whocoulditbe?
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Everything posted by whocoulditbe?
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How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge. If you don't mind more questions: Does a Dzogchen practitioner renounce anything at all if they're not on the sutric path? How do the precepts play into it? When you describe moving past "separate," "limited" or "independent" identity, do you mean that some kind of collective/unconditional identity remains or appears in its place? If so, how does that avoid being a literal identity with the cycle of samsara itself? Thanks again.- 568 replies
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I'm pretty much a beginner at Chinese, but I understand that Baidu Baike's articles are roughly as good as Wikipedia's outside of political topics, i.e., not very good. The benefit of Baike is that it has more content on Chinese topics, not that that content is better.
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How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
This metaphor is obviously sharp-edged, but I kind of love it.- 568 replies
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F. Y. I. Baike is Chinese Wikipedia. It's user generated.
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What's the deal with the 7th Uposatha precept?
whocoulditbe? replied to whocoulditbe?'s topic in Buddhist Discussion
This is true, and always brought up when people ask this kind of question. None the less, it can turn out that a guide is more helpful when its instructions are clear to us, and I don't see a lot of clarity in discussions about this precept. BTW, thanks to this thread, I came across another interesting passage from the 治禪病祕要法 Zhi chan bing mi yao fa ("Secret Essential Methods for Curing Meditation Sickness") trans. Eric M. Greene: The method is basically 1. Associate music with women 2. Hate women 3. Hate music. This passage immediately follows another one describing a method "for curing violations of the precepts!" -
How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
Does extinction exist? Is absence an object? Does a candle generate darkness after its flame has been extinguished?- 568 replies
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I'd like to learn more about the politics and history of qigong. But maybe not from the CIA. The Feynman Lectures are free! In seriousness, if you consider Taoism a religion, it's bold to claim that it needs monetary transactions to continue being be transmitted. Ofc. immortality-oriented practice could hardly be meant to convert the masses–society would break down–but it'll have been regulated by other sorts of privilege than money for most of its history, and there have been mass Taoist movements with lesser personal goals than becoming Xian. As for TCM, I'm pretty sure it's still covered by state health insurance in China. But I guess you're talking in context: it's true that when spirituality gets exported around the globe it can end up treated as a product.
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Vocaloid Palestrina
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How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
You haven't had enough of this already? -
How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
The final outcome of all semantic debates: both sides fail to think dialectically, the argument goes nowhere, then people become frustrated with the lack of development and begin accuse each other of sophistry. Sigh.- 568 replies
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How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
I'm mostly referencing the final proposition of the catuskoti (neither is nor is not) but you could also see it in terms of the opposition between the Hegelian negation of the negation and the Nietzschean "affirmation of the affirmation." -
How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
I think that once you realise that pleasure is complicit in suffering, a new false opposition opens up between the pleasure-suffering compound/cycle and the extinction of both. So, instead of a triangular figure, we have a diamond or catuskoti like this: nirvana (double negation) suffering pleasure (negation) (affirmation) samsara (double affirmation) Some people respond by "finding happiness in the process," by accepting samsara and enjoying suffering through its interdependence with pleasure. This attitude is exemplified by Romanticism, parts of the Zhuangzi, and much of Nietzsche's writing. The basic premise of Buddhism is more like transcending attachment to pleasure in order to transcend pain, escaping into nirvana. However, whichever approach is chosen, the old opposition ends up projected onto the new, with one pole becoming the new object of seeking. This might be why we frequently end up calling nirvana "pleasure" and samsara "suffering," even though nirvana is neither and samsara is both. So, we end up going at least one step further, realising the emptiness of the distinction between nirvana and samsara. There is no distinction whatsoever between samsara and nirvana; and there is no distinction whatsoever between nirvana and samsara. The limit of nirvana and the limit of samsara: one cannot even find the slightest difference between them. – Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarikah Chapter 25 But what comes after this? Nirvana-as-samsara vs. neither-samsara-nor-nirvana? This line of thought could go on forever without bearing much fruit.- 568 replies
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The sheer projection
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Wearing my Immanuel Kant mask: Maybe he's confusing will with inclination?
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Can't write 自然 without 自!
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Yeah, don't go disappearing into the clouds like the rest of them!
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If that was happening to me, I'd want to find another person/other people to meditate alongside, so that we could keep each other in check and grounded. On the other hand, that might distract from the meditation, and you may find such a person hard to come if there aren't any dedicated groups in your community.
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Starting with one seed, if it ever gave a shoot! Hogweed-ridden heart.
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From another thread: Reminded me of this masterpiece:
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When I wrote this, I hadn't heard of hendiadys. Now I'm a bit more inclined to believe Daniel's interpretation.
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And yet the Daodejing can be read as a polemic on governance, just as much as a guide to personal cultivation. That sounds like something a Chuuni would say. 🗞️ But here you sound like you're already living the life of a sage! Clearing away garbage you're attached to can be heartbreaking.
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This reminds me that Brook Ziporyn wrote a book–which I still haven't read–called Evil and/or/as the Good about Tiantai. Interesting idea, but it's troubling to base such a subtle analysis on the English version. In Genesis 2:9, 3:5, and 3:22, the knowledge of good and evil is הדעת/ידעי/לדעת טוב ורע in the original, and γνωστὸν/γινώσκοντες/γινώσκειν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ in the Septuagint. I have weak knowledge of Greek and none of Hebrew, but I can see that the conjunction is ו in Hebrew, and καὶ in the Greek. καὶ is sometimes used disjunctively, and apparently ו also has other uses. According to Strong's Concordance, טוב and רע can be adjectives or nouns, but καλοῦ and πονηροῦ are only ever adjectives (and the Hebrew words wouldn't be in the genitive if they were nouns anyway). That's pretty weird at 2:9, because it looks like it could mean something like "knowledge which is good and evil," but the verbal forms of the phrase at 3:5 and 3:22 rule out that interpretation. So does it mean something like "knowledge of good (things) and evil (things)"? If so, maybe Daniel could respond with "knowledge of good-and-evil (things)"? ––––––––––– I wish more of that happened in this world LOL 😂🤭 Daodejing verse 3: 不尚賢，使民不爭；不貴難得之貨，使民不為盜；不見可欲，使心不亂。是以聖人之治，虛其心，實其腹，弱其志，強其骨。常使民無知無欲。使夫知者不敢為也。為無為，則無不治。 Not to value and employ men of superior ability is the way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves; not to prize articles which are difficult to procure is the way to keep them from becoming thieves; not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is the way to keep their minds from disorder. Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones. He constantly tries to keep them without knowledge and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them from presuming to act on it. When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal. But this might be about obsessive/strained thought and desire. Good sense is another thing.
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It's similarly displeasing, but that kind of passivity almost seems like the opposite of what DynamicEquilibrium was describing.
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How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?
whocoulditbe? replied to galen_burnett's topic in General Discussion
A short answer from the Buddhist perspective: The dyadic pair in question is between pleasure (not exactly happiness) and suffering, which are not only dependent on each other, but really the same thing. Neither commitment to pleasure (hedonism) nor commitment to suffering (self-mortification), but rather the Middle Way, will yield bliss. Since this bliss is the product of something that transcends the dichotomy between seeking pleasure and seeking suffering, it follows that it can be equated with neither pleasure nor suffering. But I think there is merit to your idea that this reasoning can become a way of "smuggling" something relative into the realm of the unconditional. The relation between suffering and pleasure is not symmetrical with respect to enlightenment. Since the distaste for suffering is original, but the distaste for pleasure is a secondary reaction to the realisation of its interdependence with suffering, the final stage of enlightenment is suspiciously reminiscent of the negation of the negation.- 568 replies
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Outdoors, cool, and darkish with fresh air and greenery is my ideal. Same to you!
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