AtDtDA(28): A Heavenwide Blast of Light; on Time and Timelessness
kelber at mindspring.com
kelber at mindspring.com
Mon Mar 10 16:23:07 CDT 2008
But is eternity the same thing as a freezing or removal of time from the equation or a distortion of time (loss of contact with the past, cataclysmic intersection with the future)? Eternity seems too placid a concept.
Laura
-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Mar 10, 2008 5:08 PM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com
>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: AtDtDA(28): A Heavenwide Blast of Light; on Time and Timelessness
>
>
> Laura Kelber writes;
> "In both cases, some sort of disruption of the time dimension allowed
>objects to be observed as they really are or in some mystical way. Kind
>of the spiritual equivalent of pinning down a butterfly for
>observation. Robin, or anyone: is there a Buddhist concept of time freezing or
>being distorted as a means to illumination?"
>
>
> I have been recently reading about religion and time pursuing insights into Pynchon.
> Seems timelessness might be a kind of universal of many/most Religions.
>
> One quotes poet named Vaughan:
>
> "I saw Eternity the other night,
> like a great ring of pure and endless light,
> All calm, as it was bright"
>
> 'Wittgenstein...who speaks of eternity but identifies it with the present
> moment'
>
> Plato: Time is "a changing image of eternity"........
>
> "So the darkness becomes the light, and the stillness the dancing"---[maybe not on point]
>
> "Existence is God"---Meister Eckhart, mystic
> God is ipsum esse subsistens, "subsistent existence itself"----Acquinas
> (writer named Dunne says these two above are saying the same thing)
>
> "Taoism's attention to the importance of the moment":
> The transitory nature of Satori, as opposed to the more enduring Nirvana that is sought in the Buddhist traditions of India, owes much to Taoist influences on Chan Buddhism in China, from which Zen Buddhism of Japan evolved. Taoism (Daoism) is a mystical philosophy that emphasizes the purity of the moment, whereas the Hindu roots of Indian Buddhism lend a longer view toward escaping the Karmic prison of perpetual reincarnation in the material world. From Taoism's attention to the importance of the moment and Mahayana Buddhism's almost nihilistic denial of the validity of individual existence, Zen Buddhism with its concept of the transitory state of Satori was born.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>
>>
>> He had entered a state of total attention to no object he
>> could see or sense, or eventually even imagine in any
>> interior way, while Prance was all but hysterical.
>> AtD, 782
>>
>>
>>Lord of Light. Look up the references to Avalokiteshvara, the very soul
>>of compassion. And, as furthur events in the novel transpire,
>>compassion as a force, as a different path, emerges as a major
>>theme. Did you think that all this Buddhism landed in the novel by
>>accident? And here, as elsewhere, Pynchon underlines the paradox
>>of revelation/illumination---the representation of Kit's illumination [he
>>was in Shambhala, the Lord (over lunch) proves it to Kit by showing him
>>the postage stamps he's collected from Shambhala. Of course they exist,
>>the Lord showed them to Kit, didn't he?]
>
>
>Kit seems to be in the same sort of "state of grace" that Lew was in, back on p. 42:
>
>"He understood that things were exactly what they were. It seemed more than he could bear."
>
>Lew had been unaccountably separated from his past, which he no longer remembered. In ATD, Padzhitnoff (or is it Bezumyoff?) wonders if the Tunguska event is some sort of extemporal event: "'This was an artifact of repeated visits from the future.'" (p. 782)
>
>In both cases, some sort of disruption of the time dimension allowed objects to be observed as they really are or in some mystical way. Kind of the spiritual equivalent of pinning down a butterfly for observation. Robin, or anyone: is there a Buddhist concept of time freezing or being distorted as a means to illumination?
>
>Laura
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
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