ATD and ghosts/thanatoids

[Ian Livingston]

I have had the pleasure of working closely with Buddhists over a
period of about 5 years. That hardly qualifies as the merest
introduction to Buddhist thought, but I arrived at a translative term
for karma with which the Buddhists seemed generally amenable. Maybe
they were just humoring me, but the English term that they seemed to
like okay was impetus. We generate impetus by our thoughts and actions
that carries a predisposing influence on later thoughts and actions.
Because experience is shaped by interdependent origination, what we
bring to each moment effectively shapes each situation. Essentially,
we find what we look for, what we generate in our expectations.
Solutions arise where there is room for them to do so, conflict the
same. Syzygy, antagonism, fascination, love, condemnation, these are
our own creations. Impetus out of control is a juggernaut, for
examples of which we need not look far. D.L. helps guide Takeshi to a
practice of generating a force of impetus he could not otherwise have
discovered and a solution arises, as does syzygy, love. It is
certainly an interesting sub-plot. I look forward to my next re-read.
It has already been too long, but I am busy now exploring the depths
of another "not so great" novel.


On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Great quote from VL.( I still like it a lot , probably because it suits my
> sense of humor and because I love Humboldt County) . I had forgotten about
> Takeshi's immunity.
>
> Any thoughts on that?
>
> Here are some lines from wikipedia on karma: "Karma is not punishment or
> retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural
> acts. Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal
> principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all life.
> The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not
> necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to
> some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a
> simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.
> Karma is not fate, for humans act with free will creating their own destiny.
> According to the Vedas, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow
> evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and
> their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which
> determines our future. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and
> dispassionate response."
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2010, at 6:39 PM, Richard Fiero wrote:
>
>> John Bailey wrote:
>>>
>>> Vineland, Inherent Vice and now AtD have been very free 'n' easy with
>>> this concept of karmic adjustment. Isn't it a bit like saying
>>> . . .
>>
>> Karmic adjustment is a biz that Takeshi began from a notion of insurance
>> adjustment.
>> =====
>> But right at the beginning DL had to sit Takeshi down for an
>> elbows-on-the-table talk. "It ain't a-zackly Tokyo here, you know, you can't
>> just go free-lancin' in 'karmic adjustment,' whatever that is - nobody'll
>> pay for it." "Ha-ha! But that's where you're wrong, Carrot-head! They'll pay
>> us just like they pay the garbage men from the garbage dump, the plumbers in
>> the septic tank - the mop hands at the toxic spill! They don't want to do it
>> - so we'll do it for them! Dive right down into it! Down into all that -
>> waste-pit of time! We know it's time lost forever - but they don't!" "Keep
>> hearin' this 'we.' . . ." "Trust me - this is just like insurance - only
>> different! I have the experience, and - better than that, the - immunity
>> too!"
>> =====
>> The official definition of karma is nothing about revenge but is just the
>> amount of one's attachment to the world of illusion - might be everything
>> that is not eating, shitting or fucking. See Heinrich Zimmer's "Philosophies
>> of India," 1953.  Compare the Bardo Thodol.
>>
>> Paraphrasing Emmet Fox in "Make Your Life Worth While." 1942: William Penn
>> become uncomfortable about wearing a sword which he had done since boyhood.
>> George Fox told him "Carry thy sword until thou canst no longer carry it." A
>> year later Penn gave up the practice quite easily.
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."