Aesthetic listers... This may be of interest to some members on the list. -Frances
-----Original Message----- From: gnox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 7:25 AM To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: Re: [peirce-l] continuity, quantity and information Gary, I think to get the drift of what Dogen means by "studying the self", one would have to read at least the whole of "Genjokoan", his most famous essay and the one from which Suzuki was quoting: http://users.xplornet.com/~gnox/GenjoKoans.htm . It's only a few pages long (though it takes a lifetime to study :-). Anyway, Dogen is certainly not referring to any kind of introspection. The equivalent in Peirce, i believe, is the practice of phaneroscopy: [[[ Phaneroscopy is the description of the phaneron; and by the phaneron I mean the collective total of all that is in any way or in any sense present to the mind, quite regardless of whether it corresponds to any real thing or not. If you ask present when, and to whose mind, I reply that I leave these questions unanswered, never having entertained a doubt that those features of the phaneron that I have found in my mind are present at all times and to all minds. ]] CP 1.284, 1905 ] This amounts to studying the self because "everything which is present to us is a phenomenal manifestation of ourselves" (EP1:38). But this entails that we study the self by attending to the phaneron, and in that sense forget ourselves; or as Suzuki put it, "Forget this moment and grow into the next." It was the latter sentence i was referring to when i wrote that "the emphasis on continuity and growth here is explicit" -- that plus the image of the "hundred-foot pole" which "continues forever". Whether Suzuki's choice of words represents Dogen accurately is another question, which i'd rather not enter into. And still less would i want to discuss the extent to which Dogen represents Zen, or Zen represents Buddhism. My point was simply to open up the concept of "growth" a little and thus remove an obstruction to the understanding of Zen (and possibly of Peirce) that i had myself introduced. [[ gnox, I am not a zennist in the sense that you are. ]] I don't claim to be a Zen Buddhist. It's not my religious affiliation, and i don't practice zazen as Dogen describes it, because i have never received (or sought) instruction in the technique from a recognized teacher; and according to Dogen, there is no other way to enter into the practice. I read Dogen on the working assumption that he speaks from experience which is analogous to mine. (I don't see how one can read anything deeply, or enter into any kind of dialogue, without that working assumption.) I read Peirce the same way; and the result over the past few years has taken the form of a triadic relationship in which Peirce's and Dogen's observations appear in many ways analogous to each other's and to mine. Of course analogy is not identity, but in both reading and phaneroscopic practice i have not "entertained a doubt that those features of the phaneron that I have found in my mind are present at all times and to all minds." Consequently i have some sense of what Dogen means by "zazen" although i don't engage in the special practice which carries that name. But -- here's the point -- i am continually dropping my old understanding to grow into the next. At least, that's what i do when my practice of reading is most analogous to Dogen's practice of zazen. And now i'm experimenting with the idea that what Peirce means by "growth" is also analogous. Your results may differ from mine, as it seems they do so far. But the inquiry continues to grow. gnox } in the byways of high improvidence that's what makes lifework leaving and the world's a cell for citters to cit in. [Finnegans Wake 12] { gnoxic blog }{ http://gnoxic.blogspot.com/ gnuws }{ http://users.xplornet.com/~gnox/gnoxic.htm ----- Original Message ----- Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 8:03 PM gnox, list, gnox, thank you for this brilliant and even profound reflection on the famous koan: "Why do we practice Zen when we already have Buddha-nature?" You comment: > > As Dogen Zenji says, "To study Buddhism is to study > yourself. To study yourself is to forget yourself on each moment." > > The emphasis on continuity and growth here is explicit, and is quite > incompatible with "quietude". I must say that "to study" myself is about the last thing I do. Maybe I should do it? I seem to recall that Peirce suggests that we do it (i.e., study ourselves), but rarely and, I have always thought, with a grain of salt. Yet perhaps what I'm referring to is studying oneself in the *wrong* way, while to study yourself so as "to forget yourself. . .each moment" is the *right* way? But I don't see how this *correct* self-study in self-forgetting leads to your conclusion that it shows an "emphasis on continuity and growth," let alone that it is "explicit", as you claim. Yet it does point to is a profound meditation. You also wrote (concerning the deeply related question asked of Matsu:) "What is your purpose in doing zazen?" > [[[ Ma-tsu answered, "I seek to become a Buddha." Nan-yueh therefore > took > a piece of roofing tile and began rubbing it with a stone. Ma-tsu > asked, > "What are you doing, Venerable Teacher?" > Nan-yueh said, "I want to polish this tile and make a mirror." > Ma-tsu asked, "Can a piece of tile be made into a mirror?" > Nan-yueh asked in return, "Can a Buddha be created by doing zazen?" ]]] >
