my family called as well. Later
.

An Army of One

2010-01-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

Joe Clement- “I basically concur with my friend, Ted Bagley, when he says,

“the Buddha’s whole point is subversion of the Caste system.”

Reed Sebastian Arroyo- “Exactly. The whole point of Anatta (no-self) is to subvert reified notions of essential and extricable difference between individuals; to show that ultimately karma is not bound to us in an absolute sense but only insofar as we are fooled by a belief in permanence and we don’t allow the momentum of transience to unveil our true Buddha-Nature.
The dual-idea of impermanence and No Self negates the possibility of any essential hierarchy that disallows the individual to “follow their bliss” into a personal nirvana.
In my opinion, even “spiritual hierarchies” like lineages and religious-ranks are counter-productive in the long run: a more libertarian and compassionate objective reality (this is where the West’s structural-revolution theories come in) would be the only true way to eliminate the material disparity that basically accommodates and reproduces a “spiritual” class system.”

Joe Clement- “I think the Buddha’s point, as he even states upon his death-bad, is that all of this is true (what Ted and you are saying), but asks us to go a step further by walking away from the notion that it’s truth or efficacy has to do with it being HIS point.”

Reed Sebastian Arroyo- “I totally agree. “Be a light unto yourself.” Means that ultimately, the Buddha is not OUR illumination, but his own; we must illuminate ourselves using ourselves as our means.”

Reed Sebastian Arroyo- “I was reading a transcript of Hegel’s lectures on Reason in History, and I really liked the way he described “Man as such” as being free; because his consciousness is a reflection of itself: a “self-contained existence.” This reminds me of the Buddha’s notion of Buddha-nature as realized pure freedom, not in the idealistic or the crass sense, but the sense of self-gnosis.”

Reed Sebastian Arroyo- “The self is a gem. It is everything and nothing. It is indefinite reflection and signification.”

Death Be Not Proud

2009-12-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

• 52 – Sad News, Sad Tropics
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009)

Jacques-Alain Miller

We have learnt with great sadness
of the death of Lévi-Strauss,
whose inspiration was decisive
in the genesis and first developments
of Lacan’s teaching.
We bow with respect
to the memory of this great man.
I will recall here the name of Roman Jakobson,
whose students and friends Lévi-Strauss and Lacan were,
and to whom we are all indebted.
There must be a fourth:
Saussure? Dumézil? Bourbaki? The Foucault of The Order of Things?
Who was their philosopher, their Minerva’s owl?
Or Mallarmé, who knows?
As he was wont, Lévi-Strauss has passed away,
the haughty and melancholy genius of structuralism.
He had to fight hard to be recognised,
and to clear the room, to build the house,
we live in still.
We shall not see his like again.

Nous apprenons avec une grand émotion
le décès de Claude Lévi-Strauss,
dont l’inspiration a été déterminante
dans la genèse et les premiers développements
de l’enseignement de Lacan.
Nous nous inclinons avec respect
devant la mémoire de ce grand homme.
Ce n’est pas un vain mot que de dire
que son œuvre restera vivante -
pour les ethnologues, on ne sait pas,
c’est une peuplade qui mange ses totems,
mais pour les psychanalystes, c’est sûr,
au moins pour nous.
Je rappelle ici le nom de Roman Jakobson,
dont Lévi-Strauss et Lacan furent les amis et les élèves,
et à qui nous sommes tous redevables.
Il doit y avoir un quatrième:
Saussure? Dumézil? Bourbaki? le Foucault des Mots et les choses,
qui fut leur philosophe, leur chouette de Minerve?
ou Mallarmé, qui sait?
Tel qu’en lui-même, Lévi-Strauss s’en est allé,
altier et mélancolique génie du structuralisme.
Il dut batailler dur avant d’être reconnu,
et de forer l’espace, de construire la maison,
où nous vivons encore.
On ne reverra pas son pareil.

from Journal des Journées

translated by Alan Price

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Where'd He Go?

2009-12-24T12:50:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone. Well wishes on sending out the new year.

I've been researching for new posts and have gotten addicted to tweeting, but I'll be back. Mukyo on twitter. I've also started working as a Plumber's Apprentice, so I haven't had as much time.
Meanwhile, check out my past post, the blog list on the side, and even the Zennist to see if your comment might get published or not. ;)

Matcha, Please. Shaken, Not Whisked.

2009-11-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

Can a true Zen student imagine Dogen Zenji trying to ruin the Zen tradition with his writing? Or dismantle a "fabricated" Buddhist lineage altogether, which would add to the metaphoric meaning of the kesa. Can one cast herself back to a time when such desires would be in line with currents situations of our time?

Studying the structure and style of Shobogenzo would generously allow Dogen the possibility of working not from his own experiences or visions, keeping those to himself, but from a tradition of writing and recognizing authority. This, in turn, would be an expression of our non-attatchment to a particular desired meaning for ourselves in the written content.

James Bond's own martini recipe that was written into the first of the Bond novels, Casino Royale;

The Vesper

3 measures Gordon's Gin
1 measure vodka
1/2 measure Kina Lillet
shake well and pour into champagne glass
garnish with lemon peel

Cheers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T17:10:00.001-08:00

What was your favorite moment of the holiday?

Big BANG!!

2009-11-24T23:54:00.000-08:00

One time a monk inquired of him, “Reverend Monk, I have
heard you say that the whole universe throughout all its ten directions is one bright pearl. How am I, as a trainee, to understand the meaning of this?"
- DogenZenji

Answer- ?

"In the Symbolic order, the totality is called a universe. The Symbolic order from the first takes on it's universal character. It isn't constituted bit by bit. As soon as the symbol arrives, there is a universe of symbols."
- J. Lacan

Fukanzengi, By Ted

2009-11-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

This morning my son was sounding out the phrase "non-toxic" on his crayon box. When he got the words figured out he, of course, asked me what non-toxic meant. "Well," I said, "when something is toxic that means it has ingredients in it that can make you sick, or worse. When something is non toxic, it means the all the ingredients are safe, or they have no toxicity, does not have the toxic ingredients, so if a baby puts it in her mouth she won't be hurt by it. (Since he's five years old, I had to tell him that part so he wouldn't be goofy and start eating them.) Crayons with no toxicity are like regular crayons that are toxic in how they are used but different in what they are."
This reminded me of the line in the Fukanzengi, Dogen's Rules for Zazen,

Having regulated the physical posture, breathe out once, and sway left to right.Sit still, "Thinking that state beyond thinking." "How can the state beyond thinking be thought?" "Non-thinking." This is the vital art of sitting-zen.

Non-toxic crayons are only thought of as non-toxic crayons in relation to toxic crayon, so without a thought of non-toxic crayons there is no toxic crayon, either. The nontoxic crayon's ingredients are different, yet colors like a "regular" crayon.
Likewise, there is one that thinks without speaking and one that speaks without thinking. Since there is no hearing one who doesn't speak, that one speaks through the one that thinks. And vise a versa. Zazen is the experience of distinguishing the one from the other in the unified act of thought. Or as Lacan proclaimed,

"The Unconscious is structured like a language."

The unconscious doesn't speak for itself but will always finds a way do it through one that thinks it does. When the one that thinks it speaks for itself allows itself to speak for the other it is called, non-speech. This might also be the first Paramita.

Being Strung Along A Path

2009-11-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

Time flies like an arrow and
fruit flies like a banana.

This Is How One Listens

2009-11-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

Jazz and Poetry & Other Reasons:

SOMEONE SAID NO

Written and read by Portland author Robert Briggs, accompanied by jazz musicians J. Stuart Fessant on sax, Tim DuRoche on drums and Dan Davis on bass.

In this new approach to Jazz and Poetry & Other Reasons, Briggs examines the demise of the American dream by tracing it back to the 1950s. Through the breakdown of a friend, Harmon Crow, Briggs tells the tale of a troubled Beat who survives his collapse by believing there is “more to life than living.” A two-act blend of cool jazz and prose that continues to deal with why "jazz is to music - what poetry is to knowing."

Friday, December 4, 2009
7.30 pm

at TaborSpace
5441 SE Belmont St., Portland, OR 97215
(in the Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church building)

Tickets: $10 -$15 at the door
For reservations contact Parker at 206-412-6767

Know Where Your Chicken Comes From

2009-11-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

This post is in compliment to my friend's post at Buddha of Hollywood; How to make chicken soup recipe. It's comes 13 parts and well worth it, notably for those of us who call themselves "Progressive".
(The intro to the series is about 5 min. long, so hang in there.)

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire!

2009-11-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –
— Emily Dickinson (#1129)

Some Help With Doctrine- The Middle Way

2009-11-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

From, urbandharma.org-

Denouncing all Indian ethical theories preceding and contemporary with him, the Buddha adopted and introduced a middle standpoint for his epistemology and ethics known as the theory of dependent origination (a.ticcasamuppaada//pratiitayasamupaada). With this new morally middle doctrine (majjhena dha"mma"m deseti), the Buddha rejects all kinds of extremist theories, such as permanent existence and nihilistic non-existence, strict determinism, past-determination, theistic determination as well as non-causation-and-non-conditionality, as follows:

1. The extremes of existence and non-existence or being and non-being. The former is the theory admitting that everything exists (sabbaa atthii ti), while the later advocating that nothing actually exists (sabbaa natthii ti).[81]

2. The extremes of eternalism (sassatavaada) and annihilationalism (ucchedavaada).[82] If eternalism admits that one and the same person both performs actions and experiences the results, then annihilation admits that one performs actions, another experiences the results.

3. The extremes of past-determination (sabbaa pubbekatahetuvaada) or theistic determination (sabba issaranimmaanavaada) and non-causation-and-non-conditionality (sabaa ahetu-apaccaya-vaada).[83] The first advocate that all human experience, suffering or happiness are determined either by actions performed from the previous lives, or by an almighty God, whereas the last admitting all phenomena and human experience are happened without causes and conditions.

4. The extremes of attakaaravaada, the belief that ‘pleasure and pain brought about by one’s self, and parakaaravaada, the belief that ‘pleasure and pain brought about by another.’[84]

5. The extremes of Kaarakavedakaadi-ekattavaada and Kaarakavedakaadi-naanattavaada. The former is the belief that the doer and the receiver of deed are the same, whereas the latter is the belief that the doer and the receiver of deed are different.[85] If the Braahmanical teachings of the Vedas and Upani.sads represent a theistic theory of ethics, the Sramanic thinkers like Puura.na Kassapa, Ajita Kesakambali, Pakudha Kaccaayana, Makkhali Gosaala, Niga.n.tha Naa.taputta and Sa~njaya Bela.t.thaputta etc., represent some form of amoralism (e.g. nihilistic materialism, non-causationalism and determinism), the Buddha’s teachings (dhamma) are positive assertions of a rational-psychological moralism, which is socially and universally acceptable.

What Are Friends For Anyway? Part II

2009-11-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

Have you ever lost a friend because you crossed a line with them in which you seemingly were unaware was there...and wasn't that really the defining moment for why you needed their friendship in the first place?

Okay, Boss!

2009-11-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

"A day without work, a day without food."

The above saying, attributed to Pai Chang; 749-814, has absolutely nothing to do with Buddhist serfs and monastic slaves...so don't even go there.

These Are Not Cows

2009-11-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

"Gone, gone. Gone to the other shore. Ah, sunken-relief!"

What You're Looking At Is What You Get...You See?

2009-10-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Is the Buddha's teaching of the Four Noble Truths one set of truths describing the Buddha's experience or two sets of two truths at odds with one another explaining your experience to you?
The last teaching was to be a light unto yourself. What does this really say?

Who's Wears The Pants In Your Family?

2009-10-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was flipping through the tv channels to find the football previews when I came upon an discussion with Maria Shriver on Meet the Press about equality in the work place for women. What struck me about this discussion was the interchanging of the words Woman and Female to mean the same, by both Ms. Shriver and the Meet the Press guy. Now I'm of the school that says Female signifies one with significant body parts whereas Woman signifies one in a particular position in the symbolic order. As well I see the "Feminist" struggle lasting forever as long as the symbolic element is ignored because after all more females are doing better in the work place than in the past because a female doesn't have to be symbolically a Woman, so actually only Female rights have been fought for in society. This is hardly counter to a Patriarchal structure as patriarchy uses anatomy to legitimize a Man's position.

Coincidentally, there has been a movement for awhile now to chant a female lineage at Zen centers. Funny, since you would think a school that supposedly is beyond language would have Women patriarchs already who aren't female, since I think calling them Patriarchs would transcend the problem, but are they men or males. Doesn't countering with a female list just play the same game there as well? I think Zen practice is working out the knot of reality and seeing how the interplay of the imaginary and the symbolic are made to seem real, but that could just be my silly.

“Masculinity and femininity are not biological essences but symbolic positions, and the assumption of one of these two positions is fundamental to the construction of subjectivity; the subject is essentially a sexed subject. “Man” and “Woman” are signifiers that stand for these two subjective positions.” – Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
“The assumption of a sexual position is fundamentally a symbolic act, and the difference between the sexes can only be conceived of on the symbolic plane.- J.L, Seminar 4.

The Four Noble Truths for The Modern Ideal

2009-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Do you solemnly swear to tell...

1. The Truth
2. The whole Truth
3. and nothing but the Truth
4. so help you God?

I'm the Dude Playin' The Dude Pretending To Be The Dude.

2009-10-08T09:38:00.001-07:00

Braaaains!

2009-10-06T08:28:00.001-07:00

What Would Dogen Say?...If He Were Allowed To Say It.

2009-09-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

If we even want to give Dogen Zenji's writings the benefit of the doubt about being critical of his Emperor wanting to copy the "Golden Age" of China, then this post on Jodi Dean's blog is a great Dogen rant. It's a long, but engaging post, but hey, so is Shobogenzo!

Shobogenzo As Dr. Ejostein's Monster?

2009-09-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

From, "Fathering Your Father", by Alan Cole,

"...though text D might appear to have been written in response to text C, it likely knew text A and B, and thus text A's influence on D isn't simply through achain of A>B>C>D but also directly A>D and indirectly A>B>D. This isn't so troubling to think through,but things get worse when text E is written knowing A and D, seeing what D took from A, and then deforming content from A again but in a manner mediated by seeing what D did to A. Or, more specifically, if the author of text E read D and then returns to text A, his appropriation of A has to be seen as partly determined by his reading of D's reading of A. Of coarse, then when the author of F picks up the ball, all this further densifies. Oddly enough, what we will see repeatedly is that direct borrowing is fairly traceable,since authors seen to have wished to borrow the cachet of prior statements even as they twisted them in new and unprecedented ways. Hence, there is regularly a problem of surplus vestiges in these texts, with text D incorporating more of text A than it really needed, and then text F shaves down its borrowing from text A but inadvertantly picks up elements from text D that it does not exactly need or want." Page 14

Quit Joking and Just Tell the Truth!

2009-09-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

Forgive Him For He Knows Not What I Said

2009-09-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

The monks gathered around to hear Buddha's next teaching. A long time had past and nothing was said. Finally the Buddha picked a flower, began twirling it and said to himself,

"I just don't know what to say that they do not already know."

At that a monk, named Kashyapa, looked around at the other monks watching Buddha very intently. Kashapa smiled and nodding he said to himself,

"You're twirling a flower so we'll think you're giving us a teaching when you're really have nothing to say. Very cleaver. The others seem to not know what you are saying. Your secret is safe with me. As far as I'm concerned, I know nothing and I'll say nothing about it."

Buddha looked around, saw Kashyapa smiling and again thought, "Kashyapa seems to be the only one that knows I have nothing to say. I hope he'll keep that to himself."

Many schools were founded on what Buddha was thought to have said but there's no saying how a school was founded by the one who knew what Buddha did not say.

4,3,2,1...Try Again!

2009-09-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

The Buddha's Four Noble Truths (re)versed-

4. there is a not in the way to the end of suffering
3. there is a not at the end of suffering
2. there is a not that is the cause of suffering
1. there is no not suffering

or...
The Buddha's straight talk to the Noble-

Oh, you beautiful soul! You want to become who others are not when you can only be who you are and no one else!

The Buddha's not-so-Noble verse-

By killing your self,
who you think you are will not be
and where you came from will not be,
you will have no problems with others.

Updated on Sept. 10

The Buddha's Monstrosity

2009-08-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Parmenides taught that a truth is "Unconcealment" exposing a formerly unexposed conflict. He also said there is no such existence of something that is not there.

The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths-

1. There is suffering.
2. There is a cause of suffering.
3. There is the end of suffering.
4. There is the way to the end of suffering.

Embodying the Buddha Way by following the Eightfold Path, Truth #4, exposes the other side of saving all beings, Bodhisattva Vow #1.

What better example, that I know of, in our history than that of the French revolutionary Maximillien Robespierre. A Nobleman and very virtuous man, Rodespierre "read" The Four Noble Truths word for word and definitely embodied them to the end of his life as he became the monster of the "Reign of Terror" in the name of Love.

Robespierre showed that to "really" end suffering one has to kill off the cause, which ended up being those that were against the revolution and he had no problem dying for the cause himself as he realized he was guilty by association. Maybe it's as Sarte said much later, "Hell is other people."
Robespierre's downfall was that he became an embodiment of suffering and expressing the "other shore" of virtue. Was his virtue the truth of his terror or was his terror the truth of his virtue?

In what ways, however small, do we follow Robespierre's example?

The "Buddhist" as Agent of the Status Quo.

2009-08-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

We're so sorry for that. The one thinking he could speak critically about any "Buddhist" being an agent of the status quo has been sacked. We apologize for the disruption of your day.

(We now resume your regular programming.)

What are Friends For Anyway?

2009-07-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

A banter with my friend Joe this morning:
Morning.
Smells like victory here
Mornin'. Nanzen's cat... a koan of sexuation?
Victory here as well.
French roast.
Insofar as there are all the homologies with 1 Kings 3:16-28, and to the extent that I explained that story in terms of sexuation, it doesn't sound like a bad route to go. Especially when you take Larval Subjects point at the end of that blog-post that we could view questions of sexuation as really about our relationship to the Law.
Any word is a good word. No word put a line through the word. Does this cat exist?...without the word?
Can the what exist?
Without the word only the “what” exists?
I'm not sure what we're talking about when we refer to "the cat" in its absence. If anything it ex-sists.
That is, the place of absence once designated, referenced by "the cat."
Maybe the response to Nanzen, then should be asking "What cat?"
That's brilliant.
Reminds me of another koan
I actually wrote about this in response to Hegel too.
Freud asks"What does Woman want?" Maybe the same response spurs questions. "What Woman."
Master has a shippe. Says to the students, if you call it a shippe you affirm, if you call it not a shippe you negate. Do not negate or affirm, what do you call it? The only student who seems to get it is one who walks up, grabs it from his hand (not unlike Mumon's comment about Joshu snatching Nansen's sword) and says "what is THIS?"
No, I like that response, especially when applied to Freud there.
I don't know whether I made it clear yesterday, but this "what cat?" and the "what are you talking about?" sort of issue it implies is where I think Nansen also "doesn't get it." He attaches to the cat just like the monks do.
If any word is a good word then maybe there is no good word. If the analyst remembers this she keeps preferences out of the way of the analysis?
I think Nanzen gets it. he's provoking.
Maybe there are two "splitting in halves"
How so?
The perception of the split and the split itself?
You mean, the difference between two things and then that difference itself?
That's what I mean when I say there is no cat because there is and because there is not. (Split) That's how the "no" is reflected. Eh?
A little play... how do we know anything? By seeing the structure of the "NO". (is and is not)
This is Hegel's shtick too. You'll get it in the Berstein lectures if you listen long enough. I like how Bernstein explains Hegel's introduction to epistemology this dimension of learning, which requres ignorance and error, but ultimately produces truth (or not).
!!!
That is, introduction to epistemology as a kind of philosophical discipline/field. I don't know that Hegel wrote an "Introduction to Epistemology," but you could kind of read the Intro to the Phenomenology that way.
There is the truth of suffering, which is split, and there is the truth of not suffering, which is also split. Both splits making up one split and reflects the fact of NO SUFFERING.
This is why Zizek (and Derrida kind of, from what I can tell) sees in Hegel a deep fidelity to difference.
Not entirely sure I'm following. Into what or just how is either suffering or not-suffering split (or not).
Were all different in that we have different eyes. (I's) And.. we're all different because we look through the same nose differently?
1st and second NT are the same but split. 3rd and 4th are the same but split.
Yes.
I get that.
Thought of it a while ago, but was more interested in the 3rd and 4th. The first seemed so obvious as to be uncomplicated.
1st and 2nd are the suffering. 3rd and 4th are the not and are the split of suffering reflecting the fact, not truth, of no suffering.
The cessation of suffering (the truth of not suffering) is the noble eightfold path.
Yeah.
And the “not” is the illusion created by the illusion of the split.
Just like cutting the wood and dropping the ax really aren't separated, but they are.
!!!
Three pounds flax and all, you know?
How does wood cut in half? Burning into ash.
Wood/not wood
Though the ash does not become firewood again, or even the fire.
How do you kill the thing? Call it a cat!
"Not" can't go back.
Firewood was not ash.
Yes, which is why Nansen cutting/killing the cat is kind of an act of bad-faith: the cat is already dead (already going to become a Buddha some day), so there is no harm no foul.
That's why I say the 3rd and 4th NT are only a reflection of a split subject.
I wonder if the first noble truth refers to what Adrian Johnston calls "the splitting of the drive"?
Just words and things. Yes.
Just random association on my part though, I've only slightly gotten into that book.
first and second noble truths*
$
The truth of suffering.
Is that the subject is divided.
By what?
The effects of not knowing himself as a speaking being.
Or, as Heidegger would lay out the ground work for, and I think this influences Lacan, not knowing himself as mortal.
In the beginning was the word(the word was here before the thing called me)
That is, we cannot experience our own death. It has never happened "before" for us, and never can.
Experience is the joining of the two. Symbolic and imaginary. Word and image.
That's why there is no experience without words.
Well, no conscious experience, but conscious experience is not-all.
Really, though, conscious experience and experience for all intents and purposes are the same thing. There is simply something beyond this (suffering) experience.
If an image is said to have meaning then there has to be words for that meaning weather repressed or not, yes.
That something would be no suffering. Beyond words. The Real.
Not suffering is still suffering and can be symbolized.
Or imagined as not happening.
That which is neither is The Real?
I can't say...
Touche.
This is awesome. I need to go play a game with Thomas.
haha
Inspiration, or just realizing he needs some attention?
A little of both.
Catch you later. Have a good day!

Mr. Enzo, Please Stand Up and...

2009-06-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

Point your index finger out in front you and draw a circle in the air over and over at different speeds. See what happens... or what you think you see happening.

The shortest distance between two points is a curve.

I tend to think of the enzo as the signifier for what is always missing in life and yet always present. Death?

"We dance round in a ring and suppose,
but the Secret sits in the middle and knows."
- Robert Fost

Origins of Words

2009-06-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

Money

www.spiritus-temporis.com/money/history-of-money.html

Say More.

2009-06-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Zen students are told, "Do not be attached to words or form."

Could this be saying that becoming "in-formed" by the word as a signifier for another signifier is being the one that says the content back to another?

How Do I Love Thee?

2009-06-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

My wife, Michelle, and I are celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary today. I told her I feel I've loved her forever and yet, at the same time, just met her.

Is that Bhikkhu really Humping a Monkey?

2009-06-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

...and what does wisdom have to do with it?

“Now at that time, a certain bhikkhu living in the Great Wood at Vesālī, having befriended a monkey with food, engaged in sexual intercourse with it. Then, dressing early in the morning and carrying his bowl and outer robe, the bhikkhu went into Vesālī for alms. A number of bhikkhus wandering on a tour of the lodgings, went to the bhikkhu’s dwelling. The monkey saw them coming from afar and, on seeing them, went up to them and wiggled its rear and wiggled its tail and offered its rear and made a sign. The thought occurred to the bhikkhus, ‘Undoubtedly this bhikkhu is engaging in sexual intercourse with this monkey.’ So they hid off to one side.
“Then the bhikkhu, having gone for alms in Vesālī, returned bringing almsfood. The monkey went up to him. The bhikkhu, having eaten a portion of the almsfood, gave a portion to the monkey. The monkey, having eaten the almsfood, offered its rear to the bhikkhu, and the bhikkhu engaged in sexual intercourse with it. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index.html

There are five time as many words in the English language than in Shakespeare's time. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary credits Shakespeare with introducing nearly three thousand words alone. I wonder how fewer words there were in Buddha's time? It can also be easy to mistake a terms etymology for it's meaning in use. I think the big thing to remember with meaning is that there is always another side, too.

In the spirit of Gilles Deleuze, I'm firmly persuaded that all Buddhist texts have a double reading to them signifying, to me, when the texts are read aloud, what is heard is not necessarily all that is being said.

Rules are spelled out for novices learning to read while the experienced reader knows the code is outside the rules and yet is to be deciphered through the rules. Following the Eightfold Path as rules to live by is not knowing how to read.

Dogen says,

"Arouse the thought of enlightenment." or "Find out what your monkey likes to eat so you can have intercourse with it."
So...
"How do you have intercourse with your monkey?"
"By not having intercourse with your monkey!"

Better to penetrate your monkey than let it penetrate you. That could get down right ugly!

The Heart of the Matter

2009-05-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

If the eye is single,
the whole of the body will be lit up.
- Mathew 6, 22

"Avalokiteshvara Boddhisattva, while meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty, and so released himself from suffering. Answering the monk Sariputra, he said this:"

I always liked the image of Avalokitshvara as having many moving arms each with an eye on the palm. Or the hands will be each holding a different object. Either way expressing a point of view or identity. It's telling that all the arms are connected to one body that seems to be just standing doing nothing as if each arm is alienated from the body yet is dependent on it to be able to move "on it's own". Or the body is in a dance pose showing that it's always moving trying to keep up with the movement of the eyes on the arms. Both the body and the eyes being an other to the others' alienation separated by a bar/arm. Both wanting to move independently yet needing each other simultaneously. Both filling the void, sharing position, from the passion held in common, through the imaginary space between the symbol of both of us.

And then I/eye speak...And you/body respond by hearing as another I/eye as if there were another one all along.

See No Evil, Do No Evil

2009-05-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

The Three Pure precepts-

Cease all Evil
Do only Good
Do good for others

The precepts read in the way above seem to be perverting a particular discourse.
Or is there just a (k)not of dependency at the beginning that needs to be undone?

Is Suffering Manufactured?

2009-05-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Capitalism and Socialism: A Fearful Symmetry

"The thought of socialism and capitalism being in some sort of balance is already a sort of capitalist fantasy, where socialism is construed as a prop, a compensation even, for the profit-seeking of capitalists. This is distributive justice as peddled by liberals for decades - where capitalism is treated as a kind of engine for social wealth that we domesticate and harness through taxation - and it sucks.

Herein lies the main difference between the liberal and the socialist. The liberals [historically] want to feed and protect the poor "who need it," all the while maintaining the poor in their poverty and rich in their wealthiness. For what would happen to all the people working in the government - existing here as a kind of "public business" whose job it is to maintain the social body for going to work everyday (consuming and producing are the same in this sense) for the profit-engine - if everyone made too much to qualify for their services, and who would pay for it if there were no rich? This is social justice trapped in the logic of private gain.

The socialists simply want to feed and protect everyone, regardless of class. This is what happens in a classless society: classes disappear not because we renounce or forgive them, but because we forget them in the daily work of our shared life. This radical sort of message of universality, not simply "helping the poor" but reaching out to those who were excluded socially and economically, is what got Jesus crucified. In this sense, we live in strange times, where the hyper-rich who exclude themselves from society by becoming little self-sustaining islands unto themselves and the hyper-poor who are excluded from state protection, who are homeless or live in slums and are subject to gang-rule and the hand of the black-market [or worse in the case of Agamben's Homo sacer], where these two classes are flip-sides of the same coin. Real social justice addresses both of these groups as needing the same universal inclusion."

Food for thought from my friend Joe Clement - http://somethingcompletelydifferent.wordpress.com/

Is suffering an urgent, but tamed, response to isolated events as part of a historical apparatus in order to bring the structure of society back to equilibrium?
I think to say this would by implying there is a strategy involved in the manipulations of social relations as seen through the antagonism between capitalism and "Socialism" or an opposition between the Imaginary and the Symbolic in subjectivity.
Sorry I had posted before I got this part up.

Is Suffering Really About Desire?

2009-04-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

"I am that I am."
We could also say it as "I is who is not."
Obviously Popeye is the same guy after he eats his spinach, he justseems to forget himself. The spinach represents the slime(desire?) of what Popeye is afraid to face, or taste, until provoked to do so. Then it's like he's beside himself in his actions.
A good pointer, I think, is that in some episodes we find out that Popeye actually does have two eyes. He just keeps one shut most of the time.
Funny the phrase has a God reference to it, too.

Prologue to the Truths

2009-04-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

-the Real starting point?

I think this is the right place to say something more about "it". Though of course there is no "right" place or time, since there is no particular moment that marked "it's" beginning. And yet there did come a period when everyone was talking about "it"; and we knew we had not been doing this until recently: there was a different ingredient in our lives.

Perhaps it might even have been more correct to have begun this chronicle with a full description of "it". But is it possible to account of anything at all without "it"--in some shape or another--being the main theme? Perhaps, indeed, "it" is the secret theme of all literature and history, like writing between the lines in invisible ink, which springs up, sharply black, dimming the old print we knew so well, as life, personal or public, unfolds unexpectedly and we see something where we never thought we could--we see "it" as the ground-swell of events, experience... Very well, then, but what was "it"? ... I am sure that ever since there were men on earth, "it" has been talked of precisely in this way in times of crisis, since it is in crisis "it" becomes visible, and our conceit sinks before it's force. For "it" is a force, a power, taking the form of earthquake, a visiting comet whose balefulness hangs closer night by night, distorting all thought by fear--"it" can be, has been, pestilence, a war, the alteration of climate, a tyranny that twists men's minds, the savagery of religion.
"It," in short, is the word for helpless ignorance, or of helpless awareness. "It" is a word for Man's inadequacy?
"Have you heard anything new about it?"
"So-and so said that it..."

Worse still when the stage is reached of "Have you heard anything new?" when it has absorbed everything into itself, and nothing else can be meant when people ask what is moving in our world. "It." Only "it," a much worse word than "they"; for "they" at least are humanity, too, can be moved, are helpless, like ourselves.

"It," perhaps--on this occasion in history--was, above all, a consciousness of something ending.

- from "Memoirs of a Survivor" by Doris Lessing

The Four Truths of a Noble Mind

2009-04-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

-as told by a dead Noble.

My friend and fellow Zen student over at the blog, Buddha of Hollywood, has inspired me to write some posts concerning the title above. I'll try to keep them short, except for the prologue, and to the point, unless I happen to be frisky when I write. I hope I can at least do his example justice so no one can say I didn't at least do the least I could do.

I Gotta Go!

2009-04-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

Knock! Knock!

2009-04-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone
Your demons come to light and your mind is not your own
Lonely is the night when there's no one left to call
You feel the time is right--(say) the writins on the wall

Its a high time to fight when the walls are closin'in
Call it what you like--its time you got to win
Lonely, lonely, lonely--your spirits sinkin down
You find you're not the only stranger in this town

Link to the rest of the lyrics-
http://www.lyricstime.com/billy-squier-in-the-dark-lyrics.html

Who's Your Daddy?

2009-04-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Foucault has said, “At the origin one does no find an inviolable identity, but disparities.”
A genealogical analysis of Dogen Zenji according to Foucault would record the singularity of life events outside of any monotonous finality and what is presented as an essence must be distrusted. Gaps, dislocations, and distances in the presentation need to be focused on instead.

For a particular institution to refer to Dogen Zenji as it's founder shows the possibility that Dogen's writings are telling us something else. Shobogenzo is supposed to be a "religious" text, after all.

The structure of writer/reader creates the basis for the questioning of interior/exterior and universal/particular pertaining to the issue of sovereignty in medieval times.

We're All One?

2009-03-30T09:45:00.001-07:00

Repudiation anyone?

2009-03-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

Noble- Possessing hereditary rank in a political system or social class usually derived directly or indirectly from a feudalistic stage of a country's development.

Who am I?

2009-03-05T09:55:00.000-08:00

"Look Dad, I'm a bubble!!"

There is no reality without a fantasy to support it.

Being is realized in a revelation of speech.

What do you want from me?

It's About the One Knot and the Others that are Not.

2009-02-10T21:27:00.001-08:00

“We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain, that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the one that is. The fact is that the present always hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past and the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only the see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, we should never be so.”
---- Blaise Pascal

Will You Accept a Collect Call From Your Self?

2009-02-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

"I," you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in
which you do not wish to have faith - your body and its great reason:
that does not say "I," but does "I."
What the sense feels, what the spirit knows, never has its end in itself. But sense and spirit would persuade you that they are the end
of all things: that is how vain they are.
Instruments and toys are sense and spirit: behind them still lies the self. The self also seeks with eyes of the senses; it also listens with the ears of the spirit. Always the self listens and seeks: it compares, overpowers, conquers, destroys. It controls, and it is in control of the ego too.

Behind you thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty
ruler, an unknown sage - whose name is self. I your body it dwells;
he is your body.

Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

__________________________________________________________

The American Heritage Dictionary says:
Affect and effect have no senses in common; therefore the tendency to confuse the words must be guarded against closely.
What if... no wait, never mind.

A bunch of years ago, seems like a bunch now, I shoe cobbled for a living doing repairs and orthopedic work. One of the funnest things I learned how to do was work a sewing machine. In turn, one of the most gratifying things to do with the machine was in closing a rip in leather while making it look more than presentable.
The stitch I learned to do this with was called a jump stitch. The material was turned inside out to allow all the jumping across the rip to be seen only on the interior, while the exterior would show a ++++++++ design. Actually the gaps in horizontal line would be at the vertical lines, instead of showing in my example, so they wouldn't be seen with the right color thread and as small a needle as possible for inconspicuous holes.
The jump stitch in particular makes me consider how a sutra must of been passed on over time. The person starting at the beginning had to memorize the first verse by saying it back and forth to himself. Then when the verse was memorized the person "jumped" over the meaning of the the sutra to recite the verse to another person who would memorize what he heard the same way as the first before repeating that verse back to the first who then repeated back to confirm what was heard by the second. The second memorizes a verse to add to the first verse in like manner adding it to the first verse and jumping over the meaning of the sutra to the next person, on and on to the end where the last person confirms with one before by reciting the whole sutra while skipping the meaning all together.
I hope that made sense.
If you've done needle point you know how messy the underside of the fabric is compared to the topside.
I like to think of speech this way. I-I-I-I-I-I-I. While the underside is IXIXIXIXIXI with a line down the middle from one end to the other signifying the meaning to what was said.
Stitches to consider as reading the sutra, as apposed to the need of memorizing and passing on, would be a lock stitch or loop stitch where the meaning of the sutra would be twisted and pulled from both interior and exterior into the material or looped from the interior and pulled out of sight underneath. Looking like this, of course, ---------.
How about a link? http://home.howstuffworks.com/sewing-machine1.htm

Follow the Red Thread that Binds You

2009-01-17T13:41:00.001-08:00

Zen is not the sutras. No wait, what did I say before? Right, Zen is the sutras. No, it's not. Yes it is. No...it's not! Yes...it is! Not! Is! Not! Is! NOT! NOT! NOT! IS.
Ahhh, I love the smell of coffee in the morning. It reminds me of victory!

The human adult has about 100.000 miles of blood vessels, including arteries, veins , and capillaries in their body, enough to circle Earths equator four times!

One is the loneliest number because it is the only number that is also not a number.

Maybe we only have one eye that is split into a pair, like a pair of pants. I put one leg into one pant, yet there is another pant that is not that pant and is merely the other pant waiting for the other leg? When the other leg is put in the other pant the wearing a pair of pants is confirmed. Maybe the "I" of speech is like this where another pair of "I"'s is like a pair of legs walking back to the first with what they heard to confirm it as a pair itself all seemingly done through a pair of noses on each side.
If a tree fell in the forest and there was no one to hear it, what would a squirrel call it? What would a deer call it? Or a bear? Or a hawk? Or do they all go by a European Union kinda language where they would all call it the same thing but each would respond to it's own meaning in spite of the union?
As the Affirming Faith in Mind says,

"What is is not, what is not is."

When I am speaking there is an I that is other than speaking as seen through my nose on the other side. When I am hearing there is an I that is other than hearing as seen through my nose on the other side. Both sides of the nose facing off in a discursive manner.
I'm sorry, I have to interrupt this with a question that might be off track. Or not.
What if the Fourth Noble Truth has been misinterpreted and ought to read as,

The way to eliminate suffering is in trying follow this Eightfold Path and realizing that wanting to do good is also suffering due to attachment to what is not evil.

Could be just my crazy interpretation.

The Gospel According to Billy Squire

2009-01-17T11:57:00.001-08:00

Life isn't easy from the singular side
Down in the hole some emotions are hard to hide
It's your decision it's a chance that you take
It's on your head it's a habit that's hard to break
Do you need a friend would you tell no lies
Would you take me in are you lonely in the dark...

Link to the rest of the lyrics-
http://www.lyricstime.com/billy-squier-in-the-dark-lyrics.html

I'm a Jizo, She's a Jizo, He's a Jizo. Wouldn't You Like to Be a Jizo, too?

2009-01-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

If asked the above question 10-15 years ago I would have replied, "Yes, yes, sign me up!". Ask me the question now, though, my answer would be worlds away from this one.
Do you ask the meaning of what is said all the time when you're not sure? Or do you pretend to agree, as to not offend or look otherwise, and go along with the program because of some unknown feeling you have that makes it "just makes sense" or "feels good" to do so? Well, do ya or don't ya? If you're like me, again I'm betting you are, then a lot of the time when you don't ask for clarification you wish afterwards you did because the other person was saying something important and when you do ask and the other person thinks you're being a jerk by doing it so much you wish afterwards you didn't do it and just went along with them because they were really just venting. If you're asked what you think and you don't know based on what they said you often get accused of not listening. I have a small theory that this is the dominant mode of communication between relationships of Teachers/Students and Parents/Children, etc. I'm connecting the use of the word "dominant" with "relationships" that all have one position that would be considered dominant while the other is not. Unfortunately, or otherwise, this is normal if the purpose of communication is to fill a lack and it is not seen as such.
What I just said doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the word "Jizo" in the title above, but try slipping in other words like "Lover", "Father", "Winner", "Leader", "American", "Buddhist", or "Pizza". (We need to all just be pizzas together more often, I think.) How does what I define that word as being to me relate to the effect it has on how I speak, or don't speak, to others in the name of that subject and my relation to it? (Hopefully there will be a point here coming up or some one's getting sacked.)
Time for a public service announcement:

"I went to my local beer shop not long ago thinking I would try something new. I looked around for what seemed like a 15 minute eternity of not being able to choose. My friend Mitsy, who works there, told me she had just the one for me as she tried it and thought it might be worth a try for me as well.
It's brewed by Ale Smith in San Diego and it's called "X". "X" is light-bodied and smooth drinking with an incredible hop aroma and a subtle, complex flavor. I hear that conditioning in the bottle gives the beer a lush, velvety texture that you just can't get with force-carbonating. The bubbles are smaller, giving your taste buds a lot more to grab onto, and the difference shows from the first sip to the last just as if I read all this from the back of the bottle.
Leave to a good woman to show a choosy man what I really need when I don't know what I want.
I went back to the shop thereafter and told Mitsy that "X" was now my new favorite beer for ever and ever and thanked her for knowing exactly what I wanted. She asked me what I would do when they stop brewing "X" and I told her I'd just have to find a new "X" that was not this "X".
Everyone needs "X". Get some!

Buddhist literature, Zen in particular, has lots of great sound bites. Little one-liners that kinda make you say, hmmm. At least they make me say, hmmm. One that comes to mind right now is the saying, "Zen is outside the sutras." and has to do with wondering what Zen is as apposed to being something else. Or could the saying be saying by how it's saying it that if I want to know what is outside without knowing what is inside then how can I really know for sure what is outside at all? Who's to say that what a saying could be saying other than what the saying said is not at least worth saying by one other than the one saying the saying?
Enlightenment.

Enlighten; To give knowledge or truth to, edify, instruct. To aquaint someone with information.
-ment; Indicates product, means, action,or state. Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mentum. Abstract noun suffix originally added only to verbs.

Dogen says, "Our own practice contains the whole truth of existence." I add, "One half is my trying to share it and the other half is the misunderstanding of the first half."
I've made obvious the first object of muse about the one-liner above. By creating a gap meaning between the word "outside" with another word, "inside", that is not outside, there is a desire to join the two meanings of the words together with a third that is not there, yet being very wordy about it. By doing this I've made the word "outside" seem meaningless by reconnecting it with it's opposite without using the other word that would unify them therefore giving reason to eliminate it from the statement which now says;

"Zen is the sutras".

I'm sorry I have to go about this so slowly.
Hope you're hanging in there with me.
Now let's muse on what "sutras" are.
Sutra;
I changed my mind. I'm sorry sorry again. This post has gone on long enough. I feel that talking here about the relation between what sutras are and how they relate to studying Dogen will just make it drag. I'm going to have to cut it off now and pick the subject up again in the next post.

The Thing and I

2009-01-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

starring Dogen Zenji!
costarring me and you!
And introducing, The Thing!

I want to start this post off with something that would say what I want to say much better than I would.

“Let’s ay you’re watching South Park. It’s funny. But you enjoy it more if you’re watching it with a friend. Of course, your friend is incredibly bored and thinks the show is stupid, then you enjoy it less: even if you don’t have to deal with your friends complaining, you still feel stupid rolling on the floor laughing all by yourself in front of someone else. But of course you don’t want your friend to be faking enjoyment; you want him to actually enjoy it, as much as possible, so you can both enjoy watching the show. So your enjoyment is maximized only when your friend’s enjoyment is maximized.”
Posted by Roman Altshuler, in "The Ends of Thought" blog, as an example of how altruism could be included in self-interest.

I want to say also that if you're reading this blog, thank you, and if you're new to meditation, or Buddhism, be sure to read the last post if you haven't yet. Do the meditation I went through in the post for 15 minutes a day at the beginning or the end of the day for funnzies. After awhile you might consider making the time to do the meditation somewhere more comfortable than in front of your computer. You might be able to do it for half an hour then. Just a thought.

Caution: Dead Words Walking

2009-01-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

I had intended to continue a train of thought from the last post, but I've been reading some of Dogen's Genjo-Koan from another blog. The comments from the poster are giving a lovely point of view yet, at the same time, he seems to want his view to be the only one. I view this as all well and good, since there are definitely many people who want or need to relate to one interpretation among many, but then Dogen's writing is reduced to being ultimately meaningless. I've come to the conclusion from watching this scenario for a number of years now, and not just with Dogen, that if Dogen is really saying something to all of us, without exclusion, then the words must have no meaning to them so that he can make his point. Dogen stirs our conscious being, no doubt, wheather positively or the other, but it's just semantics jumping around in continual discussion with everyone but him. If Dogen's writing has no meaning then semantics is irrelevant as far as his intent except, maybe, to stir us up. Even something with no apparent meaning can have a use. A shit stick, if not good for anything else, is after all good as a shit stick. If we ignore this fact we end up taking Dogen out of the conversation without meaning to and actually not even having a conversation at all. What I want to talk about is what it is that Dogen is writing to what the stirring conscious being is pointing to, the unconscious of our being. Maybe arousing the thought of enlightenment is just seeing any point of view in order to see it for what it really is? A structure composing of parts that have no meaning until they're put together to express a desire. If this is true, then trying to read someone like Dogen verse by verse and thinking we'll "know" what he's saying is a little off kilter and maybe a little foxy, I don't know, but maybe not intentional.

Anyway, again the passage is from Genjo-Koan, verse 91 of the Nishijima/Cross translation. I'm not going to type it here because if this post does no other good at all it might as well get someone to pick up a book and start studying that hadn't done so before.
I want to take a side track here. Why? Well, because I can.
We're given the image of Wisdom cutting like the blade of the sharpest knife to slice through the middle of the two extremes of illusion. Every discussion I've ever heard of that middle being cut becomes what Wisdom has exposed as the way of moderation between the two extremes that can then be followed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I see it is if the extremes are, say, "this way and that way", then the moderation between them would be a "sorta this and sorta that way". Wouldn't it? I mean, go to your kitchen right now and cut something in half on the cutting board. (I'll wait...) Does the edge of the blade not go in a totally different direction that the two ends of what you're cutting?? There's no sorta about it. Might seem like it at first while you're cutting if your knife is really dull. Could making a wise choice mean considering the third choice that is neither of the one's given? Could "Wisdom beyond Wisdom" be the wisdom that is then not needed to keep going once you've made the third choice, or to see the extremes in that choice and cut them yet again to go in yet another direction? Food for a later thought, perhaps.
And now a public service announcement:

The next post will be entitled, "The Thing and I",
starring Dogen Zenji!
costarring me and you!
And introducing, The Thing!

Time for a guided meditation.
Sit in chair looking at the screen so you can read this comfortably. Make sure your back is straight, but not too straight. Chin slightly down, not pushing on your chest. Make sure your tongue is pressing on the roof of your mouth as this is very important. Actually, I could care less how you sit. I was just playin' with ya'. Some of it might help you with this, though.
Okay, sitting at your computer without moving your head, look at the top of your screen. While looking at the top of your screen with both eyes, without moving them, notice how far you can see
past the sides of the screen. Notice also two translucent objects that appear to be between you and the screen.
Now focus both eyes at the bottom of the screen. Notice how when you look from side to side the translucent objects are more defined shadows that appear to be ghosts of two people sitting in front of you. Now try the best you can, while you're staring down at the screen, to bring the nose shadows together. You won't be able to do it all the way so notice how much joining the shadows appears to become a "real" nose as apposed to shadows. You might even feel like you were forcing your eyes to look straight ahead to do it, while forgetting that while you were looking up at the screen before you were looking straight ahead all the time with no thought of it at all!
Now while looking down and looking at the nose shadows, still, close one eye. Notice the shadow is gone and in it's place appears to be the side of a "real" eye. Do the same with the other "I". (Woops, I meant eye!!)
Now lastly, but not leastly, in which ever position you want your eyes to be in (try them all if you like), close them. If your like me, and I'm bettin' you are, you see no nose and no shadow of a nose, either. BUT... you probably have a thought of each of them "not" being there.
Dogen says that seeing the Truth is like going through all of this. In reading Shobogenzo with Dogen, the "I" is going through the same thing the "eyes" did in the meditation above, only with words being spoken one to another to explain images that are not there to someone else who is not there, but is.

Shobogenzo: or the words of a liar. Part one

2008-12-27T16:41:00.001-08:00

"A Recording of My Disposition." is my interpretation of Shobogenzo most often translated as, " The Eye of the True Dharma Treasury." I hope to show in this posting, if maybe in others posts, the reason for the provocative title of this post.
My interpretation of the title of Shobogenzo, " A Recording of My Disposition.", was the result of quite a bit of musing Dogen's writings and the writings about Dogen by others who are not him. Not a few times did I believe I was wasting my time and wanted to give up on what was becoming somewhat of an obsession, almost musing for it's own sake.
I really like the word "muse", though, and think I can speak for Dogen in that he did also.
As a verb muse is defined:

To ponder or meditate; to consider or to deliberate at length. Middle English musen, from the Old French muser, to muse, " to sniff around," " cast about a scent," from, mus, snout, from Medieval Latin musum.

Or as a noun:

Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom resided over a different art or science. The spirit or power regarded as inspiring and watching over poets, musicians, and artists; a source of inspiration.

The word creates an intimacy with what is mused as there is a following a scent and leaving a trail of one's own scent as well. A meeting of one sent with another sent that can sometimes make more sense. Speaking of a sentence maybe? Or a verse, a written sentence meant to be spoken. Written sentences have periods that give a sentences their point. The point can be seen at the end of a sentence. Sentences without periods have no point to them. With speaking we have a different situation. Speaking is the conflict between the one that speaks and the other one who is not the speaker. The point of the conflict is that is no one is not a speaker. That point is shared by each one taking their turn not being the speaker. Misunderstanding is a word that describes a missing of the point by one or the other, or if both then we may have fist-a-cuffs. Time to sniff somewhere else.
It's said that when Dogen came back from China he was asked what he brought back the and his response was,

"Nothing, my eyes are horizontal and my nose is vertical."

First, how could Dogen bring back nothing when the purpose of going to China in the fist place was to transmit the teaching from the ancient line of Patriarch in China to your own country, as a country Japan was in the process of centralizing during Dogen's time, represented as scrolls and relics of the late Master of the lineage. Scrolls and relics would not be nothing for sure, right? If Dogen did go to China them he did bring something back or he wouldn't look very good as far as founding a temple was concerned. (Sniff, sniff.) By the time Dogen would have went to China, a centralized country, transmission of the teachings was officially meaningless as the temples had been highly regulated by the State for at least a hundred and fifty years. There was no "Golden age of Buddhism" in China during Dogen's time. If Dogen brought something back from China, then it was in fact nothing because it was without any meaning as far as he was concerned. On the other hand, if one wasn't with Dogen in China and saw the "nothing" in Dogen's hands as meaning something and not nothing, maybe the "nothing" that Dogen said he brought back meant something else? (Sniff.) Or maybe, just maybe, Dogen really did bring back nothing because he wasn't interested in continuing a lineage and founding a temple, but according to what we're taught as "baby Buddhists", though, that's definitely not the case. (Sniff.)
Dogen's story so far seems like it's his version of him twirling a flower in front of others who want it to mean something for their own sake. A k-not is something not done for it's own sake but is used to bind one thing to another thing.
Oh, a quick relevant detour while we're sniffing around.
The zen saying,

"Do not be bound by words and phrases."

"Do (k)not" is wanting to bind something to something else. Knots are done and undone and only appear to be tied. Undoing a knot would then be an not-knot and cutting a knot would make a no-knot. And to be bound by words and phrases is like being the book that you can't read yourself. The binding is not seen on the outside so the book must be opened by one other than the book for it to be seen.
The statement is also a rhetorical joke in that it's bound at the beginning by a (k)-not.

From now on if I write, "More coming soon." at the bottom of a post it signifies that the post is a work in progress. Feel free to comment as the post is being written if you like. When there is no caption at the bottom that signifies the post is finished and I'm off to the next one. Thanks for reading.