Mindful pleasures..... As the words turn.

[Mark Kohut]

Nah, he says more nicely this time.

P might have scenes or part of a character that are about the writer and
the writing AND a sub-theme of The Crying of Lot 49 may be a Portrait of
the Artist as a Finder of Fictions but his books are about the real world,
history, ideas....

Our experience of reading them is not the theme itself.

Mark

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 4:37 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Is there some kind of connection between mindful and mindless? Isn’t one
> of the possibilities  or goals of mindfulness to escape “my” mind and
> simply perceive with no mind, with direct non-interpreted consciousness?
>  When you carry this process into fiction what does it look like?  Is
> there a narrative form for non-narrative mind? One thing Pynchon does NOT
> do is tell you what to think about the experience he offers. It isn’t that
> there is no point of view, but points of view are constantly dissipating
> and changing. The persuasiveness or simple pleasure lies as much with the
> reader as the text, as much with the observation as with the interpretation
> of the observation.
>   If MINDLESS PLEASURES was P’s working title is it possible  that it
> suggests  more his personal relationship with the writing process than  a
> possible title giving meaning to a work that needed freedom/ no mind to
> nurture into full form and scope? To read GR is to be in a suspended mental
> state moving through a very large range of specific mental states and
> perceptions in a very fluid way. One feels like smoke blowing through
> rooms, dreams, open and closed spaces, inner  and outer narratives; even
> time itself is no barrier. What was in my mind before reading GR was
> already tenuous, unmoored from my personal narrative and it was literally
> blown away.   I found myself in a more fearless mental space, both more
> open and more wary, more willing to live with questions. There were other
> factors, but as  art maker and reader  the arts play a major role in my
> inner process.
>
> I just re-watched Orson Welles TOUCH OF EVIL and am reminded of the
> mesmerizing tracking shots that weave into and out of the story setting and
> events. Here the camera is both mindful and mindless, focused and
> inevitably taking in more than the planned narrative, or the core story. We
> all seem like cameras making a movie, but who is the director, where is the
> storyboard, who writes the script.
>
> > On Aug 29, 2017, at 9:01 AM, Atticus Pinecone <atticuspinecone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Well to keep it grounded in Buddhism, focus is covered by in the Noble
> Eightfold Path under Right Concentration. Words changing definition is
> annoying & inevitable, but losing concepts is a problem.
> >
> > There are sects of Buddhism less strict than lay Zen?
> >
> > On Aug 29, 2017, at 8:12 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Well said.
> >>
> >> Www.innergroovemusic.com
> >>
> >> On Aug 28, 2017, at 11:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I think "Mindfullness" in meditation terms mean "focusing attention."
> It is an action more than a state. There are many ways to focus attention,
> many sense-based locales for focus.  The central idea is sustained focus on
> a sensation or question.
> >>>
> >>> Chi schools teach how to sense and manipulate Chi, Life Force.  More
> passive schools don't aim to manipulate that Chi, but to give it free
> reign.  I prefer the later.  Both are attention-based meditation
> techniques.  Other Zen schools advise to ignore the energy.  Zen is  too
> strict for me.
> >>>
> >>> David Morris
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 10:59 AM Atticus Pinecone <
> atticuspinecone at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> That's where it gets weird. Mindfulness is part of the Noble Eightfold
> Path—and it means to keep in mind all the other numbered Buddhist stuff...
> all of which doesn't jive with getting ahead in a rat race.
> >>>
> >>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 11:36 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> That was kinda my take, but I didn't know how to say it,
> "secularizing mindfulness...". Nice.
> >>>> You might say mindfulness is a product or result of meditation?
> >>>>
> >>>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
> >>>>
> >>>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 9:55 AM, Atticus Pinecone <
> atticuspinecone at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> The Buddhist take on it is 'yeah, it really is selfish, but better
> than going around making a mess of things'.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Maybe secularizing mindfulness is... I don't know... stupid? Besides
> it's meditation that sows the benefits—mindfulness goes on top of that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Aug 27, 2017, at 1:34 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/mindfulness-would-
> be-good-for-you-if-it-werent-all-just-hype/2017/08/24/
> b97d0220-76e2-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.a655dfed2455
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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