Reality Beyond Realism

[David Morris]

I love both Campbell and Brown.  Brown's Life Against Death clearly was a
*major* inspiration for Gravity's Rainbow.  And Jung was Campbell's mentor,
more important than Campbell himself. They are all western discoverers of
aspects of ancient eastern philosophies, even if unintentionally, which
makes them all that more valuable.  I'd add Stanislav Grof's transpersonal
psychology to that western mix.

What is usually called "mysticism" is an unavoidable aspect of a deeper
dive into eastern takes on illusion v reality.  Strict materialism will
have to be discarded when one personally encounters those deeper realms.
Even so, those deeper realms will largely remain inscrutable, yet
undeniable.  Ancient texts might help.  Gurus might too, but I avoid them.
Direct experience is my guru, maybe to my detriment.

Your inquiry is very cool.  Have fun with it.

David Morris

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 5:56 PM Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks David,
>
> Certainly ambitious, and much more an inquiry than a top-down lesson on my
> part. Growing up, I had much more schooling in (mostly Western) lit than in
> non-Western spirituality. So literature was the first thing that allowed me
> to feel like I was seeing through the first couple layers of illusion.
>
> Campbell, Brown, and others have pointed to artists as modern-day shamans,
> bringing people in contact with the real. I want to see how stories can (or
> can’t) do that when I have also come to understand reality as starting
> where storytelling stops.
>
> On Jun 28, 2020, at 4:52 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
>
> My God, this seems an ambitious task!  In Buddhist or Hindu or other
> ancient eastern schools, ubiquitous reality is seen as an illusion, a veil
> one hopes to see past.  Individuality (personal identity) is also seen as a
> false reality, at least partly so.  Many lifetimes of observance by a
> select few are sometimes required to see beyond the illusion of common
> reality.  I wish you all the best.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 3:06 PM Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Fellow Plisters,
>>
>> Starting July 1 I'll be leading a class you and/or people you know may
>> find interesting. The class is called Reality Beyond Realism:
>> Storytelling for/versus Enlightenment.
>>
>> It comes out of a tension I’ve been feeling in my own work in recent
>> years. The tension is basically this. On the one hand, the telling of
>> stories is maybe the original human activity. On the other hand,
>> stories also seem to represent our most formidable limitation as
>> individuals and as a species. Buddhism (and related traditions) seems
>> to agree with contemporary science (neuroscience, quantum physics,
>> etc) in the claim that our notion of individual “self” is ultimately a
>> kind of delusion. A fiction we compulsively tell ourselves, which may
>> have once been adaptive, but may no longer be so. There are stories at
>> the bottom of all our sufferings and all our social strife. This is
>> easy to see in personal psychological dysfunctions (depression,
>> anxiety, etc.), political cynicism (which relies on limited and
>> outmoded stories), as well as deliberate misinformation (i.e. "false"
>> stories).
>>
>> So the tension leads to the question: can stories actually take us
>> closer to individual and collective enlightenment? And the related
>> question: Is what separates us from a more enlightened world the
>> telling of bad stories, or the telling of stories altogether? As
>> people who are uniquely attuned to the telling of stories—who may even
>> look at (literary) storytelling as a kind of calling or chosen life’s
>> work—is it possible for us to really use them for “good”? Can stories
>> get us free, or do they only imprison us? Can they bring us closer to
>> “absolute reality” or can they only distort our apprehension of
>> things?
>>
>> So this “class” is a four-part inquiry where we will look at some of
>> the conventions of Western realism as well as some texts that
>> deliberately subvert those conventions (this will include some Pynchon
>> excerpts, of course). We’ll try to see what other kinds of stories are
>> possible or desirable, whether stories can be used to dismantle
>> stories, or whether they inevitably entrap us in the constant karmic
>> ping-pong of the world of forms.
>>
>> Some of those conventions of storytelling will include: the
>> individuality of subjectivity, the linear and strictly forward
>> movement of time, the mechanics of cause and effect, certain
>> epistemological regimes and attendant values (including capitalism,
>> scientism, post-Judeo-Christianity, etc.), as well as the more
>> literary-specific conventions of stories built out of language (i.e.
>> subject-verb containing sentences) and the form of the prose story
>> (with its beginnings/middles/ends, conflicts and rising action and
>> climaxes, etc.).
>>
>> The course will be four sessions, on consecutive Wednesdays, starting
>> July 1, 6-8pm Eastern Standard Time. It’s run through this very cool
>> organization called Incite Seminars, which is trying to bring
>> ambitious learning out of neoliberal higher education institutions and
>> rebuild it together with the people. They’re Philly-based, but now
>> operating on Zoom. The classes run on an “enable-as-you-can” (i.e.
>> donate-what-you-choose) structure. A few people have signed up already
>> but I’d really love for there to be a diversity of
>> perspectives/experiences involved. If you think you might know someone
>> who would be interested, I’m including a link to the class page, where
>> you can read the full description and fill out a registration form:
>> https://inciteseminars.com/reality-not-realism/
>>
>> Also, if you have some favorite relevant excerpts, other reading
>> suggestions, or ideas for the direction of the class, I'd be happy to
>> hear and incorporate them.
>>
>> Love,
>>
>> Smoke
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>