I didn’t like Los Angeles when I first arrived here.
The circumstances were less than ideal. I’d been working for Tsuburaya Productions, makers of the Ultraman TV shows and movies, in Japan for ten years and the company was in a state of turmoil. A family business since 1963, by 2004 the family was a bickering, back-biting mess. Noboru Tsuburaya, the man who hired me, had died suddenly in 1996 leaving a power gap that the rest of the family kept trying to fill. In the midst of all this, Akira Tsuburaya, who was then jockeying to oust his nephew Kazuo from the presidency, hatched a plan to open an office in Los Angeles and install me as the head of that office.
There were tremendous opportunities for us in the USA at the time. Everyone in Hollywood wanted to remake a Japanese property and Ultraman, being that nation’s longest-running and most popular superhero character, was high on lots of people’s lists. Will Smith had gone on TV saying Ultraman was one of his favorite shows. The comany coulda made a ton of money and I coulda been the executive producer of a mega-hit movie with an A-List star in its lead role.
But that’s not what happened. Although I brought the company a series of attractive offers from major studios, nobody back in Tokyo could take a break from fighting each other long enough to come to LA for a meeting. Meanwhile, my marriage was breaking up, which did nothing to help my already sour mood. The sunshine, the beaches, the palm trees and even Amoeba Records were not enough to make me like Los Angeles.
I had a little Zen group here that met on Saturdays, but it never seemed to do very well. Every week, between five and ten of us would gather in Santa Monica to sit for half an hour and then chat and drink tea. The donations I took in at those meetings never covered the rent I was paying for the space we used. At the same time, whenever I led retreats or gave talks in other cities around the world I could attract ten times that many on a bad day. Not only did I not like Los Angeles, Los Angeles did not seem to like me either.
So I left. I lived in Brooklyn for a while. I went back to Akron, Ohio for a year and a half. I lived in Philadelphia. Yet, much to my astonishment that little group I’d started in LA kept on going. I really didn’t expect that at all. I thought they’d pack it in a few weeks or months after I left. But they didn’t.
Last year I ordained three of the long-time members of the LA group as priests as a first step in making the group a more solid and stable entity. Whereas initially the group was just a thing I did on Saturdays, it has now evolved into a true sangha.
Los Angeles has a whole lot of Buddhist organizations. In fact, someone once told me there are more meditation centers in LA than in any other city in the world, including cities in Asia. I don’t know if that’s true. I kind of doubt it. But there are plenty already. So why start another one?
For one thing, at the moment there really isn’t a straight-up Soto style Zen meditation center in LA. Yeah, I know the Zen Center of Los Angeles calls itself a Soto center, but their practice is far closer to the Rinzai style. And I know there’s Zenshuji downtown, but they function more as a social gathering place for Japanese-Americans than as a meditation center. How come San Francisco gets a giant Soto style center but we have to make do with renting out rooms at yoga studios?
Plus, I have come to love Los Angeles. For years I felt sort of guilty to be a Zen practitioner who liked living in big cities. It’s just not “Zen” to dig the noise and the crowds and all that, but I do. And I like all the movie industry weirdness. I like living down the street from where Laurel and Hardy filmed The Music Box and in the same neighborhood where The Three Stooges tried to haul ice up a set of stairs similar to those that appear in the Laurel and Hardy picture. I like seeing famous people at the grocery store. It’s fun.
I wonder if the kind of Zen center I want to start can survive here. Much of what’s on offer in terms of meditation in LA is pretty full of woo-woo. People here love their magic crystals. Folks with more money than I’ll ever see in my lifetime chant for abundance and prosperity. Of course this is not restricted to LA. But it is very popular here.
Yet I am optimistic. I really feel there is a place for a real, down-to-earth meditation center in the Soto tradition here in this City of Sin with its Scientology churches on every corner, and its back-stabbing executives looking for someone to spiritually justify greed and ambition. I’ve met a lot of good people who are not like that at all, who are ready to take a hard look at their real lives and discover the beauty that already exists right in front of them.
We shall see. Stay tuned…
* * *
This Sunday February 15, 2015 at 11 am I will lead meditation at Against The Stream 4300 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90029
Every Monday at 8pm I lead zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!
Every Saturday at 9:30 am I lead zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!
Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info
* * *
Your kind donations help me keep doing this blog by helping pay some of my rent. Every little bit helps. Thank you!
SamsaricHelicoid,
I’ve examined your previous points and have some ideas to pose.
If mind is either emergent or reducible to brain activity, then the applicability of Type-F Monism would mean that the sensate interpretation would argue for the reality of Buddha nature.
I have not studied this question nearly the intensity as you bring to the problem, but my understanding is that an intrinsic mind-like quality we can all open to seems to be more applicable in the case of emergentism, rather than neuroscientific materialism.
As far as the point of practice anymore, couldn’t one argue that the non-dualistic schema elucidated in deep prajna states hints at meaning deeply intertwined in the physical posture of zazen?
Cheers.
Mind cannot be understood by the intellect. There is no one to understand it, but it can be itself.
Intellectual theories are spam. They earn a whack over the head. A dog chasing its tail in ever more frantic circles.
There were Zen Buddhists that encouraged intellectual speculation. One of them I forgot, but he said to treat intellectual debate with mindfulness and seriousness. I need to look through my links again…
Quit with your anti-intellectual attitude. Look at Ikkyu’s writing for example. They are very erudite and do not discourage intellectual speculation
Not true at all, Sam
““Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.”
”• Ikkyu, Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu
I have to find my own sources again, but there was one particular teacher who encouraged his students to study sutras and intellectually grow. Of course, he said balance between practice and intellectual debate was essential because if you tilt to one side too much then it becomes gratuitous.
I forgot his name.
Also, I forgot the particular mention of Ikkyu encouraging study.
Emergentism is fine when vitalism is accepted. Deleuze gives some interesting arguments for that. Deleuze is also very Dogen-like.
Emergentism typically cannot avoid vitalist conclusions anyways.
Interesting.
But isn’t it a vitalist conclusion to posit a connection between Type-F monism and emergentism? After all, Guattari wrote about some of these same issues in his third book which also shares some affinity with early Theravadist writing.
On second thought, maybe there is some contextual connection between this and the classic mind/body unity posited in classic Taoist thought.
Cheers.
I’m arguing for a connection between emergentism and vitalism.
I’m saying type-f monism may be wrong… I’m not an absolutist… Emergentism coupled with vitalism, which is what Deleuze does, may be more on target, and it does lead to some Dogen-like views in terms of how Deleuze frames “Becomings” and “Difference”.
I don’t know. It’s an immensely difficult question.
I’d go further and argue that (seen from an absolutist perspective) emergentism and vitalism are just aspects of a deeper principle. Which links up precisely with some of the views that Guattari presented in his books.
It is a difficult question. Framing it correctly may be the best way to achieve a solution.
I’m probably not making any progress trying to solve it. Your thoughts about “Becomings” and “Difference” may be a fruitful direction to follow.
Cheers.
this seems interesting:
“The Practice of Time
Time and Practice in Deleuze and DÅgen”
https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2147
And now an important message from the Grand Canyon.
http://scontent-a.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xap1/t51.2885-15/10507914_251388958384783_83233247_n.jpg
“Here the deities approve
“The God of Music and of Love;
“All the talents they have lent you,
“All the blessings they have sent you,
“Pleased to see what they bestow,
“Live and thrive so well below.”
(Christopher Fishburn)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4xmJGnArC4
Brad’s post? I see no Brad post here. . . haha.
No, sir, justlui… thou and Brad art one: either that or typing mediation when you mean meditation is one of the distinguishing marks of an ascended master.
“… at 11 am I will lead mediation at Against The Stream”
Brad– my need for a no-BS Soto sangha in SoCal is why I have set up modest contributions to the blog, and why I will be driving to Culver City or wherever the Sangha is every few Saturdays, and will do what I can to help to start and sustain the Center. Probably 60 percent of that is just the straight Soto thing. About 40 percent is probably the Brad-Warner-is-someone-who-lives-in-the-world-i-inhabit-and-I-could-learn-shit-from-him factor.
I live in Long Beach, and we have the group that Tenshin Roshi/Yokoji started just a few miles from me. I’ve sat with them, but as you know, Maezumi Roshi’s lineage incorporates a lot of Rinzai stuff, and the focus on koans and stuff like Dharma Combat is a turnoff for me. For a while, I would go to a group affiliated with Thich Nhat Hanh/Deer Park, but there were never enough people attending regularly to keep it going, and they were too treacly anyway. We have several variants of Tibetan stuff in Long Beach too, but the whole reason I’m drawn to Shikantaza is that it’s simple, and Tibetan stuff sure isn’t. And we have an Insight group run by a Jungian therapist or something, and I’m sure there are others I’m missing.
Anyway. You get the idea.
I hate to say it but this is a boring blog post. Maybe if when arriving in LA the city was being attacked by giant Japanese monsters or something. That would be a better story. It could end with Zen saving LA, maybe?
Zafu, you haven’t been to LA. You see, every day brings fresh attacks from all manner of scary things. Right now we are being savaged by solar radiation, for instance. And we have the threats of droughts, wildfires, floods, quakes, as well as a relentless barrage of billionaires threatening to bring an NFL team back to LA.
When someone makes a statement to Brad IRL about Zen that is completely contrary to Zen, does he correct them or does he just ignore it like he does here in his cyber-sangha?
You’re implicitly trying to make claims, or lack thereof, for Zen.
I do not know what is or isn’t contrary to Zen, but I do know trying to enforce what you think is proper for Zen is anti-intellectual and simple-minded, just in a general sense. Consider the possibility what you think of me is just a projection of your mind and you’re babbling to no-one substantial.
I’m sorry if you haven’t reached the point where unique selfless experiences start contradicting that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the ‘external’ world (i.e., naive realism). These questions are far more nuanced and difficult than you give it credit. Perhaps, only poetry can point to it:
“In this they are ignorant of the nature of words, which are subject to birth and death, whereas meaning is not; words are dependent upon letters and meaning is not; meaning is apart from existence and non-existence, it has no substratum, it is un-born” (Lankavatara Sutra)
“I do not know what is or isn’t contrary to Zen…”
I am shocked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism
https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog
I’m not a New Agey fraud. I’ve sat and down Shikantaza during retreats… and I don’t like existence isn’t suffering.
I think Schopenhauer was more in the right direction:
http://www.philosopher.eu/texts/schopenhauer-and-the-philosophy-of-mind/
realize existence is mostly suffering*
typo
read my schopenhauer link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-svG-Psasc
“Who even cares about stupid forum. It’s just a bunch of hunks watching us anyways.” – Dr. Steve Brule
Typo: “Who even cares about this stupid forum. It’s just a bunch of hunks watching us anyways.” — Dr. Steve Brule
“I do not know what is or isn’t contrary to Zen, but I do know trying to enforce what you think is proper for Zen is anti-intellectual and simple-minded, just in a general sense.”
SH, you are not being honest. You clearly have notions of what is Zen and what is contrary to Zen. Read your own words from the other post below. You were just enforcing your what you thought today!
“Regardless, emergentism and reductionism are not compatible with Zen.”
“You cannot separate the metaphysics of a religion from the praxis of practice. Otherwise, you are no longer a part of the religion…”
Both from: Space, Time and Who Gives a Flying Fig?
Grand Canyon said: “When someone makes a statement to Brad IRL about Zen that is completely contrary to Zen, does he correct them or does he just ignore it like he does here in his cyber-sangha?”
I do not consider this a cyber-sangha. I also don’t read every comment posted. Sometimes it looks like a conversation that doesn’t involve me at all.
As for what I do when people make such statements in real life, it depends on how I feel. Sometimes I have a conversation, if it feels like a conversation can be had. Sometimes I just let it go.
You’ve been brainwashed by Randy Newman. -)
You’ve gotta hand it to LA. Only city on earth where a bass playing Zen monk, who’s trying to produce monster movies, and writes for a wanking website, isn’t a big enough freakshow to draw crowds in double figures.
I’m seeing a ‘leaked’ kinky sex tape as the driving force behind an upsurge of attendance at LA’s Soto Zen Center. Man wearing only a pink funky rabbit hat is seen wielding a kyosaku, while nekkit tied up alt-chicks writhe on the floor. It goes viral. Warner issues strenuous denials on CNN.
They’ll be lining up right around the block for the first sesshin.
Wait until you see the scene in which the character I play (a Zen monk/writer called “Brad”) first appears in the film Zombie Bounty Hunter M.D. It’s basically what you just described!
Sounds like it’ll be a good watch.
(And before you say anything, Grand Canyon, I do not mean that in a gay way)
“I am trying to create a new model. This is a nonphysicalist ontology. It’s the premise that consciousness is a singularity of which we are all an expression. We are creating a new paradigm that requires a new language.” – Deepak Chopra
There are plenty of more sincere people creating a nonphysicalist ontology. It’s not just Deepak Chopra, who’s a fraud.
You also know… most of that is plagiarized probably from more sincere folks such as Thomas Nagel.
Deep Chop is a crock. Estimated net worth is $80 million. More bullshit = more money.
“More bullshit = more money.”
How much do you figure Sammy Hemorrhoid is worth?
Grand Canyon, why are you acting like an asshole by calling me “Hemorrhoid” and “Sand ******”?
My views aren’t that ****ing crazy.
Do you want me to just become an eliminative materialist or something, which is what most of my Neuroscience colleagues were?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism
Most of my colleagues accept Eliminative Materialism.
Eliminativism is the view that no bits of the world are mental; there are no mental states at all. There are brain states, but none of those brain states are mental states.
Such a view is not necessarily entailed by Neuroscience research, you fucking simple-minded piece of shit.
Samarsic Helicoid,
I am sorry to see that you are getting angry. I can also see that some people are really trying hard to see if they can get you angry.
You’ve been in this situation many times before, pissed off by someone who is trying to taunt you. I hope that you can find a different path out this time.
Good luck.
“Sandwich”? Sam Sandwich helicopter? Mysterious beams of light from outer space? Metaphysics is so confusing…
How much? Exactly the same as any living being?
Alan, I’m not trying to taunt SamsaricHelicoid. If I wanted to press his buttons, I would have already induced an explosion.
“If I wanted to press his buttons, I would have already induced an explosion.”
I have noticed that you seem to be able to do this. Why you would want to do this is puzzling to me.
Cheers.
“I do not know what is or isn’t contrary to Zen, but I do know trying to enforce what you think is proper for Zen is anti-intellectual and simple-minded, just in a general sense.”
SH, you are not being honest. You clearly have notions of what is Zen and what is contrary to Zen. Read your own words from the other post below. You were just enforcing what you thought today! Are you acting anti-intellectual and being simple-mined in a general sense? Or just confused.
“Regardless, emergentism and reductionism are not compatible with Zen.”
“You cannot separate the metaphysics of a religion from the praxis of practice. Otherwise, you are no longer a part of the religion…”
Both from: Space, Time and Who Gives a Flying Fig?
I responded to your post on the other thread too.
I said I am on the fence of emergentist-vitalist hybrid (e.g., Deleuze who I know a lot about from talking to my friend for hours) or One Mind (i.e., there being a non-conscious formless awareness fundamental and universal to life).
I guess I should have said I know what ISN’T Zen, but I know a range of possibilities that could be considered Zen. However, stuff like rebirth (even after death) was central to even early Ch’an.
I kind of agree with Julius Evola on how we’re reaching the Kali Yuga, the loss of traditions and sincere practitioners + teachers who really “get it”.
Nice recent article for those who want to delve deeper into the Hard Problem of Consciousness:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness
It’s a good start for those without much background in it.
The guy at the computer lab yesterday showed me a drawing of the UFO that was in a dream he had, the night before– he almost forgot the dream until our conversation caused it to leap into his mind. By his description, the UFO looked like an upside-down three layer cake, with lights on each level in different colors, red-orange at the top, blue-green in the middle, violet at the bottom, moving like sine waves across the levels.
He woke up (in the dream) to see a red light outside his house; he went out, and saw a red glow disappearing around the corner of the block. He followed, but then the red glow was in his house; the UFO was in his house.
I don’t get why Brad thinks this doesn’t involve him.
Purcell is causing my lights to glow like sine waves.
GC, about right here now, I get the here part. The “here” part seems to be everywhere you look in the Blue Cliff Record, too, and even in Dogen.
Dogen seems to treat the notion of time with kid gloves, when he treats it. I remember Kobun recalling a time he looked up a mountain just in time to see an opening in the fog and a horse standing on the hillside, which he said was being-time to him.
I know you’ve posted links to lectures, but I can’t get past the first few sentences of those lectures. I feel lectured to, and it leaves me cold. Maybe you could say a few words.
“I know you’ve posted links to lectures, but I can’t get past the first few sentences of those lectures. I feel lectured to, and it leaves me cold. Maybe you could say a few words.”
No. I will not even attempt it because I do not think that anyone could “say a few words” that would do justice to the depth of wisdom that is contained within these dharma talks by Steve Hagen and Norm Randolph.
If you really cannot stand to listen to them, which I find surprising, maybe you could read one or more of Steve Hagen’s books: Meditation Now Or Never; Buddhism Plain and Simple; and Buddhism Is Not What You Think.
Dogen accepted Mind-only:
Read Pg. 123 of Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist:
https://books.google.com/books?id=bUAq8JqRqTIC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=dogen+mind-only+is+not+one+or+two.+it+is+not+within+the+triple+world,+nor+does+it+leave+the+triple+world&source=bl&ots=zNugOddI97&sig=IJhnXmC1dl2lnto8YdcFYI7agL0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3j3cVLyuN8ShNrT4ghg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dogen%20mind-only%20is%20not%20one%20or%20two.%20it%20is%20not%20within%20the%20triple%20world%2C%20nor%20does%20it%20leave%20the%20triple%20world&f=false
Thanks SamsaricHelicoid, your varied posts of the last few days have helped loosen up the smug shell of know-it-all-ness that I tend to form as an defence when I haven’t been challenging myself. And thanks for the Dogen quote: I’ve just ordered the Hee-Jin Kim book – reading it has been on my to-do list for ages.
Here’s a mantra that I find helpful every day: ‘don’t let the neurotypicals get you down’
Mind only is both subject and object. Having “experienced” “that”, it is not necessary to discuss it as part of a theory about reality.
There aren’t any neurotypicals posting here. We’re all abnormal.
Many prominent physicists have believed that consciousness is primary and matter secondary. It solves a lot of problems if consciousness is the ultimate constituent of the universe, not matter.
Max Planck, Nobel Prize for Physics, and the inventor of Quantum Mechanics:
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force … We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel Prize for Physics:
“I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.”
“The observing mind is not a physical system.”
“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
Max Born, Nobel Prize for Physics:
“There are metaphysical problems, which cannot be disposed of by declaring them meaningless. For, as I have repeatedly said, they are ‘beyond physics’ indeed and demand an act of faith. We have to accept this fact to be honest. There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the incredible and those who believe that ‘belief’ must be discarded and replaced by ‘the scientific method.’
Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize for Physics:
“I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far.”
This is interesting, from David Chalmers: Consciousness and the collapse of the wave function.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIBT6E2GtjA
Wow…
That was disturbing.
But I think we all should have learned a valuable lesson during the last few days, if we did not already know it.
Don’t do meth. Not even once.
Wow! 4:26 am!
Are you in North America, or working a third-shift motel counter?
All these quotes and precise metaphysical terms remind me of the joke about the comedy writers’ office, where all the jokes have already been written and numbered, and a writer will just say “37!” and everyone laughs.
But really, how much more than “things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise” do you need?
That comment was posted from the Eastern Time Zone of the United States of America at 7:26 am EDT. It appears that the clock on Brad’s blog is set to PDT.
*Corrections: EST and PST.
There is no hard problem of consciousness.
There is the hard problem of trolling.
There is a hard problem of autism spectrum members trying to function in the greater society.
Talk about hard problems! Remember when L.A. was attacked by the Blobject with ruined knees that refused to sit in Padmasana for more than an hour anymore?
Ha,ha. Joke 37
But don’t you know? It’s not your emptiness that we admire, it’s the detail in the walls of your container.
Well, thanks G.C. for that explanation, and thanks S.H. for the quote from Dogen with “now” as well as “here”. I am having trouble finding that quote in Shobogenzo online; it’s not in Genjo Koan, which I thought was the reference; Google books is awful, in its own way.
“The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. ”
Love that!
My mind is like the autumn moon / clear and bright in a pool of jade / nothing can compare / what more can I say.”
– Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
To me, the phrase “nothing can compare” is the happiness that Gautama spoke of that is present in the states between waking and sleeping. This is why I needed to get it in the main vein, and establish my addiction, before I became a walk-around zombie.
S.H., I take issue with the author of the article you quoted on the Gospel of Thomas (here):
‘Thus in Saying #114, it is to be understood that “male” symbolizes the pneumatic (spiritual, or Gnostic) Christians, and “female” symbolizes the psychic (unenlightened, or orthodox) Christians, rather than actually referring to males and females.’
I think rather it’s a reference to activity before and behind, in the vicinity of the genitalia and behind the sacrum. As in the picture from “The Golden Flower”, which I will post below this.
http://www.zenmudra.com/secret-of-the-golden-flower-image_144x245.jpg
Where the lines run from the ilio-tibial bands on the outsides of the legs to the front of the pelvis and behind the sacrum, that’s what Hey-Sues whaz talkin’ bout.
Mark Foote, what’s your opinion on Daoist meditation like Neidan?
http://www.ctmaa.com/sites/default/files/images/Neidan%20Qigong%20(Qi%20Gong%20or%20Chi%20Kung)%20small%20circle%20circulation%20and%20meditation%20H264.jpg
It involves balancing Chi around the upper, lower, and middle Dantian from what my friend told me. Different styles involve different things, but the picture you linked reminded me of the Daoist practice of Neidan.
That would be the triple gate that the master referred to, to me:
“Yun Men said to the community, ‘Within heaven and earth, through space and time, there is a jewel, hidden inside the mountain of form. Pick up a lamp and go into the Buddha hall; take the triple gate, and bring it on the lamp.’
If I trip, the lamp, like the ground, comes up to meet me.
Mark, the two Dogen quotes on that page from Google Books are from Shobogenzo chapter Sangai Yuishin [The triple world is just your mind].
Similarly with Gautama’s “before as behind, behind as before”, from the chapter on psychic powers:
“So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.”
(Sanyutta-Nikaya, text V 263, Pali Text Society volume 5 pg 235, ©Pali Text Society)
“As below, so above; as above, so below”: Gautama expanded on this line, saying that one should survey the body upwards from the soles of the feet and downwards from the crown of the head, and comprehend the body as a bag of flesh enclosing impurities.
“By night as by day, by day as by night”: Gautama explained that in cultivating the psychic powers, one employs by day “the same signs, characteristics, and marks” that one employs by night, and vice-versa.
“When you make the two one, and
when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner and the above
as the below, and when
you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male will not be male and
the female (not) be female, when you make
eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand
in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place
of a foot, (and) an image in the place of an image,
then shall you enter [the Kingdom].”
(The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, pg 18-19 log. 22, ©1959 E. J. Brill)
A partial explanation, which I am drawing from my website (here):
‘“When you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below”: where the location of consciousness in three dimensions seems clear with respect to the external objects of sense, the same clarity can be brought to the location of consciousness with respect to the internal objects of sense (including the sense-organs). Where the location of consciousness seems clear with respect to the internal objects of sense, the same clarity can be brought to the location of consciousness with regard to the external sense objects. In making the inner as the outer and then the outer as the inner, the generation of reciprocal activity through the place of occurrence of consciousness is brought forward. As the activity is relaxed, the reciprocal in lower body activity reaches the top of the head through the extensors.
“When you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female (not) be female”: consciousness of the stretch and activity behind the lower back and in front of the contents of the lower abdomen can become consciousness of stretch and activity behind the sacrum and tailbone and in the vicinity of the genitalia. Such experience is independent of the sex of the individual, and is offered here as a recurrent condition of practice.
Yuanwu provided a story:
Gaunxi asked (Moshan): ‘What is the realm of Mount Moshan like?’ Moshan said, ‘The peak doesn’t show.’ Guanxi asked: ‘What is the man on the mountain like?’ Moshan said, ‘Not any characteristics like male or female.’
(Zen Letters, trans. Cleary & Cleary, pg 49, ©1994 by J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary)
Moshan indicated that at the top of his form, there was nothing of himself to be seen. Asked to comment on the man that is Moshan, the teacher pointed to the lack of distinction between male or female in his practice.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBjmGbi8l8M
I gotta apologize for the audio on that last. Ugh.
‘“When you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below”
When the subject and the object are one, when the universe manifests through this vessel, there is no male or female, there is original face.
Mark, from your comment, it’s unclear whether you know Moshan was a woman. If you did not, would that fact cause a reassessment?
Sometimes I can’t go to sleep because of how obsessed I am over this question. For 5 yrs I have been obsessing over it. I made a topic about it 3 yrs ago on Zen Forum:
Just ignore my other posts and read this:
http
://www.zen
foruminternational.org//vie
wtopic.php?f=38&t=8837
I wrote a long paper considering emergentism and other possibilities 3 yrs ago. Lots of Neuroscience is contained in that forum post.
The question makes me depressed in how I can get an answer.
Forget the answer, and realize the inner and the outer as one.
If there is no awareness or vitalist element in the outer, then they can never be one.
The post I wrote from 3 yrs discusses that.
Yes, all the Buddhas in the world are full of shit, because what they say doesn’t fit with your theory of reality.
According to my calculations the answer is 23.
But seriously, folks…
The problem with most “unanswerable” questions is that they are poorly formulated, contain invalid premises, or do not refer to anything even remotely resembling reality.
For example: How many inches are there in one pound? How many hours are there in the color red? Who washes God’s underpants and what detergent do they use? Which is more likely to be true: Superman, Batman, or Spiderman? Because Spiderman is the only one that is based in a city that actually exists, Batman is the only one who does not have superhuman powers, but Superman is the oldest story, therefore Batman and Spiderman could just be myths based on the true story of Superman.
Read this. The question is not poorly formulated:
http
://www.zen
foruminternational.org//vie
wtopic.php?f=38&t=8837
Plenty of other people responded thinking mind is irreducible to brain activity and that it is fundamental and universal in the world.
If you can’t understand a sophisticated metaphysical question, then it doesn’t mean it’s invalid.
“Plenty of other people responded thinking mind is irreducible to brain activity and that it is fundamental and universal in the world.”
Define “mind”.
Reality is not determined by voting. Some people still believe that illnesses are caused by evil spirits.
Just because some people do not understand how the material brain produces all aspects of consciousness or refuse to accept that the material brain produces all aspects of consciousness does not mean that the material brain does not produce all aspects of consciousness. Any gaps in our collective knowledge have a very high probability (close to 100%?) of just being gaps in our collective knowledge and not evidence of some mysterious, transcendental, immaterial essence (probability close to 0% based on complete lack of evidence and/or logical inference?).
Do philosophers ever contemplate the fundamental essence and meaning of intestinal activity? Maybe they have it all wrong and it is digestion, not consciousness, that is the “ground of being”.
I forgot to include one more major flaw of “unanswerable” questions: undefined or poorly defined terms.
“What is the meaning of life?” What do you mean by the word “life”? When you say “meaning” do you mean “purpose”? Why do you assume that something (anything?) has a meaning or a purpose? Is the question “what is the meaning of life” any more coherent than the question “what is the meaning of chemical reactions”?
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…
I phrased the Hard Problem of Consciousness in neural terms.
will first put forth the outline here:
Assumption: The ontology proposed here is referencing phenomena in a manner that we can propose substantial questions.
#1: Awareness and other mental operations of feelings, emotions, and other qualitative properties seem to be heavily dependent on underlying neural mechanisms. Moreover, non-conscious phenomena, like autonomic operations from the parasympathetic and sympathetic divisions, can be clearly delineated from that which is “in awareness”. Blindsight indicates this. (differentiated characteristics based off real world experience)
#2: Consciousness or emotions cannot be reduced to neural activity, however. (no definite causal link but a definite STRONG correlation)
#3:.However, both depend on brain activity for their existence. Moreover, brain activity is also contingent on other conditions, such as stable environment. (strong dependence/contingency)
Conclusion: I propose several POSSIBLE conclusions, some of which are Mahayana in nature (all mind).
My question: I ask if it can be said mental phenomena emerge from a specific set of mechanisms, does this refute Zen’s All-is-Mind claim?
Now I shall elaborate on each point:
Assumption: It could be shown that consciousness correlates with certain physical appearances by using electrophysiological devices, neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRIs, MEGs, and etc.), and so forth. With tools such as these, we could find the correlates of consciousness in the world and thus deduce from them the presence of consciousness. We should be able to show what components are required for what procedures in our brain, and thus at least find correlates of consciousness in that manner. You can “mu” all this way by saying the delineations being made are not correct and are not referencing phenomena in a precise manner. You could say this “belief system” is not an accurate representation of reality-in-itself, but I am asserting the words themselves are pointing at some real-world question correctly.
#1: As in the case of blindsight one can have impaired vision and no awareness of such vision. Patients “exhibiting blindsight deny having seen a visual stimulus even though their behavior implies that the stimulus was in fact seen” (Ward, 2010, p. 109). One viable hypothesis is that lesions in the optic radiations can prevent axonal projections from reaching the cortical level (i.e., it connects the LGN to the cerebral cortex). Thus, awareness does not have to coexist with lower-level mental phenomena (i.e., a subject can have sensory systems operating without awareness of them and still react towards them). Some people can’t turn their categorization-ability on (similar to how most seem to be unable to turn it off).
#2: However, how can first-person experience with its felt, phenomenal properties be entirely reduced to quantitative terms, which is all a model depicts? How can the neural circuitry (e.g., synchronized firing all over the brain, reciprocal firing, neural oscillitations, parallel processing, thalamocortical loops, and etc.), the neurotransmitter systems (e.g., neurotransmitters like sertonin released from pre-synaptic membrane to post-synaptic receptors in synaptic clefts), the excitatory/inhibitory properties of neurotransmitters (i.e., that lead to an action potential in the axon hillock), the molecular mechanisms in neurobiology (e.g., chromosomes containing DNA in the nucleus), and so forth, be synonymous with the qualitative component of consciousness? By saying subjective experience is purely reducible to neurological phenomena and thus it’s eliminated, we overlook the important factor of how it feels and its causal function. Thus, consciousness is not reducible to neural activity.
#3: But yet consciousness and other qualitative experiences (e.g., emotions) seem to depend on certain necessary neural components, such as massive interconnectivity and recursiveness in corticothalamic complex, widespreading synchronous firing of neuronal ensembles all over the brain, and more neural conditions for its existence. Since brain functioning is also contingent (i.e., depend on x for its existence) on certain environmental conditions, the brain cannot be said to exist-in-itself (Shunyata).
Plausible Conclusion(s):
1. The brain is like a radio:
“”I am a neuroscientist and so 99% of the time I behave like a materialist, acknowledging that the mind is real but fully dependent on the brain. But we don’t actually know this. We really don’t. We assume our sense of will is a causal result of the neurochemical processes in our brain, but this is a leap of faith. Perhaps the brain is something like a complex radio receiver that integrates consciousness signals that float around in some form. Perhaps one part of visual cortex is important for decoding the bandwidth that contains motion consciousness and another part of the brain is critical to decoding the bandwith that contains our will. So damage to brain regions may alter our ability to express certain kinds of conscious experience rather than being the causal source of consciousness itself. ” “I don’t actually believe the radio metaphor of the brain, but I think something like it could account for all of our findings. Its unfalsifiable which is a big no-no in science. But so is the materialist view-its also unfalsifiable” (Lieberman, 2012).
2. There is a “primordial mind” or “pure awareness” that serves as the foundation of reality and is interrelated to brain processing (aka panpsychism):
“The life force [prana] and the mind are operating [of their own accord], but the mind will tempt you to believe that it is “you”. Therefore understand always that you are the timeless spaceless witness. And even if the mind tells you that you are the one who is acting, don’t believe the mind. […] The apparatus [mind, body] which is functioning has come upon your original essence, but you are not that apparatus” (Maharaj, 1996, p. 54).
All is mind in Zen would also refer to this. The overarching mind impinges on the brain to produce certain differentiated perceptions then. This is somewhat related to #1.
3. Consciousness and emotions emerge from a specific set of neural mechanisms. From non-mental things mental things can emerge. Thus, the machinery of the brain GENERATES consciousness, emotions, and etc. This generated qualitative experience is a different configuration of matter that has yet to be determined. This would refute both #2 and #3. They are incompatible with this conclusion.
MY MAIN QUESTION:
Is there any empirical evidence in favor of one or more of these plausible conclusions? Also, what do “you” gather from your own experiences? We know the “you” is most likely constructed for conventional utility and does have an existence-in-itself (i.e., the self model is transparent and fragmentary). What I noticed is if #1 and #2 were the case, then consciousness or other qualitative properties could not be fully explicated in empirical science. We can show other phenomena they are dependent on (e.g., maybe electromagnetic properties or functions), but if we accept #1 or #2, then a verbal description would never constitute as a complete explanation. Red Pine said, “I am aware, therefore I neither am nor am not,” in his commentary on the Heart Sutra.
However, if it can be shown #3 is the case, Buddhist philosophy would take a huge blow because then non-dualism would not be the case. Empirical scientists could localize consciousness, emotion, or other felt qualities relatively well then…
It should be kept in mind: there is currently no cogent definition of the physical. For example, Chomsky argued the Hard Problem of Consciousness “doesn’t make sense, since there is no cogent way to frame the physical at all – physics, he says, has no definition of ‘the physical’ since it abandoned contact mechanics with Newton – so he says the question ‘is the brain, or this table, physical’ doesn’t make sense, since nothing is physical, there are just different parts of the world that we try and make sense of. His essay ‘Naturalism and Dualism in the Study of Language and the Mind’ makes his position clear” (Brain Science Podcast, 2011)
I will attempt to clarify and simplify all of that into terms that almost everybody who speaks English can easily understand. I will then provide the answer that has the highest probability of being correct. This is not a joke. I am being 100% sincere and honest.
Question: Why does my brain feel like this?
Answer: Because that is what a brain feels like.
I vote for #2 myself. Although I can make no intellectual or scientific arguments to “prove” it one way or another.
Do you really expect comments on a blog to engage in a rigorous point-by-point discussion with you?
Also, I recommended you read “Irreducible Mind” by Edward F. Kelly a couple of posts ago, but you probably missed it with the barrage of posts you’ve been making lately. I still recommend it, though it’s authored by psychologists, not neuroscientists.
I suppose you have an answer for Unified Field Theory as well?
(Sorry, that was a sarcastic comment, but bear in mind how long it took for “science” to conclude that the sun does not revolve around the earth and for general society to accept that).
How many inches are there in one pound?
————————————————–
5F#
How many hours are there in the color red?
————————————————–
3.14159 for crimson
2.7 for all other shades
Who washes God’s underpants and what detergent do they use?
—————————————————————————
Amma! I think she uses an herbal ghee formulation.
Which is more likely to be true: Superman, Batman, or Spiderman?
——————————————————————————
I’m afraid this is a question that must be answered with another one:
“Which is more likely to be false??”
Because Spiderman is the only one that is based in a city that actually exists, Batman is the only one who does not have superhuman powers, but Superman is the oldest story, therefore Batman and Spiderman could just be myths based on the true story of Superman.
———————————————————————————————–
New York City, the Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude are all myths based on the life of Jesus (who is still alive)…
New York City is most certainly NOT a myth “based on the life of Jesus.” It is a very real, very large machine designed to produce wealth for capitalists by exploiting the labor of the proletariat.
Mark Foote
Although your comments usually seem relevant and full of useful information to me, I would think the reason Brad says much of this doesn’t involve him is because many of the comments by regular posters on here seem to be just little mini dramas between one another. Even the intellectual debates often seem off topic. Maybe some people feel like it is a special club or something but it is just a comments section right?
Yes, a comments section about Zen Buddhism specifically Dogen Sangha.
42
Yes, SH,all the Buddhas in the world are full of shit, because what they say doesn’t fit with your theory of reality.
Fred, you didn’t read carefully. I said if mind is emergent from brain activity (solution #3), Buddhism is refuted.
#1-2 as Answers are more in-line with Dharma. Actually read carefully.
Brad Warner said:
“I do not consider this a cyber-sangha. I also don’t read every comment posted. Sometimes it looks like a conversation that doesn’t involve me at all.
As for what I do when people make such statements in real life, it depends on how I feel. Sometimes I have a conversation, if it feels like a conversation can be had. Sometimes I just let it go.”
Yep, if it feels like a conversation can be had. Count me in on that too.
Rule number one:
Never, ever, ever, ever respond to someone who appears to have Aspbergers,
autism, pervasive developmental disorder, schizo-paranoid ideation, etc ,etc
because * it looks like a conversation that doesn’t involve me at all *
Hi Fred,
What would you like to know?
Why
does
An3drew
write
like
this
?
I’m not Andrew. To me it looks like an attempt to fill a need for attention. Your posts seem to issue from the same needs, and I’m sure mine do too. Maybe there’s some element of filling the need for ‘control’ as well (in your posts and mine). This would show up when a person seems to be trying to get the last word by explaining a ‘deeper perspective’ in regards to a particular comment or thread. I would expect you to reply to this comment with this type of statement – something concerning ‘no-self’.
LISTEN, Doraemon is of the infinite. Beyond all speculation and an embodiment of all that is good. Infinities light…
The American dub however destroyed the spirit of Doraemon! The dub changed stuff like like made a first aid to a pizza, took out chop sticks and made them into spoons and forks, and changed Japanese cuisine to pancakes.
However, fan subs are a blessing from the Absolute.
Doraemon shall liberates you from the Samsaric chains. Skip work, drink beer, and do nothing but watch Doraemon because the life is a horrible mistake, nothing but suffering.
Ghibli films, Harvest Moon, Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 are fine too when you need to abide in the serene heart. For example, search Youtube “(Day 1) Let’s Play Boku no Natsuyasumi 3 in English!”. It’s about a boy that takes a vacation to an idyllic family farm, and it is about his relaxing slow-paced, slice-of-life eco-adventure of collecting bugs and meeting new friends! The scenery is breathtaking for such a game. It is a shame man can never reach the glory and peace of his imagination that is reflected in such equanimous artwork…
ANYWAYS, my favorite Doraemon film is the recent 2006 remake of Nobita’s Dinosaur. I have linked an incredible Fansub. It is on the level of a happy Ghibli film such as Castle in the Sky.
WATCH AND BE ENLIGHTENED RIGHT NOW, HERE AND NOW, FOREVER AND EVER MORE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtw0lqk9PGA
I would love it if I could find proper fansubs for the 1979 version also.
Doraemon is universal.
This world is a mistake. If I could, I would be reborn endlessly through a Samsaric Helicoid/Spiral so that i may destroy the Dharmakaya or God and replace it with a cartoon. A cartoon is far more pleasant than this despicable life of pain, lamentation, old age, and death. The point of life should be for man to develop his scorn towards the totality of reality and destroy the non-dual totality of it, so then he can replace it with a superior cartoon.
Support me, the AntiChrist, over Brad.
God damn it…
This * looks like a conversation that doesn’t involve me at all *
You don’t understand my sense of humor:
I don’t have “Aspbergers,
autism, pervasive developmental disorder, schizo-paranoid ideation, etc ,etc”.
What I have IS Buddha nature. Bow wow wow yippi yo yippy yay, where my Buddha nature at?
Fred, you didn’t read carefully. I said if mind is emergent from brain activity (solution #3), Buddhism is refuted.
#1-2 as Answers are more in-line with Dharma.
This * looks like a conversation that doesn’t involve me at all *
You don’t need to speak.
In solemn silence we can eat ramen while watching children’s cartoons.
Well, thanks, IuseComputers. I think most of us have a personal mythology in connection with spiritual matters, and even if the symbolism is very different, there can still be communication in the relationships between symbols.
You know, I actually only need to know what I need to know to relax, and yet there is inevitably something to be learned as I let go.
SH, did you ever think that the mind (or heart-mind) in the literature of Zen might be synonymous with the location of awareness you experience when you trip, before you hit the floor?
I mean, if you experienced your mind and body as though you had no control over what was in awareness or how to stay upright, where would the mind be? Can you imagine what it would be like to relax whatever came up, including but not relying on the sense of vision for location in space?
Just because the guy said his staff turned into a dragon and swallowed the universe, and asks where the mountains, rivers, and great earth can be found, doesn’t mean there’s anything to be found apart from where I am.
What you say kind of reminds me of some strands of continental philosophy…
Actual, it reminds me of Artaud, who I feel was a genius regardless of his schizophrenia. The way he viewed the relation of the body to the greater whole was very strange:
“I destroy because for me everything that proceeds from reason is untrustworthy. I believe only in the evidence of what stirs my marrow, not in the evidence of what addresses itself to my reason. I have found levels in the realm of the nerve. I now feel capable of evaluating the evidence. There is for me an evidence in the realm of pure flesh which has nothing to do with the evidence of reason. The eternal conflict between reason and the heart is decided in my very flesh, but in my flesh irrigated by nerves…”
”• Antonin Artaud
I suppose you could argue that the way dantians or Chinese meridians were developed was based off such as knowledge as “that the mind (or heart-mind) in the literature of Zen might be synonymous with the location of awareness you experience when you trip, before you hit the floor”.
However, from my own research and experiences, I acknowledge views as truthful, but it is embedded within a greater panpsychist network. It is simply like a mirror or reflection of the greater interpenetrative, interdependent panpsychist network, and it is not closed off from it.
“This is a conversation that does not involve me at all”
Sounds like a working model of the one big thing
“This is a conversation that does not involve me at all”
“Sounds like a working model of the one big thing”
Are you responding to my statement or to Bradley’s?
I’ve spent too much time reading the Analects of Bradley’s Blog Leeches. Brain and body have atrophied and dropped off. Mind has vanished like shit in a stream.
While waiting for the thorazine to kick in, I was recursively referencing my own statement that
“This is a conversation that does not involve me at all”
“Sounds like a working model of the one big thing”
There is no one to call “you” or “me” that could ever have been involved.
These are just the underlying murmurings of dreams that ultimately fade away. They begin and end in futility, and end in blackness.
You do not own your head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDNOEV45-I
http://www.headless.org/on-having-no-head.htm
SamsaricHelicoid,
I’m not sure why I keep getting suckered into your particular brand of manic on-line persona but I do. I start to feel sorry for you because some commenters on this site really do go over the line trying to give you grief. But I’m now convinced that my sympathy is misplaced.
I don’t believe that you deserve any serious consideration of your ideas or further attention to your ping-ponging mental states.
Good luck with all your terribly deep thoughts. And scoring high points on your favorite video game.
Cheers.
The Diamond Sutra says when you’re compassionate not to give rise to a subject, giver, or present. That is, the compassion emerges prior to thought; it is unpremeditated and without expectation or the view of subject-object opposition. Since you always projected the image of a “me” to place “your” sympathy in, then that means your sympathy was always misplaced.
I’m actually more healthy than anyone here. I don’t take antipsychotics or any drugs that mess up the brain. Why do you think I care so much about the hard problem of consciousness and got my B.S. in Neuroscience? It’s because this question kept me up at nights making me existential, but I’m not weak enough to take drugs to deal with the onslaught of existential crises. I can watch horrible films like ShÅjo Tsubaki and then go outside realizing how we are totally alone and in a sick universe without losing my brain/mind. I have no hope in mankind, hence why I can show real sympathy. I don’t trust in any of your abilities to become realized Buddhas.
I’m not like other people in the sense that as my awareness grows, I still maintain my sympathy towards people regardless of whether or not they deserve it. I don’t treat this practice like a game unlike you who acts like certain people deserve sympathy while others don’t.
Why do you think I lucid dream so much? It’s because my prefrontal cortex is well-developed. I understand certain things that you’re only going to start comprehending once you become 80. My sensei actually was hinting of giving me Dharma transmission, but I am in the mood for these games:
“IMAGE: IN LUCID DREAMERS, THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX ENABLING SELF-REFLECTION IS BIGGER IN COMPARISION TO OTHER PEOPLE. view more ”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/m-lda012315.php
Mark, my comment to you on a thread let now gone far downriver may have been lost to you. It concerns Moshan’s gender.
What is everyone’s favorite Pixar film?
We need more Dostoevskian tragic figures in the Zen scene. That way it can develop more character and depth instead of this facade of a blissful universe. This universe is nothing but pain and sorrow, deconstructing all that we hold dear through the process of Time. Daoists go with the flow, Buddhists ultimately go against it.
Why do I need any of your sympathy? I don’t even know who I am, so how could you figure that out in my stead?
I repeat again: what is everyone’s favorite Pixar film?
Akira, Paprika, Appleseed. All not made by Pixar, but I give no fucks about that 😉
Akira and Paprika are cool. Appleseed sucks.
“got my B.S. in Neuroscience”
Physician heal thyself.
It was a waste of time. I should have gone into computer science. I would probably be working at a high paying job then. I worked in a lab for some time but quit after having to decapitate rats and collect their brains. It was too hard on me and I was constantly pressured by my bastard piece of shit mentor and PI. My mentor, who was a grad student, took adderall so she was an irritable bitch. I hate the work environment for researchers and the overly competitive atmosphere.
I got my BS in Neuroscience but I regret it… and in truth, I think the whole field is bullshit. There is A LOT of bullshit in neuroscience, most of it because of funding and pushing an agenda. 90 percent of Neuroscience is bullshit. I got a high GPA and I don’t see the value in this nonsensical field. It’s just a game show.
If anyone is reading this and planning to go to college, do NOT get involved in something like science or even medical. Just go do programming and focus on stuff like C#, Java, Python, and Algorithms .
(Excerpt from Michel Houellebecq’s book on H.P. Lovecraft:)
“Perhaps one needs to have suffered a great deal in order to appreciate Lovecraft…”
–Jacques Bergier
Life is painful and disappointing. It is useless, therefore, to write new realistic novels. We generally know where we stand in relation to reality and don’t care to know any more. Humanity, such as it is, inspires only an attenuated curiosity in us. All those prodigiously refined “notations,” “situations,” anecdotes… all they do, once a book has been set aside, is reinforce the slight revulsion that is already adequately nourished by any one of our “real life” days.
Now, here is Howard Phillips Lovecraft: “I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with the horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes.”
*
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890—1937). We need a supreme antidote against all forms of realism.
*
Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.
As for Lovecraft, he was more than a little fed up. In 1908, at the age of eighteen, he suffered what has been described as a “nervous breakdown” and plummeted into a lethargy that lasted about ten years. At the age when his old classmates were hurriedly turning their backs on childhood and diving into life as if into some marvelous, uncensored adventure, he cloistered himself at home, speaking only to his mother, refusing to get up all day, wandering about in a dressing gown all night.
What’s more, he wasn’t even writing.
What was he doing? Reading a little, maybe. We can’t even be sure of this. His biographers have in fact had to admit that they don’t know much at all and that based on appearances it would seem that at least between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three he did absolutely nothing.
*
Then gradually, between 1913 and 1918, very slowly, the situation improved. Gradually, he reestablished contact with the human race. It was not easy. In May 1918 he wrote to Alfred Galpin: “I am only about half alive–a large part of my strength is consumed in sitting up or walking. My nervous system is a shattered wreck and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.”
It is definitely pointless to embark on a dramatic or psychological reconstruction. Because Lovecraft is a lucid, intelligent and sincere man. A kind of lethargic terror descended upon him as he turned eighteen years old and he knew the reason for it perfectly well. In a 1920 letter he revisits his childhood at length. The little railway set whose cars were made of packing-cases, the coach house where he had set up his puppet theater. And later, the garden he had designed, laying out each of its paths. It was irrigated by a system of channels that were his own handiwork, and its ledges enclosed a small lawn at the center of which stood a sundial. It was, he said, “the paradise of my adolescent years.”
Then comes the passage that concludes the letter: “Then I perceived with horror that I was growing too old for pleasure. Ruthless Time had set its fell claw upon me, and I was seventeen. Big boys do not play in toy houses and mock gardens, so I was obliged to turn over my world in sorrow to another and younger boy who dwelt across the lot from me. And since that time I have not delved in the earth or laid out paths and roads. There is too much wistful memory in such procedure, for the fleeting joy of childhood may never be recaptured. Adulthood is hell.”
*gassho to mumbles*
I believe both Lovecraft and Emil Cioran understood something painful that most people cannot comprehend.
Thomas Ligotti is also a good writer. His The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and Teatro Grottesco were good. He is a good weird fiction writer inspired by Lovecraft.
Have you watched True Detective btw, Mumbles?
I’m an antinatalist for myself.
Yes, well, alright, alright, alright.
“Hell is of this world and there are men who are unhappy escapees from hell, escapees destined ETERNALLY to reenact their escape.”
-Antonin Artaud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EknD3KRtgDk
Shit Nietzsche says.
The intuitionists don’t buy into “for every proposition A, either A or not A.”
I suppose that’s what Brad means by “…that ultimate answer does not fit into any box.”
“Mark, from your comment, it’s unclear whether you know Moshan was a woman. If you did not, would that fact cause a reassessment?”
Not that I doubt you, minkfoot, but can you give me a source- I’m sure interested. Thanks.
As far as the Yuanwu quote:
“Gaunxi asked (Moshan): ‘What is the realm of Mount Moshan like?’ Moshan said, ‘The peak doesn’t show.’ Guanxi asked: ‘What is the man on the mountain like?’ Moshan said, ‘Not any characteristics like male or female.’”
Might not be the example I thought it was, regarding the teaching of Jesus. I”ll have to think about it.
“Moshan indicated that at the top of her form, there was nothing of herself to be seen. Asked to comment on the man on the mountain, the teacher pointed to the lack of distinction between male or female in her practice.”
About the same, actually, but a little less pointed.
We appear to have no women currently on the comment thread. Why is that!
Let’s hear from the Chocolate Sage of the Balmy Sea!
http://youtu.be/9JPKZefbYG4
especially when:
“…meditation is good for you – … it can even change your life.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-meditation-changes-your-brain-2015-1
GC’s recommendation of all things Steven Hagen/Dharma Field takes me back a few years ago to when I read his books and listened to the talks from their website’s nice n noughties offerings – my first sincere self-introduction to Zen Buddhism.
I was sat in some heart-stiff approximation to half-lotus on my bed-pillow, having allowed the laconic reassurance in Hagen’s voice to soften me up a little through the darling intimacy of headphones, when some seemingly super-heart-stiff audient posed the question, “If the moon is reflected on water, what is suspended in clarity?”
Well, wouldn’t you know, but that kinda lunacy was at full yearning through the half- parted curtains and the cranky lines of the copper beach: moon! not just or but and – Moon! Moonmoonmoon.
I was very impressed afterwards, but it was just, you know, the moon. By then I’d removed the curtains and the lines and was walking along the wet pavement, wondering over the provenance of non-article panpsychic hindsight, following that immaterial lump of welling rock like John Ash follows a man or gives up smoking, before turning left squared – full-circle, if you like (although I much prefer to say that I triangulated home using the unknowable locus of a lucid stomach).
These and more practicable, less pretentiously inclined things have passed me by, and I hadn’t heard of panpsychism or narcisstic red flags, and trolls were outsized cockneys that turned to stone at full moon – having dared to assume a few Homo Florensi (sic) might make an easy supper somewhere north of Rivendell.
He-Man: In today’s story Andy tried taking a magic potion which he thought would help him. Well, he found out there aren’t any magic potions. And you know what? There aren’t any magic drugs either. Anytime you take one from anybody but your parents or your doctor, you’re taking a very big chance. Your gambling with your health, maybe even you life. Drugs don’t make your problems go away, they just create more.
Andy: awww
Copper Beech
Copper Beach is much to sexy
to
too brassy
Andy, nice to hear from you.
Let me tell you about my dream last night. In my dream I had stabilized my type 1 monism, but the wave function started to collapse, and I lost congruity.
Any one ever have this happen to them.
“If the moon is reflected on water, what is suspended in clarity?”
The weighscale is suspended in emptiness.
When ” you ” understand this without the taint of conditioning, from the midst of conditioning, ” you” are suspended in clarity.
The Soto Shoe branch of meditators do not speak of enlightenment. But Mr. Ryushin Sensei does, when he’s not busy fornicating. All the great ones are busy fornicators.
The peak of Mount Moshan doesn’t show because it’s beyond the grasp of conditioned fornication.
I prefer Hagen’s response
Steve Hagen :
“The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment. You don’t have to look “over there.” You don’t have to figure anything out. You don’t have to acquire anything.”
So his response would be to not be pulled by the machinations of the abstract intellect, but to attend to the here and now. Good advice from Mr. Hagen.
If my memory can stand still for a second, his response in context was a pause, a chuckle followed by ‘what…indeed’.
– ‘indeed’ or some other tag.
Here ya go, Mark!
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/download/8561/2468
PDF p.12, journal p.27
Also,
http://buddhism.about.com/od/whoswhoinbuddhism/p/moshan.htm
And, in the “11th Generation” chapter of Zen’s Chinese Heritage, along with the likes of Linji, Dongshan, and Deshan!
Matter = form
One Mind = emptiness
Matter is One Mind, One Mind is Matter
Never mind. It does not matter.
Form=Shape of… experience.
Mind objects can not be held on to.
david s, Just ignore my other posts and read this:
http
://www.zen
foruminternational.org//vie
wtopic.php?f=38&t=8837
It took some time to sort out that URL, only to find it was something you already posted here. If you have any message besides “Hey, LOOK AT ME!”, it’s getting last in the irritation you engender.
I’m mainly referencing people’s comments MinkFoot.
sunyavadi is a better intellectual than me. Focus on his posts.
SH, I did use your link yesterday. The site requires registration. Their process involves a waiting period for access and an e-mail acceptance. Still waiting for it…
david s, give me your email. I will give you my account user name and password so you can read it now.
Anyways, you’ll enjoy reading it. The comments are very good.