PHI 2070 Eastern Philosophy

Topics for the final exam

2011-12-05T13:03:00.000-05:00

The topics for the final are:

Zen techniques
Wu wei
Taoism

If you have any questions, post them here.

The essence of Bushido

2011-12-01T11:48:00.001-05:00

Tsunetomo Yamamoto (1659-1719) was a samurai of the Saga domain in Hizen Province, under his lord Mitsushige Nabeshima. For thirty years Yamamoto devoted his life to the service of his lord and clan. When Nabeshima died in 1700, Yamamoto did not choose junshi because Nabeshima has expressed a dislike of the practice in his life, so Yamamoto considered it better to follow his lord’s wishes. Yamamoto renounced the world and retired to a hermitage in the mountains. Late in life, he narrated many of his thoughts to a fellow samurai, Tsuramoto Tashiro. These commentaries were later turned into the Hagakure (Hidden behind the Leaves).

Chapter One

I have found the essence of Bushido: To Die!

In other words, when you have a choice between life and death, always choose death. If you die before you hit your target, then it will be the death of a dog. In order to master this essence, you must die anew every morning and every night.

The way of advising others must be carried with utmost care. It’s quite easy to see the evil in others… Get intimate, refer to your own weaknesses and failures, then let him discover your point without mentioning his weakness. How can you reform others if you disgrace them?

On the previous night… make plans for the next day.

Don’t go where you’re not invited.

In order to be called a samurai, you must offer your life to Tao. There is no difference between high and low.

It’s difficult to carry acts of justice.

Onlookers see more than the players. Find your own faults through speculation. Consult others. Read books. Learn from the previous generation. You must throw your own judgment.

There are levels in the course of mastery. At the lowest level, you think of others as poor (needless to say, at this level you’re not useful). At the high level, you pretend to know nothing. You go ahead only with the idea of mastery. You go forward without pride and without humility. Your life you build every day. You’re better than yesterday and but not better than tomorrow.

Think of serious matters in a light manner, but think of trifles in an earnest and thoughtful way.

Those who never make mistakes are in danger.

If your eye is able to see good qualities in others who apparently are (you see as) inferior to you, then they can be your masters, even though they have shortcomings as well.

On your way, you meet a shower. You dislike get wet, so you hurry along the streets under the eaves. Still you get wet the same. As long as you accept that you will get wet, you won’t suffer from being wet.

Normally, most people rely on you when they are in trouble. But they will not think of you once they are out of their trouble.

On a low level, it’s unsatisfactory if you remain unfrightened when you find yourself with disaster and difficulties. On a higher level, you ought to go through troubles with courage and elation. “If the water rises, the ship rises too.”

However gifted you are, people refuse to see it if you are a greenhorn. Build your brightness and give it restrained play; “The slower the better.”

The way to excel above others is to have others talk about and judge you. To consult with others is a spring-board to a higher level.

After a year had passed, everyone said: “He looks a tired and sick man.” A took this as the beginning of my service.

There are many in the world who are eager to give advice. There are few who feel glad for being given advice. And there are still fewer who follow the given advice.

Koans by Dogen Zenji

2011-12-01T11:48:00.000-05:00

Koan: A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening.

_____

The true person is
Not anyone in particular
But
Like the limitless deep blue sky,
It is everywhere, and everyone in the world.

***
In the stream,
Rushing past
To the dusty world,
My fleeting form

Casts no reflection.

****
Because the mind is free --Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me.

****
"Mind itself is buddha" -- difficult to practice, but easy to explain;
"No mind, no buddha" -- difficult to explain, but easy to practice.

****
I won't even stopat the valley's brook
for fear that
my shadow
may flow into the world.

****
Midnight,
No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

****
Water birds
going and coming
their traces disappear
but they never forget their path.

****
The World? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane’s bill

****
To study the buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.

****
What is the old buddha mind?" The master answered, "Fences, walls, tiles, and pebbles."

****
What is the old buddha mind?"
The master answered, "The world collapses in ruins."
The monk asked, "Why does the world collapse in ruins?"
The master answered, "Better without my body."

****
Following the Buddha Way really means following yourself.

****
Make no use of incense or bowing or chanting or ceremonies or scriptures.

****
Remembering is time, forgetting is time.
Black lines of scripture are time,
Great and small doubts are time,
Hungry ghosts and naked demons are time.

Zen through techniques

2011-12-01T11:46:00.001-05:00

1- Talking silence (Dogen):

"Avoid unnecessary words.
Speak with your mind.
Read people’s minds."

2- Being a fool (Master Ikkyu):

"How to reach out?"
-Listen… ask.
"How can I obtain wisdom?"
Be a fool.
....

"What is Zen?
Nothing special."

A monk asked Ummon: "What is Buddha?" Ummon answered him: "Dried shit."
....
3- Gentle Face (Shin-Hiu)

"Gentle face means a happy spirit,
Let people know it.
Let people see it.
What if they resent it?
Since they need it, they will come to love it."

4- Compelling mind (Ryokan)

"The compelling mind is peaceful."
....

"How can I feel my mind?
Look at the mountain…"
.....

"Read minds and look at the mountains.".....

"Beathe with your mind and think with your heart!"
5- Cultivate Poetry (the koan as a device for Enlightenment)*

6- Doing Nothing

"Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water."

"When you seek it, you cannot find it."

"After enlightenment, the laundry."

___________
*Here a long list of Zen koans.

Immediateness

2011-12-01T11:44:00.000-05:00

According to Zen intellectualizations, concepts, even language itself are inadequate for expressing our experience as it is experienced.

We go through life thinking that our words and ideas mirror what we experience, but repeatedly we discover that the distinctions taken to be true are mental constructs. In verbalizing something, we may have a lingering sense of having compromised part of our experience, but we continue to devise new categories, new names for new things, more distinctions when a moment before there were no distinctions.

The goal of Zen training is to break down our dependence on categories that interfere with the directness and immediacy of experience, but this does not mean that thought stops altogether.

The Zen student is interested in preserving immediacy, but the myriad forms of life situations present a baffling assortment of possibilities to which one must respond.

Thought is effective only when it arises spontaneously out of a problematic situation.

Wu-wei (update)

2011-12-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

How is it possible to acquire something that supposedly comes without effort?

Tao is obvious, right in our face (Nature does not have to insist...) but this obviousness is precisely the reason we miss it. One must learn to read its subtle language. To observe the cyclic phenomena we must empty our minds of old baggage.

Let's observe poertically! Wu-wei is a form of universal poetry that is acted through virtue (... to produce but not possess, to care but not to control, to lead but not to subjugate.

When our observation becomes efortless, wu-wei happens. Remember, wu-wei is not passive, but active. We choose the world.

Tao is "what is": the rule of the universe.

Verse #7:

The universe is deathless,

Is deathless because, having no finite self,

It stays infinite.

A sound man by not advancing himself

Stays the further ahead of himself,

By not confining himself to himself

Sustains himself outside himself:

By never being an end in himself

He endlessly becomes himself.

#22

To yield is to [be preserved whole.

To be bent is to become straight.

To be empty is to be full.

To be worn out is to be renewed.

To have little is to possess.

To have plenty is to be perplexed.

Therefore the sage embraces the ONE.

Bodhidharma

2011-12-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

Buddhas don't save Buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha. As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha. Don't use a Buddha to worship a Buddha. And don't use the mind to invoke a Buddha. Buddhas don't recite sutras. Buddhas don't keep precepts. And Buddhas don't break precepts. Buddhas don't keep or break anything. Buddhas don't do good or evil. To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature.

The Art of War

2011-12-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

The Art of War is the most widely read military classic in human history.

People think that TAOW is a manual on how to outsmart one's opponent, so that physical battle becomes superfluous. As such, it has found application as a training guide for many competitive endeavors that do not involve actual combat.

Yet, I want to present a different view: TAOW is about our own war. Self-war.

It's called dialectics!
_________________

Chapter 1

*General is wisdom, credibility, benevolence, courage, and discipline.

*Heaven is dark and light, cold and hot, and the seasonal constraints. Ground is high and low, far and near, obstructed and easy, wide and narrow, and dangerous and safe.

*If they have advantage, entice them; if they are confused, take them, if they are substantial, prepare for them, if they are strong, avoid them, if they are angry, disturb them, if they are humble, make them haughty, if they are relaxed, toil them, if they are united, separate them.

*When it comes to rules and regulations, everyone, high and low, should be treated alike.

*Without deception you cannot carry out strategy, without strategy you cannot control the opponent.

*Force is the control of the balance of power, in accordance with advantages.

*Therefore, if able, appear unable, if active, appear not active, if near, appear far, if far, appear near. When strong, appear weak. Brave, appear fearful. Orderly, appear chaotic. Full, appear empty. Wise, appear foolish. Advancing, appear to retreat. Taking, appear to leave. In one place, appear to be in another.

Chapter 2

*When weapons are blunted, and ardor dampened, strength exhausted, and resources depleted, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of these complications.

*When doing battle, seek a quick victory. A protracted battle will blunt weapons and dampen ardor.

*The important thing in a military operation is victory, not persistence.

Chapter 3

*Perceiving a victory when it is perceived by all is not the highest excellence.

*In ancient times, those skilled in warfare make themselves invincible and then wait for the enemy to become vulnerable.

*Being invincible depends on oneself, but the enemy becoming vulnerable depends on himself.Chapter 4

*One takes on sufficiency defending, one takes on deficiency attacking.

*Complete victory is when the army does not fight, the city is not besieged, the destruction does not go on long, but in each case, the enemy is overcome by strategy.

Chapter 5

*Invincibility is a matter of defense, vulnerability is a matter of attack.

*Disorder coming from order is a matter of organization, fear coming from courage is a matter of force, weakness coming from strength is a matter of formation.

*The rules of the military are five: measurement, assessment, calculation, comparison and victory.

*Therefore the victories of good warriors are not noted for cleverness or bravery.

*If you are formless, the most penetrating spies will not be able to discern you, or the wisest counsels will not be able to do calculations against you.

*If he prepares to defend many places, then the forces will be few in number.

*Therefore, it advances like the wind; it marches like the forest; it invades and plunders like fire; it stands like the mountain; it is formless like the dark; it strikes like thunder.

Chapter 6

* Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness.

*Calculate the situation, and then move. Those who know the principles of the circuitous and direct will be victorious. This is armed struggle.

*In armed struggle, the difficulty is turning the circuitous into the direct, and turning adversity into advantage.

Chapter 7

*Near, wait for the distant; rested, wait for the fatigued; full, wait for the hungry. This is the way to manage strength.

*Do not do battle with well-ordered flags; do not do battle with well-regulated formations. This is the way to manage adaptation.

Chapter 8

*He who is quick tempered can be insulted. He who is cowardly can be captured.

*So the principles of warfare are: Do not depend on the enemy not coming, but depend on our readiness against him. Do not depend on the enemy not attacking, but depend on our position that cannot be attacked.

*Contemplating the advantages, he fulfills his calculations; contemplating the disadvantages, he removes his difficulties.

*There are routes not to be taken; there are armies not to be attacked; there are walled cities not to be besieged; there are grounds not to be penetrated; there are commands not to be obeyed.

Chapter 9

*If the enemy is close and remains quiet, he occupies a natural stronghold.

*If the enemy is far away and challenges you to do battle, he wants you to advance, because he occupies level ground that is to his advantage.

*If he gives out rewards frequently, he is running out of resources.

*If he speaks humbly, but increases warfare readiness, he will advance.

*If he speaks apologetically, he needs a rest.

Chapter 10

*If I know the enemy can be attacked, and know the troops can attack, but do not know the ground in battle, my victory is half.

*If it is not advantageous to advance or for the enemy to advance, it is called stalemated. For stalemated ground, though the enemy offers you advantage, do not advance. Withdraw.

Chapter 11

*Attack what he values most.

*Give your troops tasks, but do not reveal them your plans.

*One who does not know the mountains and forests, gorges and defiles, swamps and wetlands cannot advance the army. One who does not use local guides cannot take advantage of the ground.

Do your work, then step back (this is a post for comment)

2011-11-22T17:15:00.005-05:00

The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.- Tao Te Ching

Thomas Bayrle, Maxwell Kaffee, Oil on canvas (1967).

Alfredo Triff

Let's talk about this void which calls forth the fullness, the coexistence of Tao in both subject and object, essence and appearance. Imagine a situation, which shows itself as something not complete, an event that demands our involvement, yet, the situation appears imperfect, out of joint.

I take Thomas Bayrle Maxwell Kaffee as a metaphor for the nausea that implacably pursues Roquentin in La Nausée, a weird paradox of one and the many that we find again in Kenyan artist Ingrid Mwuangi's If:

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things. (vers. 42)¹

Ingrid Mwuangi, If, digital c-prints mounted on aluminum (2001).

The Tao is like a well:

used but never used up.

It is like the eternal void:

filled with infinite possibilities. (vers. 4)

According to the Tao Te Ching, our will to fix things can paradoxically take us into unexpected detours. Let me explain: I don't see my will as being impeded by anything other than my desire to act. But in the big realm of overall causation, I'm not alone. My will is "differential," i.e., one amongst hundreds of millions of other intersecting wills. Seldom I stop to ponder my volition as a very small fraction of an overall sum of (unknown) wills, not only in the here and now, plus the already existing chain/reactions which precede my time/space.

How to see one's will vis-a-vis this higher order of will/differentials? What's the relative limit between one's doing and one doing too much? And viceversa, how much of our lives simply end up -unknowingly- "happening" to us?

Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder, edition of Collier's magazine (June 1952).

Just as in Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder,² imagine how much of our planet's future is -and is not- in our hands right now.

The Tao is like a bellows:

it is empty yet infinitely capable.

The more you use it, the more it produces;

the more you talk of it, the less you understand. ( vers. 5)

On the positive side, think of serendipity in science, randomness in quantum mechanics and aleatoricism in music! ³

Marco Fusinato, Mass Black Implosion, ink on archival facsimile of score (2007).

On the negative side, think of Black Swans, Popper's historicist fallacy, chaos theory and uneventful events. Which brings us back to the mismatch of essence/appearance. Of course, the question that we need to answer is how can we "tell" the difference?

Look, and it can't be seen.

Listen, and it can't be heard.

Reach, and it can't be grasped. (vers. 14)

The answer to the problem is not that simple because there is no single unequivocal course of action. It's at this point that jazz can help. When musicians improvise, they are also part of a center of energy given by the whole ensemble. If one sees it synchronically (as if you could make a slice in the music sequence) the musicians seem to solo, if one sees it diachronically, it plays as a perfectly fit sequence. The success of the solo depends precisely of this give-and-take between part and whole and vice-versa. This is known as "groove," the sort of Tao of jazz.⁴

As in jazz, Taoism is perspectival, i.e., there can be different solutions to a given problem.This doesn't mean that all solutions are the same. Just as there are good and bad improvisations, there are good and bad solutions to a given problem.

Tao can have multiple interpretations. Why? It's part of the our conceptual constructivism. Think of this question: Is the Big Dipper made by Nature? Philosopher Nelson Goodman thinks not. For Goodman, "a constellation" is a "version," i.e., a construction that picks these stars from others. The same with "star," a version that "picks" (configures) stars from other celestial bodies.⁵

Lecia Dole-Recio, Untitled, paper, vellum, tape and gouache (2003).

Goodman explains:

Truth of statements,rightness of descriptions, representations, exemplifications, expressions,... is primarily a matter of fit, fit to what is referred to in one way, or other renderings, or modes and manners of organization.⁶

In our quest/struggle with Reality, we keep building construction upon construction (human endeavor in science, politics and the arts, reflects this dynamic). What comes first in Ochoa's Collapsed? Hint: The concrete wall is the future event of the aggregate of rock, sand and water. You see the cause, then you see the effect, but never at once. Art does the trick!

Ruben Ochoa, Collapsed, Concrete, steel, burlap, wood, dirt (2009).

At some point we discussed the apparent riddle of the Tao Te Ching, which brings forth the idea "speaking/not speaking" in Zen, which we'll go into detail next week. The Chuang Tzu helps: "If Tao is made clear (by words), it is not Tao. If words are argumentative, they do not reach the point."

In classical Chinese, the character bian (dispute) is the synonym of another bian (discriminate), because the former contains the meaning of the latter. The character bian (discriminate) also has a synonym, which, structurally consisting of "half" and "knife," meaning both to decide (to judge) and to divide (to cut into half). Dispute, as such, implies using language to discriminate, to divide. Whenever there is a dispute, something is left unseen. Wherever there is division, something is left undivided. Every right (shi) and wrong (fei), a fixed binary division, conceals something. Something else is being covered up by every seeing of something. This covering up, has no secure ground, not only because one thing and its other are mutually dependent -or mutually conditioned-, but also because it is always possible to shift the angles from which one looks at them.⁷

Then, we discussed an important and often glossed over element in Taoism: humor. Let's come back to it. Chuang Tzu counsels:

"The general idea is to show the happy excursion, the enjoyment in the way of inaction and self-enjoyment." (Chuang Tzu, A Happy Excursion)

No one fits this metaphor better than a child. We must try to bring back our lost innocence and sense of wonderment. There is something to be said for a child's natural ability to take in the world without prejudice.

Brian Chippendale, Ninja and Maggot Series, (2006).

Unfortunately, growing up means repressing this ability so that the adult becomes an entrenchment of hardened stereotypes. Meanwhile, our ability for enjoyment gets regimented and instrumentalized.

"Having fun" -as we usually use the word nowadays- carries this sense of being entertained, which in our post-Capitalist society is exactly the opposite of true fun, the equivalent of forfeiting our curiosity by domesticating ourselves into vacuous, purposeless compliance.

Against this disposition we must present Tao's flexible, contrarian (even comical) side:

Teruhiko Yumura This is Ja, for Flamingo Studio

Tao's flexibility avoids the pitfalls of intellectual constipation:

Proud beyond measure,

you come to your knees:

Do enough without vieing,

Be living, not dying.

"A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool," advises Chuang Tzu. Later, this "fool" becomes an important character in Zen. I'd like to warn, however, of unproblematically going for enjoyment, not only because to begin with, the Capitalist imperative "enjoy yourself" can castrate the feeling, but because, as Sarah Kay points out, enjoyment can be a double-edge sword: "enjoy-meant," and the meaning displaces being.⁸ Said differently, the desire ends up killing the feeling. I think this is what philosopher Simon Critchley has in mind when he cites a telling passage from Beckett's Watt:

The bitter the hollow and -haw, haw!- the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethics laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well, well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout - haw!- so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs -silence please- at that which is unhappy. ⁹

Critchely suggests that risus purus may function as a therapy to demystify some of the most (resilient and) negative attitudes of our political sphere: anal retentiveness, social hostility, violence and self-importance.
_____________
¹ Taken from Tao Te Ching, translated by S. Mitchell. ² In his short story A Sound of Thunder, Ray Bradbury imagines the impact of the so-called butterfly effect:

Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don’t know. We’re guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we’re being careful.

³ Serendipity is the finding of something valuable without its being specifically sought. In general, activities and skills that can function in parallel may interact in unplanned and unforeseen ways. Professor Jeffrey McKee argues that some of the most important forces of human evolution (the roles of which have been largely neglected) are chance, coincidence, and chaos. According to McKee one cannot understand how humans evolved without taking these three factors into account. See, The riddled chain: Chance, coincidence, and chaos in human evolution (Rutgers University Press, 2000).⁴"When jazz is really grooving -whether it's a solo pianist, a quartet, or a big band -there is indeed an unmistakable feeling of buoyancy and lift (...) relaxed intensity is the key." Johnny King, What Jazz Is: An Insider's Guide to Understanding and Listening to Jazz (Walker: 1997) p. 24. ⁵ Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy, (Cambridge, 1992), p. 115.⁶Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking, (Hackett Publishing, 1978). ⁷ See, Youru Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Chuang-Tzu and Zen Buddhism: The Other Way of Speaking (Routledge, 2003), p. 98. ⁸Sarah Kay, Zizek: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, 2003), p. 162. Simon Critchley, Infinitely Demanding, (Verso, 2007), p. 82

The mystery according to Ge Hong

2011-11-22T17:02:00.002-05:00

Illustration by Pomme Chan

The Mystery is the first ancestor of the Spontaneous, the root of the many diversities.
Unfathomable and murky in its depths, it is also called imperceivable;
stretching far into the distance, it is also called wonderful;
so high that it covers the nine empyreans,
so wide that it encompasses the eight cardinal points;
shining beyond the sun and the moon,
speedy beyond the rapid light;
it both suddenly shines forth and disappears like a shadow.
it both surges up in a whirlwind and streaks away like a comet;
it is both stirred up by deep eddies and like a clear deep pool,
it is both flaky and at the same time misty, rising up in clouds;
it takes on form and gender, and it exists [you];
it returns to darkness and solitude, and it is no more [wu];
it plunges beyond, into the great darkness, and buries itself deep;
it rises above the stars and floats on high;
neither metal nor stone can equal its hardness,
and the moist dew cannot attain its softness.
Square without set-square, round without compasses,
it comes and no one sees it,
it leaves and no one follows it;
through it, the sky is high and the earth low,
through it, the clouds rush by and the rain falls.
It carries within it the embryo of the Original One,
it forms and shapes the two Principles (Yin and Yang);
it exhales and absorbs the great Genesis,
it inspires and transforms the multitude of species,
it makes the constellations go round,
it shaped the primordial Darkness,
it guides the wonderful mainspring of the universe,
it exhales the four seasons,
it encloses the void and silence in darkness,
it frees and parcels out natural abundance,
it makes the heavy fall and the light rise up,
it makes the rivers Ho and Wei flow.
If one adds to it, it does not increase.
if one takes away from it, it does not grow less.
If something is given to it, it is not increased in glory.
If something is taken from it, it does not suffer.
Where the Mystery is present, joy is infinite;
where the Mystery has departed, efficacy is exhausted and the spirit disappears.

Taoism: five into 5

2011-11-22T08:18:00.002-05:00

Dmytro Didora, via Juxtapoz

Chinese civilization and the Chinese character would not have been utterly different if the Lao Tzu had never been written. Even Confucianism would not have been the same, for like Buddhism, it has not escaped Taoist influence.

In fact, oo one can hope to understand Chinese philosophy, religion, government, art, medicine –or even cooking- without a real appreciation of the profound philosophy taught in this little book.
___________

1- Tao (the Way) is the ONE.

Natural, eternal, spontaneous, nameless and indescribable.

Lao Tzu probably believed in the YING YANG principle. Yang is the cosmic energy of Heaven, male, aggression, firmness and brightness. Ying is the cosmic energy of earth, a female element that is receptive, yielding and dark. Harmony in nature is achieved through these two cosmic energies. They are both equally important.

2- Being/Non-being, meaning the dialectic aspect of the universe. It's duck-rabbit.

3- Tao moves in cycles. But the life cycle is an unchanging truth. While everything in nature and all sentient beings follow their respective cycles, so do worldly events. The main lesson here is that there is no rule by which one can foresee the future. Beware of Black Swans!

4- When people have Tao it becomes Te (virtue). The ideal life for the individual and the ideal order for society and government are based on and guided by it. Te = harmony with the natural environment.

One who understand the the dominating character of the male yet keeps to the passive nature of the female, behaves properly. Te "produces but does not possess, cares but does not control; it leads but does not subjugate."

5- Tao has a 5-point method:

a- Simplicity: "less is more"
"less" here is not deficient, or lacking, or reduced. It's the best possible less: the just less that makes it happen.

b- Spontaneity: "blaze the trail not often followed"
Even at the verge of erring, err honestly.

c- Tranquility: "moon illumines the crystal blue water"
The quiet horizon amidst the noise. Levelheadedness in crisis.

d- Flexibility: "be a blade of grass"
Dare let the weather lead.

e- Non-action (wu-wei): Because of its importance, I intend to explain wu-wei in more detail in my next post.

ººforking¬ ¬pathsºº

2011-11-17T12:28:00.003-05:00

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, (1960).

In emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment.-- Paramita Hridaya Sutra

Alfredo Triff

An essential ingredient in becoming is the many: one or whole, part, relation. In Buddhist philosophy there are no wholes: only parts. Similarly, there is no progression to an actuality. The Buddhist moment does not progress toward realization.

Tom Friedman, Big Bang, (Glitter and mixed media on paper, 2008).

It harks back to Nagarjuna's doctrine of Sunyata, a crucial concept in Buddhist philosophy. Imagine a universe of correlations, whereby everything is connected. Whatever "is" at any moment of space-time, consists of conditions or relationships, and these, too, are dependently co-originated:

"The 'originating dependently' we call 'emptiness.' " "Emptiness is dependent co-origination."

Sunyata does not mean absolute lack, but rather a positive meaning of being, the Ultimate Source of all reality. Lama Govinda interprets the principle:

"śūnyatā is not a negative property, but a state of freedom from impediments and limitations, a state of spontaneous receptivity, in which we open ourselves to the all-inclusive reality of a higher dimension. Here we realize the Śūnyatā, which forms the central concept of the Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtra. Far from being the expression of a nihilistic philosophy which denies all reality, it is the logical consequence of the anātman doctrine of non-substantiality. Śūnyatā is the emptiness of all conceptual designations and at the same time the recognition of a higher, incommensurable and indefinable reality, which can be experienced only in the state of perfect enlightenment."*

What does it mean to say that reality is ultimately and intimately relational? Sunyata can be seen as the reverse of Pratitya Samutpada, the Buddhist law of dependent co-origination. There is no self-subsisting, isolated phenomena. Reality is relation(ship), always in flux, always becoming.

Ghada Amer, Anne, (Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 2004).

Reality is always digested, interpreted, quantified, apprehended. The common sense, everyday perception of things is one amongst many other constructions or versions of the world. What happens is that we "normally" understand the world as made up of distinct, self-subsisting substances, and hence we are able to put things in rational order according to various rules or laws. So, while Sunyata -negatively- means that nothing has a sufficient basis of its being in itself, Pratitya Samutpada means -positively- that one event is dependent on others.

One concept is implied in the statement of the other. Substance, for example would be dependent only on itself, thus excluding both Sunyata as well as Pratitya Samutpada. Therefore, Buddhism doesn't recognize recognizes substance.

The distinction comes from a passage in the catuṣkoṭi of the Mādhyamikas:
a- It is not the case that x is ϕ.
b- It is not the case that x is not-ϕ.
c- It is not the case that x is both ϕ and not-ϕ.
d- It is not the case that x is neither ϕ nor not-ϕ

It seems very complicated, but one can see it as twotruths: Are you warp-yarn or weft- yarn?

Kaisa Puhakka charts the stylized reification process as such:

"We are typically not aware of ourselves as taking something (P) as real. Rather, its reality 'takes us,' or already has us in its spell as soon as we become aware of its identity (P). Furthermore, it's impossible to take something (P) to be real without, at least momentarily, ignoring or denying that which it is not (not-P). Thus the act of taking something as 'real' necessarily involves some degree of unconsciousness or lack of awareness. This is true even in the simple act of perception when we see a figure that we become aware of as 'something.' In Gestalt psychology, for each figure perceived, there is a background of which we remain relatively unaware. Now, extend this dynamic to text-analysis or speech acts. In hermeneutics, for every text we understand there is a context we miss. With every figure noticed or reality affirmed, there is, inevitably, unawareness. Is this how a spell works?"**

French philosopher Alain Badiou presents his ontology surprisingly close to Buddhism. For Badiou, 1- Being has no latent structure of its own. 2- Being's multiplicity is irreducible to any totality. 3- Ontology is a theory of the void, which is why "the infinite" is a void. It cannot be reduced to a unity. To think of Being means to posit oneself as as "warp" or "waft" (or both?).

Between uncontrolled chaos and absolute disorder, Mehretu conveys a fractal order:

Julie Mehretu, Dispersion (Ink and acrylic on canvas, 2002).

What drives this "thirst" for being? Let's see it this way: An entity is reproduced through a replication of its states. Each moment comprising a state of the entity. A complete entity can only be the result of an imaginative reconstruction over a series of states. Schramm presents it as in-between of place and no/place:

Felix Schramm, Misfit (2005-06) @ SFMoMA

The sequence of the replications is linked together in the mind through the rapid succession of similar moments. This gives the continuity of experience and the appearance of persistence. In Martin Oppel's Untitled, the gravity-defying totem-like sculpture becomes a cipher for legion (one in the many).

Martin Oppel, Untitled (Strata Fiction C, 2008).

Satkari Mookerjee writes that the arrow in its flight "is not one but many arrows successively appearing in the horizon, which give rise to the illusion of a persistent entity owing to continuity of similar entities."

At this point, Jorge Luis Borges can lend us a hand:

"The Garden of Forking Paths is an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time; this recondite cause prohibits its mention. To omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors and obvious periphrases, is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it. That is the tortuous method preferred, in each of the meanderings of his indefatigable novel, by the oblique Ts'ui Pên. I have compared hundreds of manuscripts, I have corrected the errors that the negligence of the copyists has introduced, I have guessed the plan of this chaos, I have re-established -I believe I have re-established- the primordial organization, I have translated the entire work: it is clear to me that not once does he employ the word 'time.' The explanation is obvious: The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image of the universe as Ts'ui Pên conceived it. In contrast to Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost."

_______
*Lama Anagarika Govinda, Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness, pp. 10-11.** Kaisa Puhakka, Puhakka, Kaisa (2003). "Awakening from the Spell of Reality: Lessons from Nāgārjuna' within," in Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (State University of New York Press, 2003), p. 134, 145.

Pangu transforms his body

2011-11-17T12:27:00.000-05:00

At Miami Bourbaki

Confucius and "Li"

2011-11-17T12:21:00.001-05:00

I'd like to start with Li and why Confucius makes rituals so important. American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce considered the formation of habits to be an essentially inductive process. In one of his earliest published articles, he concludes that "the formation of a habit is an induction, and is therefore necessarily connected with attention." Habituation is a matter of induction, but also the process is characterized as being linked to specific acts of attention. Sociologist Clifford Geerts agrees:

It is in some sort of ceremonial form-even if that form be hardly more than the recitation of a myth, the consultation of an oracle, or the decoration of a grave-that the moods and motivations which sacred symbols induce in [people] and the general conceptions of the order of existence which they formulate for [people] meet and reinforce one another. In a ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world.

"Li" has this quality of being a praxis. It's performative, repetitive. Their repetition brings forth a transformative function. For example, religious rituals can produce a spiritual transformation (purifying, healing, reconciling, protecting, informing, and so on). Through ritual practice, the individual comes to understand and participate in the Tao, the harmonious patterns of individual, social, and cosmic interaction created by the Confucian sages. Simultaneously, the transformative process of moral cultivation occurs.

"Li" is automatic behavior, a kind of psycho-somatic response which helps one deal with the world. Rituals are a form of cultural transmission which involves at least the generation, retention and communication of those representations. "Li" incorporates somatic and affective aspects. "Li" shapes, transforms, and orders certain cognitive and affective responses to our environment. Why?

Because, through "Li" one comes to embody the culture. Not only one internalizes the conceptual categories and ideals expressed symbolically in "Li," but our gestures and movements become ritualized as well. Part of this process of transformation, takes place because of the somatic experience of praxis. That is the key to Confucian ritual ideals.

The Analects

2011-11-15T11:55:00.000-05:00

Excerpts of the Analects here.

Notes on Confucianism

2011-11-08T11:29:00.001-05:00

Confucius molded Chinese civilization in general and judging by the Analects, one can see that he exerted great influence on Chinese philosophical development. There is a humanistic tendency in Confucius’ thought. He did not care to talk about spiritual beings or even about life after death. Instead, he believed that we can make the Way (Tao) great.

Confucius concentrated on man. His primary concern is a good society based on good government and harmonious human relations. Confucius believed in the perfectibility of all men and in this connection he radically modified a traditional concept, that of the “superior man” or chün-tzu. How can one be chün-tzu?

One can broadly sum up Confucius system in a handful of principles: 1- T’ien (or heaven) is purposive, the master of all things. Confucius idea of T’ien is that of immanence: “Heaven sees through the eyes of the people, Heavens listens through the ears of the people.” Not necessarily anthropomorphic but anthropogenic. Heaven is embodied in the people and exemplified by the people. Heaven is a principle and that relates to human as that of part/whole relationship.

2- The Mandate of Heaven or T’ien Ming consists of a Supreme Being who institutes a moral principle to operate by itself. That’s the principle of Heaven, T’ien Tao, later on called T’ien-li.

3- Jen (also pronounced as “ren” means indistinctly, altruism, humanity and fairness). “Jen” appears more than 100 times in the Analects. Jen also requires compassion: “Do not impose to others what you don’t want.” This negative form of the golden rule is essential in Confucianism for it tells people what not to do. “If you want to establish yourself, establish others. If you want to promote yourself, promote others.” To be able to apply the golden rule one has to follow a method

4- “Shu” which means to be empathetic, i.e., to be able to understand the circumstances. Shu is the right method to achieve jen. There are certain important virtues that can help in the process. They are:

respectfulness (gong),

reverence (jing),

leniency (quan),

beneficence (hui),

being quick in action (ming),

reliability in words (xin) and

cultivating slowness to speak (yan ren).

Gong can be best explained as self-respect, self-worth. The Confucian self needs to be cultivated holistically (the mind is as important as the body).

Next there is jing, or reverence, but a better term is estimation. It’s a public virtue. How can one esteem something or someone? When one avoid the short-sightedness of the moment and ponders the far reaching implication of our actions. One becomes socially productive when one leaves pettiness and jealousies behind.

Quan is a principle of charity. It means magnanimity, being able to being thorough with oneself and the others, but suspending judgment until one has all the possible evidence. Quan doesn’t rule out criticism, only that it analyses it more and applies it to oneself. Quan presupposes self-awareness.

Hui is also a public virtue which brings forth the notion of utility. It means that we can be beneficial instruments. Why? Because it’s good for society. According to Confucius by doing good to society, one brings good to oneself.

Xin relates to the idea of using the proper words. Coherence between intentions and words, which amounts to honesty: One is reliable if one is trustworthy.

Yan ren amounts to taking one are time before talking, something very close to our idea of prudence.

5- Shu needs “Xue” or learning. Not an achievement verb, but rather a stronger sense of affecting oneself whether by improving one’s sensitivity, understanding or ability. With xue one appropriates what’s learned, a process of becoming transforming. Xue is accompanied by 6- “Si,” that is, reflecting. “Learning without thinking, one will be perplexed, thinking without learning, one will be in peril.” (A, 2:15).

7- An important theme in Confucian ethics is The Doctrine of the Mean or “Zhong-Yong.” It means centrality, non-deviation: not to be “one-sided.” It doesn’t mean staying in the middle no matter what: “Excess is as bad as deficiency.” (A, 20:1). Enduring, undeviating behavior that includes genuineness on one hand and steadfastness and persistence on the other. Implies non-deviation from this way.

8- There is also Rectification of names. This essentially means that for every action, there is a word that describes that action. The belief is that by following the Rectification of Names you would be following the correct/right path. By calling things what they are, we avoid confusion. RON also presupposes the idea of honesty in our speech acts.
_______
We now proceed to discuss the main themes and selections from the reading of the Analects, here.

Buddhism (review for quiz this Thursday)

2011-11-07T08:07:00.001-05:00

Find the notes for Buddhism for our quiz on Thursday here.

As usual, I'll ask you to complete the definitions for the basic terms as stated in this review.

Dhammapada

2011-11-03T11:42:00.000-05:00

Dhammapada here.

A Yogaist (Socio-Political) Manifesto

2011-11-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

aTrifF

Nature has priority.¹ It's here first and sustains everything.

The guiding principle is ahimsa. Non-violence translated into (deep)ecology, i.e, the interdependence of human and non-human life. We cannot understand ourselves if we strange ourselves from nature.

Socio-political starts bottom-up, instead of top-down.² We don't need to wait for the top to change the status quo. As real actors, close to the local/regional nodes of action, we can acquire the know-how to build connections and mobilize public opinion to challenge institutional and social alienation.

* From the bottom ---> up: The initial transformation is individual, but it doesn't stop there. We are ONE: There is no true samadhi without dharma/activism.³

* The aporia of human anthropocentric emancipation: We need to see non-human life under a different optic. The Greeks of ancient times didn't realize that non-Greeks were persons. American plantation owners in the late-18th Century didn't realize that blacks were not inferior brutes. The majority of Americans don't realize that non-human animals are more than just foodstuff. We have an obligation to treat animals with dignity.⁴ Animal farming in America needs to be regulated and transformed from intensive farming ----> extensive farming.

* The aporia of pollution vs. development: Blaming corporations in order to feel safely excluded from the pollution cycle while feeding the very thing we try to prevent. We are the world's worst polluters! ⁵

The move towards eco-conservation is a social imperative. Let's fight to stop deforestation, to protect sea life from extinction (due to overfishing), ensuring ecological diversity for future generations.

* The aporia of technology vs. emancipation: What makes us human is a result of our cultural evolution: language, rituals, arts and technology. Yet, our anthropocentric-based culture is leading us to a dead end. Let's move from an anthropocentric to a bio-centric culture!⁶

We must learn to curb and manage our waste: Reusing, donating, recycling! The present corporate-driven/production-intensive food paradigm needs to be turned upside down, from fast food ----> slow food. ⁷ Let's switch our eating habits and bring back food sacralization as potlucks, food festivals, etc. Let's turn environmental degradation and human exploitation into eco-erotics!⁸

* The aporia of development vs. under-development⁹: Our post-Capitalist global society is craft-deprived. Globalization has outsourced our manufacturing and trade/skills base. Let's get back to cooking, arts and crafts, organic horticulture,¹⁰ etc. We should balance our individualism with communitarianism!

Let's change our cities by fighting urban decay with environmental sustainability, changing ugliness into beauty. Urban crime can be fought with gardening and urban farming!

Let's become eco-Romantics!,¹¹ engaging in heritage conservation, infrastructure efficiency, "Social Access,"¹² mass transit, regional integration, human scale, and institutional integrity.

Let's transform our neighborhoods by building sustainable structures, limiting urban sprawl, reducing car dependence, promoting pedestrian friendly urbanism, etc.¹³

What to do?

Cratft ivism,

anti-advertising,

protest,

social graffiti,
urban farming,

disvestment,

Zenarchy,

nonviolence,

anarcho-syndicalism,

NGO's,

building consensus,

civil disobedience,

E-democracy,

potlatch

ACT NOW!

____________

¹ Aristotle's naturalism can be seen as a forerunner of eco-thics, as expressed by his dictum that Nature "does nothing in vain." John Clearly, Aristotle and the Many Senses of Priority, (Southern Illinois University Press, 1988) p. 60. ² We don't have to choose between markets (Welfare Capitalism) or governments, as instruments of emancipation (Communism, planned-economy Socialism). Nor is there need to eliminate markets, trade, private ownership, the welfare state, or the institution of the corporation. What we need to do is bring about new practices for each of these institutions appropriate to a balance between prosperity and conservation. This task belongs neither to corporations nor to states: They are incapable of questioning the legitimacy on which their present institutional form is based. Citizens, not big-money interests, have to set the terms of the economic and political agenda. This is the force of emergence: Millions of people joining voluntary movements, discovering that the good life is more fulfilling than the endless cycle of accumulation and consumption. Professor Steven Buechler makes a similar (hopeful) point: "Movements can be crucial switching stations in the direction of history (...) vital free spaces that promote democratization and restore a meaningful public sphere." See Steven M. Buechler, Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism (Oxford University Press: 2000) p. 214. Enacting Niyama at the social level can bring about a life of material sufficiency with cultural, intellectual, and spiritual abundance in balance with the environment. By osmosis, the social level can bring about needed changes in the political sphere. ³ One's embeddedness in a particular context: job, household/family, or community can lead one to recognize a problem, learn about community needs, and find a way to make life better through new -or reconfigured- social linkages. ⁴According to philosopher Tom Regan, animals have "inherent value" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end. See, Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (University of California Berkeley, 2005) p. 245. ⁵The United States has 4.2% of the world's population and produces 24% of the world's C0₂ emissions.⁶One must be careful not to write off culture, as if humans have fallen from paradise straight into some artificial exile of civilization. This is where the ancient Greeks can help. They understood that us humans are not completely "natural" but rather the site of a collision of nature and culture, which uniquely defines us. See Bruce Thornton, Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge (ISI Books, 1999) p. 96. ⁷ "Slow food" goes against the received notion that cheap food = good food. Carlo Petrini, the man behind this movement defends the "unpolitical" idea that cheap food is really expensive, bad food, when compared with good, clean, carefully harvested food. He is right. In his book, Petrini advocates the idea of "gusto" (taste) and diversity. There is a correlation between slow food and health, which makes slow food more enjoyable. The locus for this revolucion is la osteria, a place where one can find "traditional cuisine run as a family business with simple service, welcoming atmosphere, good wine and moderate prices." See Carlo Petrini, Slow Food, the Case for Taste (Columbia University Press, 2003) p. 51-58. "Cheap food" is a Capitalist ploy to misrepresent real capital allocation and profit in the name of "abundance," hiding government subsidies for monoculture and intensive production which end up as profit for Big Business in food and energy. Take for instance American corn policies: We subsidize corn while (protect Monsanto's right to sell it to farmers as genetically modified seed). Coincidentally, corn is the foodstuff staple for raising cattle in the US (funded by whom?) and an energy commodity. Wonder why such a labor-intensive commodity such as meat is so cheap? Corn is heavily fertilized — both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop — at least until corn ethanol skewed the market — artificially low. That's your Big Mac @ McDonald's, a $5 meal bargain, with 1,400 calories (more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults). ⁸ I thank my friend Gene Ray from Scurvy Tunes, for his suggestion. I'd like to spin his idea of eco/erotics as an embodied striving for well-being that connects us with the animal and non-animal other (life). The opposite of eco/erotics is eros gone astray, a perversion of Nishkam Karma. A desire in the form of a will-to-control that aims to secure itself by mastering all around it. Ridden with anxiety, this eros reduces other to self. In fact, there are examples of such versions in modern times: Certain "peak" historic moments, when factors motivating nations and individuals, such as the desires for profit, security, and hegemony got transformed militaristic erotics. ⁹ It turns out that the mantra of "emancipated" Communist development in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean throughout the 1960's-1980's consisted in mimicking the Capitalist "anthropocentric development" model: 1- constant growth, 2- domination of nature, 3- industrialization and technologization of production and society at the expense of environmental degradation, abandonment of agriculture (land reform in this case meant very little, since arbitrary and exploitative prices were set by the bureaucrats, not by the farmers), massive migration to the cities, urban unemployment and loss of crafts skills. The deterioration of nature brought by these mistaken policies, was invoked by the communist bureaucracies as a step in the right direction for the attainment of development. ¹⁰Who would think of pursuing horticultural studies in Miami, now, when the expected move of disenfranchised farmers is from the rural areas to the city? Precisely! This overall migration has to do with the switch from farmer-produced to corporate-produced agriculture. How can one reverse it? By encouraging simple living. Diversifying instead of homogenizing food consumption; by making good, simple food (not gourmet food) a desired commodity, so that corporations are forced to alter their mode of production. Surely, one must be watchful of corporation's good intentions! It's all about awareness: As we become more educated in our food habits, there is gradual a move from agriculture into crafted horticulture. Are people ready for it? After the subprime mortgage crisis, the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and BP's gulf disaster, the answer is yes. ¹¹ The new eco-Romantic is committed to ecological flourishing, but she is neither anti-technology, nor naive in her political expectations about Messianic utopias. The traditional Romantic lived in a paradox he was blind to. (H)e deprecated technology from his studio in the industrial-brought comfort of the pre-Modern city. We must see the good and bad in technology. The Industrial Revolution cannot be simply undone (the remedy would be worst than the disease). It needs to be transformed. Technology can serve us in using the ecosystem resources more efficiently. On the other hand, there is a strong historical relationship between growth in economic output and growing human demands on the earth's finite ecosystem. We've pushed since 1950's the human burden on the planet's regenerative systems, its soils, air, water, fisheries, and forestry systems beyond what the planet can sustain. Anthropocentric "development" is not the answer. Pushing for economic growth beyond the planet's sustainable limits accelerates the rate of breakdown of the whole. It also intensifies the competition between rich and poor for the earth's remaining output of life-sustaining resources. ¹²An interesting example is the structural plan of Thimphu, capital of Bhutan. From the idea of the Tashichho Dzong, Bhutan's sacred urban asset, the plan proposes to reclaim the public domain through a series of steps, limiting the access of the automobile, mass transit, the enhancing of environmental zones, opening paths, heritage conservation and shelter programme (at some point the plan debates the issue of cheap labor from India, which creates a problem and displaces the labor forces from Bhutan, which goes to show that even this small landlocked country is grappling with global issues. ¹³ See "Miami's Urban Mess."

Update: comments for my posts

2011-11-01T08:43:00.002-05:00

Dear friends: Let's address the comments for my posts once again. These are posts for comments. They are mandatory. Comment should have 100 words, be informative and show a level consistent with the engagement we have with the class. The post is open for 7 days and I'll close them after that. Comments are part of the final grade. Please, from here on, post your comments in proper fashion.
Thanks.

Notes on Buddhism

2011-10-25T11:06:00.002-05:00

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.

... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre

Buddhism is a spiritual movement founded by Siddharta Gautama in India in the 6th century BC and became the first multi cultural spiritual tradition in the higher civilization of the Eurasian world. Buddhism lasted in India for some 1500 years, until it disappeared from India as that country became progressively dominated by Islam. Buddhism moved then to Ceylon, China (first century AD), Korea (fourth century AD), and Japan (sixth century AD); eastward into Burma, Thailand (third century AD), Cambodia (fourth century AD), Indonesia (third century AD) and the other countries of southeastern Asia with the exception of the Philippines. It became the dominant spiritual movement in Tibet (eight century AD), and Mongolia (thirteen century AD).

The teaching of Buddha was handed down to succeeding generations in the form of a threefold refuge: the Buddha, the teaching and the community. These are three aspects of the Buddha reality. 1- The teaching itself is a form of Buddha presence. The teaching is supreme insofar as it is in virtue of the teaching that a person is guided to experience the saving illumination concerning the nature of sorrow and the way to release from sorrow. 2- The community has a certain priority since it carries and sustain the entire Buddhist tradition. 3- The doctrine would have had no inner development or preservation or propagation except through the community. Yet supreme over everything is the Buddha reality.

The Message
Buddha's teaching was transmitted orally to his disciples. It consists of the theory, the path and the sangha. The core of the theory is the concept of human suffering and the possibility of emancipation. Individuality implies limitation, desire causes suffering since what is desired is transitory, changing and perishing.

Reality
Reality is composed of dharmas (components) or a succession of microseconds of existence. Buddha departed from the teachings of must Hinduism by not having a precise eschatology (a theory of final things). Life is a stream, a river, of manifestations and extinctions. There's nothing permanent and thereby no fixed self.

Karma
Buddhists accept the notion of karma, however, this presented a problem with their notion of no-self. How could one prove that one can reincarnate with a no self, i.e. with no permanent subject? Some scholars have considered this to be unsolvable. The relations between existences has been compared to the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is very different in every moment. A sort of ever changing identity.

The Four Noble Truths
There are four noble truths. 1-The truth of sorrow, 2-the truth that sorrow originates within us from the craving of pleasure, 3-the truth that this craving can be eliminated and 4-the truth that a methodical path must be followed to obtain this goal. Otherwise human beings would remain indefinitely in samsara.

The Eightfold Path
Hence Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination or paticca-samuppada) whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Given the awareness of this law, the question arises as to how one may escape the continually renewed cycle of births, suffering and death. There must be a purification that leads to overcoming this process. Such a liberating purification is effected by following the Noble Eightfold Path constituted by 1-the right views, 2-the right aspiration, 3-the right speech, 4-the right conduct, 5-the right livelihood, 6-the right effort, 7-the right mindfulness and 8-the right meditational attainment. This implies the rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: No teaching should be accepted unless they are borne out by our experience and are praised by the wise.
Anicca: All things that come to be have an end.
Dukkha: Nothing which comes to be is ultimately satisfying.
Anattā: Nothing in the realm of experience can really be said to be "I" or "mine".Nibbāna (Sanskrit: Nirvāna: It is possible for sentient beings to realize a dimension of awareness which is totally unconstructed and peaceful, and end all suffering due to the mind's interaction with the conditioned world.

Nirvana
The aim is to be rid of the delusion of the ego, freeing oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who succeeds has achieved enlightenment. The term is nirvana translated as dying out
But nirvana is not extinction. And Buddha repudiated this. Buddhists search for salvation, not annihilation. Although nirvana is often presented as negative, it can be seen as the ultimate goal for salvation in Buddhism.

Sangha
Sangha refers to the assembly of believers. There are two meanings, the monastic Sangha of ordained Buddhist monks or nuns and the assembly of all beings possessing some degree of realization. The sangha requires:

The future anterior: Notes to Thursday's class

2011-10-23T12:54:00.001-05:00

Let's come back to the idea of the binary karma/dharma (action). In the context of the Gita "discipline in action" is called Karma Yoga.⁰

Karma yoga makes sense if seen from the milieu in the context of politics. We're "in the middle of," that is to say, our most proximate, at arms length, as it were. This is our duty. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher would agree that we have a duty to what is most immediate to us. If we want to bring change to the periphery, we have to operate locally, from within our milieu. And that brings forth the idea of time.

Think of this idea of disturbing the experiment.* We never have enough time! Since we're time, time is our nemesis. When we virtually interact with our own movie it is "as if" we were in the future of our present. We can tap into what is yet-to-come, what is still "on the verge" of happening.

Karma Yoga (our duty) is connected with the idea of immanence. Why should Arjuna fulfill his karma? Recall that in the Gita, the narrative is twofold: On the one hand, we have this actual battle where kin will die; on the other, we have Arjuna's inner struggle. Going to battle is a virtual way of getting outside his own movie.

In a sense, Krishna counsels Arjuna to "disturb" the normal order of things (which for the latter appears as chaotic). Arjuna's desire is to call off the battle, but this path of inaction is wrong. This is why: Krishna is -as it were- outside, in Arjuna's distant future. By doing his duty, Arjuna moves from immanence (his inner battle plus his actual battle) to transcendence, i.e., changing himself and things for the better.

How about the pair action/inaction? Again, we get a complicated picture. You would've thought that asceticism, which we encounter in the Upanishads, would be a good example. After all, the ascetic lives a life of dedication and commitment to self-governance. Right? But this is a point we've discussed in class: If the ascetic left his own milieu to pursue a life of transcendence at the cost of his most immediate duty, he is not achieving much. He may end up desiring what he tries to avoid. In the context of the Gita, asceticism is like burying one's head on the sand like an ostrich, in order to avoid the relentless chaos of the world.

Which chaos? Inner battle. This is why Arjuna is really afraid of. He wants to go his way with inaction, not disturbing, not facing his own demons.

There was this line "They live in peace who have renounced desire," which suggests that peace is actually free from the attachment: do we desire when we're at peace?
__________
⁰"Karma" comes from the root kri, which means "doing" and includes all the actions that a person performs. "Yoga" comes from the root yuj, which means, "to join." The idea combines three aspects: 1- a sense of duty towards others, 2- an absence of desire for rewards, 3- a sense of equanimity, which enables one to be as neutral to environmental influences as possible. *You want to understand future anterior? Watch La Jetée, a poignant, ground breaking movie. **In the future, one looks back to another moment (it doesn't have to be the past). For instance, yesterday's class is in the future of classes we didn't have before. See? Remember my example of the person who makes the mistake of marrying the wrong person. By the time s/he feels happy, there will be many failed attempts at being happy. In a sense, happiness is the repetition (& resolution) of non-happiness.

Today we're reading from the Bhagavad Gita

2011-10-11T07:43:00.000-05:00

To thing or not to thing

2011-10-06T12:24:00.002-05:00

Check this post on Miami Bourbaki. Forgive the philosophy jargon, which in this case is sort of necessary, I'd like to share my argument with you. Heidegger is an important 20th-century philosopher who constructed a philosophy known as Existentialism, whose protagonist is Dasein (a German word for "man," "human"). Heidegger was interested in Dasein, but also in (b)eings: things. Harman takes Heidegger's philosophy and tries to make it work for the thing. In doing so, Harman destroys many of Heidegger's Dasein's appurtenances in order to build his own metaphysics which he calls tool-being (check my 3-point manifesto regulating metaphysics at the beginning of the post).

My disagreement with Harman is that after all is said and done, Dasein's is still in charge. One cannot pretend to theorize for the thing as if it is theorizing for itself. Harman will not admit to that and sugar-coats the moment of discovery as transcendence. There is nothing wrong with using transcendence, only that Harman cannot have his cake and eat it too. Anyway... thanks for the reading and good luck.

Preamble to the Bhagavad Gita

2011-10-04T11:29:00.001-05:00

First, the idea of dharma: Doing what must be done (not acting like an automaton, which would be an example of "inaction"). A stoic translation of that idea is "doing the best I can at all times."

Dharma is not passivity. It means pursuing our duty, diligently, intensely. Which duty? What we have chosen for ourselves; the milieu we've inherited (family, commitments, etc).

The idea of detaching oneself from the fruits of one's action may seem a bit counterintuitive, particularly in the West. It takes a hierachical view of things. Krishna admits that one can win or gain no matter the outcome.

Sure, but that's too general. How does it apply to me? The idea of "gain" in our post-Capitalist postmodern times is very entrenched. We are often caught up in a means-to-ends cycle. Suggestion: How many times one invests and makes money and the general outcome of the investment leaves much to be desired? How many times we've won arguments than in retrospect we wished we had lost? How many actions we chose that later we resent? What cuts through these examples is time. We don't have enough time to see the movie because we're in it. Only then one can understand Krishna's advice.

As we've discussed before, sacrifice (yajna) turns upside-down all received notions of economic exchange: Sovereignty. Yajna is a form of sovereignty. The existentialist metaphor of devenir. Why? In a way, we're born again every time we choose ourselves. Self-rule is a sign of inner development. The idea of detaching oneself from the fruits of one’s action may seem a bit counterintuitive, particularly in the West.

Remember repetition, we're born again every time we choose ourselves ("nous ne pouvons pas choisir" = we cannot stop choosing). Self-rule is a sign of inner development.

Do we feel nothingness?

2011-10-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

Let's explore this idea of "nothingness" a bit, since it's such an important notion for the philosophy of the East.

First, Physics! A region of space is called a vacuum if it does not contain any matter, though it can contain physical fields. This is more a sort of ideal concept. It is practically impossible to construct a region of space that contains no matter or fields, since gravity cannot be blocked and all objects at a non-zero temperature radiate electromagnetically. But even if such a region existed, it could still not be referred to as "nothing", since it has properties and a measurable existence as part of the quantum-mechanical vacuum.

So, it seems we're dealing conceptual, possibilities!

For instance, Shunyata (emptiness), unlike "nothingness", is considered to be a state of mind in some forms of Buddhism (see Nirvana, mu, 无 and Bodhi). Achieving 'nothing' as a state of mind in this tradition allows one to be totally focused on a thought or activity at a level of intensity that they would not be able to achieve if they were consciously thinking. A classic example of this is an archer attempting to erase his mind and clear his thoughts in order to better focus on his shot.

In modern logic, the term "nothing" does not function as a noun, as there is no object that it refers to. However, there are dissenters that claim that our understanding of the world rests essentially on noticing absences and lacks as well as presences.

Meditation (in 13 points)

2011-10-04T11:27:00.001-05:00

Swami Yogananda

1- Regularity of time, place and practice are important for meditation. 2- The most effective times are early dawn and dusk, when the atmosphere is charged with special spiritual force. If it is not feasible to sit for meditation at these times, choose an hour when you are not involved with daily activities, and a time when the mind is apt to be calm. 3- Try to have a separate room for meditation. 4- When sitting, face North or East in order to take advantage of favorable magnetic vibrations. Sit in a steady, comfortable position (preferably with cross-legged position with spine and neck erect but not tense). 5- Before beginning, command the mind to be quiet for a specific length of time. Forget the past, present and future. 6- Focus on your breath. Begin with five minutes of deep abdominal breathing to bring oxygen to the brain. Then slow it down to an imperceptible rate. 7- Keep the breathing, rhythmic, inhale for three seconds and exhale for three seconds. Regulation of breath also regulates the flow of prana, the vital energy. 8- Allow the mind to wander at first. It will jump around, but will eventually become concentrated, along with the concentration of prana. 9- Don't force the mind to be still, as this will set in motion additional brain waves, hindering meditation. 10- Select a focal point on which the mind may rest. For people who are intellectual by nature, this may be the Ajna Chakra (the point between the eyebrows). Never change this focal point. 11- Focus on a neutral or uplifting object, holding the image in the place of concentration. If using a Mantra, repeat it mentally, and co-ordinate repetition with the breath. If you dont have a personalized Manta, use OM. Never change the Mantra. 12- Repetition will lead to pure thought, in which sound vibration merges with thought vibration, without awareness of meaning. Vocal repetition progresses through mental repetition to telepathic language, and from there to pure thought. 13- With practice, the idea of duality disappears and Samadhi, or the superconscious state, is reached. Do not become impatient, as this takes a long time.

"Give birth to myself"

2011-10-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

I found this revealing quote from Gabriel García Márquez: “Not only am I born by being delivered from my mother’s womb, but each time life forces me to give birth to myself.” Very fitting as a metaphor for reincarnation, methinks.

List of terms for our test next Thursday (Vedanta, Jaina & Yoga)

2011-10-01T08:37:00.002-05:00

Find the list for our exam here. It constains notes on Vedanta, Jaina and Yoga philosophies. Remember, the test has two parts, 1. identification of terms, where you are asked to provide definitions for the terms studied. 2. A mini-essay roughly one page, where you elaborate a theme you previously worked on. Either pencil or pen is fine. Please, be legible! :)

Yoga as pris de conscience!

2011-10-01T08:14:00.004-05:00

Elizabeth Magill, Lower Lough, 2006.

(This post should go along our reading of the Patanjali Sutras). There are a few things I want to come back to. Keep in mind that Yoga is a methodology, a HOW TO manual for spirituality. This is not a set of formulas one debates trying to find apriori reasons. It's more knowing-as-doing, doing-as-feeling.

To find out about Yoga's validity one has to try it.*

There are two ways of looking at this: You don't accept a whole model but take some of its parts, or you reinterpret the parts. Let me address some of these concepts as I see them:

Elizabeth Magill, Parlous Land, 2006.

1. Reincarnation is repetition. Is repetition the same throughout? The idea is that (R)eality is a ground of reverberating intensity. If that ground is difference (perpetual differentiation) then repetition cannot be of the same, but only of the different, i.e, the renewal of the different. We never wake up to the same morning!

2. Purification is pris de conscience! (i.e., taking charge). As in quantum physics where the observation alters the result of the experiment, purification takes one's disturbing one's -ongoing- movie.

Jeff Wall, After Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, 1999.

We live at a par of our unfolding. So, as the moving-picture plays, there is a possibility to see it -AS IF- we were outside it. This position of "being-outside" as "being-inside" means that you can interact with yourself. There are parts of the movie you don't like and you change them as the movie plays. This is what the yogis call niyama.

We have two options: (a) like so many people, we just let the movie play (doing nothing), or (b) we choose to possibly changing aspects of our own story as it unfolds.

3. Attachment is as difficult as it is obvious. We are amidst a raja vortex of forces. We're matter, only in a high state of complexity. And matter craves matter. Yet, MIND being an emergent property of matter, can sort of detach itself from matter. This is the difference between sattvas and tamas.

Elizabeth Magill, Oncoming, 2006.

4. Attainments. Now comes the big one: What is samadhi? Liberation, a sort of riding with the wind. Finding oneself (being-one-with- ______). Of course, that is too general to make sense. What's key here is that finding of oneself presents us with a goal. Pursuing the goal is a way to do it. The journey!

We must not forget Patanjali's caveat about samadhi which is a point he shares with Nietzsche's own idea of rapture: "... the path to one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own hell."

This is why Patanjali is so careful about attachments. If the voyage into the horizon of the infinite fills us with a "thrill," this is because something is glimpsed in samadhi which is in excess of the human, something that is "too much." A voyage into the eye of the maelstrom: Nobody can do it for you.

5. Dhyana invites a unique question: Why not thinking about non-thinking?
_____________
*Only then, as the French say, en connaissance de cause, one can say "it's not good." **In keeping with Buddhism's central teaching of pluralism that there are many ways to heaven, we can say that Yoga is another way.

Patanjali Sutra (excerpts and comments)

2011-09-27T11:56:00.000-05:00

Chapter 1: SAMADHI

I,8: Unreal cognition is the knowing of the unreal, possessing a form not its own.
Comment: Removal of wrong impressions. Egoism, attachment, aversion and love of life are afflictions.Nescience (adidya) affects the purusha.
I,30: Disease, languor, indecision, carelessness, sloth, sensuality, mistaken notion, missing the point, instability, these causing distractions are obstacles.

Comment: Disease is the disturbance of the equilibrium of the humors. Languor is the indisposition of the mind to work. Indecision is the notion touching both sides of the question. Carelessness is want of resort to the means of trance. Sloth is inertia of the mind and body upon heaviness. Sensuality is the desire upon objects.

I,33: By cultivating habits of friendliness, compassion, complacency and detachment towards happiness, misery virtue and vice, the mind becomes pure.
I,34: Optionally, by the expulsion and retention of breath. Retention is Pranayama, the lengthening of the duration of the stay of the air inside the lungs.I,36: Or by meditating according to one’s predilection.

Comment: When the mind becomes free from memories or verbal convention, of trance-consciousness, devoid of the options of inferential and verbal cognition, the object makes its appearance in the mind in its own nature. The transformation is called “Distinct” (nirvitarka).

I,43: Distinctive (wordless) thought transformation is that in which the mind shines as the object alone on the cessation of memory, and is as it were devoid of its own nature.
(Read more here).

Yoga metaphysics

2011-09-15T11:16:00.003-05:00

Pakriti (undifferentiated primal matter)

Buddhi/ mahat

(suprapersonal potentiality of experience)

Ahankara (egoity: a function appropriating the data of consciousness and wrongly assigning them to purusha)

faculty of action -------------> faculty of thought -------------> faculties of sense (sound, touch, flavor, etc)

-------------------------------------------------subtle atoms realized in subtle bodies

----------------------------------the five gross elements: air, fire, water, earth, ether

Raja Yoga: Individual or Political?

2011-09-15T10:37:00.001-05:00

The effort of Yoga can be described as an inward movement leading to enstasis rather than one leading to extasis. The term is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Yoga starts with the idea of alienation of atman/Brahman (all dualities for that matter) when atman does not find itself at home. Is atman homeless? That depends from another question: Is Yoga political? The reason is that, I we'll see later when we read Patanjali's Sutras, there is no personal emancipation without political emancipation.

For example, presenting the issue of alienation from the external point of view (in Marx) and alienation from the internal point of view, i.e. suffering. The Marxist critique of alienation presents alienation as a separation from one's production, which contributes to the perpetuation of suffering, which validates the acceptance of the status quo. The Yoga would doubt that it's possible to create that can exist without any suffering. Now that doesn't make Yoga less political (though many would say it does). Marx would say that yoga has confused cause and effect. Someone can be rich and live a life of suffering. Someone can be poor and live a full life.

That seems to be the conclusion, since there is a constant tension between purusha and pakriti. There are qualities or gunas, goodness or sattvas, passion or rajas and darkness or tamas. Rightness is bright and pleasing, the upward movement of things, the sense of joy, belonging, bliss, etc. Rajas address the dynamic force in things, the restlessness within reality, the dialectic movement (from thesis, antithesis and synthesis), longing, dissatisfaction, pain. To darkness is attributed this anomic, passive, opaque aspect of reality. The distinguishing quality of things is determined by the dominance of one or the other of these qualities. Nothing is ever fixed, there are always contradictions taking place. I think the answer is affirmative. So, we're looking at a gnoseological ontological problem, being alienated is being outside the realm of the ONE (buddhi).

So what's the ONE? A plenitude within oneself, the totality of our emotional and intellectual possibilities, which we feel and obtain, but only in brief, evanescent moments. Wordsworth presents it as such:

Not in Utopia, subterraneous fields,
Or some secreted Island Heaven knows where;
But in the very world which is the world
Of all of us, the place on which in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all.

If the release from moksha is personal, then it seems that Yoga is not a recipe for social emancipation. Well, that's not entirely true. One can think of groups of yogis being lead by a guru or a community of like-minded people who find a common cause and pursue it. There is no true moksha without a society.

Let's problematize politics a bit that is to say, let's take it from the bottom up instead of the other way around. The received idea is that politics is too concerned with power (top-to-bottom normativity) instead of bottom-up emergence. From the POV of the thing, processes start from the bottom-up. How can we make societies and associations to change the status quo?

The path

The 8 stages of spiritual ascent:
Yama (restraint): One is taken to a variety of stimuli, attractions and repulsions. If one abandons inner control, if one cannot resist the stimuli of opposites, one succumbs. Yaya indicates the charioteer who is in charge. In Freudian terms, think of the conquering of the darkest forces of one's unconscious mind.
Ahimsa: We've talked about this. It's the ethical principle of Yoga.
Satya: Veracity, which is more than truthfulness. It means a commitment to what is genuine, virtuous and honest. It takes the conscious understanding of reality, not bad faith.
Asteya (not taking what is not ours) take it as a form of socio-political order. In positive terms it means giving others what is due to them. It even means not taking yourself as yours.
Aparigraha (non covetousness) not grasping after things. In western terms is the virtue of detachment. Developing the intuition of "when it's too much."

Niyama: Spiritual discipline. Is a second group of five principles:
Asana: Posture, it's the spiritual control over the body or the corporal control over the spiritual. Asana eases tensions and helps the spiritual project.
Pranayama: Controlled breathing.
Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses.
Dharana: Fixation on a single object as a phase of psychic activity aimed at absolute unity.
Dhyana: Sustained attention: In Buddhism jhana (Chinese, ch'an, Japanese, zen). It means the clear mind, absorbed into the object so that it does not advert to its former modifications. How long can one stay in this "concentrated" state?
Samadhi: the superior state of consciousness. The object appears in its pure radiant form.

For a list of Yoga terms, click here.

Your turn #2: Jiva in the plastig bag

2011-09-10T17:26:00.002-05:00

Make your comments to this week's post here.

Gandhi's paralogical logic of ahimsa

2011-09-06T11:40:00.002-05:00

1- Ahimsa means a steady progress with discipline.

2- The power of the satyagrahi is greater than if he were violent.

3- There is no defeat in a-himsa.

4- In a-himsa the bravery consists in dying, not in killing.

5- The satyagrahi should never have any hatred toward his opponent... must be prepared to suffer until the end.

6- ...truth never jimsa a cause that is just.

7- A satyagrahi is never vindictive. He believes not in destruction but in conversion.

8- A-himsa presupposes the ability to strike.

9- ...injustice must be resisted. A-himsa is better, but where is does not come naturally jimsa is both necessary and honorable.

10- So long as one retains one's sword, one has not attain complete fearlessness.

11- A-himsa is impossible without self-purification.

12- A weak man is just by accident. A strong satyagrahi is unjust by accident.

13- A satyagrahi is dead to his body even before his enemy attempts to kill him, i.e. he is free from attachment to his body and only lives in the victory of his soul.

14- A non-violent revolution is not a program for a seizure of power, it's a program of transformation of relationships ending in a peaceful transfer of power.

15- No man has been able to describe God fully. The same goes for ahimsa.

16- Man as animal is violent but as spirit is non-violent. The moment he awakes to the spirit he cannot be violent.

17- It's better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts than to put the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent. (impotent = no reaction)

18- If we remain non-violent, hatred will die, as everything does, from disuse.

19- Ahimsa cannot be preached. It needs to be practiced.

20- Ahimsa succeeds only if have faith.
___________
All excerpts taken from Ghandi on Non-Violence, New Directions Paper book (New York, 1965)

Notes on Jainism

2011-09-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

Jainism was founded in the 6th century BC by Vardhamana, known as Mahavira or “Great Hero” (the 24th of the Tirthankaras) Jainas or “Conquerors” (whence the name Jainism), in protest against the orthodox Vedic ritualistic cult of the period.

Jainism asserts that every soul is divine and capable of attaining perfection. The universe can be divided into Jiva (soul) and Ajiva (non-soul). The living and the non-living, by coming into contact with each other, forge certain energies which bring about birth, death and various experiences of life.

Yet, the process could be stopped, and the energies already forged destroyed, by a course of discipline leading to moksha.

Jaina is based on the practice of (a) the right knowledge, (b) right faith and (c) right conduct. They must be cultivated at once. Right faith leads to calmness and tranquility, but right faith leads to perfection only when followed by right conduct. Knowledge without faith and conduct is futile. Right conduct is spontaneous, not a forced mechanical quality. Attainment of right conduct is a gradual process. 3- This process leads to ahimsa: (skt non-harming) the Jaina doctrine of non-violence.¹

There are five basic ethical principles (or vows) prescribed. The degree to which these principles must be practiced is different for renunciant and householder. Thus:
1- Non-violence (Ahimsa) - to cause no harm to living beings.
2- Truth (Satya) - to always speak the truth in a harmless manner.
3- Non-stealing (Asteya) - to not take anything that is not willingly given (CAVEAT: don't mess up with people's autonomy, that's THEFT).
4- Celibacy (Brahmacarya) - to not indulge in sensual pleasures (CAVEAT: here "indulge" means making pleasures the end, remember the reversibility principle [avoiding something only to let it thru the back door] the enjoyment is more appropriate, as "means").
5- Non-possession (Aparigraha) - to detach from people, places, and material things (for detachment nothing better than this.

Theological and philosophical Implications of Jainism:

*Every living being has a soul: divine, with innate, though typically unrealized, potentially immense knowledge, perception, power, and bliss.
*Therefore, regard every living being as yourself, harm no one, and manifest benevolence for all living beings.
*Every soul is born as a sort of celestial, human or sub-human or hellish being according to its own karmas.
*Every soul is the architect of its own life, here or hereafter. (Yes, freedom exists!)
*When a soul is freed from karmas,² it becomes free and god-conscious, experiencing infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss.
*Right View, Right Knowledge and Right Conduct (triple gems of Jainism) provide the way to this realization.
*There is no supreme divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer: The universe is self-regulated and every soul has the potential to achieve the status of god-consciousness (siddha) through one's own efforts.*Non-violence (Ahimsa) is the foundation of right View, the existence of right Knowledge and the kernel of right Conduct. Non-violence is compassion and forgiveness in thoughts, words and actions toward all living beings. It includes respecting views of others (Non-absolutism).
Control of the senses.
*Limit possessions and lead a pure life that is useful to yourself and others. Owning an object by itself is not possessiveness; however attachment to an object is. Non-possessiveness is the balancing of needs and desires while staying detached from our possessions.
*Enjoy the company of the holy and better qualified, be merciful to those afflicted and tolerate the perversely inclined.
*Four things are difficult for a soul to attain: 1. human birth, 2. true knowledge, 3. good faith, and 4. practicing the right path.
*It is important not to waste human life in evil ways. Rather, strive to rise on the ladder of spiritual evolution.
*The goal of Jainism is liberation of the soul from the negative effects of unenlightened thoughts, speech and action. This goal is achieved through clearance of karmic obstructions.
____________
¹Since thought gives rise to action, non-violence of thought is more important than non-violence of action. It is also one of the five virtues in Raja-Yoga. In the 20th century, these ideas crystallize with Gandhi’s doctrine of satyagraha, later adopted by Martin Luther King. ² The doctrine of karma provides a rational explanation to the apparently inexplicable phenomena of birth and death, happiness and misery, inequalities in mental and physical attainments, and the existence of different species of living beings. It explains that the principle governing the successions of life is karma. The karma that bind our soul are due not only to the actions of our body, mind, and speech but more importantly, to the intentions behind them. Äsrava (Cause of the influx of karma)
A person's ignorance or wrong belief, vowlessness, spiritual-laziness, and passions like anger, self-aggrandizement, deceit and greed, are the primary causes of the influx of karma. Collectively, these causes are called Äsrava.

Your turn! (this post will be closed by next Wednesday @11pm)

2011-09-03T14:24:00.001-05:00

Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull, (1628).

This is your first post for comment (remember, at least 150 words, you can post and re-post as much as you want).

We started with a stew: The story of the victor and the vanquished. A struggle for redemption. Here are some of the themes (as I interpret them):

1- Problematization in philosophy (don't take anything as settled or beyond elucidation). Metaphors must be sent to the cleaners and back.
2- Reincarnation (in Hinduism) as repetition.
3- Moksha as "being home" (and our condition of homelessness).
4- Yajna (or sacrifice) as sovereign exchange (or you call the shots).
5- Dukkha or suffering. How should one approach the finite? I suggested the romantic approach to vanitas, (or, death as an ambivalent friendship)
6- Bhakti (devotion). Think of it as jazz (being in tune with others).

Also, I'd like to stress the importance of poetry, a higher form of philosophy: Hence, Wadsworth's keen intuition that we're all a whole:

. . . All beings live with God, themselves

Are God, existing in one mighty whole,

As indistinguishable as the cloudless east

At noon is from the cloudless west, when all

The hemisphere is one cerulean blue.

Or this one by Novalis, implying ONENESS:

And shortly, I saw, that now on earth

Men must become Gods.

In German it sounds better:

Kurz um, ich sah, dass jetzt auf Erden
Die Menschen sollten Götter werden.

What are your thoughts?
__________________

Remember our motto: We are all students!

environing nature with a little help from poetry

2011-09-01T11:41:00.002-05:00

brahman is nature,

nature is everything there is

man is nature and brahman.

but man destroys nature

so, man destroys himself

did man learned from brahman?

for IT being nature destroys nature and man

thus, brahman destroys itself

what's the riddle?

we cannot lie to ourselves pretending that we live in this safety isle outside the relationship of brahman/atman, pakriti/purusha.

a more honest relationship between man & nature means recognizing that we are -also- nature. but, what nature? do we even know how to look around? do we really see nature or do we see ourselves outside?

i propose environing as learning to weave one-with-another. let's begin with understanding what's difficult. in aesthetics, there is this category of "ugliness",

the so called unpleasant & unsightly in nature. the different, the awkward, unattractive, the queer. people are definitely afraid of the ugly duck.

or the frightful (the putrid smell of the marshes, abandoned animal carcasses in the countrysite, sulfide vapors coming up from the earth's bowels. and death?

lord byron (who is not afraid of death) has this to say:

The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,

A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd

They slept on the abyss without a surge

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon their mistress had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them. She was the universe.

or baudelaire, in fleurs du mal:

Je veux dormir! dormir plutôt que vivre!
Dans un sommeil aussi doux que la mort,
J'étalerai mes baisers sans remords
Sur ton beau corps poli comme le cuivre.

I wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live!
In a slumber doubtful as death,
I shall remorselessly cover with my kisses
Your lovely body polished like copper.

fearing less, loving more. that's one way to find one's place within nature.

how about insects (our misunderstood enemies?). let's begin with ants, perhaps one of the smartest and most sociable insect. roaches? read this i found on a website of people inquiring about miami as a place to live:

I've been hearing a lot about these large flying roaches and it's starting to scare me from relocating here. Are they in all homes? Do they bite? I think I could handle seeing them once in a while outside, but if I saw one of these things flying around my house I think I would want to pack my bags and leave!

trees (those forgotten shade-giving, trunk-bearing, leafy beings ). do we talk to trees? they like being talked to. i'd say that conversing with a tree is a sign of acute sensibility. suggested homework 4allof us: on your way to our house today, let's embrace and kiss a tree! there goes karma to the universe!

Upanishads (Selected fragments)

2011-08-28T08:40:00.000-05:00

FROM THE BRANDARANYAKA UPANISHAD

“In the beginning this world was just a single body (atman)…”

“This innermost thing, this self (atman) is dearer than a son, dearer than wealth, dearer than everything else.”

“Now, this self (atman) is a world for all beings.”

“In the beginning this world was only the self (atman), only one. He wished to have a wife and offspring. Now, this is his completeness –his mind is himself (atman), his speech is his wife, his breath is his offspring.”

“As a spider sends forth its thread, and as tiny sparks spring forth from a fire, so indeed all the vital functions (prana) all the worlds, and all the beings, spring from this self (atman).”

“It’s neither coarse, nor fine, neither short, nor long, it has neither blood, nor fat, it’s without shadow or darkness; it’s without air or space; it’s without contact, it has no taste or smell, it’s without sight or hearing; it’s without speech or mind, it’s without energy, breath or mouth; it has nothing within it or outside of it; it does not eat anything and no one eats it.”

“About this (atman) only one can say “not… not” (neti, neti).

(Read more here)

Notes on Hinduism

2011-08-25T07:49:00.000-05:00

Hinduism is a potage of forces and philosophies. It's simultaneously a religion, a developed cultural tradition and a social structure. So, it grows in all directions.

Hinduism has an amazing capacity for holding together a variety of spiritual cultural and social traditions. The best way to study Hinduism as a process, i.e., a tradition in constant development.

There are three important changes (1) the arrival of the Aryan peoples (around 2000, B.C.), (2) the rise of the sectarian religions of Vaishnavism and Shaivism; (3) the development of Hinduism during the 19th Century, when Western influences poured into India. The entire development of Hinduism has been determined by these tree experiences (for the purpose of this course, we're interested in the first two). The early period results from the interaction of the Aryan and non-Aryan tradition (Jainism), which are the two basic components of Hinduism. The non-Aryans represent the primordial traditions of India. In fact one can see Hinduism as the Indianization of these traditions (i.e. non-Aryans gradually modified the Aryan elements. One can see a similarity in the interpenetration of Hellenistic and Christian traditions in the West).

Non-Aryan component

There is in Hinduism a world-negative aspect that seems opposed to the influence of the Aryan conqueror. One perceives this attitude opposing delight in life, which is found in the Vedic Hymns that can be very difficult to understand if one doesn't see the phenomenon from a historic perspective. This devaluation of the world as non-being, as confinement, as meaningless, as a source of moksha or confusion, or even duhkha (suffering)¹ is the most significant aspect of the entire spiritual development of India (these are also felt in Buddhism, but more so in Jainism which is really non-Aryan). So, in a sense one can say that the Hindu achievement consists in interpreting and transforming their historic situation into an existential compass of the human condition.

Nowhere in the civilization of the Eurasian world was the objective world seen as more oppressive and alienating. Perhaps this resulted (as Schopenhauer has pointed out) in the exceptional awareness of the human condition. So, we are affected not only by the afflictions of the external world, but even more by the inner limitations of our own being (this worldview was ultimately accepted by the Aryans).

(Read more here)

Some sugestions

2011-08-24T15:35:00.001-05:00

Hi. Some of you wanted a list of books on Hinduism. Here you are:

The Upanishads (Nigiri Press)
The Bavhavad Gita same press. Though this one I assigned for the class, by Bantam Press is pretty good too).
This copy of the Yoga Sutras (Patanjali) is very affordable.
The Dammaphada (Nigiri Press), translator Easwaran's clear language is quite good, he keeps the poetic essence.

PHI 2070 Eastern Philosophy Syllabus

2011-08-22T13:56:00.001-05:00

Alfredo Triff, Ph.D.
Room 3604-37
Tel. 305.237.7554
E-mail: atriff@mdc.edu
Office Hours: Posted
Text: My own handouts + Basic texts: Upanishads, Baghavadgita, Dhamapada, Analects, Lao-Tzu, I Ching, etc.

Introduction

Phi 2070, or Eastern Philosophy consists of a survey of the different philosophical systems and religions of India, China, plus development of Zen Buddhism in the Far East. In the East, philosophy is a way of life. This does not mean that our western ideas of truth, reason and logic are not pursued in the East. Perhaps the most important characteristic of eastern philosophy is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the universe as manifestations of a basic oneness. Remember, this is not a course in eastern religion, but in eastern philosophy!

Goals

To become familiar with historical and contemporary trends in the philosophies of the East. We take a look at the cosmogony, epistemology, ethics, ontology and aesthetics of these systems. To create and stimulate a philosophical spirit.

Evaluation

1. Grades A, B and C stand for outstanding, good and average respectively. D is below average. F means not enough work to justify credit for the course.
2. There are 2 tests (a midterm and a final exam) they count for about 70% of the final grade. In addition there are weekly 150-word comment to be posted in this blog (for a 20% of the final grade). The remaining 10% is for class participation. The breakdown reflects a qualitative approximation.
4. Attendance is expected. Two non-excused absences are permitted. Each absence thereafter will lower the participation grade by half a letter. Missing quizzes must be justified by a doctor's note or the equivalent. Please, feel free to contact me if you have a serious problem with or in the class.

Policies

1. We expect a minimum of class demeanor. Courtesy and respect are important.
2. In case there are any assignments, all report papers must be WP and typed and stapled. Use Chicago style and support your research with footnotes. A minimum of three pages per report. No late reports will be accepted.

CALENDAR

GREAT PHILOSOPHIES OF INDIA

Weeks 1-3: Hinduism -- Historical background - Deities: Indra, Varuna, Rudra, Vishnu, Surya, Savitri, Ushas -- Brahmanism: Vedas, Upanishads: Ineffability, Self-existence, Divine personality, Creation, Supreme Rule, Transcendence, Immanence, Salvation and Grace -- Bhagavadgita: Dharma, Non-attachment, multiple ways of salvation, visions of God -- New Hinduism: Puranas, Agamas, Tantras, Hymns -- Saints -- Decline and Revival: Neo-Hinduism.

Weeks 4-5: Jainism -- Historical Background - Jaina images -- Texts: Makers of the crossing -- Philosophical doctrines: The qualities of matter, the mask of the personality, the cosmic man -- The doctrine of bondage -- Man against Nature.

Weeks 6-7: Yoga-- The scripture of the Patanjali -- The eight stages of spiritual ascent: yama (restraint), niyama (spiritual discipline), asana (posture), pranayama (controlled breathing), pratyahara (abstraction of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (sustained attention), samhadi (superior state of consciousness) -- Religious aspects of Yoga.

Weeks 8-9: Buddhism -- Historical Background: great Buddhist Kings -- The savior personality -- Teachings: Transient world -- The sorrowful world -- The insubstantial world -- Buddhism as a spiritual discipline: Virtue, mental concentration, full concentration of the mind -- Supreme Bliss: Nirvana -- Mahayana Buddhism: Buddha as an ontological absolute: Docestism, Tahata, Sunyata; The threefold body of Buddha -- Present developments.

Mid-term on philosophies of India.

GREAT PHILOSOPHIES OF CHINA & JAPAN
Weeks 10-11: Confucianism -- The Humanism of Confucius -- Idealistic Confucianism: Mencius -- Moral and Social Programs: The Great Learning -- The doctrine of the mean -- Naturalistic Confucianism: Hsün Tzu.

Weeks 12-13:Taoism -- The naturalism of Lao Tzu -- The Tao-Te-Ching -- The mysticism of Chuang Tzu: The equality of things, the Great Teacher -- Philosophies of Tzu: Tao as Transformation and One, Nature vs. Man, Calmness of Mind, Equality of Life and Death, Sageliness and Kingliness. The doctrines of Mo Tzu: The idea of universal love, the will of heaven, attack on fatalism, utilitarianism and condemnation of war -- The Taoism of Huai-nan Tzu -- Neo Taoism -- The philosophy of material force: Chang Tsai.

Week 13: The Yin-yang School

Weeks 14-16: Zen School of Sudden Enlightenment -- The Platform Scripture -- The recorded conversations with Shen-Hui, the recorded conversations with Master I-Hsüan. The figure of Bodhidharma and the art of meditation -- The doctrine of no mind -- The Koan practice of poetry and its significance -- Zen schools in Japan: Dogen, the Master of Zazen: his metaphysical realism. The doctrine of Buddha-nature. The root of nothingness.

Final Examination

Bibliography/Sources
Philosophies from India: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, ed. Philosophies of India (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1951).
Thomas Berry, Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism (Columbia University Press: New York, 1992). The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna=s Counsel in Times of War, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Bantam Books: New York, 1986). Upanishads, translated by Patrick Olivelle (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1996). Buddhist Scriptures, selected and translated by Edward Conze (Penguin Books: New York, 1959).

Philosophies from China: Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1969). The Way of Life According to Lao-Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner (A Perigee Book: New York, 1986). Confucius, The Analects (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1993). Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Enlightenment: Origins and Meanings (Weatherhill: New York, 1993). The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, Ingrid Fidcher-Schreiber, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Michael S. Diener, ed. (Shambala: Boston, 1994).

Ernesto's blog

2011-06-19T09:12:00.001-05:00

To keep in touch w. Ernesto, our favorite sinologist.

Now that classes are over, let's stay friends

2011-06-17T07:11:00.002-05:00

Please, become a friend of Miami Bourbaki. Thanks.

Your koans

2011-06-17T07:11:00.001-05:00

Bodhidharma and the great hall of mirrors

2011-06-16T08:39:00.004-05:00

Illustration by Clay Hickson, via Juxtapoz

MANY roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice. To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion. Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls,’ the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason.

Without moving, without effort, they (we all) enter, we say, by reason.

To enter by practice refers to four practices:
Suffering injustice,
adapting to conditions,
seeking nothing, and
practicing the Dharma.

First, suffering injustice. When those who search for the Path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves: "In Countless ages gone by, I’ve turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existence, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions.

Second, adapting to conditions. I say, be a blade of grass.

Third, seeking nothing. People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something-always, in a word, seeking. The wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. Calamity forever alternates with Prosperity!

To dwell in the three realms is to dwell in a burning house. To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body has peace? The more reason to have it! Those who understand this detach themselves from all they have and stop imagining or seeking. The sutras say, To seek is to suffer.

The Way:

The Way is wordless. Words are illusions. They’re no different from things that appear in your dreams at night, be they palaces or carriages, forested parks or lakeside ‘lions. Don’t conceive any delight for such things. Don’t cling to appearances, and you’ll break through all barriers.

Your real body is pure and impervious. But you’re unaware of it. And because of this you suffer karma in vain. Wherever you find delight, you find bondage. Feel it. But once you awaken to your original body and mind," you’re no longer bound by attachments.

Using the mind to look for reality is delusion. Not using the mind to took for reality is awareness.

Freeing oneself from words is liberation. No appearance of the mind is the other shore.

Aware:

When you’re deluded, this shore exists. When you wake tip, it doesn’t exist. Mortals stay on this shore. But those who discover the greatest of all vehicles stay on neither this shore nor the other shore. They’re able to leave both shores.

Delusion means mortality. Awareness means Buddhahood. They’re not the same. And they’re not different.

When we’re deluded there’s a world to escape. When we’re aware, there’s nothing to escape.

Limit of paradox:

If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality.

If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both.

Those who don’t understand don’t understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding.

People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding

When you don’t understand, your wrong. When you understand, you re not wrong. This is because the nature of wrong is empty. When you don’t understand right seems wrong. When you understand, wrong isn’t wrong, because wrong doesn’t exist.

The sutras say, Nothing has a nature of its own.

Act.

Don’t question. When you question, you’re wrong. Wrong is the result of questioning.

Last post

2011-06-15T12:54:00.000-05:00

Photo by Brice Bischoff, via Juxtapoz

My dear friends of Phi2070: There is a lot to talk about. Tao, wu-wei, cycles, female, duck-rabbit. Then there is TAOW & its weird strategies for battle.

See you Tuesday with the last theme of this semester: ZEN.

Now, go ahead!

List of terms for the final (we'll go over the terms in class on Tuesday)

2011-06-15T08:39:00.000-05:00

Confucianism and its principles:

T'ien, chün-tzu, jen, zhong-yong and li. Find a detailed explanation of all these terms here.

Taoism and its principles:

Tao (the Way), YING YANG, Being/ Non-being, Cycles, Te and Wu-wei; all here.

Zen and its techniques:

Find a summary of Zen techniques here. See also koan.

Bad temper

2011-06-14T13:02:00.001-05:00

A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"
"You have something very strange," replied Bankei. "Let me see what you have."
"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the other.
"When can you show it to me?" asked Bankei.
"It arises unexpectedly," replied the student.
"Then," concluded Bankei, "it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."

Dharma and society

2011-06-14T09:43:00.000-05:00

Dharma is TAKING ACTION.

The Art of War

2011-06-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

The Chuang Tzu

2011-06-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from The Chuang Tzu.

Your turn #3: The chun-tzu

2011-06-08T14:20:00.001-05:00

Herb Lubalin ad for Ebony, (late 1960's)

Hi kids!

Our reading of Confucius was a nice experience. I enjoyed your insightful comments and demurrals. Elizabeth's question "how can one be virtuous if you don't know you are?" was an example. There was an interesting back-and-forth with questions and ripostes. Being a chun-tzu is not easy!

Let me start with Confucius' CHENG-MIN or "rectification of names" (or right-speech in Buddhism).* Confucius' point is subtle. It has to do with human verbalization. We do things with words. Language is a beautiful (human) form. Words can shine. They can also deceive. Words must be let free in order to shine. If my utterances boastfully exceed the sphere of my actions, my words take a form of flatulence. And people notice the smell. Confucius may not have pondered why, but he knew. Even in his worst moment Jesus knew, which is why he shuts up and lets Pilate babble. With Freud we learn that language has an unconscious side. It talks through our mouths! Confucius advises to be vigilant.**

Illustrator Ricardo Fumanal, via Juxtapoz.

Elizabeth's question: Does one know one is virtuous? The chun-tzu doesn't need to bring such realization to herself as such: "Wow, I'm virtuous!" Here is why: She has internalized good habits for some time. She's grown slowly by trial and error. After years of thoughtful training, her actions become automatic (Confucius says: "The cautious seldom err"). What happens now? Absolutely nothing. Life goes on. She doesn't notice anything at all, but people do. REN is a state of unafectedness that bathes her with contentment. What the Stoics referred to as ataraxia.

Objection to Confucius: Can a criminal be content?

Not exactly. He may look OK to an outsider, but something crucial is missing. What the criminal feels is world-dependent emotional roller-coaster of ups and downs. He is a victim of his moods, which are a product of the endless instability of the world. Confucius says: "The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of the favors he may receive."

How about T'IEN? Heaven = people. Appearances are deceiving: Heaven is earth!

Against the grain of our infantile individualism, we must pay attention of how much we need people (see it as sangha). No matter where we are, we always long to be around our own. We must construct sangha, become nodes connecting like-minded people.

Is LI a problem? For many it is. But as long as you understand its limits, courtesy can be beautiful. In the West we mock courtesy as a bland form of cultural submission. Why do we prefer a considerate, tactful person? LI means hundreds of years of layer-after-layer of behaviors that get internalized by the culture.

Of course, not all courtesy is good. Confucius is clear that "make-believe" or "appearance" alone will not cut it. In fact, we notice fake protocol from the real thing (it's called hypocrisy). There is something "plastic" about it. The lesson is that we must learn to see behind the veil of LI. Everything is, at some time or another, ~~veiled~~.

Let's recall the lesson from the Upanishads: Things are near and far at the same time. It's called MAYA. Learn to clap with one hand!

See you Tuesday. Go ahead.

______________
*Monique made an good point: if all these people are saying the same thing there must be some truth to it. **Disclosure to the class: I'm sure in dealing with all this stuff, I must have already said "gassy" stuff in class. I plead for your forgiveness.

a face-to-face catalysis of Xeroxed presence

2011-06-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

What are you loloking at?

Looking at yourself looking. It's art! What art?

Can art lie?

More at Miami Bourbaki (you're more than welcome to leave a comment there).

The simple way of Hun-Tzu

2011-06-07T10:40:00.001-05:00

I'm going to take 4 points by Hun-Tzu:

1- Nature = T'ien, constant, regular, exact.

Here T'ien is not the people. Is an ideal. A sort of "thing in itself" that makes itself visible and yet, remains hidden. Let T'ien speak. Listen to its inner rhythm.

T'ien follows PSR, what happens is the best possible world. How does T'ien operate?

T'ien (T) acts without effort. It just emerges from things to show us the way. How? Poetically.

"To accomplish without any action, to obtain without any effort."

2- Rectification of names: "Names don't have correctness on their own. Their meaning depends from convention."

"Rules have a place, but they don't unveil the truth."

3- "The nature of man is evil. His goodness is the result of his activities." Men are animals (no pun intended).

4- Realization: "Any man in the street can become chun-tzu, but it doesn't follow that everyman is able to do so."

Hsün Tzu on evil

2011-06-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

Hsün Tzu: The nature of man is evil.

Mencius

2011-06-07T08:20:00.000-05:00

For excerpts from the Book of Mencius: here.

Faces of evil

2011-06-03T09:03:00.011-05:00

Evidence of ethnic cleansing in Rwuanda right after the mass murder of Tutsis, (1994).

After our discussions about determinism and/or freedom, it's too easy to report that "this is the way we are" (obvious & uninformative) or that evil cannot exist without good (axiomatic & lazy), or Facundo's interesting point about the evil's "gray areas, " i.e., the uneasy cohabitation of good and evil.

Here are my ten cents:

What is evil? This is. And this, and this and this.

Wait... it's too easy! Those above are limit cases. We are not that. Instead, let's look for the average kind of evil, the sapping everyday evil that becomes almost invisible, the sort who-me? evil that lurks and surprises, in other words, our shocking daily companion.

I will propose a very simple idea. Evil consists of "merely" treating people as a means to an end. See that the common factor present in both limit cases and average cases is precisely that.

The world is a jungle. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations when we have to choose¹ to treat a person as a means to an end. It becomes unavoidable. What to do then? This is dharma, as momentous as it comes. We cannot become an ostrich and sink our head in the sand. so, we face the situation and try our best to practice ahimsa, i.e., we'd act in such a way that it minimizes treating a person "merely" as means to an end. This is what does violence.

Is it evil? Maybe, but then it will make a difference between necessary ² and unnecessary evil. We have made the right choice. We can feel the instant as we own it, flowing through our veins.

The second interesting point is, where is this evil coming from?

Let's dispel the myth: It's not that we're intrinsically evil -or good for that matter. That's too melodramatic. We just EXIST. And to exist means to deal with our history: past, present, and future. There is past (our embeddedness), present (our surprise) and future (in the form of de-liberation).

Embeddedness is the world we inherit (not necessarily our choosing). Surprise, because this boring world, which seemed so uneventful up to this moment has suddenly become dangerous. Now we're scared shitless. Deliberation³, because this is our now-or-never moment. We'll define ourselves in the act of choosing NOW.

And who chooses? Was there really a solid "me" -valiantly defined, self-assured- before this moment? Bollocks. This now is always anew. This door is for me!

By the way, this is not my post #3, which I'll post later today.
_____________
¹Sartre's fundamental existential motto: l'homme, par ses choix, définit lui-même le sens de sa vie (our choice defines the meaning of our life). The idea is that not choosing is not an option because by not choosing we automatically choose. ²Obviously, necessary evil is that which can prevent further evil, or bring forth good. Unnecessary evil is simply unredeemed. ³Look what a rich word this is. De-liberation. It comes from lat. deliberatus:de- libra (scale), it also brings forth liberatus, akin to liberty.

Your turn #2: Nothing is sacred

2011-06-02T13:48:00.001-05:00

Ryan Riss, Life Cycles, via Juxtapoz

Thanks for a nice reading! It's time for post #2. And there is plenty to talk about. Pick any of the themes treated this week (Jainism and Buddhism) and build your own idea. Go ahead.
__________
Apropos of Facundo's, Jose's, Chris', Monique's, Emily's, Rosa's, et. al., cold showers in class, here is a sequent, friendly, witty, thought -on laughter- by he who endlessly wait, Samuel Beckett:

The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout—Haw!—so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs—silence please—at that which is unhappy.

I like cold showers and what comes out of them. One leaves fresh, unpretentious, light headed and yes, ready for more (I close this post next Wednesday @ 11pm).

The duty of the sacred? Nothing is sacred!

Plants are not Dasein

2011-05-31T18:47:00.001-05:00

Last night we went for a barbecue at Amida's. It was a nice Memorial Day party, with a laid-back group of Anglos, Africans and Latinos. Imagine an exuberant subtropical garden with dashes of reddish lights coming from behind the vegetation. Uttered words linger in Babelian, fused with the beats of late-60's rock music. There is a curated selection of imported beers with vegetarian hamburgers and other tidbits. The main attraction? Ami's garden.

Ami was kind to give us a "mini-tour". Flashlight in hand, he walked us through the winding straights of his garden -more like an urban forest amidst Miami's Little Havana, as it appears from the outside. At each stop of the way he would nimbly lean over and show the given specimen. He'd explain its Latin root and go over provenance, care, growth process, local climate conditions, aesthetic preference, etc. Meanwhile he compared the banal, the exotic and the endangered. You could tell that he knew his plants. Suddenly the garden had become a wonderful, rich-in-detail, reservoir of pure "in-itself" beingness.

What's first, plants or Dasein?

Analects (Excerpts)

2011-05-31T11:53:00.003-05:00

Book 1

Confucius the pedagogue

2011-05-31T10:23:00.002-05:00

Emergence: A star is born

2011-05-31T10:18:00.000-05:00

Here is my sketch of the emergence* of a star from t1 ---> t4. At each step of the way, the star gets bigger and brighter. Emergence becomes obvious at t4, when a new process (nucleosynthesis) gives rise to new elements not present before (after t3, the star would by itself get smaller and brighter). Why does this happen? The approximate picture we have is based on quantum mechanics and relativity.
________________
*I've been trying to present a sketchy picture of emergence, to get out of the reductionist physicalist model that talking about consciousness is just talking about brains. If you want to understand the problem of freedom vis-a-vis predeterminism, you have to look no further than this problem. I suggested to you that the mind can be seen as irreducible to physical processes. Under this picture, the mind is still caused by the brain, but exhibits properties that are non-reductive, such as intentionality.

Notes on Buddhism

2011-05-26T17:43:00.000-05:00

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.

... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre

Buddhism & the paradox of desire

2011-05-26T08:24:00.002-05:00

Desire, as a thirst for being, fundamentally rests in a false perception of the self: that is, the illusion that one can be permanently satisfied. According to Buddhism, the individual has no "inner" core that remains unconditioned by change. We are simply a nexus of arising and decaying moments, a temporary aggregation of elements.

Think of your life as a series of "moments" which contain you and the rest of the world. We had one of such moments today, in class.Think of today's Phi 2070 class in room 1568. The becoming of the membrane-moment, its concretion and disappearance. Phi 2070 has this sort of property of congealing -almost- all of us around 11:50am. Yet, the interval between 11:50 and 3pm sees fluctuations of people coming in and out, leaving, etc. Take that membrane and see that it is simultaneously a past and a future moment. It's not solid, it doesn't exist now, but it happened earlier today. Now, as you read me, "this" moment after (now at 6:53pm), is a future moment of our class earlier today (or the past of our next meeting next Tuesday).

There is no "fixed" subjectivity that can ultimately "receive" the final satisfaction it hungers for in the mode of craving. Our existence, what is called "self" (atman) is only an illusion whose referent is in the midst of constant flux. This is the Buddhist doctrine of nonsubstantiality or nonself (anatman).

So, the belief in this abiding, clinging "self" that remains subterranean to our experiences is an illusion fashioned according to the self-possessive sway of desire, causing attachment to transient reality in the desperate hope of calming its dis-ease. The thirst for being is ego-enclosed through and through. For more on anatman, see my post on Sunyata @ miami bourbaki.

Midterm Exam

2011-05-25T08:02:00.003-05:00

Our midterm has 2 parts: Identification of terms (just writing down the meaning of the term) and one brief essay question. For the essay question, pick a theme or subtheme amongst all that we've studied in class. Prepare it. For the test, be prepared to write down a brief mini-essay (sort of one page) in which you will bring the facts of the matter + your personal opinion.

For the terms: here is the list for the Midterm Exam.

If you have any questions, post them here.

Dhyana's mystery

2011-05-24T06:12:00.000-05:00

Rethinking our last class: pris de conscience!

2011-05-23T15:05:00.007-05:00

Elizabeth Magill, Lower Lough, 2006.

There are a few things I want to come back to. One is Rosa's question of the value of samadhi and the questions on what meditation is good for (if I recall correctly). First, keep in mind that Yoga is a methodology, a HOW TO manual for spirituality. This is not a set of formulas one debates trying to find apriori reasons. It's more knowing-as-doing, doing-as-feeling.

To find out about Yoga's validity one has to try it.*

There are at least two ways of looking at this: You don't accept a whole model but take some of its parts, or you reinterpret the parts. I propose the latter. Let me address some of these concepts as I see them:

Elizabeth Magill, Parlous Land, 2006.

1. Reincarnation is repetition. Is repetition the same throughout? The idea is that (R)eality is a ground of reverberating intensity. If that ground is difference (perpetual differentiation) then repetition cannot be of the same, but only of the different, i.e, the renewal of the different.

2. Purification is pris de conscience! (i.e., taking charge). As in quantum physics where the observation alters the result of the experiment, purification takes one's disturbing one's -ongoing- movie.

Jeff Wall, After Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, 1999.

We live at a par of our unfolding. So, as the moving-picture plays, there is a possibility to see it -AS IF- we were outside it. This position of "being-outside" as "being-inside" means that you can interact with yourself. This is what the yogis call niyama.

You have two options: (a) like so many people, you live inside the movie and just let the movie play (doing nothing), or (b) you choose to possibly change aspects of your own story as it unfolds.

3. Attachment is as difficult as it is obvious. We are amidst a raja vortex of forces. We're matter, only in a high state of complexity. And matter craves matter. Yet, MIND being an emergent property of matter, can sort of detach itself from matter. This is the difference between sattvas and tamas.

Elizabeth Magill, Oncoming, 2006.

4. Attainments. Now comes the big one: What is samadhi? Riding with the wind.

Finding oneself (being-one-with- ______). Of course, that is too general to make sense. What's key is that this finding of oneself needs to have a goal. Pursuing the goal is a way to do it. **

We must not forget Patanjali's caveat about samadhi which is a point he shares with Nietzsche's own idea of rapture: "... the path to one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own hell."

This is why Patanjali is so careful about attachments. If the voyage into the horizon of the infinite fills us with a "thrill," this is because something is glimpsed in samadhi which is in excess of the human, something that is "too much." A voyage into the eye of the maelstrom: Nobody can do it for you.

5. Dhyana asks: Why not thinking about non-thinking?

See you tomorrow with more nonsense.
______________
*Only then, as the French say, en connaissance de cause one can say it's not good. But, is chess (as good as it is) good for everybody? **In keeping with Buddhism's central teaching of pluralism that there are many ways to heaven, we can say that Yoga is another way.

Is pseudo-talk worse than bad-talk?

2011-05-22T16:16:00.001-05:00

A propos of clean & dirty:

Art-writing is loaded with so much shit that it takes over political babbling. What is it? Tropes of banality are displayed along with descriptive bits to conflate fact and fiction. Soon rhetorical inflation grows to the point of fatuous, pathological farce.

More @ Miami Bourbaki.

What's the matter? Evidence doesn't matter

2011-05-20T09:31:00.002-05:00

@ Miami Bourbaki:

The time has come and the chosen families get ready for the moment of ecstasy: What do I wear to the Olympus? Are there naked people in heaven? To whom I leave the house and the beamer? Should I take my cell phone just in case I can make one last call to my stubbornly sinful girlfriend on earth?

Patanjali sutras (excerpts and comments)

2011-05-19T08:34:00.001-05:00

Chapter 1: SAMADHI

I,8: Unreal cognition is the knowing of the unreal, possessing a form not its own.
Comment: Removal of wrong impressions. Egoism, attachment, aversion and love of life are afflictions.Nescience (adidya) affects the purusha. Mind is not identified with purusha, but with its opposing principle: pakriti. The purusha is not mind, but pure absolute consciousness.

I,30: Disease, languor, indecision, carelessness, sloth, sensuality, mistaken notion, missing the point, instability, these causing distractions are obstacles.
Comment: Disease is the disturbance of the equilibrium of the humors. Languor is the indisposition of the mind to work. Indecision is the notion touching both sides of the question. Carelessness is want of resort to the means of trance. Sloth is inertia of the mind and body upon heaviness. Sensuality is the desire upon objects. The self is confused with the activity of its instrument (buddhi) and the other operative psychic faculties. This is the cause of pain, confusion and the frustration of life. Yoga seeks to provide disciplines and techniques of inner control whereby liberation of this spiritual reality from its confinement can be brought about.

I,33: By cultivating habits of friendliness, compassion, complacency and detachment towards happiness, misery virtue and vice, the mind becomes pure.

I,34: Optionally, by the expulsion and retention of breath. Retention is Pranayama, the lengthening of the duration of the stay of the air inside the lungs.

I,36: Or by meditating according to one’s predilection.

Comment: When the mind becomes free from memories or verbal convention, of trance-consciousness, devoid of the options of inferential and verbal cognition, the object makes its appearance in the mind in its own nature. The transformation is called “Distinct” (nirvitarka).

3: Distinctive (wordless) thought transformation is that in which the mind shines as the object alone, (with the cessation of memory), and is as it were devoid of its own nature.

Chapter 2: ON THE PRACTICE OF YOGA

II,1: Purificatory action, study and making God the motive of action, IS the Yoga of action.
Comment: Yoga is a practice in the sphere of living creatures. It cannot be attained by one not be willing to change (purificatory action).

II,3: The afflictions are Nescience, Egoism, Attachment, Aversion and Love of Life.
Comment: Nescience is unrreal cognition (i.e., taking the unreal for the real). That is to say, confusing the root of the problem and its solution.

II,7: Attachment is the sequential attraction to pleasure.
Comment: Yama (or restraint) is a curb or bridle; a way of indicating spiritual control which the self needs to cure the aimless wandering about in the meaningless world of change. We as humans are diverted by a variety of stimuli in every direction. If one abandones inner control, if one cannot resist the variety of attractions and repulsions one feels daily, one is driven back-and-forth between opposites. There is a need for restraint amidst a world of idle distraction: The desire to possess, the thirst for pleasures and its means, preceded by a remembrance of the pleasures in one who has enjoyed it

II,28: The means of the destruction of ignorance is by continued practice of discriminating judgment.
Comment: This means to divide. One must learn to isolate the primordial principles, primal nature and spirit from one another, so that the spirit can exist in its own radiance.

II,52: The consequence of this regulation of breathing is stated: Then the covering that veils the light is destroyed.

II, 53: The mind is now ready for inner concentration.
Comment: After posture and breathing comes the third and last of the specifically Yogic processes by which the entire man is prepared for the development of a higher mental consciousness leading to the liberation experience.

II,54: Withdrawal is the alienation of the senses from their proper objects and their consequent functioning according to the activities of the mind.
Comment: This process entails a cutting off of the distractions of the mind from the dispersion of the senses.

CHAPTER 3: ON ATTAINMENTS

III,1: Concentration is the steadfastness of the mind.
Comment: Dharana, the mind and a total fixation on a single object. In this phase the person is brought to an absolute unity. The focus of attention can be the space between the eyebrows, the tip of the nose, or the tongue, the lotus of the heart, the navel, or some other object. This forces the mind to be fixed, seated as it were in total stillness.It means becoming fast in the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the brain, the fore-part of the nose, the fore-part of the tongue or by means of the modifications only in any other object only.

III,19: Of the notions, the knowledge of other minds.

III,24: The knowledge of the subtle, the veiled, the remote, by directing light of higher sense-activity toward them.

III,30: By mastering of Samana comes effulgence.

III,45. The perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strenght and adamantine hardness.

III,47. Thence comes quickness as of mind, un-instrumental perception and mastery over pradhana.
Comment: Meaning power to control over all the modifications of the pakriti.

III,49. The seed of bondage having been destroyed by desirelessness even for that, comes absolute independence.

III,50. When the presiding-deities invite, there should be no attachment and no smile of satisfaction, contact with undesirable being again possible.
Comment: This is the moment when everything can be lost or everything gained; it is the moment when the superior powers are themselves to be rejected, even as the visions and ecstatic experiences of the saints are to be rejected since they are manifestations of the divine but do not themselves constitute the divine experience. To rest in these accomplishments is ultimately no better and possibly worse than the activities he or she came from initially.

Raja Yoga

2011-05-19T08:31:00.002-05:00

Photo: (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

1- Raja Yoga is concerned with the mind, its modifications and its control. There are five states of the mind - Kshipta, Mudha, Vikshipta, Ekagra and Niruddha.

The mind is always running in various directions; its rays are scattered. This is the Kshipta state. Sometimes it is self-forgetful, it is full of foolishness (Mudha). When one tries to practice concentration, the mind seems to get concentrated but gets distracted often. This is Vikshipta. But with prolonged and repeated practice of concentration again and again, and repeating Lord's Name, it becomes one-pointed. This is called the Ekagra state. Later on, it is fully controlled (Niruddha).

It is ready to be dissolved in the Supreme Purusha, when one gets into Samadhi. 2- Raja Yoga is an exact science. It aims at controlling all thought-waves or mental modifications. 3- The 8 limbs are: Yama: Self-restraint, Niyama: Commitments to practice, such as study and devotion, Āsana: The integration of mind and body through physical activity, Pranayama: Regulation of breath leading to integration of mind and body, Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses, withdrawal of the senses of perception from their objects, Dharana: Concentration, one-pointedness of mind and Dhayana: Meditation (quiet activity leading to samadhi), Samadhi: The quiet state of blissful awareness, superconscious state.

The aporia of gain: A footnote to yesterday's class

2011-05-18T09:52:00.008-05:00

Good class! Hard questions coming from all over. One would like to be as smart to answer all questions satisfactorily at the snap of one's fingers. But as a French rapper would say: N'est pas possible, sommes faillibles.

1- We didn't have time to address meditation and what is good for. We'll catch up.

2- To Emily's great question: What is "gain" good for? There is good and bad gain. Then, there's epiphenomenal gain. Madoff's is bad gain. Why? It cashes in by objectifying people (that was his intention all along). Now, how do we play "gain"? Better yet, when do we "gain"? Let's problematize: Gain, in itself, is empty (for it to be gain it has to be "in relation to" and "for someone").

Do I always gain when -I think- I gain? Certainly not. I can gain in the economic exchange and loose in the long run. Example: Wall Street's idea of financial capitalism, which seemed to destroy the very idea of what a good investment is in Classical Economy (i.e., bankers playing against the solvency of their own banks).

So, when do I "really" gain?

It's here that yajna comes in as sovereignty (which points to just a different exchange; only a virtuous one). The best gain is to give it up. This is when studying for a test and yet failing comes in (or meaning well with an action and yet, being misunderstood). Failing is loosing (a form of un-gain), but only if we see it from the POV of exchange economy. Studying for the test is what one should do to responsibly pass it. Now the duty is fulfilled. Yet, there is no gain = 0. According to Janinism the fulfillment of duty and un-gain are incompatible. One must go behind avidya (illusions).

3- To Facundo's questionable "friend." Parfois, for the sake of time and energy you have to call a spade a spade. I'll approach it from ahimsa's perspective. There is right and wrong: It's axiomatic. You bet that causing unnecessary suffering is wrong. Why? The best you can muster is that it violates ahimsa, which can be seen as symmetry (Golden Rule)

4- A bit on Realism and Anti realism, Materialism, etc.

(a) Realism: There are entities independent of our minds.

(b)Anti realism denies (a).

(c) Irrealism: Entities exist but not as in (a) but as ways to describe the world. This view is also known as conceptualism.

(d) Materialism: There is only matter (even consciousness is matter, i.e, neurons). There is close kin to materialism:

Metaphysical Naturalism (e) There is nothing but natural things, forces, and causes of the kind studied by the natural sciences. So, there are no supernatural thing, force or cause, such as they are described in various religions, as well as any form of teleology (purpose).

5- I wanted to stress the three most important philosophical schools within the Vedanta tradition. Advaita, Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita.

(a) Advaita Vedanta: Teaches that the manifest creation, the soul and God are identical, which is form of monism. This is how Shankara presents it: Just as particles in physics consists of continually moving fields of energy, so the sages of Vedanta recognized energy in the form of consciousness. We perceive the universe by means of gross senses, because of our limited ego-limited body. What is really real and unchanging is the ever-changing manifest world of names and shapes. Shankara's best example is the piece of rope that in the dark is taken for a snake: Anxiety, repugnance are induced by the snake that exists only in one's mind. Once the rope is recognized as a rope it cannot be turned back into a snake. The initial error involves not only ignorance but superimposition (vikshepa) of a notion that has nothing to do with "what is." That is, we live with this idea of the snake (manifest world) on the rope (Brahman). Shankara puts it this way: "May this one sentence proclaim the essence of a thousand books: Brahman alone is real. The world is appearance, the Self is nothing but Brahman."

(b) Dvaita: (in Sanskrit it means duality). The human body is separate from the creator god. Although Madhva's Dualism acknowledges two principles, it holds that the sentient is rigorously and eternally dependent on the other (Vishnu/God). Interesting that for Madhva there is a hell

(c) Vishistadvaita: Defended by Ramanuja: A non-dualistic ontology (things appear "distinct" but are not really separate). Therefore, Brahman alone exists, but is characterised by multiplicity.

6- For our discussion of ahimsa and our treatment of animals.

Did I forget something? Say it if you want.

The Cup

2011-05-16T18:28:00.000-05:00

This is your cup -- the cup assigned
to you from the beginning.
Nay, My child, I know how much
of that dark drink is your own brew
Of fault and passion, ages long ago,
In the deep years of yesterday, I know.

This is your road -- a painful road and drear.
I made the stones that never give you rest.
I set your friend in plesant ways and clear,
And he shall come like you, unto My breast.
But you, My child, must travel here.

This is your task. It has no joy nor grace,
But it is not meant for any other hand,
And in My universe hath measured place,
Take it. I do not bid you understand.
I bid you close your eyes to see My face.-- Swami Vivekananda.

Lost and found

2011-05-16T12:31:00.003-05:00

Rob Hornstra's photo for the book cover of 101 Billionaires (2008)

Thanks to Xian, for reminding me of the photo above. We lost it (along with other posts) during the blogger's weekend blackout. If it works as a cipher, go ahead!

If you're interested in the photography of Hornstra, click here.

Sorry for the delay

2011-05-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Hi, kids. Something happened to Blogger (the blog platform). It was off the air all day yesterday. We lost the last two posts, including my linked Bourbaki page (on Duchamp's Fountain). They say they are working on it.

I'm waiting until later today (Friday) to post the homework for comments.

When did this urinal become a work of art?

2011-05-11T14:21:00.003-05:00

Good first class, kids. Thanks for the company!

I just finished a post on Bourbaki a topic that relates to our conversation yesterday. The topic here is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. It is related because, in general, to talk about something in general is to talk about what that something is in particular. So, what is the difference between a urinal and a work of art? Believe it or not, the questions takes us to the very act of creation, whether it's God or Beethoven or Beyonce.

Take the topic and spin it if you want. You're more than welcome to leave comments on Bourbaki.
:)

Confucius' Analects (Excerpts)

2010-11-15T11:46:00.003-05:00

On Filial Piety

Mang asked what filial piety is. The Master said, "It is being obedient." Soon after, as Fan Chi was driving him, the Master told him "Mang asked me what filial piety is, and I answer him 'being obedient.'" Fan Chi asked, "What exactly did you mean?" The Master replied, "That parents, when alive, should be served according to ritual; that, when dead, they should be buried according to ritual; and that they should be sacrificed to according to ritual." (Note: "ritual" here is "Li" the idea being of developing meaningful practices that can be seen as embodying what is right. For Confucius there must be a blueprint to be followed).

Ziyou asked what filial piety is. The Master said, "The filial piety of now-a-days means providing nourishment for one's parents. But dogs and horses likewise are able to do something along that line for their own kind. Without reverence, what is there to distinguish the one support given from the other?"

On Goodness

The Master said, "A youth, when at home, should behave well toward his parents, and when abroad, respectfully to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good."

The Master said, "With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I still have joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are a floating cloud."

Zhong gong asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, "When abroad, behave to everyone as if you were receiving an important guest; treat people as if you were assisting at a great sacrifice; do not do to others as you would not wish done to yourself. Thereby you will let no murmuring rise against in public, and none in private. . . ."

On the Chuang Tzu

The Master said, "Riches and honors are what men desire; but if they cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should be let go. Poverty and meanness are what men dislike; but if they cannot be avoided in the proper way, they should not be avoided. If a gentleman abandons virtue, how can he fulfill the requirements of his title? A gentleman not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. Even in moments of haste, and in times of danger, he clings to virtue."

The Master said, "A gentleman, well studied in literature, and abiding by the rules of ritual, will not go very wrong."

"When gentlemen perform well all their duties to their relations, the people are inspired to virtue. When they remain true to their old friends, the people are preserved from irresponsible behavior."

The Master said, "A gentleman points out the admirable qualities of men and does not point out their bad qualities. A petty man does just the opposite."

The Master said, "A gentleman is distressed by his lack of ability, but he is not distressed by men not knowing him."

The Master said, "What the gentleman demands is something of himself. What the petty man demands is something of others."

A gentleman does not wear a deep purple or a puce color, nor in his at-home clothes does he wear red. In warm weather, he wears a single-layered garment, either of coarse or fine texture, but when going out he wears it over another garment. He wears lambskin with a garment of black, fawn with white, and fox with yellow. His fur dressing gown should be long, but with the right sleeve short. His night clothes must be half again as long as his body. When staying at home, he wears thick furs of the fox or the badger. So long as he is not in mourning, he wears all the trimmings of his girdle. . . . He does not wear lamb's fur or a black cap when making a visit of condolence. And on the first day of the month he must put on his court robes and present himself at court.

On Ritual and Music

The Master said, "If a man lacks the human virtues, what has he to do with ritual? If a man lacks the human virtues, what has he to do with music?"

The Master said, "Respectfulness, without the rules of ritual becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, without the rules, becomes timidity; boldness becomes insubordination; straightforwardness becomes rudeness.

The Master said, "It is by the Odes that a man's mind is aroused, by the rules of ritual that his character is established, and by music that he is perfected [finished]. . . ."

Education is, of course, important to Confucius, as one needs to learn the traditions and profit from the wisdom of the past. Government can then be carried on by "moral force," as opposed to requiring military or legal force. As to religion, Confucius does not challenge it, but he doesn't put his hope in it either. His stress is always on living well, which means living properly, here and now and by our own actions.

Which is more important for an orderly state: food, weapons, or a government that one can trust.

On Education

The Master said, "Anyone learning without thought is lost; anyone thinking but not learning is in peril."

The Master said, "Yu, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to realize that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge." The Master said, [I have been] "a transmitter and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients. . ."

When the Master went to Wei, Ran Yu acted as driver of his carriage. The Master observed, "How numerous the people are!" Ran Yu asked, "When they are more numerous, what more shall be done for them ?" "Enrich them," was the reply. "And when they have been enriched, what more shall be done?" The Master said, "Instruct them."

On Government

The Master said, "To rule a country of a thousand chariots requires reverent attention to business, sincerity, economy in expenditures, and love for men, as well as the employment of the people only in the right seasons."

The Master said, "If the people are governed by laws and punishment is used to maintain order, they will try to avoid the punishment but have no sense of shame. If they are governed by virtue and rules of propriety [ritual] are used to maintain order, they will have a sense of shame and will become good as well."

Ji Kang Zi asked Confucius about government, saying, "What do you say to killing those who are unprincipled [i.e., the immoral] for the good of those who are principled?" Confucius replied, "Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your obvious desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass: the grass is bound to bend when the wind blows across it."

Zigong asked about government. The Master said, "The requisites of government are that there be sufficient food, sufficient military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler." Zigong said, "If one had to dispense with one of those three, which should be given up first?" "The military equipment, " said the Master. Zigong again asked, "If on had to dispense with one of the two remaining, which should be given up?" The Master answered, "Give up the food. From of old, death has always been the lot of men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, they cannot stand."

On Religion

Someone asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. The Master said, "I do not know. Anyone who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the kingdom as to look on this," and he pointed to the palm of his hand.

Zilu asked about serving the ghosts of the dead. The Master said, "Until you are able to serve men, how can you serve their ghosts?" When Zilu ventured to ask about death, the answer was: "While you do not know life, how can you [hope to] know about death?"

This Saturday at 3:30pm: Beach!

2010-06-17T13:16:00.003-05:00

Farewell is best with nature: beach, sea, sand and sun.

If you draw a sort of semi-parallel line to Alton Rd. we'll meet around 64th St., near Hotel Casablanca.

What people are (so far) bringing:

Triff: Beer (no Bud or Miller), Middle Eastern food, some water and umbrella.
Karen: Cooler.
Jose: Ice and some food.
Angela: Some food and perhaps another umbrella.

You're more than welcome to bring food stuff (but not too much, since this is neither lunch nor dinner).

If you want to post last minute suggestions, go ahead, the comment option is available!

The koan (2 cases)

2010-06-17T09:51:00.002-05:00

Kōans are verbal tools that convey a deep message, such as "Does a dog have Buddhanature?" or "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

A koan should be short and more importantly non-obvious. Think cold shower to the mind. Dadaists used koans, example, the one above.
Here is a good compilation.

Your (last) assignment

2010-06-13T20:38:00.003-05:00

The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.- Tao Te Ching

Thomas Bayrle, Maxwell Kaffee, Oil on canvas (1967).

I surmise that Thomas Bayrle takes Jean-Paul Sartre's metaphor of the cup of coffee in La Nausée as a Pop paradox of the one and the many. Let's talk about this void which calls forth the fullness, the paradoxical coexistence of Tao in both subject and object, essence and appearance. Imagine a situation, which shows itself as something not complete, an event that demands our involvement. The situation appears imperfect, out of joint, sort of what Kenyan artist Ingrid Mwuangi does when she multiplies her own id-entity:

Ingrid Mwuangi, If, digital c-prints mounted on aluminum (2001).

Really?

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities. (vers. 4)¹

According to the Tao Te Ching, our will to fix things can take us into unexpected detours. Let me explain: Generally, I don't see my will as being impeded by anything other than my desire to act. But in the big realm of overall causation, I'm not alone. My will is differential, i.e., one amongst hundreds of millions of other wills. Seldom I stop to ponder my will as being a very small fraction of an overall sum of (unknown) wills, not only in the here and now, but as -already- established chains reactions which precede my time/space (and of which I'm a part of).

Mathematically speaking, what's my will vis-a-vis a higher order of will/differentials? What's the relative limit between my doing and my doing too much? Sure, voluntarism is a well-respected part of our strategy of success. But think about it, how many of the things (we think) we do turn out to be the opposite of what we anticipated?

For more (including your comment), click here.

Some recommended texts

2010-06-10T08:18:00.001-05:00

Hindu Philosophy: 1- The Upanishads, 2- Bhagavad Gita, 3- Dhammapada (All by Nigiri Press). 4- Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, 5- The Life Divine (Sri Aurobindo), a recommended text for those versed in Western Philosophy. This is a nice edition of The Lotus Sutra.

Chinese Philosophy: Analects, The Lao Tzu, Zen teachings of Bodhidharma.

Lao Tzu

2010-06-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

Lao-tzu was a native of Ch'ü-jen, a village in the state of Ch'u, which corresponds to the modern Lu-yi in the eastern part of Honan Province. He was appointed to the office of shih at the royal court of the Chou dynasty (c. 1111-255 BC). Shih today means "historian," but in ancient China the shih were scholars specializing in matters such as astrology and divination and were in charge of sacred books. After noting the civil status of Lao-tzu, the historian proceeds to relate a celebrated but questionable meeting of the old Taoist with the younger Confucius (551-479 BC). The story has been much discussed by the scholars; it is mentioned elsewhere, but the sources are so inconsistent and contradictory that the meeting seems a mere legend. During the supposed interview, Lao-tzu blamed Confucius for his pride and ambition, and Confucius was so impressed with Lao-tzu that he compared him to a dragon that rises to the sky, riding on the winds and clouds. No less legendary is a voyage of Lao-tzu to the west. Realizing that the Chou dynasty was on the decline, the philosopher departed and came to the Hsien-ku pass, which was the entrance to the state of Ch'in. Yin Hsi, the legendary guardian of the pass (kuan-ling), begged him to write a book for him. Thereupon, Lao-tzu wrote a book in two sections of 5,000 characters, in which he set down his ideas about the Tao (literally "Way," the Supreme Principle) and the te (its "virtue"): the Tao-te Ching. The question of whether there was a historical Lao-tzu has been raised by many scholars, but it is rather an idle one. The Tao-te Ching, as we have it, cannot be the work of a single man; some of its sayings may date from the time of Confucius; others are certainly later; and the book as a whole dates from about 300 BC. Perhaps the name Lao-tzu seems to represent a certain type of sage rather than an individual

Your turn #3

2010-06-03T18:18:00.003-05:00

Good class with a nice discussion on the subject of anger.

For your comment this week, please, go to miami bourbaki. You can comment on my manifesto (which I have fleshed out a bit) or in the "Forked paths" post. Take any of the Buddhist topics discussed in class: dukkha, tanha, sunyata, Four Noble Truths, etc. Be critical, be aware, be yourself.

Remember to become a friend of both PHI 2070 and Bourbaki!
______
By the way, this is the book by Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) that I mentioned in class (yes, right to laziness, why don't we think more of these things today?).

Koyaanisqatsi

2010-06-03T11:31:00.000-05:00

Dhammapada

2010-06-03T07:12:00.000-05:00

(Pali: "Words of Doctrine," or "Way of Truth"), probably the best-known book in the Pali Buddhist canon and the most quoted in other Buddhist writings. It is an anthology of basic Buddhist teachings (primarily ethical teachings) in a simple aphoristic style. The Dhammapada contains 423 stanzas arranged in 26 chapters. It also appears in somewhat different versions in Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Chinese, and there are translations in other languages. More than half the verses are excerpted from other canonical texts and include many of the most famous Buddhist sayings; others come from the storehouse of pithy sayings drawn upon by much of Indian literature.The book is popular in Buddhist countries of both Theravada and Mahayana traditions. In Sri Lanka it has been used for centuries as a manual for novices, and it is said that every monk can recite it from memory.

Buddhism (1)

2010-05-31T18:24:00.004-05:00

Buddha based his entire teaching on the fact of human suffering.* Existence is painful. The conditions that make an individual are precisely those that also give rise to suffering. Individuality implies limitation; limitation gives rise to desire; and desire (tanha)** causes suffering -since what is desired is transitory, changing, and perishing. It is the impermanence of the object of craving that causes disappointment and sorrow (cause/effect: one suffers because one desires).

I'd like to spin this idea of desire with the idea of EROS as an embodied striving for well-being that connects us with things, animals and people, which situates us in the world with others. EROS is the fundamental energy by which we relate to all that is. SIN might be seen as human desire gone astray, a corruption of the basic potency for relation. SIN is a "desire" in the form of a will-to-control that aspires to secure itself by mastering all around it. Ridden with anxiety about its own lack of control, it reduces what is other to the self, placing a stranglehold on all that is not-I in order to guarantee absolutely its own self-perpetuation. By effectively closing itself off from the other, a genuine relation is negated in a posture of solipsism. Augustine referred to this selfish attachment "cupiditas," a need-based form of desire that seeks its own satisfaction above all else and therein refuses its genuine relation to creation and the Creator.

2- By following the "path" taught by the Buddha, the individual can dispel the "ignorance" that perpetuates this suffering. 3- Reality, whether of external things or the psycho-physical totality of human individuals, consists in a succession and concatenation of microseconds called dhammas. 4- Moreover, contrary to the theories of the Upanishads, the Buddha did not want to assume the existence of the soul as a metaphysical substance. Life is a stream of becoming, a series of manifestations and extinctions. The individual ego is a delusion; the objects with which people identify themselves -fortune, social position, family, body, and even mind-are not their true selves. Nothing is permanent.

______

*Suffering in this context is equivalent to disquietude. The mind is in a state of restless anxiety. Tahna (as mental state) is a vicious cycle (if one's desires are fulfilled it will, of itself, lead to one's lasting happiness or well-being). Such beliefs normally result in further craving/desire and the repeated enactment of activities to bring about the desired results. **I want to explore this idea of desire in the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze: "There is only desire and the social, and nothing else". What does it mean? 1- I can think of desire negatively, as striving to achieve what I do not have. 2- Alternatively, desire can be thought of affirmatively. It is not that "I" have desires; it is from desire that an "I" become. Desire will be nothing more than the development, production or assertion of what "I" will be or can become. So, Deleuze problematizes the idea of desire, as the affirmation or production of difference.

Analects (excerpts)

2010-05-31T14:53:00.012-05:00

Book 1

Appearances. 3: The Master said, "Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue."

4: The philosopher Tsang said, "I daily examine myself on three points:-- whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful;-- whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere;-- whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher."

Self cultivation. 8:
1. The Master said, "If the scholar be not grave, he will not call forth any veneration, and his learning will not be solid. 2. "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. 3. "Have no friends not equal to yourself. 4. "When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."

On filial duty. 11: The Master said, "While a man's father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not alter from the way of his father, he may be called filial."

To save from future repentance, we must be careful in our first steps. 13: The philosopher Yû said, "When agreements are made according to what is right, what is spoken can be made good. When respect is shown according to what is proper, one keeps far from shame and disgrace. When the parties upon whom a man leans are proper persons to be intimate with, he can make them his guides and masters."

An illustration of the successive steps in self-cultivation. 15:
1. Tsze-kung said, "What do you pronounce concerning the poor man who yet does not flatter, and the rich man who is not proud?" The Master replied, "They will do; but they are not equal to him, who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, loves the rules of propriety." 2. Tsze-kung replied, "It is said in the Book of Poetry, 'As you cut and then file, as you carve and then polish.' -- The meaning is the same, I apprehend, as that which you have just expressed." 3. The Master said, "With one like Ts'ze, I can begin to talk about the odes. I told him one point, and he knew its proper sequence."

Book 2

The influence of virtue in a ruler. 1: The Master said, "He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it."

Confucius's own account of his gradual progress and attainments. 4:
1. The Master said, "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. 2. "At thirty, I stood firm. 3. "At forty, I had no doubts. 4. "At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. 5. "At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. 6. "At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right."

The quiet receptivity of the disciple Hûi. 9: The Master said, "I have talked with Hûi for a whole day, and he has not made any objection to anything I said;-- as if he were stupid. He has retired, and I have examined his conduct when away from me, and found him able to illustrate my teachings. Hûi! -- He is not stupid."

How to determine the characters of men. 10:
1. The Master said, "See what a man does. 2. "Mark his motives. 3. "Examine in what things he rests. 4. "How can a man conceal his character? How can a man conceal his character?"

The general aptitude of the Chün-tsze. 12: The Master said, "The accomplished scholar is not a utensil."

The difference between the Chün-tsze and the small man. 14: The Master said, "The superior man is broadminded and not partisan. The mean man is partisan and not broadminded."

In learning, reading and thought must be combined. 15: The Master said, "Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."

There should be no pretense in the profession of knowledge, or the denial of ignorance. 17: The Master said, "Yû, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;-- this is knowledge."

The end in learning should be one's own improvement, and not emolument. 18:
1. Tsze-chang was learning with a view to official emolument. 2. The Master said, "Hear much and put aside the points of which you stand in doubt, while you speak cautiously at the same time of the others:-- then you will afford few occasions for blame. See much and put aside the things which seem perilous, while you are cautious at the same time in carrying the others into practice:-- then you will have few occasions for repentance. When one gives few occasions for blame in his words, and few occasions for repentance in his conduct, he is in the way to get emolument."

Example in superiors is more powerful than force. 20: Chî K'ang asked how to cause the people to reverence their ruler, to be faithful to him, and to go on to nerve themselves to virtue. The Master said, "Let him preside over them with gravity;-- then they will reverence him. Let him be final and kind to all;-- then they will be faithful to him. Let him advance the good and teach the incompetent;-- then they will eagerly seek to be virtuous."

The necessity to a man of being truthful and sincere. 22: The Master said, "I do not know how a man without truthfulness is to get on. How can a large carriage be made to go without the crossbar for yoking the oxen to, or a small carriage without the arrangement for yoking the horses?"

Book 3

Ceremonies are secondary and merely ornamental. 8:
1. Tsze-hsiâ asked, saying, "What is the meaning of the passage -- 'The pretty dimples of her artful smile! The well-defined black and white of her eye! The plain ground for the colors?'" 2. The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows (the preparation of) the plain ground." 3. "Ceremonies then are a subsequent thing?" The Master said, "It is Shang who can bring out my meaning. Now I can begin to talk about the odes with him."

The profound meaning of the great sacrifice. 11: Some one asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. The Master said, "I do not know. He who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the kingdom as to look on this" -- pointing to his palm.

Confucius's own sincerity in sacrificing. 12: 1. He sacrificed to the dead, as if they were present. He sacrificed to the spirits, as if the spirits were present. 2. The Master said, "I consider my not being present at the sacrifice, as if I did not sacrifice."

Book 4

Only true virtue adapts a man for the varied conditions of life. 2: The Master said, "Those who are without virtue cannot abide long either in a condition of poverty and hardship, or in a condition of enjoyment. The virtuous rest in virtue; the wise desire virtue."

Only in the good man are emotions of love and hatred right, and to be depended on. 3: The Master said, "It is only the (truly) virtuous man, who can love, or who can hate, others."

A man is not to be utterly condemned because he has faults. 7: The Master said, "The faults of men are characteristic of the class to which they belong. By observing a man's faults, it may be known that he is virtuous."

Righteousness is the rule of the Chün-tsze's practice. 10: The Master said, "The superior man, in the world, does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow."

The different mindings of the superior and the small man. 11: The Master said, "The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favors which he may receive."

Advising to self-cultivation. 14: The Master said, "A man should say, I am not concerned that I have no place, I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known."

Advantage of caution. 23: The Master said, "The cautious seldom err."

Rule of the Chün-tsze about his words and actions. 24: The Master said, "The superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct."

Book 5

Of Zan Yung:-- readiness with the tongue no part of virtue. 4:
1. Some one said, "Yung is truly virtuous, but he is not ready with his tongue." 2. The Master said, "What is the good of being ready with the tongue? They who encounter men with smartness of speech for the most part procure themselves hatred. I know not whether he be truly virtuous, but why should he show readiness of the tongue?"

Book 6

How learning should be pursued. 11: The Master said to Tsze-hsiâ, "Do you be a scholar after the style of the superior man, and not after that of the mean man."

Contrasts of the wise and the virtuous. 21: The Master said, "The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived."

The name without the reality is folly. 23: The Master said, "A cornered vessel without corners. -- A strange cornered vessel! A strange cornered vessel!"

The true nature and art of virtue 28:
2. "Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. 3. "To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves;-- this may be called the art of virtue."

Book 7

The subjects of Confucius's teaching. 24: There were four things which the Master taught, -- letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness.

The humanity of Confucius. 26: The Master angled, -- but did not use a net. He shot, -- but not at birds perching.

Virtue is not far to seek. 29: The Master said, "Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand."

Book 13

The supreme importance of names being correct. 3:

1. Tsze-lû said, "The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing to be done?"
2. The Master replied, "What is necessary is to rectify names."
3. "So! indeed!" said Tsze-lû. "You are wide of the mark! Why must there be such rectification?"
4. The Master said, "How uncultivated you are, Yû! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.
5. "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
6. "When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.
7. "Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately."

Confucius the pedagogue

2010-05-31T10:26:00.002-05:00

Confucius was born in the small feudal state of Lu (noted for its preservation of the traditions of ritual and music of the Chou civilization). 1- Confucius' ancestors were probably members of the aristocracy who had become virtual poverty-stricken commoners by the time of his birth. His father died when Confucius was only three years old. Instructed first by his mother, Confucius then distinguished himself as an indefatigable learner in his teens. 2- Confucius had served in minor government posts before he married a woman of similar background when he was 19. It is not known who Confucius' teachers were, but he made a conscientious effort to find the right masters to teach him, among other things, ritual and music. Confucius' mastery of the six arts-ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and arithmetic- and his familiarity with the classical traditions, notably poetry and history, enabled him to start a brilliant teaching career in his 30s. 3- Confucius is known as the first teacher in China who wanted to make education available to all men and who was instrumental in establishing the art of teaching as a vocation, indeed as a way of life. Before Confucius, aristocratic families had hired tutors to educate their sons in specific arts, and government officials had instructed their subordinates in the necessary techniques, but he was the first person to devote his whole life to learning and teaching for the purpose of transforming and improving society. He believed that all human beings could benefit from self-cultivation. He inaugurated a humanities program for potential leaders, opened the doors of education to all, and defined learning not merely as the acquisition of knowledge but also as character building. 4- For Confucius the primary function of education was to provide the proper way of training noblemen (chün-tzu), a process that involved constant self-improvement and continuous social interaction. Although he emphatically noted that learning was "for the sake of the self" (the end of which was self-knowledge and self-realization), he found public service a natural consequence of true education. In his late 40s and early 50s Confucius served first as a magistrate, then as an assistant minister of public works, and eventually as minister of justice in the state of Lu. It is likely that he accompanied King Lu as his chief minister on one of the diplomatic missions. Confucius' political career was, however, short-lived. His loyalty to the King alienated him from the power holders of the time, the large Chi families, and his moral rectitude did not sit well with the King's inner circle, which enraptured the King with sensuous delight. At 56, when he realized that his superiors were uninterested in his policies, Confucius left the country in an attempt to find another feudal state to which he could render his service. Despite his political frustration he was accompanied by an expanding circle of students during this self-imposed exile of almost 12 years. His reputation as a man of vision and mission spread. Confucius was perceived as the heroic conscience who knew realistically that he might not succeed but, fired by a righteous passion, continuously did the best he could. At the age of 67 he returned home to teach and to preserve his cherished classical traditions by writing and editing. He died in 479 BC at the age of 73. According to the Records of the Historian 72 of his students mastered the "six arts," and those who claimed to be his followers numbered 3,000.

Teachings of Sri Aurobindo

2010-05-27T10:39:00.006-05:00

Let's analyze some of the teaching of the Hindu philosopher Sri Aurobindo Ghose.

There is a basic human aspiration for the good life: Freedom (as inner peace), The Spiritual (a realm of good purpose and contentment) and becoming ONE. One can become ONE, God (by overcoming adviya).

First, let's take a look at Aurobindo's general idea of planes of existence.

Nature evolves by contradiction (see dialectics). The apparent chaos of reality brings Aurobindo's idea of Harmony (sort of the kensho of Zen Buddhism)

Harmony means a deliberate decision not to fall for adviya in a given situation. Let's take world hunger, for example. The problem of food shortage in the world is not so much due to lack of food, but lack of policies and agreements in the production and distribution of food, as well as means to develop the Third World. A higher harmony takes all the parties to move beyond ego and self-concern to solve "the problem" (Is it Capitalism?). The question makes sense, but how to approach it from the position of the individual?

The greater the disparateness, the greater the opportunity for change.

Aurobindo analyzes the limits of science: 1- science is fixed in the material view of reality, 2- science does not perceive the subtle forces of life based on the vital, mental, and spiritual dimension of life, thus 3- science sees only part of the truth, not the whole of the phenomenon ("the spiritual").

Aurobindo thinks that science becomes irrational by denying other planes of life. Not so, it's not the province of science to establish something beyond its province. On the other hand, Aurobindo is right that we tend to see too linearly, preventing ourselves the acquisition of more integral forms of knowledge (what I'd call broadening our symbolic insights).

For Aurobindo, both materialism and Hindu asceticism miss the point. One negates the spiritual, the other the material. Here Aurobindo comes up with the idea of Cosmic Consciousness.

Perceiving the ONENESS: For Aurobindo, matter is a form of spirit, the body of spirit. So, matter is spirit. (There is a similarity between Aurobindo and Hegel here, though there are important differences as well).

Perceiving ONENESS means seeing differently. Also "willing" a different outlook at things. Not falling for the tamas of thought. It means embracing ALL. ACCEPT ALL. It doesn't mean falling for anomie. By understanding FACTicity (the existentialists gave up and called it absurd). One learns UNDERSTAND and respect FACTicity.

This needs to be explained in more detailed with Aurobindo's Metaphysics.

Swami Vivekananda

2010-05-27T07:48:00.001-05:00

Religion is realization; not talk, not doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.-- Aphorisms.

They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. This is the gist of all worship – to be pure and to do good to others.-- Aphorisms.

Thus we find that Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of facts as they exist, that the very basis of our being is contradiction, that everywhere we have to move through this tremendous contradiction, that wherever there is good, there must also be evil, and wherever there is evil, there must be some good, wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow, and everyone who smiles will have to weep, and vice versa. Nor can this state of things be remedied. We may verily imagine that there will be a place where there will be only good and no evil, where we shall only smile and never weep. This is impossible in the very nature of things; for the conditions will remain the same. Wherever there is the power of producing a smile in us, there lurks the power of producing tears. Wherever there is the power of producing happiness, there lurks somewhere the power of making us miserable.-- Maya and Illusion, Vol. II, Complete Works of S.V.

Notes on Buddhism

2010-05-26T17:38:00.001-05:00

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.

... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre

Buddhism is a spiritual movement founded by Siddhartha Gautama in India in the 6th century BC and became the first multicultural spiritual tradition in the higher civilization of the Eurasian world. Buddhism lasted in India for some 1500 years, until it disappeared from India as that country became progressively dominated by Islam. Buddhism moved then to Ceylon, China (first century AD), Korea (fourth century AD), and Japan (sixth century AD); eastward into Burma, Thailand (third century AD), Cambodia (fourth century AD), Indonesia (third century AD) and the other countries of southeastern Asia with the exception of the Philippines. It became the dominant spiritual movement in Tibet (eight century AD), and Mongolia (thirteen century AD).

The teaching of Buddha was handed down to succeeding generations in the form of a threefold refuge: the Buddha, the teaching and the community. These are three aspects of the Buddha reality. 1- The teaching itself is a form of Buddha presence. The teaching is supreme insofar as it is in virtue of the teaching that a person is guided to experience the saving illumination concerning the nature of sorrow and the way to release from sorrow. 2- The community has a certain priority since it carries and sustain the entire Buddhist tradition. 3- The doctrine would have had no inner development or preservation or propagation except through the community. Yet supreme over everything is the Buddha reality.

The Message
Buddha's teaching was transmitted orally to his disciples. It consists of the theory, the path and the sangha. The core of the theory is the concept of human suffering and the possibility of emancipation. Individuality implies limitation, desire causes suffering since what is desired is transitory, changing and perishing.

Reality
Reality is composed of dharmas (components) or a succession of microseconds of existence. Buddha departed from the teachings of must Hinduism by not having a precise eschatology (a theory of final things). Life is a stream, a river, of manifestations and extinctions. There's nothing permanent and thereby no fixed self. To make clear this concept Buddhism puts forward the theory of five constituents 1- rupa or corporeality or physical form, 2- feelings or sensations (vedana), 3- ideations (sanna), 40 mental formations or dispositions (sankhara), and consciousness (vinana). Human existence is only a composite of these aggregates.

Karma
Buddhists accept the notion of karma, however, this presented a problem with their notion of no-self. How could one prove that one can reincarnate with a no self, i.e. with no permanent subject? Some scholars have considered this to be unsolvable. The relations between existences has been compared to the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is very different in every moment. A sort of ever changing identity.

The Four Noble Truths
There are four noble truths. 1-The truth of sorrow, 2-the truth that sorrow originates within us from the craving of pleasure, 3-the truth that this craving can be eliminated and 4-the truth that a methodical path must be followed to obtain this goal. Otherwise human beings would remain indefinitely in samsara.

The Eightfold Path
Hence Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination or paticca-samuppada) whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Given the awareness of this law, the question arises as to how one may escape the continually renewed cycle of births, suffering and death. There must be a purification that leads to overcoming this process. Such a liberating purification is effected by following the Noble Eightfold Path constituted by 1-the right views, 2-the right aspiration, 3-the right speech, 4-the right conduct, 5-the right livelihood, 6-the right effort, 7-the right mindfulness and 8-the right meditational attainment.

Nirvana
The aim is to be rid of the delusion of the ego, freeing oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who succeeds has achieved enlightenment. The term is nirvana translated as dying out. But nirvana is not extinction. And Buddha repudiated this. Buddhists search for salvation, not annihilation. Although nirvana is often presented as negative, it can be seen as the ultimate goal for salvation in Buddhism.

Notes on Buddhism

2010-05-26T08:36:00.000-05:00

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.

... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre

Buddhism is a spiritual movement founded by Siddharta Gautama in India in the 6th century BC and became the first multi cultural spiritual tradition in the higher civilization of the Eurasian world. Buddhism lasted in India for some 1500 years, until it disappeared from India as that country became progressively dominated by Islam. Buddhism moved then to Ceylon, China (first century AD), Korea (fourth century AD), and Japan (sixth century AD); eastward into Burma, Thailand (third century AD), Cambodia (fourth century AD), Indonesia (third century AD) and the other countries of southeastern Asia with the exception of the Philippines. It became the dominant spiritual movement in Tibet (eight century AD), and Mongolia (thirteen century AD).

The teaching of Buddha was handed down to succeeding generations in the form of a threefold refuge: the Buddha, the teaching and the community. These are three aspects of the Buddha reality. 1- The teaching itself is a form of Buddha presence. The teaching is supreme insofar as it is in virtue of the teaching that a person is guided to experience the saving illumination concerning the nature of sorrow and the way to release from sorrow. 2- The community has a certain priority since it carries and sustain the entire Buddhist tradition. 3- The doctrine would have had no inner development or preservation or propagation except through the community. Yet supreme over everything is the Buddha reality.

The Message
Buddha's teaching was transmitted orally to his disciples. It consists of the theory, the path and the sangha. The core of the theory is the concept of human suffering and the possibility of emancipation. Individuality implies limitation, desire causes suffering since what is desired is transitory, changing and perishing.

Reality
Reality is composed of dharmas (components) or a succession of microseconds of existence. Buddha departed from the teachings of must Hinduism by not having a precise eschatology (a theory of final things). Life is a stream, a river, of manifestations and extinctions. There's nothing permanent and thereby no fixed self. To make clear this concept Buddhism puts forward the theory of five constituents 1- rupa or corporeality or physical form, 2- feelings or sensations (vedana), 3- ideations (sanna), 40 mental formations or dispositions (sankhara), and consciousness (vinana). Human existence is only a composite of these aggregates.

Karma
Buddhists accept the notion of karma, however, this presented a problem with their notion of no-self. How could one prove that one can reincarnate with a no self, i.e. with no permanent subject? Some scholars have considered this to be unsolvable. The relations between existences has been compared to the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is very different in every moment. A sort of ever changing identity.

The Four Noble Truths
There are four noble truths. 1-The truth of sorrow, 2-the truth that sorrow originates within us from the craving of pleasure, 3-the truth that this craving can be eliminated and 4-the truth that a methodical path must be followed to obtain this goal. Otherwise human beings would remain indefinitely in samsara.

The Eightfold Path
Hence Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination or paticca-samuppada) whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Given the awareness of this law, the question arises as to how one may escape the continually renewed cycle of births, suffering and death. There must be a purification that leads to overcoming this process. Such a liberating purification is effected by following the Noble Eightfold Path constituted by 1-the right views, 2-the right aspiration, 3-the right speech, 4-the right conduct, 5-the right livelihood, 6-the right effort, 7-the right mindfulness and 8-the right meditational attainment.

Nirvana
The aim is to be rid of the delusion of the ego, freeing oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who succeeds has achieved enlightenment. The term is nirvana translated as dying out
But nirvana is not extinction. And Buddha repudiated this. Buddhists search for salvation, not annihilation. Although nirvana is often presented as negative, it can be seen as the ultimate goal for salvation in Buddhism.

List of terms for our test next Thursday (Vedanta, Jaina & Yoga)

2010-05-25T08:15:00.011-05:00

EARLY VEDANTA

Atman/Brahman: The two-in-one idea of the universal Self. As a monad, it’s the real immortal soul of human beings. Atman is hidden deep, but it can be known by discipline and meditation.
Brahman: An essence without attributes, or beyond attributes: The Universal principle of selfhood.
Brahma: God as creator, one of the trinity in Hinduism, the other two Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
Bhakti: Devotion, worship, love.
Maya: Illusion, what we take for “reality” but it’s not. It’s similar to Plato’s “forms.”
Avidya: Ignorance: that is, the path of evil and alienation from true selfhood.
Moksha: The final liberation and release from all worldly bonds. Moksha is the highest of the four human goals: artha (wealth), kama (pleasure) and dharma (duty)
Dharma: (skt: “carrying, holding”): That which determines a true essence. Righteousness; the basis of human morality; the lawful order of the universe and the foundation of all religions. Dharma is inseparable from one’s karma since dharma can be realized only to one’s karmic situation.
Karma: (skt: “deed”) 1- A mental or physical action, 2- The consequence of a mental or physical action, 3-The sum of all consequences of an individual in this or in previous life. Each karma is created by each person’s samskara (or impressions= mental formations forces)
Jñana: Wisdom, higher knowledge.
OM: The cosmic sound, heard in deep meditation; Holy word taught in the Upanishads.
Samsara: The constant and endless cycle of life and death.
Yajna: Sacrifice

JAINA

Karman: Bits of material, generated by the person's actions, that bind themselves to the life-monad or soul through many births. This has the effect of thwarting the full realization and freedom of the soul.
Kalpa: A world cycle. A period of time comprising 4,320,000 yrs. Pali-kappa is an endlessly long period of time. The metaphor is that of a piece of silk rubbed one on a solid piece of rock one cubic mile in size every 1000 yrs. When this wears the rock away, a kalpa has passed.
Jiva: “One who lives in the body,” a mortal being. The embodied self, which identifies with the mind as ego. It creates the notions of duality and causality and thereby becomes bound to the cycle of birth and death. It has been defined as a life-monad.
Ajiva: Non-soul, inanimate substance. Ajiva is divided in two categories: non-sentient (i.e. a feeling being) material and non-sentient and non-material.
Kevala: State of omniscience. Kevala is necessarily accompanied by freedom from karmic obstruction by direct experience of the soul's pure form, unblemished by its attachment of matter.
Ratnatraya: The basis of Jaina ethics. It comprises 1- the right knowledge, 2- right faith and 3- right conduct. They must be cultivated at once. Right faith leads to calmness and tranquility, but right faith leads to perfection only when followed by right conduct. Knowledge without faith and conduct is futile. Right conduct is spontaneous, not a forced mechanical quality. Attainment of right conduct is a gradual process. The process to achieve this is ahimsa.
Ahimsa: Skt (non-harming) Jaina doctrine of non-violence. Since thought gives rise to action, non-violence of thought is more important than non-violence of action. It is also one of the five virtues in Raja-Yoga.

YOGA

Pakriti: The matter-principle, uncaused cause.
Purusha: The supreme self.
Dukkha: Sorrow or basic condition of existence because of the essential nature of the
unrealized man.
Gunas: the primary qualities of Nature. They are three in number:
Sattvas: The goodness in matter, that which can be realized only through the knowledge of the enlightened subject. Tamas: The opacity, the dark quality of matter, its propensity to destruction. Rajas: The tension, dynamic force behind matter.
Yama: Restraint, the fixing of the path, to curb, to bridle.
Niyama: Spiritual discipline.
Asana: Posture.
Pranayama: Controlled breathing.
Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses.
Dharana: (One-point concentration) or total stillness.
Dhyana: Sustained attention, chan, jhana, or zen; the eightfold path of self- absorption.
Samadhi: Simple and total overtaking of the mind by the cosmic mind.

Ramakrishna & Vivekananda

2010-05-25T08:14:00.001-05:00

On the Ramakrishna Mission (click Ramakrishna on the left-hand side, the link takes you to Ramakrishna's Gospel). Yet another link for Vivekananda, Ramakrishna's main disciple.

For the complete works of Swami Vivekananda, here.
Vivekananda was a known Hindu poet (Here is a small selection).

List of terms for the Midterm Exam, Summer 2011

2010-05-25T07:47:00.003-05:00

List of terms: Vedanta Philosophy

Atman/Brahman: The two-in-one idea of the universal Self. As a monad, it’s the real immortal soul of human beings. Atman is hidden deep, but it can be known by discipline and meditation.
Brahman: An essence without attributes, or beyond attributes: The Universal principle of selfhood.
Brahma: God as creator, one of the trinity in Hinduism, the other two Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
Bhakti: Devotion, worship, love.
Maya: Illusion, what we take for “reality” but it’s not. It’s similar to Plato’s “forms.”
Avidya: Ignorance: that is, the path of evil and alienation from true selfhood.
Moksha: The final liberation and release from all worldly bonds. Moksha is the highest of the four human goals: artha (wealth), kama (pleasure) and dharma (duty).
Dharma: (skt: “carrying, holding”): That which determines a true essence. Righteousness; the basis of human morality; the lawful order of the universe and the foundation of all religions. Dharma is inseparable from one’s karma since dharma can be realized only to one’s karmic situation.
Karma: (skt: “deed”) 1- A mental or physical action, 2- The consequence of a mental or physical action, 3-The sum of all consequences of an individual in this or in previous life. Each karma is created by each person’s samskara (or impressions= mental formations forces)
Jnana: Wisdom, higher knowledge.
OM: The cosmic sound, heard in deep meditation; Holy word taught in the Upanishads.
Samsara: The constant and endless cycle of life and death.
Yajna: Sacrifice.

List of terms: Jaina Philosophy

Karman: Bits of material, generated by the person’s actions, that bind themselves to the life-monad or soul through many births. This has the effect of thwarting the full realization and freedom of the soul.
Kalpa: A world cycle. A period of time comprising 4,320,000 yrs. Pali-kappa is an endlessly long period of time. The metaphor is that of a piece of silk rubbed one on a solid piece of rock one cubic mile in size every 1000 yrs. When this wears the rock away, a kalpa has passed.
Jiva: “One who lives in the body,” a mortal being. The embodied self, which identifies with the mind as ego. It creates the notions of duality and causality and thereby becomes bound to the cycle of birth and death. It has been defined as a life-monad.
Ajiva: non-soul, inanimate substance. Ajiva is divided in two categories: non-sentient (i.e. a feeling being) material and non-sentient and non-material.
Moksha: liberation.
Kevala: state of omniscience. Kevala is necessarily accompanied by freedom from karmic obstruction by direct experience of the soul’s pure form, unblemished by its attachment of matter.
Ratnatraya: The basis of Jaina ethics. It comprises the right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. They must be cultivated at once. Right faith leads to calmness and tranquility, but right faith leads to perfection only when followed by right conduct. Knowledge without faith and conduct is futile. Right conduct is spontaneous, not a forced mechanical quality. Attainment of right conduct is a gradual process. The process to achieve this is ahimsa.
Ahimsa: Skt (non-harming) Jaina doctrine of non-violence. Since thought gives rise to action, non-violence of thought is more important than non-violence of action. It is also one of the five virtues in Raja-Yoga.
Pugdala: equivalent to matter.

List of terms: Yoga Philosophy

Pakriti: The matter-principle, uncaused cause. Purusha: The supreme self.
Dukkha: Sorrow or basic condition of existence because of the essential nature of the
unrealized man.
Gunas: (or qualities of pakriti):
Raja: The tension, dynamic force behind matter.: The goodness in matter, that which can be realized only through the knowledge of the
Sattvas
enlightened subject.
Tamas: The opacity, the dark quality of matter, its propensity to destruction.
Yama: Restraint, the fixing of the path, to curb, to bridle.
Niyama: Spiritual discipline.
Asana: Posture.
Pranayama: Controlled breathing.
Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses.
Dharana: (One-point concentration) or total stillness.
Dhyana: Sustained attention, chan, jhana, or zen; the eightfold path of self- absorption.
Samadhi: Simple and total overtaking of the mind by the cosmic mind.

List of terms: Buddhism

Reality: is composed of dharmas (components) or a succession of microseconds of existence. Buddha departed from the teachings of must Hinduism by not having a precise eschatology (final things). So, life is a stream, a river, of manifestations and extinctions. There's nothing permanent and no fixed self.
Reincarnation: A succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception.
Karma: Buddhists accept the notion of karma, however, this presented a problem with their notion of no-self. How could one prove that one can reincarnate with a no self, i.e. with no permanent subject? Some scholars have considered this to be unsolvable. The relations between existences has been compared to the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is very different in every moment.
The Four Noble Truths: 1-The truth of sorrow, 2-the truth that sorrow originates within us from the craving of pleasure, 3-the truth that this craving can be eliminated and 4-the truth that a methodical path must be followed to obtain this goal. Otherwise human beings would remain indefinitely in samsara.
The Eightfold Path: Hence Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination or paticca-samuppada) whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Given the awareness of this law, the question arises as to how one may escape the continually renewed cycle of births, suffering and death. There must be a purification that leads to overcoming this process. Such a liberating purification is effected by following the Noble Eightfold Path constituted by 1-the right views, 2-the right aspiration, 3-the right speech, 4-the right conduct, 5-the right livelihood, 6-the right effort, 7-the right mindfulness and 8-the right meditational attainment.
Nirvana: The aim is to be rid of the delusion of the ego, freeing oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who succeeds has achieved enlightenment. The term is nirvana translated as dying out
But nirvana is not extinction. And Buddha repudiated this. Buddhists search for salvation, not annihilation.
Samsara: The constant and endless cycle of life and death.

Stoic cosmogony (Epictetus)

2010-05-25T07:30:00.001-05:00

Last class I hinted at some similarities between Yoga and Stoic cosmogony. For more on stoicism, click here.

I've found a good site with Epictetus' Discourses. Check it out.

For a better choice, I recommend this one.

Dharma or karma?

2010-05-22T15:56:00.002-05:00

Your turn #2

2010-05-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

This homework is going to take us to a different site: Make your comments here.

Please, become a friend of miami bourbaki. Yes, it's my personal site and sort of a higher forum for discussion. Be who you are, be argumentative, be yourself.

Yoga terms

2010-05-19T10:29:00.000-05:00

Buddhi/cittam: Thought faculty, still within the mind.
Kaivalya: The ultimate state of perfection in Yoga.
Pakriti: The matter-principle, uncaused cause.
Purusha: The supreme self.
Dukkha: Sorrow or basic condition of existence because of the essential nature of the unrealized man.
Gunas: The qualities of pakriti.
Sattvas: The goodness in matter, which can be realized only through the knowledge of the enlightened subject.
Tamas: The opacity, the dark quality of matter, its propensity to destruction.
Raja: The tension, dynamic force behind matter.
Kevala: Life-monad for Jaina and Yoga.
Mahat: The Great One, or what emerges from pakriti.
Mana: The lower mind, the third in the cycle from Mahat.
Yama: Restraint, the fixing of the path, to curb, to bridle.
Niyama: Spiritual discipline.
Asana: Posture.
Pranayama: Controlled breathing.
Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses.
Dharana: (One-point concentration) or total stillness.
Dhyana: Sustained attention, chan, jhana, or zen; the eightfold path of self- absorption.
Samadhi: Simple and total overtaking of the mind by the cosmic mind.