Group,
I'm interested in your "pensees".
Rene Descartes was the French philosopher who published his "Pensees" to great
acclaim; it has been an influential study in Western Philosophy, and elsewhere,
for centuries.
The book, "Thoughts", or "Meditations" is the record of his attempts to find
what he calls "clear and distinct" ideas. He tried to begin with the most
basic thought, or idea: he looked for what he could absolutely not DOUBT. He
looked, and he looked. Some would say he meditated on it (but not in the Zen
way, probably). This is why the title is almost always translated as
"Meditations" in English. But we know what the translators mean (if we can
remember to the time before we began meditation practice). I think of the book
as "Thoughts", or "Pensees".
Descartes writes that when he engages in his meditations, he finds that what he
cannot doubt is that he "thinks" (probably many of us do, too, when we
meditate).
He took it a step further, and deduced that, because he thinks, he exists.
The "cogito" is the famous proposition he coined:
"Cogito, ergo sum."
"I think, therefore I am."
Now, a question for the group is, how does an awakened person view the cogito?
Or, what would an awakened person say, instead?, if asked to find something
that he/she could not DOUBT.
Don't all say "Mu", at once, though. I'll worry it's a stampede.
And, is there something like the cogito that an awakened person would compose?
--Joe
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