[MD] Food for Thought

[Heather Perella]

> [SA previously]:
> > The only difference between your philosophy and
> > mine, is, you separate essence from existence.
> > Why does essence have to be beyond existence?
> > I don't see it that way.


     [Ham] 
> I don't either.

     I just don't know what to say... This has been
the hang-up of mine since the beginning of our
discussion since I've joined the MoQ, and now you say
this... we agree.  The other hang-up is nothingness
and negation, but it may just be the wording, if we
agree on this, then nothingness and negation can't be
too far away from some kind of understanding.. sorry a
bit excited.


     [Ham]
>"Getting beyond existence" is the
> perspective the
> INDIVIDUAL must strive for to understand the
> essential nature of Reality.
> Essence itself of course transcends (encompasses)
> all that is actualized in
> the subject/object dichotomy.

     Totally agree!

 

     [Ham]
> The experience (sensibility) of "absoluteness" is
> possible only for Essence
> itself.  The creature (being-aware) experiences only
> the Value of the
> primary source.

     Not really sure about this.  Absoluteness would
be essence, and perception would be a human quality to
enhance.  Wouldn't a mix-up, a... I'm looking for the
right word, a difficulty be present in when human
perception matches essence.  When value matches
essence, wouldn't the perception show no difference?


     [Ham]
> Technology enhances our knowledge of relations and
> provides an
> ever-expanding catalog of factual data about them. 
> But objective data does
> not take us beyond the SOM realm of finitude; it
> does not reveal knowledge
> about Essence.

    I agree.  Now, here's another one.  I was thinking
about this last night.  If somebody is stuck upon the
self-ego, then wouldn't the sudden shock of a tree
branch falling and hitting the earth bring them out of
the self-ego (subject), instantly join them with tree
branch (object), and quite possibly crush the ego
enough that enlightenment upon essence would occur. 
This could work the other way, too.  Somebody caught
up in the objective world, not thinking about human
value (subject), if they were involved in the pain of
another, a death let's say, and they see and touch the
dead body and the life that once spoke is no longer
present, that may shock the individual so caught up in
objectivity into a subjective world, and now subject
and object exist together, are both present in these
individuals perception.  Wouldn't these be ways of
enlightenment? 


     [Ham]
> My yearning, desiring, is expressed in what I value.
> Much of what I value
> is in this world of experience.  But I know,
> intuitively, that the things
> and events that make up my life point to a higher,
> grander reality than I
> can ever experience.  Thus, I see that my essential
> reality is not my
> personal being, or my experience of otherness, but
> Value which I can only
> sense conditionally.

     In Zen there is a saying, you may have heard this
before.

     Mountains are mountains.
     Mountains are not mountains.
     Mountains are mountains.

     The first has been explained to mean ordinary
experience.  The second is enlightenment, as in when
you say as follows:  "Thus, I see that my essential
reality is not my personal being, or my experience of
otherness..."  The third sentence is an enlightened
experience.  The ordinary mountains are still
mountains, yet, an ordinary enlightened experience. 
The best way I know how to put this last sentence into
words, in which I understand with more familiarity, is
the quiet noticed alongside, with, penetrating, and
fully letting the sound of these mountains stand-out. 
This is not an ordinary experience of mountain there,
I'm here, mountain stands-out.  This experience is one
of subject and object joined in an event.  Subject and
object is not dead, but the world is not just subject,
not just object, the world is an event including both.
 This third sentence might be found within the comment
you made above:  "Essence itself of course transcends
(encompasses) all that is actualized in the
subject/object dichotomy."  I would say essence is the
actualization of subject and object, essence is
subject and object, essence is not just subject, not
just object, it is both, and it is thus 'beyond' S/O. 


     [Ham]
> We are all equipped with the capacity to make
> intellectual judgments; why
> not use it?

     Intellectual judgments about what?

     [Ham]
>Life is a mystery that we are all
> called upon to resolve in our
> own way.  I disagree that "no answer will be found
> here."

     true, answers are found, but it will not all be
figured out.  I like to embrace quietness and mystery,
because I find the answers will be found in places we
don't know about.


     [Ham]
> We may not be
> able to experience it, we may not fully comprehend
> it, and we surely will
> not escape it.
> But we all arrive at some fundamental belief,
> whether we can "prove it" to
> our own satisfaction or not, and this belief or
> conviction represents our
> valuistic
> interpretation of reality.

   no argument here from me.


    [Ham]
> It is our most precious
> asset because it is our
> essential self.

     no argument from me.

    [Ham]
I'll be quiet.

     That doesn't mean, don't talk.  Quiet is what
happens before we talk, quiet is present while we talk
for I notice quiet, and quiet is still here after we
talk.  Quiet is a continuous thread where words are
left to only fall and loose their boundaries due to
the quiet disposition this world is.


thanks.

some clouds, some white, some gray, blue and windy,
SA

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