Sheep and goats

I have a hard time reconciling my own beliefs with a lot of eastern philosophy, mostly because I do believe in a higher power--a God, a consciousness, whatever you'd like to call it. I walk a weird road between catholicism, buddhism, mysticism....usually, I just put myself down as "spiritual" to avoid confusion, lengthy debates, and offending people. But that's all part of what this whole class is about, right? So I'm just going to rant this one out.

My initial reaction to this Blackmore woman was that she was just another loon. In the first couple paragraphs, all I gleaned was "I did a lot of drugs back in the day, called it "research," and now I'm a Buddhist so it's all good." Yes, I did come to see there was more to her, and I have a grudging respect for her work--because really, she did have some good points. But the respect is still grudging because when it comes down to it, she still seems a bit closed-minded to me.

I don't like thinking in absolutes. Being a spiritual person, and being a generally nonconfrontational person, I'm always willing to allow for the realm of possibility. Not to sound preachy, but I do believe that anything is possible because God is all-powerful. However, I also believe that most of the unexplained phenomina, like the various elements of psi discussed in this article, can be chalked up to humans being their dumb, impressionable, manipulative selves. The Virgin Mary is on my toast! My dream told me that my neighbor was the antichrist and that I should kill him! Smoke this, man, I swear, you'll see God. WOO! You can probably blame a lot of my skepticism on my background; I've basically lived on a hippie commune. I've been around enough drug-induced stupors, and seen enough ruined lives on the other end to tell me that the only "good trip" is probably one that hasn't come to full fruition and screwed people over yet. I get tired of watching the cycle of "I'll try it once; this is fun; oh no I should quit; shit my life is ruined." Before you call me a hypocrite, let me say that NO, I don't think this pattern is inevitable with substance use. There are always outliers. But this pattern tends to be predominant.

Anyway, absolutes. They're not good. I don't think people should ever rule out possibility. I don't believe in reincarnation, but I believe in the Dalai Lama and the holy mystery that he embodies. I think that 90% of the mystical, psi-phenominon reported are bullshit made up by crazy people, but there will always be a small percentage that can't be explained--and that's where my belief in God comes in. But hey, that's me. Feel free to believe whatever you want.

Putting the "Kick" back in Psychic.

I know I'm a goat for two reasons.

1. Skeptical person.
2. I'm a capricorn.

I Don't Want to Be Enlightened. Not Yet, Anyway.

I think my main struggle with Eastern philosophy is the recurring sense that I really don't wish to seek enlightenment. Or at least, not in the all-encompassing sense that I feel many of the leaders in thought and philosophical rhetoric have emphasized in what I have read. I do believe in a state that I would equate with enlightenment...I spend a little time in that state now and again. But it is nothing that I strive for. It generally steals upon me, blooms from some little quirk of thought or observation, and I'm happy to inhabit it for awhile. What that state feels like to me is the absence of peripheries. My eyes feel softer, unfocused, but what I see is very clear. Colors are more vivid, sounds are quieter. It feels like living right beneath the surface of my skin. Smiling feels brighter, like light escaping through the cracks. Speech flows very smoothly, and the words settle just right. It is more immediate living, beyond the layers of heavy thought.

Maybe that is not enlightenment. I certainly didn't do anything to achieve it. I didn't meditate or ingest a drug or climb to a mountain temple beforehand. It is a very good feeling, whatever the root. Very settled. Very sure.

But

Sometimes I don't want to be sure. Sometimes I want to scurry along haphazardly through my day, and be fully present in some other facet of emotion, even if it is negative. I don't enjoy anger, or sadness. But I appreciate the breadth of those emotions nonetheless. If I am angry, at least I am not complacent. If I am sad, at least I get to have that hollowed-out peace after I cry. I truly enjoy what I deem my state of "sometimes-enlightenment." Someday I might even want to live in it full-time. But for now I am pretty comfortable with being young and foolish, and dwelling in each state that happens upon me. That may not be an enlightened way of thinking, but it fits.

Lucid Dreaming and Children Living in the Now

Lucid Dreaming

   

Living in the "Now" and Children

     


[edit!!] I'm not sure why my post turned into boxes and deleted all the words... I'll re-write it this evening...

grrrrr

I had a blog all typed out... and then I went to submit it and it didn't go through.. and it didn't save either!
So this one will be short because I don't feel like typing it all over again.
Basically I just talked about how I find it interesting that people's minds can be programed to experience a "mystical experience" or some sort of lucid sleep.
I also talked about the "God Machine" mentioned in the reading. Here's a video that I found that sort of explains what happens >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YPOTaUyvA0

Acatalepsia and Ataraxia

Acatalepsia and Ataraxia

Pyrrho

(thoughts from Chapter 6: The Sheep Who Became A Goat, Rational Mysticism)

This chapter uses "randomness" as a proof. It also uses other proofs, just as unprovable as "randomness" but I'll just concentrate on "randomness". It is good to be skeptical, but that skepticism must be applied to all things, and not only to one in favor of another. One must also be skeptical of science.

After all, as I have mentioned before, pi is an abomination of the mind that does not exist. But there are many more things in science that do not exist. In fact, the entire science of geometry does not exist. We have found that there are no such things in nature as a line or a plane. Everything is fractal, and therefore neither a line nor a plane -- but something inbetween. Without lines and planes there are no geometric shapes, only fractal shapes. No Geometry . . . how random is that!?

Don't believe me, read for yourself: Fractal Dimension

Enough of that. Let's talk about randomness.

"When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable." -- John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

Or, as I say:

"1% is 100% when it happens."

Randomness. What is it? Is it compartmentable? Can it be segregated? Is it distinct, one random bit from another random bit? How infinitesimal is randomness? How huge is randomness? How ordinary is randomness? How extra-ordinary is randomness? Is there no connection anywhere, at any level, between one random bit and another random bit? Is every new second of time a bit of randomness never before seen in exactly that manifestation? How does one calculate randomness? If a thing has a 50% chance of happening -- how is that calculated? Forget coins, what about real life?

A baseball batter with a career of 20 years comes to the plate. Over those 20 years he has gotten a hit 30% of the time (he has a career batting average of .300). Does he have a 30% chance to get a hit? Does he have a 50% chance to get a hit? Does he have some other chance to get a hit? Or is it random -- without any reference at all to anything that has come before or will come after? No connections? None? A totally random chance to get a hit every at bat? Even the tiniest, teeniest bit of a connection utterly dissipates randomness.

Any player of baseball will tell you that each at bat in the player's career is connected in the mind of the batter to the moment at hand, and has an influence over the outcome of the present moment. Further still, each and every previous moment of the pitcher's career is connected in the pitcher's mind to the present moment. And the runner at first base, as well as the first baseman and all the fielders, and the umpires, and the coaches, and the trainers and general managers . . . and on and on. There is a complex web of intricate and ethereal connections that is so interwoven the pattern is hard to see -- and we call that randomness. The present moment is not, nor is it ever, distinct and wholly separate from every other moment. There is no such thing as a random moment, nor is there anything that exists that is random.

Go ahead, name me a random creature. A creature that exists randomly, a creature without any predecessors. Too difficult? OK, how about a random word. Tell me a random word, any word, a word not connected to any other words through thought or utterance or ink, a word that is a thought in and of itself and has random definitions each time it randomly appears in random conversations with random people on a random world in a random universe.

Randominity demands randomness at every level or it is not random. Can there be such a thing as a random anything? Or is randomness just another pipe dream like circles, triangles and squares?

Absurd? Yes. OK, how about flipping a coin? Can a coin flip be random? Or is it influenced by the muscles of the hand that flips it and the molecules of air that surround it? Make a machine to flip the coin, and the machine will wear out a little with every flip thus creating a building influence from the first flip to the last flip -- none being random.

Computers? Random number generating programs? Don't wear out, simply electrons . . . Funny thing, that. Computers cannot generate random numbers. There is always a pattern. A repeatable pattern. Programs that generate random numbers all fudge it, trying for enough of a complicated pattern that it appears random -- but it never is. Computers, those things that think in either-or, on or off, zero or one . . . those things that are utterly without deception, they say randomness is simply impossible.

If a moment cannot be random, what then can we say about randomness? How can randomness exist when there is no environment for it to survive within?

I found the skepticism of this chapter misplaced, vindictive, childish, and not at all random. Skeptics assert nothing, announcing only opinion. The protagonists in this chapter are not skeptics, they are zealots of cause.

Viruses are a pain

In The Meme Machine, she called religions "memeplexes", intellectual viruses that have survived not because they are true but because they excel at replication and infection. To put it another way, religions are just extremely successful chain letters.

I love this statement. Religion as a virus I think is a perfect analogy. Religion has its ups and downs, I being an agnostic tend to see the down sides to most religions. I could always find faults in religions theories and teachings, I usually got scolded for pointing them out too (hence why I'm an agnostic, I can't find a religion that I can agree with enough to live by). So I personally have taken a little bit of every religion that I have come across and sort of made my own belief system. For some people this isn't an option. Religion has been so ingrained in their minds that it is impossible for them to see outside or the bigger picture. A virus affects people on different levels, affects them more than others. So does Religion. Some people are blinded by religion but if it makes them happy then let me be blind. Natural selection will take over eventually and kick our asses, its been long over-do. Religion does have its up, just like a virus. Once you have gotten rid of a specific virus, you build up an immunity to some parts and don't have much trouble from it again. You become stronger because of it, Religion is the same in some aspects. It can blind some people but it can also make them stronger in the right doses.

SheepGoat

To start, I enjoyed the first sentence of "The Sheep Who Became A Goat". It was a fun way to begin a chapter.
In relation to what Blackmore and the author discussed on page 111, in my Intro to Challenge Course class there are roughly 14 students. Out of the 14 of us I share the same month and day birth date with two others. Not that I'm saying that's more than coincidence, but it beats the norm. Maybe I'm a sheep.

What drew my attention and pulled a reaction out of me was the talk of "no self" on page 114. Am I to understand that when the author writes: "This view echoes the suggestion of some cognitive scientists that there is no unified self at the core of each individual;...he's saying that no self means no soul? On second thought I'm beginning to understand that the idea of no self is much larger than I've been imagining. According to this concept there is not only no body and mind but also no soul...nothing at all but everything combined. This is confusing and leaves me with questions like "Then where do concepts like "the soul" and "morality" go to?"

Then farther down the page Blackmore theorizes that life is just a bunch of ideas and beliefs passed from people to people. Clearly ideas and beliefs are what life seems to revolve around for the most part, but even if you strip all cognitive abilities away from humans you still find instincts..no?

About being mindful in the moment, is there a difference from being mindful and obeying impulses? When Blackmore says that she yelled at her kids because they yelled at her all I can imagine is a lack of inhibition and a completely natural reaction to one's environment. Does that make sense? If this obeying of impulses is "true and right" then murdering a neighbor would be completely "justifiable" wouldn't it? (To be completely extreme.) Blackmore walks down that path as well on page 119 when she says that rather than becoming selfish she is more at peace and feeling selfless through the "no self" teaching. "On the surface, she said, this doctrine might seem to be 'a recipe for immorality and disaster,' but the outcome is just the opposite. When you stop living for your self, 'guilt, shame, embarrassment, self-doubt, and fear of failure fade away' and you become, contrary to expectation, a better neighbor.'" But what if-in accepting that you are not unique because you do not exist-you then in turn decided to embrace the illusion full force and completely oppositely chose to live entirely for the illusion of reality that is you? Why not?
I need to think about this a little more, but it doesn't sit right with me. Maybe I'm a goat.

Also, if you read the little asterisk section at the bottom of page 115 you may have noticed that the Dali Lama didn't give the man a very helpful answer (in my eyes) to his question. I get the feeling that people tend to take whatever comes out of the Dali Lama's mouth to be wonderful because he's "enlightened", when really it seems like bull to me. If by being enlightened the D.L. knows that there is and isn't an afterlife at the same time then he could have just said that. Maybe it's just annoying to me. Maybe I'm a Sheepgoat.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Since I was ill, I didn't receive this reading, so it took me a little while to get my hands on it. As I read it, though, my head kept getting filled with songs that related somehow to the reading. (I.E. Pocahontas: "We are all connected to each other in a circle, in a hoop that never ends.")

The song that stuck with me throughout the whole reading, though, was Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, a folk song written by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson.



The song is a cycle that starts with flowers and ends with flowers. The flowers are picked by young girls. The young girls marry young men. The young men turn into soldiers. The soldiers go to graveyards, and the graveyards turn into flowers once again. It's a circle that seems to have no birth or death because everything else is formed from what already existed. It really reminded me of the reading.

Also, a few things that stuck out to me:

1) You are a continuation of yourself even if you aren't the same person you were yesterday.

2) Time is what changes things, and you can see the changes even before time changes them. Everything is there just waiting for their time.

3) You are what you are looking for.

I like the symbolism

What struck me most about this reading was the clear and helpfull symbolism used. I thought that the ideas of the match and the quater were usefull to my understanding of the reading. I saw a relationship between the match and the Zen circle becasue the match has the ptoential for fire and that fire can comsume the whole match. I not sure if I am streching it here but that is what I came to mind as I read. Also the quarter idea seemed alot to me like a ying yang, the two sides oppposing each other but both essential for the quarter to be a quarter.

Am I Yesterday's Me?

What kind of question is this? The boy was you and you would not be yourself with out that boy. No matter how much you change and become unlike that boy you can still relate to him and remember what it was like to be him. A person can only grow; if they forget who they were how can they grow? they are you and you are they, Please comment and share you view on this.

An equal and opposite reaction

“To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction”. There is a duality in all things, which if you look at a yin-yang you can kind of picture. For every dark there is a light, wrong there is a right, Beauty and the Beast. Duality, when I think about it, I can see in most things. This simple duality reminds me of Li. There is a natural order to things, and the duality of things could be seen as another piece of this order. In relating duality to myself and thinking about where I have found these patterns of two separate and opposite halves balancing each other, I began to think of lichens. A simple pairing of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga, that strangely harmonize and dwell together. These separate entities combine to make the whole that is the greenish brown growth we see on trees when we’re in the woods. The reading discussed the two sides to a coin; I bring up the mutualistic relationship of lichens, to each their own I suppose. I guess what I’m really trying to get at is that I find this idea and examination of duality to be a very important thing. I don’t feel that many people take the time to examine both sides of things. These principles stress to me a need for this connection of the whole, to continue on the path of enlightenment towards Nirvana. Because by reaching an acceptance of the whole is to be a step closer to a larger connection, and brings yourself into a harmony of sorts with the universe.

The Manifestation of God

This reading struck me as intruiging, then compelling, then contradictory, and ultimately (as usual) difficult to digest.

I felt the wave metaphor was an effective way of conveying the idea that by understanding our existence as one of many waves made of water we can come to terms with the interrelatedness of our self with all of the elements in our environment and shed individual fears about our isolated existence.

When the author states that "to speak about and distribute ideas is not the study or practice of buddhism", I find contradiction in the fact that this is precisely what the author is doing, but that seems only natural since speaking is essential for others to learn about these viewpoints.

I think there is a great deal of validity to the idea that much of the fear and anxiety that people face every day is the result of a yearning to be closer to a spiritual dimension that all humans desire. Faced with percieved realities of death, isolation, meaning, and loss, people experience anxiety and seek answers, it is natural, and by achieving a keen awareness of their own place and role in this world, they can substantially reduce these anxieties. However, I beleive that the human condition is unique from other beings on this planet, and that our capability for thoughts and feelings and choice make us both unable to escape the real limits of our existence (something that buddhist enlightenment seeks to achieve) and subsequently the fears and anxieties that accompany that reality.

For example, even though my dead wife has transitioned into a new form, I will still miss the old form. Which is not to say that there isn't something to be gained by coming to terms with that grief, but it will not erase the grief. In the same way, regardless of where my human form ends up in the cycle, I have no way of being sure that I will ever regain the consciousness and feeling that I experience today, and that creates an anxiousness that I find hard to extinguish using the thinking in this reading.

I don't want to sound negative, I think that an awareness of our extremely interconnected role in our world is crucial to a healthy understanding of the effect we have on people and things around us, but I don't beleive it is possible for a conscious mind to escape the anxieties that accompany our limited existence.

Confusion

I don't understand.... Every time I think that I'm starting to understand pieces of these Buddhist or Taoist ideas I am struck with the realization that if I truly am simply pointing my finger at the moon then I am learning almost nothing. If we cannot understand these Eastern philosophies by speaking about them, criticizing them, researching and confirming them, then there's only one other option, right? It comes down to faith. Either you are interested enough in it or you or believe that what the Buddha or other important figures in these philosophies have to say is true, which inspires you to live it. This constantly paradoxical or circular reasoning is pointing me in the direction of faith.

Example: Yin and Yang. Opposite, equal. But ideas such as existence and non-existence are not opposite and equal, because there is something beyond them, a lack of either but also a combination of the two? That's what I'm reading from the handout on the reading "No Death, No Fear". So what does this tell me other than my inability to understand it until I let go and accept it? Is it telling me that yin and yang are also part of something bigger than the two and that there is no such thing as good and evil? If this is all true then the world as we see it is fake. Why is it this way? Why do we not simply live the truth..why do we not already understand nirvana or the Tao? What is this blind world we are a part of? MOST importantly, how or why did we get to be this way? ....If any of this is true then there must have been someone or something to mold life and us in this way. No?
And if our non-existence is true, then why do we still exist physically? Why don't people just go "poof!", "disappear", and become part of the ultimate dimension when they achieve enlightenment?

The waves. I would agree with this analogy if it were speaking of accepting the fact that we will die some day. But it goes further than that to say that we are simply going to become part of the greater picture, of all living and non living things. It says that we are nirvana. What I used to think of when I heard "Nirvana" was an idea similar to "heaven"; ultimate peace and joy and a lack of any fear, pain, and suffering. But Thich Nhat Hanh says that "...we do not have to look for our ultimate dimension or nirvana, because we are nirvana..." If we are nirvana, then we either don't realize it, or nirvana isn't anything close to heaven. And if we simply don't realize it, then why don't we? Are we not supposed to? Are we supposed to undergo this critical thinking and acceptance in faith? Why? Did someone make it that way?

There are alot of concepts in this handout.

Where were you before you were born and Am I yesturday's Me?

These pictures I found help demonstrate what I really found interesting in this reading. The whole idea of "Where were you before you were born?" also kind of answers the questions of where do I go when I die? I say this because in that chapter it uses a cloud as an example and explains how it was never made out of nothing but instead lots of things like the rain, wind and sun, that they transform to make something new. That something new will then continue to transform into other things such as the rain, grass, cow, milk and ice cream. Even though the cloud is no longer technically a cloud is a part of everything else and is living in everything else. Therefore it never technically dies and is never technically ever born just transformed. This can also be taken into consideration with atoms the basis of all things. In my bio class we were told to read two stories about atom x and atom y. In each of these stories the atom started off in a inanimate object (according to westeners) and went through multiple cycles both liviving animate and inanimate. For instance x was in a rouck that broke apart due to the erosion of rain and became soil that fed the grass. When the animals ate the grass they consumed x that was in it and when the hunter ate the animal he consumed x. When the hunter died x returned to the soil and fed a beaver whoes feces went into the water. X then traveled down stream into the ocean. X fed fich until he evaporated in the sun and became a cloud and fell down in the rain. The cycle can continue on and on like it did in the story of Y and how it was caught in the cycle of fertilizing a farmers plants until something came along and it wound up in a stream that was polluted and sat in muck until something else came along. The same goes for us and everyother thing out there whether we say its alive or dead. It's always alive in something. The atoms in everything will break down and transform into something else like the cloud did and in that case then we can never technically die or be born we are just tranforming.

At the same time this answered the question to "Am I yesturday's me?". This is because yes when you look into that picture of you ten years ago you are a different person but that person ten years ago is still a part of you. So in a sense you are that person you where ten years ago because that person is still a part of you. It helped make you who you are today. So even when you are 100 years old you can be a 1 year old, a 20 year old etc at the same time. It is because of this that we do not have to fear death, life, ageing etc. No matter what we are transforming into something new everyday, everysecond, every time time is moving past us. As long as we live in the now we continue transform, but everything that comes into and leaves the now becomes a part of us. From this as we look at everything we see it for what it is. It is the whole and the ten thousand things, it is our ancestors, loved ones, plants, rocks, wind, water, our nature. It exists in us and all around us. For we are apart of it just as much as it is apart of us.

No Death, No Fear

(Ancient Temples in Patan, Kathmandu.)

I found a lot of things I could talk about in this reading, but the first thing that struck me is in the first section--the thing about ideas and notions. Thich Nhat Hanh says we must be free of ideas and notions to achieve enlightment, and I can't wrap my head around this. How do you be without ideas?

In western culture, ideas are the foundations of....well, everything. Ideas lead to innovations. Ideas are what gives a person individuality. Ideas engender progress. As Americans, our whole cultural history is built on ideas; the idea of freedom, the idealistic pioneer spirit, inventiveness. How can a culture exist, develop, and grow without ideas?

No, seriously, I'm asking you.

My best guess--and feel free to argue this with me, because like I said, I don't inderstand--is that the eastern philosophy term 'idea' might be very much akin to the term 'preconcieved notion.' I think maybe the philosophy "Don't have ideas" is more thoroughly stated "Don't have preconcieved notions and ideas which you are unable to let go of, and which prevent you from acknowledging and understanding different ideas." In other words, I wonder if they mean to say that we should have openmindedness. This I can embrace and understand. It would also be a nod back to the concept of impermenance--being willing to accept that your point of view can change.

What do you think?

"Death is nothing to us."

Death. I've gone 'round and 'round with death, arguing (post-mortem) with the great existentialists as well as many other dead philosophers, prophets and saints of all stripes. The only definition of Death I am satisfied with is: Life. Death is defined by Life. Death by itself is nothing.

I think Thich Nhat Hanh is saying the same thing, just in different words. When he talks about "our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death" (pg.24), I think he is just being a tad confusing. There is a lot easier way to say that, a non-ambiguous way, a way that has already been said: death is nothing to us, life is everything to us. The nature of no-birth and no-death is life. Life is the experience between the points of birth and death. The times before birth and after death do not hold any experiences for this manifestation of life we call our Self.

Death is nothing to us.

That sentence is so stark, so unequivocal, so definite that we revolt against accepting it. But if one quiets the mind, gets rid of all those mindful and mindless notions just as Thich Nhat Hanh says, and takes stock of what experiences we know death bestows upon a person . . . well then, there is absolutely nothing.

It is silly to fear nothing. -- and the original meaning of silly meant "blessed", so that sentence is like a paradox in itself, meaning opposite things at the same time: it is silly to fear nothing (be afraid) but it is a blessed state to fear nothing (fear no thing). But that's just a silly, nonsensical, tangent anyway. The important point is: losing the fear of death frees us from fearing life.

"Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live." -- Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

Similarly, we should regard the time before we were born as nothing to us, as well. Life, the experience of life is all there is to us. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "You are what you are looking for."

And in that he said it beautifully. That is all there is, there does not need to be more: "You are what you are looking for."

Flowers and Fire

There were several aspects to this reading that I connected to. First of all was the part where it says that nothing really dies, it just becomes something else. Your body disintegrates and fertilizes the soil, which helps produce grass and flowers. When I die, I could become grass and lilies, a lotus or a rose. It's a nice thought. But what happens to your soul? Does my soul also become the lily, lotus grass or rose? Do we entirely become something, a part of the universe that is in a way connected to everything else? When we mourn someones death should we really be mourning them then? I do, I mourn someone because I can never meet them again in that form. Is this telling us that we have no reason to mourn because they are not really gone, that they have just been made into something different? Is it the form that they were that we are really mourning then?

The other part I liked was Burning Our Notions. "No self is the match; it helps to give rise to the fire of the insight of no self. It is the awakened understanding of no self that will burn up the match of no self." We have to see beyond our ideas to understand the real thing. The analogy I thought was perfect and helped me to understand it better.

Don't forget to say hello to the cloud...

...yea that's right. The cloud. The cloud is in that bottle of water you drank today, it is also in the icecream that I ate yesterday.. the cloud is even in that glass of tea you had a few days ago.


"One cause can never be enough in order to bring about an effect"
The reason why I had icecream yesterday wasn't just because I wanted to have it. The reasons behind why I actually got it are infinite. For example, first my parents had to create me; I needed to develop a liking of icecream; I needed a car to drive to get the icecream; a store needed to exist in order for me to get the icecream; a cow needed to be involved for me to get the icecream. I can go on and on...


To reach Nirvana we need to understand and realize that what we are looking for has been within us this whole time.
When I read this part of the chapter I immediately thought of the Wizard of Oz. When the whole gang is standing there waiting to ask the wizard to grant them their wishes, the little green man behind the curtain is revealed. They then realize that there is no wizard that can help them. What they needed had been inside of them all along.
Once we recognize this, we will be free.


As the reading states, "We are Nirvana".

Are we here or not? Both yes and no.

I got several ideas out of this reading.

The omnipresent idea of non being and being were mentioned, as well as the important point about taking a class on Buddhism on page 21. It states that "To speak about or distribute ideas is not the study or practice of Buddhism." It's similar to the Tao Te Ching saying that "The more we know, the less we understand."

It is only through experience and understanding of those experiences, one make a marked understand of not only their lives, but also within a certain extent, the universe as well.

Also, it mentioned that without certain actions, aspects of our existence/non-existence would fail to manifest.

What I got out of it: There is a constant and steady flow and the world is made up of actions, reasons, and varied consciousnesses within that flow. Once we realize this, all will fall into place.

Dogs & Reincarnation, Mongolian Style

I was doing some research on my Mongol philosophy presentation, and I ran into this bit about dogs. Since we mentioned dogs and reincarnation briefly a couple classes ago, I thought this might be of interest for general background info on culture and tradition.

"Dogs are mentioned very often in famous historical documents and literary epics as "Dogs are the most loyal friends. They will never change poor master for a rich herder, grown by poor nomad it will never follow even a khaan." There was even a poem composed by Sandag, a famous poet of 19th century "Praise to Dog"

Ch. Jugder, well known expert on Medieval Mongolian philosophy, notes that "Mongols deeply respected and revered their dogs and the dogs never betrayed their masters."

Such respect for dogs even found reflection in the legislation. The Codes of Law from 1640 and 1709 (enforced and observed until 1921) both contain provisions prohibiting to kill or beat dogs.

Dogs, similar to horses, were buried on the hills so that people do not walk on their remains. Dog's tail was cut off and placed under the head. A piece of fat was put into their mouth and words of wishes to be born as a human being in the next life were said before burial."

'Mongolian Dog' (breed not 'registered') & child

(from Mongolia Today http://www.mongoliatoday.com/issue/8/dog_intro.html )

Words, windchimes, outer space

Despite the grounding of self-awareness, the people that spin past your periphery will inform how you interpret so much of your experience in the human context. We are an intuitive species, like every other, but that is easy to forget as we move through the evolution of communication. Words have more power than is generally acknowledged these days. How they are used can warp or elevate a message, and how we experience those words can be the foundation of expectation, as well. The word "spirituality" is a prime example. I do not like to inhabit many of the biases that surround words, but even I am subject to a knee-jerk reaction to that one. Spirituality for me triggers connotations of cultural blurring with a presumptive slant. Dreamcatchers and mantras and totems via New Age gift shops steeped in incense. Ethereal music (plucked sitars, echoing flutes, the occasional punctuation of a shimmery windchime). Crowds of retirees in loose Eastern garb doing Tai chi on the well-groomed lawn of some public park.

I've always felt a vague uneasiness toward those implications, and have kept my distance from discussion of "spirituality" because of that discomfort. It is a shame to me that I am subject to that interpretation of a perfectly functional word. "Spirituality" did nothing to deserve my wariness. I'm really not sure why I have a problem with people seeking some measure of peace through practices that have endured through the centuries. Well, I suppose I have some idea- the modern portrayal of these old ways smacks of commercialization, and the only way I keep the dignity of those practices in mind is to engage in them very quietly. Still, I need to make my peace with the people who dive into these ways with exuberance. That sort of energy is nigh impossible to sustain, and I'd like to be glad for them while they inhabit it. I need to remember the quiet that I prefer to dwell in, and let those people wheel above me on their dizzy spirals. I want to be treading the same middle ground when they plunge back down to earth and reassess.

So. The reading. (Bet you thought I'd forgotten. Well, yes, I did). This reading appealed to me in a very settled sense. The material was far-reaching and provocative, but the author's voice struck a very friendly chord in me. His simultaneous respect and skepticism for Huston Smith was a welcome balance, and I appreciated the deliberate honesty with which he approached the material at hand. I was also very drawn to Smith's celebratory stance on religion. I do not subscribe to a particular faith, as I've said here before, but I very much enjoyed the warmth of Smith's embracing perspective. He did not isolate or alienate, though religion has been a consistent excuse to do just that throughout history. I also appreciated his emotional response to science, and complete willingness to examine that emotion. It is very easy to hang onto your reactions and never look at them from another facet of perspective. Lately I've been thinking about the concept of wisdom and its presence in all stages of life (far beyond the wise old elder caricature). Smith's wisdom is a very comfortable sort, for me. Lofty wisdom is another thing I associate with commercialized spirituality (guided retreats to Eastern temples, etc) but I don't think it will ever have the resonance of a bright and humble awareness.

I don't know if I've said this before, but a friend used to send my philosophical ramblings, and eventually I told him that to think about how we are living is intoxicating and can lift us to trembling transcendence...but if you go out on a night when there are few clouds and look up, the stars will shake you down to stillness in their indifferent endurance. When you are dizzy with the cognitive high of pure thought, go out and look up. That is all I feel I need right now. Beyond the boundaries of words and what we do with them, we are still existing. Look at that. Just look at it. Eventually you will go back inside and slip back into a more nearsighted and comfortable state of being, and that is good, too.

Ones Journey & Self Worth

I thought this read was enticing and I think that part of what the writing is meant to do. Hogan's writing was to explain an experience of a path one took to gain enlightenment. The section of this chapter where he explains Smith's experiences and means he took to gain enlightenment.
Smith had experienced what he calls his most important mystical experiences. I agree with him that entheogens do not produce a spiritual path, but they can give one a glimpse and the feel of spirituality for a short-term period.
"spirituality should be the transformations of one's whole life."
I believe that when one takes on the belief that entheogens can create a realm that one can live and produce a spiritual life as a whole is false. this is where people fall into the trap at times when they begin to believe that the state of mind one reaches when on a etheogen could be permanent. It could be a spiritual awaking but fallowing the path of trying to stay in a permanent state from the entheogen is dangerous to the mind body and soul. Smiths says that he found his experience and that he needs not enter that realm again. His answers were answered on a different level and recognized that he need not abuse the drug but be content with what he gained from the experiences.
I like how he sees enlightenment as an "ideal" or "a quality of life". It may just be true that true enlightenment is a realization of becoming one with who, what you are, one with the environment and everything around you. To carry ones self in a holistic manner free from the strains and boundaries of our mind and physical matters.

I also wanted to touch on what he wrote about science. As a child smith truly loved science, it gave people a longer life and discovered things most would not imagine. Its truly a great gift what our minds offer to us. Though i believe that science has taken us to a dark room, a slow destruction. science as he puts it is "an object" it has manifested into a way to deny what is natural to us and has created a mind set of competition, money, power, poverty, and erases the natural connection and flow that we as humans that are part of the earth are responsible for. We live higher that any other beings, we take for granted the earth, we forget that we live on a planet that is unstable. We live without consequence's because we believe that whatever problem arises science can fix it and we will be able to live on as a forever surviving race. We cannot let science answer all of our questions we must take it upon ones self to answer the questions within ourselves. Without this the journey is already made and in a sense ended for them, before that began. Science is out of balance, it has created a failing earth, and self destruction of our environment and ourselves. I don't want to be misconstrued science is a great benefit I think it just needs find its balance.
I guess this was a bit of an unorganized rant.....

Philosophy - A Perennial View ?

I felt that the most interesting portion of this reading was the fact that this term "perennial Philosophy" kept coming up. Perennial can mean lasting a lifetime, or having an extended life, it is amusing to me that the writer would describe a "perennial" Philosophy, which would mean that in his view there is a philosophy that has been lasting throughout a lifetime or several lifetimes. I would have to agree with the "idea" of a generic umbrella like philosophy that has been passed down from generation to generation, a "perennial" philosophy of course I feel could change and alter in its intricacies but maintain its general "focus". I wonder if our Philosophic pursuits are as flawed as the reading points out science can be by taking the analysis of things to the point where they just become objects....like our pursuit of something more is so broken down to its very bare bones essence that it is laid out like an object or goal. Do we ponder and wonder to know or is it to break things down to the point where they cease to be whole and instead become pieces shattered on the solidity of our philosophical pursuits? I don't know.

Therefore I ask not to dissemble the whole, but to make it clear, in making it clear, however am I breaking it down? The Perennial Philosophy of life. "Why am I here?, What Is My Purpose?, Is there a Point? and if so WHY?" The very beginning of the most basic philosophy is questioning everything, like a toddler who has just learned to ask why and persists with it until the parent finally says irritably or resignedly "I dont know" or "It Just Is" . I felt that the reading was correct in pointing out that Science is and isn't the perfect model for truth .

- http://www.curiokitty.com/images/mine/Good_evil_after.jpg

Another point that stuck with me was the acceptance of "evil" or Natural Evil, Basic Evil, Primitive Evil, Evil in essence or however you want to break it down. I have to agree with the idea and points made about evil , however , I feel that it is an inaccurate boxed view of evil. Conceptually, we as humans decide typically that evil is anything that is different from the accepted view of the majority. Evil could be a person who writes with their left hand, Evil could be someone of a different religion or race, Evil could be an animal that we do not understand or looks foreign and alien to us. Evil is a coping device for the "wrongs" in the world. Events occur and the results of said events are not by their very cause evil, it is a concept we put to it. I feel like we diverged from the original idea of complementary elements in the world, male and female for example, instead we very aggressively force separation and conflict between things and say they are opposites, or at war, such as good and evil, such as water and fire. The article points out that evil is quite possibly a part of good. Like shadows are a part of light, and potentially vice versa. I am currently writing a story called "What the Other Sees " and it is in essence my attempt to understand the precepts of good and evil as opposing forces of the same thing. The Main character is portrayed as being "good" however, he has the "curse" of having an alternate personality that is portrayed as Evil. In this storyline I try to assess the perceptual concept that evil is perceived and purely the way we think about it as matter of perception.

I think that there is no good and no evil, in terms of the way things are in the world , I feel like they are just different parts of a singular force, life perhaps? I don't know, but in the event of my own perception of good and evil I can not deny the fact that even with this idea I still hold reservations about things, and my own ideas of things that are good and things that are bad, but I try to understand them from the view point that the events or things that are different are not in and of themselves evil or bad, I, and or Society just don't like them. And to this I can only shrug my shoulders, and continue to move and think, Or can I? Who knows !?

-for fun!

A Trippy Good Time or Spiritual Enlightenment

This was a very interesting read, but I don't know why we are reading this in class. Did we read this in hopes that some of us would feel comfortable sharing our experiences from previous trips or is it in order to put the idea of tripping into our heads? Will reading this article make someone think twice about not doing these entheogenics? Next time one of the students of this class is out at a party and someone is offering shrums, will they be more likely to want to experiences situations like the ones in this read? I think they might be! According to this read the benefits of a trip could last months. Why would they not want to be enlightened or at least a better chance of becoming enlightened.

Interconnections

One of the first things I read was how "The discovery of quantum nonlocality- the ability of particles to exert subtle influences on each other instantaneously across vast distancess- is confirming the ancient mystical teaching that all things are profoundly interconnected." reminded me of Newtons laws of motion.

For instance, how objects remain in motion and in a straight line or standing still unless acted upon by another force, or for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So if that's the case then I would have to agree with that statement because if a particle just moves it will bump into another one and cause that one to move and so forth. Think about the air that is around you. When there is no breeze you don't feel the wind difference and yet particles are bouncing into you all the time, hint "subtle influences". The same goes for telling the difference in change of temperature in the air. You notice it right off the bat if there is a huge influence like the wind and you feel the cold nipping at your skin but you dont't notice it as much if there is no breeze or major movement of air particles across your skin until you get those random goose bumps up your arm or down your back. Those air particles you didn't notice before exerted a subtle influence on your skin to cause your body to react and give you goose bumps. The wind also affects the way water moves or how the plants obtain their CO2 and disperse their offspring. There are many different examples with the sun and water , earth and its cycle. I could go on forever but I thought the wind would be one of the easiest to try and explain. In addition though if you think about, if particles weren't able to exert a subtle influence then we would not have the tides in the oceans and bodies of water from the moon or gravity, or if the influences would be strong and not subtle then life would be a lot harsher than it already is because then you would be noticing all of the particles that were hitting your skin all the time like little pokes that you can't get rid of and I don't know about you but that would drive me crazy. I like to thank the fact that everything can be affected by a subtle influence. From these examples and just the shear fact that if you do something it will have an equal and opposite reaction means that everything, not just because we are made of the same or very similiar particles, is interconnected. No matter what you do you will exert a subtle influence on something that will exert another influence onto something and so forth and who knows maybe that force you exerted even though subtle will some how make its way back to you whether you notice it or not.

Its like Karma or other things if you do something good some good will follow if you do something bad it will come back and haunt you in the future. However, it also goes on a much deeper level than that. Just to smile at someone as you pass them on the street even if you don't know them can make their day. Studies have shown that depressed people even those that are suicidle can change their mind and wind up having a better day/life if someone just shows a small gesture, "subtle influence", of kindness towards them like a smile. You can send a vibe towards people without noticing it like a bad, good, sexual, or nervous vibe, it doesn't really matter and they will pick up on it. Going back to the fact of how the particles have subtle influences and how they can be better than a strong influence they can also be related to this. If you send out a vibe to someone too strong, like in body language, it could be over powering and actually push them away where as if its subtle they will be more willing to approach you and not so over whelmed. Now I am not saying that this will work in everycase or even all the time just that I have noticed this pattern throughout life. But the most important thing is to remeber how even the most subtle influences one exerts on something, may it be emotions, physical etc, it can be some of the most important influences one can make and it can dramitcally influence/change something for better or for worse.

Links for Newton's law and examples from NASA
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/Images/newton1g.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/newton1g.html&usg=__aWZpkpgoaGjgTd7A9ADqcBR--T8=&h=532&w=708&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&itbs=1&tbnid=w3kJlqGOLMJGoM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnewton%2527s%2Bfirst%2Blaw%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/Images/newton2.gif&imgrefurl=http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/newton2.html&usg=__AoxBKcATU3-UeQ22bGGjIEP2tRE=&h=466&w=620&sz=41&hl=en&start=28&itbs=1&tbnid=ZjaHc5AgOoVK4M:&tbnh=102&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnewton%2527s%2Bfirst%2Blaw%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/Images/newton3.gif&imgrefurl=http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/newton3.html&usg=__sNJFn11bEPrLjjsjOjq9CpZsSlI=&h=465&w=619&sz=42&hl=en&start=15&itbs=1&tbnid=MrhhNvqeDiemNM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnewton%2527s%2Bfirst%2Blaw%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

Science (drugs) and Enlightenment

I chose to talk about the "Good Friday Experiment" because I feel that it is a good example of science, mixed with spirituality. Even though this experiment was mainly about drugs and how they might induce a mystical experience on an individual I feel that it raises a good point because there have been some people who have claimed to come out of a drugged haze and feel enlightened from it. Who in this world is more care-free than the stoners? No, seriously, nothing seems to bother them! They don't worry about their life or where it's going and they stay relaxed without stressing about anything. However, to claim that they are enlightened from this experience does not seem quite right to me because, among other things, the cognitive powers of a stoner can not compare to those of even an average person. They take "Stop Thinking" to a whole new level. They lack the motivation to go anywhere or do anything, other than make simple conversations and sit around.
In the Good Friday Experiment, a man named Aldous Huxley began experimenting with drugs, such as mescaline, "not to escape reality but to see it in all its sublime glory." That was the original intention. At least one person objected to this saying that at best the drugs would give a person more of an appreciation for nature, but it would not create a genuine enlightened experience.
The experiment results were very positive for the psilocybin drug, which all of the participants reported high levels of mystical quality experiments. The group reported beneficial effects, such as a better attitude, and a sharper appreciation for life's wonderfulness. However, despite these "positive" effects, there were also "negative" effects that were more downplayed. These are effects that most people will experience when taking drugs. They are very serious and should be taken into consideration before attempting this method of spiritual heightenness. Some of the subjects believed that they were dying, going crazy. There is also the chance of extreme anxiety and delusions.

I personally would not want to participate in an experiment like this but it does seem enticing. Almost like a short cut to enlightened thinking. However, this method is not foolproof or as safe as they may claim it to be. Though many of those who participated reported a positive experience and aftermath, there were also plenty of negative experiences to balance these. It is interesting to think that these people were able to come up with answers to questions, pose new questions, such as the agae old question of good and evil. If there is a god then why did he create evil? The answer to this lies mainly with the prospect of opposites. We need opposites for balance and without evil there would be no good.

Personal Thoughts and Reflection on an Interesting Oxymoron

This reading sparked a lot of thoughts and questions for me. Almost too many to address here, but I will touch on what I can share and explain the best.

The title of this reading struck me funny because it was titled “Rational Mysticism”. This sounds like a giant oxymoron to me. How can you give rational parameters to something as un-rational as mysticism? The first part of the reading that dealt with physics and mysticism I did mostly enjoy though. How do two particles that are distanced from one another exert subtle influences on each other? It’s a mind bender, and I find the idea fascinating. With the Quantum nonlocality idea being related to interconnectivity, I partially agreed and partially disagreed. I do think things are interconnected, but not because two particles show me this. Among many other reasons, I mostly believe all things to be connected because we are all composed of the same building blocks, atoms. Each person and thing is made up of atoms, and when we die and our atoms will eventually disassociate and go on to assemble other people and things. The atoms that make me up now were once part of another person, a tree, and a variety of other organisms. I like to think that this is the way we are interconnected.

When reading this I thought of a very basic and fundamental question. This also happens to be the first question most children ask , “Why?” This stems from the basic human need to understand. Humans have always tried to understand what and who we are, and the basic purpose as to why we are here. As humans we wonder at our beginnings and need to know we each have a purpose of some sort. Religion tries to answer this question through principles and teachings. Science tries to answer aspects of these questions through research and experiments. Even now, no one truly knows and our questions have mostly gone unanswered. Humans have always tried to understand these basic questions, and have attempted to answer them through science and religion. Whether you accept the answers given or not is personal choice. I personally think that in order to answer these questions we must each embark on a deeply personal journey and that the answers to these questions are at the end. Along the way we will find ideas that partially answer these questions for us but we will always change and question what we have learned. This is a life long pursuit, but it is necessary in order to sift through the fact and fiction and come to our own personal conclusion.

Relating back to science and mysticism, or science and religion this is how I personally approach this idea. Science is/can be absolute and can/does give answers, but for myself, I can not let it answer all my questions. Some questions are deeply personal and I must delve deep within myself to find an answer that I can agree with. Smith was “annoyed” with science because people let it answer all their questions. This I feel could be related to how some people will let religion answer all their questions. No one is better than the other because they are both allowing their free will of opinion and the potential for truly personal understanding to be removed. These people are quitting their personal journey before they even begin it by accepting the ideas given to them and not questioning the validity of it for themselves.

Over all, I enjoyed this reading. I found Smith to be a little too back and forth on some of his ideas though. I liked that he tried to gain understanding from a wide variety of religions and tried for his own mystical experiences. But he seemed to contradict himself at times. I felt that he enjoyed the different religions and their teachings, but the deeply personal enthogenic trips he experienced were how he personally linked to those religions. Because the journey to enlightenment must be very personal his “mystical” experiences make sense. An enthogenic experience is known to be greatly personal on an emotional and mental level, so I see how this made his journey to enlightenment so much stronger. He went inside himself and through those experiences was able to evaluate his personal understandings and relate what he found to his life. I don’t believe this to be a mystical experience, but more of a mental one. He was able to connect with himself and his ideals on a higher plain and relate this to his journey.

Chapter 1, Rational Mysticism

Rational mysticism.
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh a happy laugh at that joke. "Rational Mysticism" implies that regular mysticism is irrational, or that there is a regular, a rational and an irrational. Mysticism is not irrational. It is simply not rational. And yet, the paradox is that being not rational it is entirely rational -- and this is the point the author misses, because the experience is the thing.

Without the experience of the paradox of the not-rational becoming rational yet remaining not-rational, there is no hope of understanding what cannot be expressed.

Rationality depends upon expression. If it cannot be expressed it is not rational. Yet, by its very nature the ineffableness of paradox depends upon its inexpressibility. Herein lies the rub.

The goal of Aristotlian scientism is to define all things. That which cannot be defined does not exist. Therefore paradox does not exist.

Yet paradox most certainly exists.

Paradox is the point where the Specific connects to the All and comes out the Opposite. Sorta like a black hole, if it helps to use an example of something we don't understand to understand something we cannot express . . . and it does, doesn't it?

Again, I have to laugh because this is how it all goes when trying to define the stuff that Aristotle and his followers call "metaphysics". Aristotle didn't know what to do with it, and neither does scientism -- and yet, isn't the ultimate nature of reality exactly what scientism is supposedly attempting to discover? Yet, the paradox here is that in seeking to define the undefinable scientism is, in actuality, making reality seem differently mysterious than the mysteriousness it inherently has.

Mysteriousness, after all, is simply in the mind of the interpreter. Nothing is inherently mysterious, yet everything is mysterious in its very existence.

And so it goes.

Experience is the thing. Let go of scientism. Do not interpret what you experience. Be the experience. Mysterious Understanding is only possible through unthought experience. What is unthought naturally cannot be spoken for there are no words for not-thought.

But it can be experienced.

Now . . . if you 'get it' but you can't explain it, then you are experiencing the not-rational rational paradox.

Go ahead. Speak it if you can. Aren't the thoughts almost formed in your mind? Thoughts that are becoming words but never stop becoming words and so are never words. It is just like pi. Pi never stops going endlessly in its numerical spiral. Yet it is not like pi at all because pi does not exist, and yet this experience certainly does exist.

Yes, pi does not exist. There is no such thing in the universe as a naturally perfect circle. All such circular things are simply truncated spirals. And yet, cannot scientism construct a perfect circle? Has not scientism decreed that by using pi one can create a perfect circle? And yet, how does one use pi, exactly, when it never stops becoming itself. Any formula that uses pi never stops becoming a formula, so never becomes formula, and is not a formula.

And yet, it is a formula.

But pi is the opposite of not-thought, and so is not like not-thought at all.

Yet it is.

Even though science has thought an unthinkable thing in its perfect circle, a thing that does not exist, scientism has not thought not-thought.

Scientism creates what is not, yet claims to only discover what is. Scientism does exactly what it says metaphysics does -- imagine things that don't exist.

Like a perfect circle.

(Go ahead, laugh! It's really a fractal!)

Y'see, it's ALL like this. I love it!

This is fun, and yet I am being completely, philosophically serious!

OK, that is the end of my post, but it is also the beginning of a thought.
The thought continues to become a thought.

What Is, What Is Not . . . and What Is Becoming. The philosophies of Dualism fail us here, as does the tactic of killing the messenger. Horgan attacks the messengers in every case, and finds them human. That they are human means they have foibles. Scientifically, that means each person is an uncontrolled experiment, and that their reports of their personal experiences are unverifiable by any known means.

What else could be expected?

One must experience the experience in order to determine the veracity of the reports. Once the experience is known, the reason for discrepancies are known -- and therefore they are no longer discrepancies, at all . . . and yet, they are. It cannot be explained. It must be experienced. Reality is a deeply personal experience.

Reality is not a shared illusion, and yet, it is the true shared illusion.

Rational? Not rational? Depends on your experience. It is both, and neither. Laugh!

It is.

Horgan's problem is that he wants to be told the answer before he knows the answer. Before he finds out what the nature of reality is, he wants to make sure he can handle it -- that he isn't frightened to death, or worse, driven mad.

Sorry, no promises there except to say that the sanity it bestows is identical to insanity, but it is not insanity. It is welcome and it is fulfilling. It is wonderful and it is mysterious. It is everything and it is nothing.

Nothing.

No thing at all. Zero. Infinite zero.

There are some promises, however, such as they are: once known it can never be forgotten, nor can it be communicated. There's no going back because "back" never was, but always is, yet hasn't become. Have fun there (the Here that is Not-Here, but Is Here), and remember to laugh!

Paradox.

Beautiful!

By the way, Horgan touches fractals when he describes the theory of emanationism, and he wanders oblivious to the fractals in his relating of psychedelic experiences. One of the secrets of reality is fractal. The Mongols knew that secret.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Gaps

This reading explains, and in some cases fills the the gap between religion and science. I never really understood physics, I still don't but this helped me make a bridge to connect science and physics together to help better understand both. I agree with Rebecca, this reading reminded me of Rafiki from the Lion King because of the vague connections and principles. In order to understand it you really do have to look beyond what you see.

What are WORDS?

I disagree! It is a load of crap that words cannot express these concepts of physics. Words are made by humans, Right? Yes they are, so that means that you can make up new words in order to fill in the void between other words. This is like how in English we have one word for snow. If you are a person of Inuit decent you have a huge vocabulary for snow upwards of 150 words. The Inuit saw a different need and they catered their language around it. How is this situation any different? Words have been made before and I do not think that we should limit our self’s to the words we have in present if they do not fit our needs. I think that using riddles in order to explain concepts of science is an incredibly inaccurate way of doing things. When different people read the same thing you have a chance that they all have a different perception of what is being said. A great many factors go into how a person interprets something, such as their upbringing, current state of mind, environmental factors, and much more. Using riddles in order to get a point across does not seem like a worthwhile way to record ideas, just make up new words!

Philososphy or Physics

I thought this reading was very interesting, because of the ability to find parallels between Eastern Philosophy and modern day Physics. I found it interesting how he found relationships between the two, with language deficiencies and paradox's. For the most part though this reading went right over my head because once the word physics is mentioned my head is already spinning.

Look beyond what you seek.

When I first read this post I thought I wasn't going to understand any of it because I had never taken physics but the more I read I began to slowly see the answer. Now it kind of reminds me of what Rafiki said to Simba in The Lion King and to Timon in The Lion King 1/2 "Look beyond what you seek". In other words if you're looking to hard for something or using your brain to much by thinking you're never going to find what you're looking for even if it was right underneath your nose. However, if you just let it come to you naturally by not thinking and clearing your mind the nonsense will make sense and you will find what you are looking for. For instance Simba got his answer to his problem and Timon found his paradise in Hakuna Matata. The trick is to understand Rafiki, the teacher, nature or any of these riddles that are given by them one must leave the world of the language/thoughts, clear his mind and let it come to him. In a way its almost like when someone tells you a joke and when you try to figure it out you can't but as soon as you stop thinking about it, even if it's a couple days later, you finally get the joke. This is also kind of like how people can pick up on what someone is truly thinking/feeling by watching/observing one's body language. This is because when you realize that their body language doesn't match up/agree with something their saying you can normally tell what they truly feeling/thinking or lying for lack of better term at that moment. Same goes for even if they are quite and are just sitting there you can tell roughly what they are feeling/thinking.



This is when Rafiki starts talking in riddles or koans to Simba and he has to clear is head in order to truly understand what the "monkey" or baboon is actually saying.

Quantum Magick

I love quantum physics because it proves magick is real. Acually, I always knew magick was real. I used to have discussions at Quinebaug Valley Community College with the engineers there about them being modern-day wizards -- that the olden-day wizards were engineers and others who knew physics . . . and, they knew quantum physics before it had a name.

And that's the rub: 'before it had a name.' Science scoffs at a lot of things. When science scoffs it ignores the thing it is scoffing. By ignoring it, science is unable to tell us anything about it. But when, for some reason like . . . the magick just doesn't go away . . . science finally looks at it . . . and then "discovers" something new . . . and then Names it. Once science Names something it is no longer magick. At that point it becomes only humdrum science. Boring.

See how that works?

In my lifetime herbal medicines, aromatherapy, acupuncture, chiropractry, and even garlic, for heaven's sake, was scoffed at by science as having no intrinsic benefits, and probably deadly harmful (OK, maybe not garlic). Now we accept all those things as beneficial medicinal things because science finally came along and Named what these things do.

Well . . . science has now named a lot of magick as quantum physics. They admit our Newtonian model of physics just isn't right, that it works well enough . . . but maybe those weird anomalies that happen from time to time could be predicted if we knew more quantum physics. And maybe, just maybe, if we really start to know this stuff, then maybe we can Name all the things metaphysics has been trying to tell us from time immemorial. Maybe there really is something to all that hocus pocus. Maybe that woo-woo-magick crap is what is real, and our man-made society and rules are nothing but hot air, our wasted words.

For my money, science is always a day late and a dollar short. In this instance, metaphysics, science has been late from Day 1 and is now flat broke.

We can learn a lot from people who look where science does not. (i.e. the lunatic fringe)

A Sense of the Senseless

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQCH6LvJQbMryZVB961p1T0prO5vXEhkVcfp4trgbQnnKbtAWUSXDObvgFbCya7O89lUUQ1DkNxveXr3d2XjXQEHpJGwtbT1AgcMrHL4XXS7EtrbDjR8p7dWpikTfU8sSV0Xk_6rt1fLo/s400/Orbs-Ramtha.jpg

The reading we had was interesting in that it compared the ideas of modern physics with the ideas of eastern philosophers. I like the part in the reading where it speaks about how we can't really "experience" the sub atomic world with our macro senses. Which to me sounds like a Koan, because it seems counter intuitive to believe that you cant experience something that is all around you and yet you can pseudo-experience things beyond your sense range. It's almost like saying you can look with your eyes but you wont see, you can listen with your ears but you wont hear, you can touch with your hands but you wont feel, etc.... The idea being that with language we can't express the true nature of reality because with words they donate connotation, meaning, and a preconceived notion of what something is or will be. So theoretically to experience the true nature of the world one could try to experience the experience-less, See the Unseen, etc...

I wonder what it would be like to conceive without attachment and knowledge, without language...what would things be like then?

The Purpose of the video above is to entice questions about an idea that Final Fantasy has incorporated into it.....an idea about something called the "life stream" check it out ^_^

Reality and thought and paradoxes

In this passage the author is trying to get across to the reader, the fact that it is very difficult to explain Taoism in words. Most of what people learn about Taoism comes from non-verbal interactions. Philosophers tend to speak in a form of riddle, which is intended to make the person stop thinking. Because the only way to solve the riddle is to rid your mind of rational thought. This is the only way to truly experience reality. By exposing the paradoxes in their sayings right from the start they show the reality of what they are talking about. By thinking to much about the actual words that are said you completely miss their meaning.
When working with philosophy you can't just use your mind; cognitive thought will only get you so far. You must actually understand it with your whole being. this can be done by removing your brain from the equation. Without that you have no choice but to just absorb it into yourself and then instead of confusing yourself by trying to break it apart and understand it, you just accept it.


And here's a god paradox for you!! :)