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.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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