Weather Report This phrase—directed thought and evaluation—has been popping into my mind, as of late, largely in relation to renewed interest in questions of agency, choice, volition, intention, and so-called free will. I’ve contemplated these issues previously, and recorded my provisional conclusions in Do I Choose My Thoughts?—which I invite you to check out, if you haven’t already. It’s an …
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Very rich conversation here (and below) between Jeffrey Mishlove and Bernardo Kastrup, revolving largely around the differences between materialism and idealism--with Mr. Kastrup advocating for a particular form of metaphysical idealism. The materialist assumption of consciousness being produced by matter (which exists independently of consciousness) is what Bernardo dubs as "chasing our own …
The Greek philosopher-sage Parmenides -- born in 514 BC -- proposed what he referred to as "Being" as a kind of unitary ontological ground that, to my ear, seems more-or-less equivalent to the "Tao" of Taoism and the "Dharmakaya" of Buddhism and the "Brahman" of Hinduism and the "Pure Awareness" of Advaita Vedanta. In the following poem, translated by Francis Lucille, Parmenides describes the …
In relation to mind and the objects that appear to it, Lonchenpa continues: Here, ordinary people, who being unlearned, are as pretentious as they are mistaken, say, “The apprehended are the things that appear, mountains and so on. The apprehender is one’s own mind.” Away with the ideas of such foolish cowherds! In the experience of noble beings, who have eliminated the duality of apprehended and …
[Read more...] about Mind & The Objects That Appear To It – Commentary #4
Tangled Hierarchy There’s something of a tangled hierarchy between basic categories and the more nuanced insights that, down the road, they facilitate. A budding mathematician first learns algebra, then geometry, and then calculus – but many report that even though algebra was a necessary building-block for geometry and calculus, they “truly understood” algebra only after mastering the …
How often does one find an essay penned by a western philosopher -- that opens with a quote by Nagarjuna? Graham Priest's fascinating Beyond true and false becomes one of very few, when it begins by citing the illustrious Buddhist philosopher-sage thusly: The nature of things is to have no nature; it is their non-nature that is their nature. For they have only one nature: no-nature. What …
[Read more...] about On Saying True Things About The Ineffable
