Thich Nhat Hagn's "Fear"

[David Morris]

This thread started with a (Buddhist) portrayal of birth experienced as
ejection from "The Palace of the Child" into a world first experienced
by two primal experiences: Fear and Desire.  The fear is of death.  The
desire is for life.

This made me think of Freud's Pleasure Principle, and his Death Drive.

No conclusions here.  Just thinking...

David Morris


On Tuesday, July 30, 2013, Rev'd Seventy-Six wrote:

> That's Kool and the gang. All I am saying is:  there is a nigh unto
> bottomless resevoir of negative experience in the arts & sciences. I
> would appreciate that balanced a tad, esp. in this tilted age. The
> Inferno wasn't a challenge to Dante: Paradise, however, exceeded his
> reach. I would prefer not to equate birth with a plummet into a sphere
> of profane dread & agony. In the arts we have come to confuse realism
> with suffering when it ain't the lion's share, experience-wise. Maybe
> I'm naive...
>
> On 7/30/13, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > I don't.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:24 PM, malignd at aol.com <javascript:;> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not sure how to read this group anymore.  Does anyone think Becket
> was
> >> serious?
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net <javascript:;>>
> >> To: 'David Morris' <fqmorris at gmail.com <javascript:;>>; 'Ian
> Livingston'
> >> <igrlivingston at gmail.com <javascript:;>>
> >> Cc: 'Keith Davis' <kbob42 at gmail.com <javascript:;>>; 'P-list' <
> pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:;>>
> >> Sent: Tue, Jul 30, 2013 6:05 am
> >> Subject: RE: Thich Nhat Hagn's "Fear"
> >>
> >> Oh, it’s downhill well before that. Samuel Beckett in a 1970 interview:
> >> “Even before the foetus can draw breath it is in a state of barrenness
> and
> >> of pain. I have a clear memory of my own foetal existence. It was an
> >> existence where no voice, no possible movement could free me from the
> >> agony and darkness I was subjected to.”
> >>
> >> And in _Murphy_, Neary curses the day he was born “and then, in a bold
> >> flashback, the night he was conceived.”
> >>
> >>
> >> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:;> [mailto:
> owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:;>] On
> >> Behalf Of David Morris
> >> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 11:51 AM
> >> To: Ian Livingston
> >> Cc: Keith Davis; P-list
> >> Subject: Re: Thich Nhat Hagn's "Fear"
> >>
> >> Yes. That is a clear way of explaining the root experience and its later
> >> recognition/identification.
> >>
> >> On Monday, July 29, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:
> >> Maybe the way to reconcile your perspectives, which both seem valid, is
> to
> >> remove the labels. Birth is the first appearance the emotional sensation
> >> that is later associated with fear, coupled with the sensation of
> >> emotional resistance to that proto-fear that is later identified as
> >> desire.
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 7:39 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >> Sure.  But birth is a stark initial lesson in separateness, even if the
> >> "self" hasn't yet formed. And I think initial experiencing the sensation
> >> of fear and desire is TNH's focus, something that precedes a self.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Monday, July 29, 2013, Keith Davis wrote:
> >> The only clarification might be that there is no consciousness of the
> fear
> >> and desire until we reach the point where we become aware of a"self" as
> >> separate from other "selves", where we develop an "individual
> >> consciousness".
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:13 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> It starts with a description of each of us pre-birth in the "The Palace
> of
> >> the Child." Everything we needed was done for us there.  Food, air,
> >> warmth, in a big water cushioned bed, with great sound insulation.
> >>
> >> Then we get pushed out into the loud cold world, having to cough out
> >> liquid in order to take our own first breath.  Every aspect of this
> birth
> >> is traumatic, and TNH says it is called the "Original Fear."  At about
> >> this same moment we realize we want to keep living.  TNH calls this
> >> "Original Desire."
> >>
> >> I think this was all pre Freud.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> www.innergroovemusic.com
> >>
> >
>
>
> --
> http://posthistoricpress.blogspot.com/
>
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