group.....
.a surprise prize for new versions of: "i think therefore i am" here is one from me: "i am therefore i think" merle 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
