[MD] Food for Thought

[Heather Perella]

     [Ham]
> Unlike the Zen practitioner, the philosopher is not
> content to accept
> paradox at face value;

     What paradox?  As I said, subject and object
exist, yet, within a universe, a field of play, where
they occur in one place.  You can separate them, but I
don't see how they are separated.  They are here - one
place.

     [Ham]
> ...he seeks a plausible
> explanation.

     And what I said above is not plausible?  It's as
real as it gets here.  There is not some secret
dimension holding subject and object away from each
other, yet, somehow in the same universe.  That would
be odd.


     [Ham]
> Since he's dealing
> with a transcendent reality, the philosopher can't
> establish metaphysical
> principles by investigating the physical world and
> having them verified as
> "facts".  Instead, he is forced to use logic
> intuitively.  What he comes up
> with is a cosmological theory or hypothesis based
> upon what he considers to
> be the primary source of experiential reality.

     The only difference between your philosophy and
mine, is, you separate essence from existence.


     [Ham]
> If you look at the preface page of my website,
> you'll see that getting
> "beyond otherness" is what my theory is all about. 

     I experience and practice getting beyond
otherness all the time, here and now.  I don't wait
til I meet my maker.

     [Ham]
> It's why I don't waste
> time analyzing biological and societal evolution,
> morality, physical laws,
> units of matter, or patterns of intellect.  These
> all have to do with the
> finite, differential world of experience, whereas I
> am concerned with the
> Essence beyond them..

     Your thoughts are not here.  Yet, they are so
your ignoring here.  Why does essence have to be
beyond existence?  I don't see it that way.


     [Ham]
> Where he was
> wrong, in my opinion, was to regard it as primary. 
> Value (or quality) is a
> perceived difference; it is relative, like 
> everything else in the physical
> world, and therefore cannot be the primary
> "uncreated" reality.

    The way I view primary reality, since it is
undifferentiated, is essence experienced here and now.
 This is the only difference between your view and
mine.  Where does existence begin and end, nobody can
point to it, for a the Way is bottomless, unending,
with trees along the Way.


Ham:
> None of us needs to describe existence; we
> already know what it is.

SA:
> Interesting you say this, for, I seem to try to
> unknow existence, that is, I try to rid my view of
> this world.  This also means, I recognize and
> acknowledge that I don't know.

     [Ham]
Your Zen-based meditations on quietude allow you to
momentarily block out change from consciousness, which
is already moving you in an "intuitional" direction.

-------
      No change is experienced in meditation, but also
change is.  How will I explain it, I can't for the
experience, the "intuitional" direction is best left
quiet.  If I try to explain this experience upon this
earth, then I'll mess it up, ruin it, and not say it
well enough.  When I say heartbeat is it a heartbeat -
no.  This life is not just mere words you know (notice
how I can talk about this though).


     [Ham]
But it is only the beginning of your journey -- IF you
want to define 'mu' for yourself.

---------
     I'm not sure if I'm defining mu for myself.  Mu
rids definitions, yet, we are left with 'something'. 
The experience is quiet.  We know what quiet is, and
then experience this in quiet.  Would we come to the
same conclusion, well, as long as we have that
opportunity then I would say this is going well.


Ham:
> Why do you assume the flux has no cause or source?

SA:
> I don't.  Yet, you are assuming 'no-flux', thus,
> something absolute, unchanging is this source, thus,
> it seems 'flux' has been demoted as something to be
> made by a source, but is not the source.

     [Ham]
I am assuming that Essence is immutable and has no
flux.  I also assume that
the change and transition we see in nature is a
distortion or 
limitation of our sensory awareness.

-----------
     I agree that change and transition in nature is
limited via sensory awareness, yet, the mind is the
disposition of this place where our senses allow all
to 'fall' into place.  Our minds are as valleys where
the senses are the water paths leading into the ocean
(mind).  Do our senses limit our experience of nature
and thus the disposition we find ourselves upon using
our birth-senses (non-technological)?  Sure, since
I've just mentioned leaving out technology, which has
enhanced much more to meet our senses.  Yet, our
senses are still the only tools we have, technology
just enhances.  What of this thinking mind?  What a
wonderful experience this intellect.  Calm and quiet
this mind as creatures in a snow storm and you'll walk
upon all kinds of animals that would have just run
away before.  Are you evading something upon this
experience we have upon this earth, Ham?  Or, maybe, a
better way to put it is, what is it that you yearn,
yet, feel you don't have?  Will death only bring it? 
When will essence be joined with you?  Or, are the
distortions and limitations you mention not serious
problems for you?


     [Ham]
After all, we are only finite creatures looking 
at Essence "from the outside", as it were, and making
intellectual 
judgments...

-----------
     Exactly a point of mine.  Why make intellectual
judgments?  I'm sure I do, but a practice of mine is
to put quiet upon the path as I even discuss with you.
 Clutter, distortions do exist.  Mistakes are rampant,
and so, I make it clear that a mystery is here.  Do
not think too much upon what I say, yet, we never stop
thinking, so, clarity, quiet, mystery, and
nondistinctions are what I mention, for no answer will
be found here.  And yet, when I say this, it is not
just me saying, but it is an experience I like to keep
still with that I'm quiet about.


     [Ham]
...derived from a 14-oz. gel-like blob of mass of
nerve tissue which isn't even our self-awareness.

------------
    Yes, but this gel-like blob of mass discusses
essence.  Is this talk of essence just a reminder, a
pointing toward a better time and place where no time
and place exists?  I'm saying this is here.  Am I able
to be essence through en' through?  Surely not, but
the clear, quiet this universe is, is full of wonder
that will never end.  Do you want the wonder to end? 
It does you know.  I've found a way that is stable,
real, practiced, thoughtful, but how do I say this, I
can't say proprietary awareness, can I?  I talk about
it, but just because you read this doesn't mean you'll
notice this is one place with quiet that is the same
quiet here and now.  And I keep just saying what to
do, and yet, this being quiet is not an on-going
affair.  Quiet doesn't go at all.  Quiet is in the
sky, the earth, the mind.  Quiet is as a moment and we
all realize together this in quiet. 


      [Ham]
You, and one or two others here, have concluded that
reality is 
ultimately
nothingness ("quiet") from which things and
individuals somehow emerge.
-----

     What I'm saying is be quiet!

     [Ham]
When this idea is challenged, you resort to 'mu', as
if to say it's a
paradox that can't be explained.

------
     And you know, you don't know it all, don't
flatter yourself again.


     [Ham]
But what you're really saying is that 
no explanation can be PROVED empirically.  And while
that's true, it's 
probably also true that you entertain an opinion as to
what reality is.

---------
     I'll never be able to say how this quiet
experience is.  I view a universe with no boundaries,
yet, distinctions abound everywhere.  Does this make
sense?  If you say no, and question this, then what
I've said is correct.  It is a quiet experience.


     [Ham]
Why not go with that and see if you can build it into
a metaphysical scheme that will account for the
emergence of change and dimensional perception?  That,
in a nutshell, is what I've done with Essentialism.

---------
     I really feel this change and dimensional
perception stuff is out of my hands, and does as it
pleases with constraints, pressures, and whims.  I'm
sure even what I said here points out a metaphysical
scheme.


     [Ham]
And you are wrong about Nietzsche, who himself was
vehemently opposed to the nihilist movement.

----------
     I don't know.  I read this in a book by Masao Abe
a professor of philosophy trained in Japan.  He taught
in the U.S. at the following schools:  

Columbia University
University of Chicago
Princeton University
Claremont Graduate School
Purdue University
University of Hawai'i.
Gustavus Adolphus College (2000-2001)

http://www.answers.com/topic/abe-masao


     [Ham]
He described it as "the will to nothingness"-the
philosophical equivalent of the Marxist revolution in
Russia, the 
irrational leap beyond skepticism, the desire to
destroy meaning, knowledge, and value.
To Nietzsche this was irrational because he knew that
the human soul 
thrives on value.  He saw it as intellectual suicide
and the harbinger of 
cultural annihilation.  But because of his famous
announcement that "God is dead!" and his assertion in
The Gay Science that "we have killed him"', nihilism
is wrongly thought to have been born by the pen of
Nietzsche.

------
     Hey, I guess professors are wrongly teaching this
you say.  It really doesn't matter to me what
Nietzsche said, maybe.  What I was showing you was a
distinction between the Nothingness of Zen and the
Nothingness 'wrongly' implied to have come from
Nietzsche.


     [Ham]
I suggest that you sample Plotinus, Spinoza,
Descartes, Kant, 
Heidegger, or Whitehead before giving up on
philosophy.  You may just find it more relevant to
"your world" than you've come to believe.

-------------
     Oh, these guys are full of niffty thoughts.  I've
read some of their stuff.  Kant's, I can't remember
the name, but the work involved his explaining of a
prior and the stuff outside of the mind coming
together, you know the empirical pathway.  I'm
familiar with Heidegger's nothingness, too, and
Whiteheads process and such.  Plotinus had a oneness
idea, and spinoza, not sure what he said.  Yet, if I
can't figure it out myself, what's the use, right? 
So, I just be quiet, notice stuff, relax, gather
fulfillment, feel a sense of peace, think about stuff
occasionally, and notice its' all just happening and I
really don't need to get in its' Way.  Why should I be
another distortion, eh?  So, I'll just be quiet.
     Will I talk?  Oh, what happens in this quiet is
many, many sounds and discussion.  It varies you see.



night, another long day tomorrow, more sunflower seed,
birds love this food for thought,
SA

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