Hi Bill,
I have no essential disagreement with your statements below as you do
seem to agree that you find it useful to follow the rules of
causality when dealing with other people. Thus you do agree that
those rules govern the realm of illusion, which of course is proven
by your many successful actions within that realm without your having
to say a word.
I do find it amusing that you who denies the utility and even the
reality of rational discussion should then go on to criticize me for
not engaging in a rational discussion!
Zen reminds us that when we start getting our hackles up a little
there is a lesson there waiting to be learned - something more we
need to recognize and release.
Best,
Edgar
On Oct 15, 2008, at 1:06 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Edgar,
My responses are embedded below:
>Maybe you say they are illusory, but you still follow and live
according
>to the rules of causality 24/7 and have been all your life, except
perhaps
>when sitting in zazen. Why is that if they aren't valid rules?
Events are illusory. Relationships between events are illusory and the
rules applying to those relationships (causation) are illusory.
These are a
part of a collection of illusory concepts which is called time and
analogous
to the collections of concepts called plane geometry. Points have a
location but no length, width or depth. If you connect two points
you form
a line, and can continue to connect multiple lines in various ways
to form a
shape. Once you've formed a shape you can invent and apply rules to
these
shapes (like the square of the hypotenuse of right triangle is
equal to the
sum of the squares of the other two sides). Nowhere in reality will
you
find a point, a straight line (or any line for that matter), and
certainly
not a right triangle to which you can apply the rule cited above.
Events
are asynchronous and have no duration. You can connect events with
various
relationships, and you can make up rules for these relationships, like
causality. Likewise in reality there are no events, no relationships
between events and certainly no relationships to which you can
apply the
rule of causality. These are all illusory - pretend. They are like
seeing
a dog shape in the clouds, or seeing the face of Jesus on a taco.
They are
desperate attempts of your rational, dualistic mind to find order
in chaos.
They are wishful thinking.
If what you're trying to get across is that in both cases
(collection of
illusions that make up plane geometry and time) the rules derived
from these
illusions are useful when interacting with others who share these
illusions,
then I won't disagree. It's also useful to follow the social and
cultural
rules of the society you live in, but that doesn't make them real or
absolute. They're just a mutually agreed upon social contract. But if
you're still trying to assert that these rules (like causation) are
real, or
are derived from something real, then I vehemently disagree.
>You need to be careful in maintaining illusions aren't 'real'.
Illusion
>is part and parcel of reality but should be recognized as
illusion. Even
>when seen as illusion, it still doesn't disappear, only its seeming
>realness disappears.
Illusions are not real, therefore they are not part of reality.
They are at
best heavily filtered, diluted and polluted representations of
reality.
That's what illusions are. Illusions are insubstantial and fleeting.
Illusions can disappear. Reality is substantial and eternal. Reality
cannot disappear.
>BTW, I'm a Goh player, not a chess man. Goh, to me, seems much more
directly
>in tune with Tao, i.e., with the rules of fundamental causality.
Go may indeed be in tune with causality. So of course is chess. As
far as
I know all board games have a basis in logic, which is a derivative of
causality.
>But I do have to ask you, if there is no causality how do you propose
>to checkmate my queen?
I don't have to checkmate you now. By declining to engage in rational
argument concerning causality you have apparently resigned.
...Bill!
