To thing or not to thing

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.

ººforking¬ ¬pathsºº

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

 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. 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 is 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:  

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. Sculptor 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.

Meditation (in 13 points)

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"

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)

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!

 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.

The future anterior: Notes to Thursday's class

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.

karma yoga makes sense if seen from the pov of "we are in the middle of," arms length of our duty, which brings forth the idea of time. we never have enough time! time is our nemesis. when we virtually interact with our own movie "as if" we were in the future of our present whereby we can tap into what is yet-to-come, what is still "on the verge" of happening.

karma 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.

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? 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. 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.

what is chaos? inner battle the very thing what arjuna is really afraid of. he wants to go his way with inaction, not disturbing, not facing his own demons.
__________
notes: 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. *what's future anterior^? watch La Jetée. **in the future, one looks back to another moment (it doesn't have to be the past). for instance, last week's class is in the future of classes we didn't have before. imagine a 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. so, in a sense, happiness is the repetition (& resolution) of non-happiness.

Yoga metaphysics

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

Your turn #2: Jiva in the plastig bag

Make your comments to this week's post here.

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

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!

Some sugestions

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.

Ernesto's blog

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

Now that classes are over, let's stay friends

Please, become a friend of Miami Bourbaki. Thanks.

Your koans

Last post

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!

Bad temper

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

Dharma is TAKING ACTION.

The Art of War

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! 

(Read more here).

Your turn #3: The chun-tzu

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

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).