I haven’t been much in the mood for writing. I have written a few posts, but none which I felt like publishing. In the spirit of writing I’ve decided to talk about the self.
A month ago I started reading Stanley Park by Timothy Parker. I haven’t gotten much into it; I can’t pick up a book without falling asleep after reading 10 pages. I’m not sure what the remedy is, but currently I cannot do a normal reading session. Mr. Parker had to make the antagonist’s name Dante, and have Dante’s chain called Inferno something Coffee… This is clearly a reference to Dante’s Inferno. Now I’ve never personally read Dante’s Inferno or any part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, other than snippets here and there in more philosophical references than English ones. Lazy as I am, I don’t have time to read Inferno to understand the reference in the book, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. I know that’s not something I should be doing, but the article itself was well written and concise and I got the gist of it. I feel I need to read this classic epic poem (Yes D I said epic and I used it correctly) since it is so interesting and entertaing. If I were going to hell I would be in the first level of hell and I would be chilling with all the greats I knew would be hanging out in hell. I’m cool with that decision, no need to baptize me or convert to any type of Christianity. I am fine with where in hell I’ll be going.
I watched Ides of March a couple of Saturdays ago; yes this is going somewhere and it is related; which was great and I mean great. It was great because the acting was good and the story was well written and well told and I realized that I really need to start writing again and something significant. On Saturday I also decided that I need to read and write more philosophy. I don’t need to be a university student or work within those realms to study it, so I picked up some philosophers I haven’t read and in an area I’m interested in writing something in. You need to read a lot in order to develop a well balanced perception of things and in a specific area, whether you agree with it or not. At the book store I grabbed Kafta and Arthur Schopenhauer and because I like to mix Western thinking with Eastern thinking, I grabbed Rebel Buddha by Dzogchen Ponlop. I always want to connect Eastern and Western philosophy into something coherent and logical. I’m not sure they can really be combined without it being more one thing than another.
One of the problems I grasp with Buddhism/Hinduism/Jainism (they have the same goal) is that our reality is false. Everything we see isn’t true. As a Westerner, I have a strong belief in science. I also believe that we truly are organic beings, and have a very determined sense of self. In Buddhism, I can’t accept that everything I see to be false. I just cannot embrace that mentality. My strong belief in this reality being real is why the illusion is so good, why everyone is participating, and why everyone continues to suffer and go through the cycle of rebirth all the time. We continue our existence in this state until we see the ultimate reality and the illusion of this world. It’s hard to believe that this beautiful organic planet isn’t real, that it doesn’t really exist. Majority of people experience the same subjective experiences. Descartes went through this, epistemology goes through this, as well as the whole Matrix metaphor. That there is a true reality; it just may not be this one, or that if we have complete faith in the Lord, what we see is to be taken as truth and not a falsity. The sense of self is the most puzzling of all things in the human universe, other than the purpose/meaning of life.
Somewhere in between I want to accept that what Buddha says as truth, but I also want to believe in science and its truth, plus the rational mind… provided that it’s actually rational. But can you accept Buddha’s teachings and still believe in this reality as truth? What I’m studying and interested in writing isn’t about merging the two ideas into one coherent one. I think Buddhism would lose its meaning if it were to be westernized – think yoga branding. I’m under the impression that people who have a yogic philosophy don’t really practice the real philosophy. All I can think of are those vegetarian hippie’s who’ve incorporated yoga to everything else they were doing. It’s too bad that yoga has been so westernized. If you research the history of yoga, yoga meditations weren’t to relax and get your body in shape, but as a ritual in order to achieve moksha/mukti/nirvana/siddha. I don’t know anyone who does yoga for these reasons.
I was going somewhere with Dante, but the idea escaped me. I think it had something to do with the Christian reality that this is real, that there is an afterlife and that afterlife is real, and that there is only one life and not a continual rebirth. There’s a perception that this reality carries over into a new reality that looks rather similar to this one. In hell people are punished, believing that our senses are the same immaterially as they are when we’re material. It didn’t occur to me that this is a contradiction until now as I wrote it. Maybe it’s more that images are being impressed into the “soul” and based on memory, they really think they’re being tortured. Now I’ve managed to find something else that makes Christianity irrational.
I was also going to go somewhere with how Plato discusses there being two realities. Plato loved being in the philosophical mind, but the organic body which houses the soul had organic appetites that had nothing to do with rationality. Plato is a Western thinker. I wonder how much influence Eastern thought had on the Greeks, since they were so close to Asia. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, what we see of truth are impressions of things. Which ties nicely that this world is an illusion. Plato’s thought on how to solve the problem is to make sure it is the philosopher kings who show the impressions and not those who want to manipulate people to feed their appetites with whatever it is they want people to believe so that they can get away with it. Currently in the news there is “Occupy Wall Street” which a ‘peaceful’ protest against the 1% of the population that is wealthy and the 99% of the human population that are the puppets in this world of greed. If I were taking a class, I would use this in an essay, because getting good marks in philosophy in exams is to tie in what you’ve learned and apply it to the real world. It’s food for thought. Always trust the ancient Greek philosophers. They are the forefathers of science and biology, amongst other things besides philosophizing.
I think that philosophy should be learned amongst peers and in a group setting. My only other option is to start taking some classes at the university. The problem is all the good classes are on during the week and not as a night class. The only problem with learning outside of a classroom is the loss of discussion, peer support and feedback and dialogue with the professor. You completely lose the feeling of community when you read on your own. Maybe something has been misinterpreted, or something confusing can be answered in a class. Or someone else’s opinions inspire ideas and thought. I learn through visuals. I have to visualize something to learn it. Like I did for too many exams, I wrote acronyms on my left hand. I could remember it, if I remembered what the order and the letter stood for. This never occurred to me until last week when someone asked me for a phone number and I had to dial the number in the air to remember it. They said to me “I didn’t think you were such a visual person” and laughed, like it was charming. I think my mom is like this. It would explain why I talk to myself like she does, but there could be a biological reason for that. Such as when you read something you process it in one part of your brain and when you hear something it gets processed in another part of your brain. It’s possible that in order to process a complete thought, it needs to go through two different places to be coherent.
Cheers to Thursday and probably the last day...
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