07-27-2010, 12:06 AM
We have heard CC’s view about recapitulation now hear mine. I hope this is not too offensive Nemo.
CC when speaking of re-capitulation he frames it in a specific way and directs our attention towards energy. He points out to us that because of events that “happened to us” in our past, our energy has been waylaid. Often these events are emotional or psychological. CC would have us re-visit all events of our past and examine them in minute detail and recapture the energy or release the energy. While these portions of energy are psychologically and emotionally trapped in the past they are not available to us in the present. If we are to make strides to regaining the totality of ourselves we need this energy. I think most psychologists would agree with this assessment to some extent.
I am suggesting that the world of “objects out there” if not assessed correctly will negatively impact the "perceived energetic totality". To put it crudely, as in unrefined, the objects out there will occupy our attention “in here”, ie; foreign installation....oops I did it again. When coming into contact with objects “out there” through perception, if we grasp at them in order to confirm their existence as inherent (imputing), we allow them access within. Once admitted this way they bewilder and confuse and even terrify. If we do not understand emptiness the we have no choice but to allow this kind of access. That is why our recapitulation must include phenomenal reality and the world of objects. Our recapitulation must examine the nature of objective reality and how it occupies mind, thoroughly.
When Gonzo stated that he did not know how Nagarjuna negated things, I stated that he used reason. So often when we read the likes of a Nargajuna it seems so intellectual doesn’t it? Even in this thread the charge of mere intellectualism has been leveled somewhere. And even Nemo has suggested that this is mere reason and he has been done with that for some time now...echoing the sentiment of DJ when discussing the poles of No Pity and Reason. (But it is better to mediate between each rather favor one over the other
) Somehow we seem to imagine that the reality we assert and believe is something much more than reason and that what Nagarjuna offers is just mere reason.
But let me just comment on the correct use of reason with a simple example.
There was a time when men thought the earth was flat. That if one ventured too far one would eventually fall of the edge of the world. All sorts of reasoning developed around this ignorance making it even harder to get to the truth. Some believed that a benevolent God had populated the farthest reaches of the seas with sea monsters, huge leviathans, in order to warn and scare people aware so they would not fall off the edge. And so on and so on until the whole of perceived existence was penetrated with this initial kernel of ignorance, that the earth was flat so that false imaginings replicated ad infinitum.
For those who discovered that if you did venture beyond the horizon you did not fall into an abyss, all the previous reasonings built around the ignorance of a flat earth began to fall apart and new possibilities within began to be realized. However when they ventured back into an ignorant society still invested in the false imaginations it was not easy to share their discovery. In fact the superstitious environment was hostile at first.
What was now apparent was that the reason of yesterday (which turned out to be superstition) was resistant to reason based on truth. At some point the (relative) truth prevailed supported by reason. This was possible because the reason based on superstition was not supported by truth.
We are all familiar with the logic of individual objects out there inherently existing. We have all been inundated with this perceived reality of things for a very long time. The accumulation of these perceptions have been conditioning consciousness long before we were even born. Inventing religions and spiritual practices and philosophies from within the conditioned framework of these accumulations just adds to the confusion.
Nargajuna, has seen through the facade and invites us to do the same!
CC when speaking of re-capitulation he frames it in a specific way and directs our attention towards energy. He points out to us that because of events that “happened to us” in our past, our energy has been waylaid. Often these events are emotional or psychological. CC would have us re-visit all events of our past and examine them in minute detail and recapture the energy or release the energy. While these portions of energy are psychologically and emotionally trapped in the past they are not available to us in the present. If we are to make strides to regaining the totality of ourselves we need this energy. I think most psychologists would agree with this assessment to some extent.
I am suggesting that the world of “objects out there” if not assessed correctly will negatively impact the "perceived energetic totality". To put it crudely, as in unrefined, the objects out there will occupy our attention “in here”, ie; foreign installation....oops I did it again. When coming into contact with objects “out there” through perception, if we grasp at them in order to confirm their existence as inherent (imputing), we allow them access within. Once admitted this way they bewilder and confuse and even terrify. If we do not understand emptiness the we have no choice but to allow this kind of access. That is why our recapitulation must include phenomenal reality and the world of objects. Our recapitulation must examine the nature of objective reality and how it occupies mind, thoroughly.
When Gonzo stated that he did not know how Nagarjuna negated things, I stated that he used reason. So often when we read the likes of a Nargajuna it seems so intellectual doesn’t it? Even in this thread the charge of mere intellectualism has been leveled somewhere. And even Nemo has suggested that this is mere reason and he has been done with that for some time now...echoing the sentiment of DJ when discussing the poles of No Pity and Reason. (But it is better to mediate between each rather favor one over the other
) Somehow we seem to imagine that the reality we assert and believe is something much more than reason and that what Nagarjuna offers is just mere reason. But let me just comment on the correct use of reason with a simple example.
There was a time when men thought the earth was flat. That if one ventured too far one would eventually fall of the edge of the world. All sorts of reasoning developed around this ignorance making it even harder to get to the truth. Some believed that a benevolent God had populated the farthest reaches of the seas with sea monsters, huge leviathans, in order to warn and scare people aware so they would not fall off the edge. And so on and so on until the whole of perceived existence was penetrated with this initial kernel of ignorance, that the earth was flat so that false imaginings replicated ad infinitum.
For those who discovered that if you did venture beyond the horizon you did not fall into an abyss, all the previous reasonings built around the ignorance of a flat earth began to fall apart and new possibilities within began to be realized. However when they ventured back into an ignorant society still invested in the false imaginations it was not easy to share their discovery. In fact the superstitious environment was hostile at first.
What was now apparent was that the reason of yesterday (which turned out to be superstition) was resistant to reason based on truth. At some point the (relative) truth prevailed supported by reason. This was possible because the reason based on superstition was not supported by truth.
We are all familiar with the logic of individual objects out there inherently existing. We have all been inundated with this perceived reality of things for a very long time. The accumulation of these perceptions have been conditioning consciousness long before we were even born. Inventing religions and spiritual practices and philosophies from within the conditioned framework of these accumulations just adds to the confusion.
Nargajuna, has seen through the facade and invites us to do the same!