Women, Freedom, Entrapment, Strategy

[Alex T. Jacob]

"Objects in themselves are neither in existence nor in non-existence and are quite devoid of the alternative of being and non-being, and should only be thought of as one thinks of the horns of a hare, a horse, or a camel, which never existed. Objects are discriminated by the ignorant who are addicted to assertion and negation, because their intelligence has not been acute enough to penetrate into the truth that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself."

In truth it is a series of choices made. Choices about how to perceive or relate to things. It is a way of ordering perception and of assigning meaning. It is obviously a way to deal with a fundamental fact: the transitory nature of all things and events. The backdrop of it is unstated: mortality. It is a way of thinking that is possible for anyone, and in this case is connected to the entire school of the Indian subcontinent, in all its different aspects. You cannot separate them from that 'tree'. And that whole 'tree' has achieved, in comparison to the Western modalities, nothing of any substantial value or use. How could it? It is a way of seeing that leads directly to non-activity. As a group of choices it leads directly to one conclusion: futility. An examination in their historical context of the cultural creations that have come out of the Indian Subcontinent shows pretty obviously where the doctrines of defined futility lead. In short it is a way and means whereby the individual and the person is rendered irrelevant and in one way or another that individual can only stare onto a giant Idea---a projection---that renders him useless, ineffective and utterly pessimistic.

In contradistinction, the Western mind sees the same 'field' (transitory, etc.) but makes very radically different choices in respect to those facts. It is the difference between sheer asceticism that chooses to do nothing, and the Western modality of affirmation and valuation of the possibilities of life within exactly the same field! It is after all the same 'field'.

Perhaps for the utterly tired and exhausted Westerner these Eastern possibilities are inevitable? They are certainly deeply attractive and seductive. But one must recognize that they lead to impotence. For us they are 'acidic'.

---Alex Number Three

[Pye]

Seeker writes:
not-knowing doesn't mean knows nothing.

non-action/ "not-doing" doesn't mean does nothing.

It means,

Don't try to direct what happens(desires), don't think you know about the things you don't, and let your actions and life play out on their own (It goes smoother when your not worrying about how it goes)

See then, your 'nothing' is very much something, and you are capable of fetching some words to describe it through all this 'nothing' you promote.

This thought you've latched onto is indeed long-embedded in a lot of eastern approaches. It takes its cue from the universe itself that appears entirely disinterested in the projects of humans. The wise man then feels if he/she aligns themselves with this 'true' nature of universe - that does not appear to value; does not appear to mean anything; that does not appear to have fundamental support for the projects of humans or conform itself to their shape in any way - well then, aligning oneself to this must surely be a greater alignment to a greater truth.

Ironically, this is a piece of reverse-human hubris. It once again states a universe in relation to the projects of humans (in this case, the disinterest-in). This thought forgets that this self-same universe causes many life-forms that value things - valuing itself rises from all of cause and effect and belongs to human, living experience. One is still and always supporting a value in the human world of valuing, by putting forth a view such as the one you state above. It's still a view; it's still bound to human life and valuing; and still an instruction that attempts to "direct what happens." It's still a desire, just a different one.

You've been alert in the past, Seeker, at pointing out all of the garbled thing-knowings that people think they have, and then driving those thoughts to the edge of the abyss for a good shove. When you are able to push this thought over the cliff (and the frantic effort with which you put forward the effortless), then you might be able to lay your claim to desirelessess.

But good luck with that. The end of desire is the end of life. It's spiritual nihilism that cannot recognize the deep desire embedded in it's own spiritual nihilism.

Dennis writes: Pye gets a pat on the lustrous locks because Pye resembles Bambi.

It's fortunate I've not misunderstood your point.

To Laird, this is a fine example of exactly what I've written above. I think, Laird, (and feel free to correct me) that you believe there are certain things that deserve "respect" just by virtue of being what they are: humans; women as a category; even respect itself for the sake of respectfulness ("Bambis," so to speak - "precious" things worth protecting). That's not what I'm interested in arguing here, but rather pointing out that Dennis is asking after the "violated entity" that raises the ire in you. I think he's asking after the ground upon which you support certain things as value-able, worthy of "respect," piety, whatever, and then how these things are being "violated" to earn your ire. In a view that takes in the indiscriminate and indifferent nature of the universe as whole, humans must be extraordinarily alert at explaining their grounds of value, being as there's no other place to make an appeal to any other 'authority.'

And in the world of humans, there won't be a single one to escape the putting forth of something - even and especially the 'nothing' that gets so much track space around here. Even at the precipice of suicide, it is a value (or in this case, the lack of value) in living that steers this and any other human action in the world.

No exit. No escape :)

[Alex T. Jacob]

Naw. For Dennis a 'Bambi' is simply anything other than a phrasing: empty and meaningless. Any thing, idea---anything!---to which you attach value is your 'Bambi': that is where your false heart is, it is what you feel a need to defend. As a pure power-in-conversation strategy Dennis can shoot down ANY ARGUMENT and ANY ASSERTION by seeing it as a 'Bambi'. I know you, Pye, detest the psychological analysis but this level of argument is at a 5-6 years-old level. Still, your educator's patience is admirable. Do you have to often deal with persons so ridiculously stupid?

---Alex Number Two

[Pye]

Seeker redux: Don't try to direct what happens(desires), don't think you know about the things you don't, and let your actions and life play out on their own (It goes smoother when your not worrying about how it goes)

And for whatever wisdom (i.e. reduced suffering/attachment) that this view provides, is the flip-side of the historical, contextual coin: "Do nothing" was also a sort of institutionalized directive from the haves to the have-nots. One must reconcile oneself to whatever are their concrete circumstances with just a full belly and some child-like ignorance - a good way for the ruling class in China to keeps its people from any action against their own conditions. Buddhism takes up the same strain in assuring a self that they are really the authors of their own suffering and even that there really isn't a self there to experience the suffering in the first place. Even if this is a [jesuitically] effective address to personal suffering, it is not without its sinister side from a ruling elite to a suffering populace that it accept its conditions of ineffectuality, and 'do nothing' to force a change. You'll just end up suffering more, so the story goes. It's another one of those long-ass attempts to duck responsibility for the creation of the human-world in support of a status-quo.

Some of us just can't lie to ourselves that way anymore . . . .

[Pye]

Alex, both you and Dennis have already decided what each-other are - assumed essences of each other - and in that case then, both, any of you who do similar, will not be able to confront what comes-to-be in front of you, because you've already decided what already is. This assumes that the "essence" of something precedes and directs its existence in every and all cases, and in this case, I have utterly no vocabulary to support such a delusion. Once that template snaps itself over one's sight, one cannot see anything manifesting anymore . . . .

[Alex T. Jacob]

Yep. You learn what 'is' by seeing what it does, and when it does what it does enough, you know what it is. It is that which it is. It is not my responsibility to 'release' it from what it has chosen for itself, and if I think this way it is enabling. It can---as any of us can---do the work to find and show a 'different essence' but none of that is my problem. Yet of course you know I was 'only grandstanding' and you are 'right' to squiggle out from underneath that.

You just don't like the sight of blood! Such a girl! ;-)

[Pye]

Alex writes: You just don't like the sight of blood! Such a girl! ;-)

no . . . I'm just waiting for you to actually hit a vein :)

[Alex T. Jacob]

Remember, Alex killed Dennis.

This assumes that the "essence" of something precedes and directs its existence in every and all cases, and in this case, I have utterly no vocabulary to support such a delusion.

What you call 'essence' in this case is the sum total of our choices: those we painstakingly took over a long period of time. We are responsible for what we are and how we 'manifest' ourselves. If as you seem to imply there might occur some 'miracle'---a Biblical miracle!---and some radically unprecedented thing might show up, well, I just say 'good luck'.

You spent a great deal of time enabling this little fuck...now admire your co-creation.

[Pye]

I think you've spun my metaphor in precisely the wrong direction, but shoveling some snow is more valuable to me at present than clarifying you :)

later . . . .

[Alex T. Jacob]

I don't think so. Nor do I think you will clarify. Clarity has already been achieved and haint no amount of feemale jibber-jabber done gonna change a straight-up fact!

Just telling it like it is is the quickest route to clarity...

[Dennis Mahar]

I was talking to an elderly woman last week.
Her 'in that moment' fugue had to do with what to buy her daughter for xmas.
In her life she has a daughter who has everything.
and when it came to birthdays/xmas for the elderly woman the buying of gifts for daughter was exasperating.

I suggested she buy nothing in order to provide her daughter with the full set.

The elderly lady 'got it' and we laughed.

Of course you had to be there to see the joy pass between us.

The point for me is the 'lifting of the fugue' at a point of cognition.
An opening up.

That point is the recognition of a background of nothing in which the fugue is showing up.

[Dennis Mahar]

Quote:
Dennis writes: Pye gets a pat on the lustrous locks because Pye resembles Bambi.

It's fortunate I've not misunderstood your point.

There's no possibility of Pye misunderstanding in my world.
sharp as a tack.
Safe.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This is particularly dishonest. If I combed thru' your posts and those of Alex, I could fill 100 foolscap pages of examples of that perpetrated by you and Alex.

And also the main reason for me to have or read these discussions, to remind me of the dishonest nature of our minds, even the more kind and informed ones. And the best moment is when with some indignation is asked: show me were I was dishonest? Were was the hypocrisy exactly? And how one does not realize that the tactics are a given, that they are not hated or disregarded for using them. They are known all too well. It's mainly exposition and remembrance here.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But he's there like I am.

Doing what? Curious if you have a non-schizoid way of summarizing? We all know I'm crazy and can only speak from fragmentation!

If I'd answer Alex nr. 1, the one who might have understood a more "inner" type of teaching at some "cellular level" and therefore must have understood that all the bigger wheels turn at that level then he understands that's the type of understanding that surpasses all else. It doesn't have to mean one has to stop breathing, talking, acting and thinking. But it means all other understandings on the topic of spirituality will be approached differently now, more existential, less trying to convey some meaning and more like stirring up something very near by and often forgotten in the rush of life.

But to all the other Alexes: no matter in which way anyone would ever "summarize" it for them, the prefab response is already waiting. Analyzed to death, suggesting underlying problems, sprouting clever jokes, paraphrasing poorly, creating a circus act around it and very occasionally asking for more clarity or doubting the logical consistency of one or another.

Take for example the old scripture: "blessed are the peace makers", just to illustrate something. This text cannot be taken seriously in terms of any future reward. If that was the case one needs some afterlife and cosmic bookkeeper to make this ever work as people working for world or family peace tend to receive or feel little reward. A complex theology is quickly born although that might have advanced some people nevertheless. But should we dismiss the thought altogether? But as it is, only the truly blessed (supremely happy, fortunate, rich) could ever "make" peace since they come already in peace, they are already "peace loving" and "at peace" by nature. This is an example of a phrase speaking from the "center of something", something "already the case" while an audience might prefer it to mean something about a future, or a guide of what needs to be done or to aspire to. Which might be all fine but it becomes quickly subject to intense dispute and abuse. This is the fate of everything ever expressed on any topic this forum aspires to.

Blessed are also the poor in spirit and this is exactly the issue you often seem have trouble with at this forum. You claim that this "retreat" somehow closes off connection and destroys life and its possibilities. You think one is really poor in everything when following the paths you have discerned with some forum members at least and the admins I suppose. But have you any proof or reason to believe there is "acid" at work? Aren't you the one throwing the most acid when all the accounting would be done? What is it you have to offer? A flight to Columbia, a library of books? It will never cure the more basic existential problems, which have pained humanity in all ages, people from every part of the population, with or without the cultural baggage or literary kills. The same problems plaguing your own person. And any answer will not come from any possessions, no matter how secure, not from any baggage of books or general knowledge how to live best. The answer won't come from any absolute philosophy either. But that might do something different: it might show something about the questions.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Apparently, I precipitated the thoughts and feelings conveyed in your post and this is essentially what I am after.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But was I wrong thinking you showed concern about where life would take people with their acidic philosophies?

[Dennis Mahar]

And also the main reason for me to have or read these discussions, to remind me of the dishonest nature of our minds, even the more kind and informed ones. And the best moment is when with some indignation is asked: show me were I was dishonest? Were was the hypocrisy exactly? And how one does not realize that the tactics are a given, that they are not hated or disregarded for using them. They are known all too well. It's mainly exposition and remembrance here.

I see your presence to the nuance of conversation Diebert where every syllable counts.

As if listening to music,
paying attention to every note,
every note is as important as the note that precedes it and the note that follows it.
there are no shortcuts.
there are no boring bits.

the song remains the same however.
departure,journey,arrival are one.

[Tomas]

Seeker redux: Don't try to direct what happens(desires), don't think you know about the things you don't, and let your actions and life play out on their own (It goes smoother when your not worrying about how it goes)

And for whatever wisdom (i.e. reduced suffering/attachment) that this view provides, is the flip-side of the historical, contextual coin: "Do nothing" was also a sort of institutionalized directive from the haves to the have-nots. One must reconcile oneself to whatever are their concrete circumstances with just a full belly and some child-like ignorance - a good way for the ruling class in China to keeps its people from any action against their own conditions. Buddhism takes up the same strain in assuring a self that they are really the authors of their own suffering and even that there really isn't a self there to experience the suffering in the first place. Even if this is a [jesuitically] effective address to personal suffering, it is not without its sinister side from a ruling elite to a suffering populace that it accept its conditions of ineffectuality, and 'do nothing' to force a change. You'll just end up suffering more, so the story goes. It's another one of those long-ass attempts to duck responsibility for the creation of the human-world in support of a status-quo.

Some of us just can't lie to ourselves that way anymore . . . .

Very good, Pye. You win a cookie.

[Pye]

Tomas writes: Very good, Pye. You win a cookie..

thankyou. May it be a gingersnap, please?

Dennis writes: I see your presence to the nuance of conversation Diebert where every syllable counts.

I've always liked that about Diebert, too. Any linguistic consciousness that seeks to align itself with some light also must suspect some of its own dark corners.

[Alex T. Jacob]

Hello Diebert. For me to engage with you now actually requires a new Alex: Alex Number Four. And so I wish to introduce myself to one and to all because this is a new manifestation. The 'essence' and feel of Alex Number Four is pure fluidity, a kind of tingly-electrical thrill that makes sparks snap in the atmosphere. In some kind of triune testube where all the muck and garbage and barfed-up philosophical lunches of fruitless, vain and wicked little games, blended with something at least a little sattvic and kind-hearted, and it was out of that sad mass of 'personhood' that emerged Alex Number Four. It's been a long, hard travail, people, but the New Alex has been born. Let halavah be served! Still, he is only just solidifying into your world so have patience! There will be throwbacks, like in weird mutant corn, to Alexes of yore.

And wouldn't you know it! an old Alex (Alex Number Two it would seem, who still lurks about like a ghost, clawing at the shadows) is asking himself this question:

• When Dennis puts his slithery tongue up your butt crack and starts his tender licking, does it make you feel uncomfortable? And what is the correct etiquette in that situation? What about you, Pye? Do you enjoy that tongue on some level? Or, does it really creep you out but being polite and all you keep quiet and don't say anything?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

First comment is just going to point out something important every person except for all four Alex's already know, Alex you are the most egotistical person in existence, and are hence the furthest away from understanding:

"enlightenment"

'And one should understand, according to reality, and true wisdom:
"This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Ego."'


I mean, are we all in agreement that he not only finds enlightenment "invalid and irrational" but that he has no clue what enlightenment is?

How could it? It is a way of seeing that leads directly to non-activity. As a group of choices it leads directly to one conclusion: futility. An examination in their historical context of the cultural creations that have come out of the Indian Subcontinent shows pretty obviously where the doctrines of defined futility lead. In short it is a way and means whereby the individual and the person is rendered irrelevant and in one way or another that individual can only stare onto a giant Idea---a projection---that renders him useless, ineffective and utterly pessimistic.

You have made the exact same irrelevant point (as it bears no relation to the truth of ultimate reality and is based on a deep lack of understanding) that Laird has made, the point is:

"Not-doing is futile, I wouldn't get anything done"

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Seeker redux: Don't try to direct what happens(desires), don't think you know about the things you don't, and let your actions and life play out on their own (It goes smoother when your not worrying about how it goes)

And for whatever wisdom (i.e. reduced suffering/attachment) that this view provides, is the flip-side of the historical, contextual coin: "Do nothing" was also a sort of institutionalized directive from the haves to the have-nots. One must reconcile oneself to whatever are their concrete circumstances with just a full belly and some child-like ignorance - a good way for the ruling class in China to keeps its people from any action against their own conditions. Buddhism takes up the same strain in assuring a self that they are really the authors of their own suffering and even that there really isn't a self there to experience the suffering in the first place. Even if this is a [jesuitically] effective address to personal suffering, it is not without its sinister side from a ruling elite to a suffering populace that it accept its conditions of ineffectuality, and 'do nothing' to force a change. You'll just end up suffering more, so the story goes. It's another one of those long-ass attempts to duck responsibility for the creation of the human-world in support of a status-quo.

Some of us just can't lie to ourselves that way anymore . . . .

Pye, as you already know, in both your posts, you have made the exact same irrelevant point that Alex and Laird have made, it goes something like this:

"Not-doing is futile, nothing would get done" also "You aren't not-doing, look, your doing things"

or maybe

"Not-knowing is bullshit, you know things"

Another great and insightful point you guys have repeatedly made:

"I don't find this "dream" truth of ultimate reality productive or useful, and this is somehow relevant to whether it is a truth or not"

[SeekerOfWisdom]

You spent a great deal of time enabling this little fuck...now admire your co-creation.

Out of all the people, no one is as much of a "little fuck" as you, you deserve a good smack for being so ignorant and talking about some one clearly much wiser than you with such disrespect and idiocy.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

You claim that this "retreat" somehow closes off connection and destroys life and its possibilities. You think one is really poor in everything when following the paths you have discerned with some forum members at least and the admins I suppose. But have you any proof or reason to believe there is "acid" at work? Aren't you the one throwing the most acid when all the accounting would be done? What is it you have to offer?

The reason he sees it as acid is because he has never taken a drink.
And he has absolutely nothing to offer, hence the attitude.

Have to quote again because of its super relevant nature to "acid" :

"The path into light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back"

[Pye]

Seeker interprets Pye as saying: "Not-doing is futile, nothing would get done" also "You aren't not-doing, look, your doing things"

or maybe

"Not-knowing is bullshit, you know things"

Seeker, you asserted that nothing (not-doing) is actually something and I agreed with you:

Seeker: not-knowing doesn't mean knows nothing.

non-action/ "not-doing" doesn't mean does nothing.

I look forward to the day when the single note you strike again and again does not prevent you from hearing other harmonies.