"You're gonna want cause & effect"---GR

[Richard Ryan]

It depends on what they ate before you entered.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Being in a room full of Buddhists is almost as noxious as being in a room full of Jungians.
>
>
>
> On Aug 19, 2011, at 3:25 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I hear all that steadily from the Buddhists I work with.
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> It's about examining the examiner with intense focus and
>>> concentration. Applying the scientific method to the psyche or ego of
>>> the scientist so to speak. Western studies in cognitive science are
>>> now using mindfulness meditation as part of their research. It has
>>> zilch to do with superstition or metaphor. But putting it in words is
>>> always problematic and leads to such trivializations of what is
>>> actually a method of very deep inquiry into the nature of personal
>>> identity. And it's not 'Buddhism,' although Buddhism is one arena that
>>> utilizes such investigation. If you add two molecules of hydrogen and
>>> one molecule of oxygen you get water. If you look deeply into the
>>> nature of personal identity - you get nothing.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Ian Livingston
>>> <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Ah, Buddhism. Yeah, it, too, is an interesting metaphor, though more
>>>> explicitly founded in superstitious projection than some others. Maybe
>>>> the explicit nature of the superstition makes it more palatable in
>>>> some ways.
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I tend to incline toward a limited determinism: history
>>>>>> compels us, but possibility opens infinitely.
>>>>>
>>>>> Both history and future possibility are fictions created by the illusory separate self which likes to believe it isn't determined but is a free and autonomous entity. Until that illusion is dispelled the big wheel just keeps on spinning.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>>>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>>>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>>>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>>>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>
>



-- 
Richard Ryan
New York and the World
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround
him. The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself.
All progress depends on the unreasonable man." - Shaw