Hi Marsha, You are presenting methods for an alternative view, or views. They are indeed enticing but perhaps unatural. Quality expresses itself as it does, and is a contribution of all. It is nice to think of some kind of sanctuary where a different belief brings piece of mind. It is also useful to consider what the current state is, and why. Having done so, the transfer to another viewpoint becomes seamless. As perhaps you have experienced through your adventures in literature, there are ways to get the mind unstuck. It would seem from the Buddhist perspective that one way to do this is to appreciate the result as opposed to the cause. This is also the Quality approach. While we can move forward to create a cause, this is also an effect or result. It is a building process, not a finding process.
We all Know what consciousness is, we live it everyday. What you are stating, is, that a symbolic form of it is difficult to create. We all know what the ocean is, we can swim in it. But try to grab it with a net, or explain it by presenting buckets of salt water. Each bucket is true, but not the ocean. Even if all the ocean was contained in individual buckets, this would still not comprise the ocean. You can certainly point to where the ocean is, and let others experience it for themselves. When they come back, they can share with you the experience. Happy New Year! Mark On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 11:16 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Mark, > > Who's fighting it? Certainly not me. - No one, not even > neurobiologists, know what consciousness is or how it > works. It probably has many co-dependent conditions, > some that perhaps extend beyond brain and body. > > > Marsha > > > > > On Dec 31, 2010, at 1:59 PM, 118 wrote: > >> Hi Marsha, >> >> We could ask: Why do we differentiate the way we do? Is it not >> natural? From a modern neurobiologist point of view (and invoking >> your patterns), we could state that the patterns without create the >> patterns within. Nerve firing and the consolidation of enforced >> patterns is inherent in our thinking. The point is not to try to >> escape from this, but to embrace it. The subject object divide is not >> our enemy, it is our friend. We can fight this all we want with other >> patterns, but this is counter intuitive. Recognizing that brings more >> harmony. >> >> Cheers, >> Mark >> >> On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 10:44 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Since static quality and Buddhism's conventional truths are synonymous, let >>> me add two more quotes: >>> >>> "There are different domains of relativity ... Such truths are contingent >>> upon perspective. This routes us back to a central issue of Buddhism: >>> reification. Reification is taking something that is true relative to >>> ourselves and believing it to be true independently of ourselves." >>> (Wallace, B. Alan, Buddhism with an Attitude, p.138) >>> >>> >>> "Even when the mind is settled in meditative stabilization without human >>> conceptual constructs, it is not considered by Buddhist contemplatives to >>> be entirely free of all traces of conceptualization. One's inborn sense of >>> a reified self as the observer and the reified sense of the duality between >>> subject and object are still present, even though they may be dormant while >>> in meditation; and when one emerges from this nonconceptual state, the mind >>> may still grasp onto all phenomena, including consciousness itself, as >>> being real, inherently existing entities. To penetrate to the fundamental >>> nature of appearances and their relation to consciousness, it is said that >>> one must go beyond meditative stabilization and engage in training for the >>> cultivation of contemplative insight." >>> (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of >>> Consciousness', p.112) >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Dec 31, 2010, at 1:07 PM, MarshaV wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From a review of the book ‘Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground’. >>>> >>>> How do we deal with the complexity of experience? Well, we 'seek and find, >>>> or project, a simplifying pattern to approximate every complex field ... >>>> by lumping (ignoring some distinctions as negligible) and by splitting >>>> (ignoring some relations as negligible). Both ... create discreet entities >>>> useful for manipulating, predicting and controlling ... [but] may impose >>>> ad hoc boundaries on what are actually densely interconnected systems and >>>> then grant autonomous existence to the segments. Even the contents of our >>>> own consciousness have to be dealt with in this way, resulting in our >>>> array of fragmented self-concepts, and we just put up with the anomalies >>>> that arise. Buddhism, he explains, agrees that discovering entities is >>>> conventionally indispensable, but attachment and aggression arise through >>>> reifying them, which violates the principle that all things are >>>> interdependent, and all entities are conditional approximations." >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol4/buddhism_and_science.html >>>> > > > > ___ > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
